Daily Inspirational Message for September 28, 2013

Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can’t always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.
– Lauren Kate  

Many times in my life, wonderful blessings have come to me seemingly out of the blue. I have seen this in the lives of others as well, in people who went for years without a job or a partner, and then one day, what they had been praying for arrived and suddenly everything turned around for them. If you’ve been waiting, wondering and worrying, I urge you to keep the faith, for you never know when something totally unexpected will happen that will empower you to break through and move on to a bigger and brighter future.

 

Great Power

You have great power, yet much of that power can easily be wasted on trivial, meaningless things. Imagine what would happen if you devoted more of your power to the truly important, meaningful things.

In the moments that fill each day, in your thoughts, words and actions, there is great power. When that power is purposeful and well focused, you can do amazing things with it.

Every little action you take changes the world in some way. Over the course of a day, a month or a lifetime, you end up taking a whole lot of actions.

Momentous achievements come from countless small acts all taken in the service of a specific purpose. That’s the power of purpose, and you most certainly have it whenever you choose to use it.

Don’t let the great power of your life be drained by what doesn’t matter. Make the choice to make intentional and meaningful use of that power.

In the life you live there is great, effective, world-changing power. Find your very own unique and beautiful way to put it to use.

— Ralph Marston

How To Be More Than A Mindful Consumer

"Today we're so steeped in consumer culture that we head to the mall even when our houses and garages are full. We suffer angst over the adequacy of our belongings and amass crushing credit card debt to, as the author Dave Ramsey says, buy things we don't need with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like..." Annie Leonard, the creator of Story of Stuff drives home an idea with true revolutionary potential, "As individuals, we can use less stuff if we remember to look inward and evaluate our well-being by our health, the strength of our friendships, and the richness of our hobbies and civic endeavors."

http://www.dailygood.org/story/560/how-to-be-more-than-a-mindful-consumer-annie-leonard/

Breath Practice to Clear Energy

by Shoshanna French

“Start with a few cleansing breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let your body relax and sink into where you are sitting or lying down. Once you feel relaxed, close your eyes and move your awareness to your breath. Follow your inhale and then your exhale. Do three to five of these breaths you follow, or until you can visualize in your mind easily the path of your breath. In through your nose; down your throat; into your lungs; then expelled and up and out of your mouth.”

http://kajama.com/breath-practice-clear-energy/

Your Body is a Psychic Antenna

by Shoshanna French

“Psychic Feeling is the most closely intertwined with our physical bodies. In some ways, it is the most widely accepted of the psychic senses. I have heard friends who are not the least bit woo-woo talking about trusting their gut. I have heard businessmen tell me that they didn’t complete a business deal because something just didn’t ‘feel right.’ I am not discounting our intellect or memory; I am simply saying that our psychic senses are another tool for success.”

http://kajama.com/body-psychic-antenna/

Seven Guaranteed Practical Steps to Fully Using Your Intuition In 40 Days

by Shoshanna French

“Take good care of yourself. Once you have noticed what your body is saying, just take care of it. Thirsty? Drink some water. Hungry? Eat. Tired? Sleep. If you feel stressed, unplug. To be able to notice the signals from your intuition, you have to take the time you need to recharge. For some people this will be exercise, time away, or doing a hobby. Whatever it is for you, I recommend making your well-being a priority.”

http://kajama.com/seven-guaranteed-practical-steps-fully-using-intuition-40-days/

Daily Inspirational Message for September 27, 2013

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it.
– C. JoyBell C.  

While I am learning to accept uncertainty, I am still a long ways from loving it. Some days, I am full of questions and ideas on how I can force things to work out, which just leaves me feeling stressed and anxious. Other days, I get so burned out on worrying that I just let all of that go, and surprisingly, that’s when everything begins to flow again. There are no guarantees for any of us in life: at any moment, whatever we’re grasping could crumble and slip through our fingers. Indeed, the harder we hold on, the more likely we are to break whatever we’re clutching. This is why relaxing and taking it easy actually protects whatever is most important to us; to nurture our desires, we must carry them lightly and gently.

 

Look Ahead

You know that in the past you’ve compromised your highest values and fallen short of your best possibilities. Forgive yourself, learn from it all, and move forward.

Let go of any regrets and allow new, positive, creative thoughts to take their place. Though you may have done some foolish things, you now have the opportunity to do much better.

In fact, you have the opportunity to far surpass even the best things you’ve ever imagined. Look firmly and enthusiastically ahead, and see the great possibilities.

Feel the beautiful, authentic dreams that live inside of you. Open yourself to the powerful and amazing possibilities that are all around you.

Any previous shortcomings are no longer the issue. You are now beyond all that, and able to live each moment in a positive and purposeful way.

Whatever treasure you seek is already within reach, ready today for you to fulfill, to experience and to enjoy. Look ahead, then get busy bringing those treasures to life and living your dreams.

— Ralph Marston

Seth Godin: On the Art of Noticing & Creating

Seth Godin is an internet thought leader, entrepreneur and founder of several internet companies. In this candid interview, he discusses the advantages of failure and how the internet revolution has flipped the art of business on its head: "You will never have better ratings than the Jersey Shore. That's not what the point is. It's not why we do our work. What works is does it matter? And is it possible to make a living doing something that matters? And the answer is, yes. Is it possible to make the maximum amount of money? Probably not. But that's playing by a different set of rules. That what the Internet is saying to us is you don't need a building, and you don't need an FCC license, and you don't need 10,000 employees. So when I strip those away and I get to the nub of what I can be and what I can do, it turns out it's not that expensive for me to put my art in the world. So I can make more mistakes. I can take bigger risks. And I can make a bigger impact." 

http://www.dailygood.org/story/549/seth-godin-on-the-art-of-noticing-and-creating-seth-godin/

What You Can Do With Now

Even when the day gets off to a bad start you can still give it a good ending. Just because you have been unproductive doesn’t mean you have to stay that way.

Look back at the opportunities you’ve missed just long enough to give yourself a little inspiration. Then look ahead to the opportunities that you now can fulfill.

What’s important now is what you can do with now. This is the first moment of a more effective, more productive, more purposeful you.

The delays, setbacks and disappointments are over. It is now time to leave the excuses behind as you move persistently ahead.

Sit still for a moment and absorb the amazing energy of opportunity that is now yours. Then stand up and get busy making meaningful use of all that opportunity.

What you can do with now is whatever you choose. Choose the best, and find real joy in lifting your whole world higher.

— Ralph Marston

5 Ways to Develop Ecoliteracy

A growing number of educators emphasize the need to foster learning that prepares youth for the ecological challenges facing our planet. While social and emotional intelligence extend students' abilities to see from another's perspective, empathize, and show concern, "ecoliteracy" applies these abilities to an understanding of natural systems and an empathy for all of life. This thoughtful article presents five practices developed by the Center for Ecoliteracy that "plant the seeds for a positive relationship with the natural world that can sustain a young person's interest and involvement for a lifetime."

http://www.dailygood.org/story/554/five-ways-to-develop-ecoliteracy-daniel-goleman-zenobia-barlow-lisa-bennett/

In Stride

Don’t be too hard on yourself. But don’t be too easy on yourself either.

Push yourself steadily and persistently toward meaningful success and achievement. But don’t beat yourself up when you happen to fall short.

Remember that most things are rarely as good as they seem or as bad as they seem. Take the ups and the downs in stride, without letting them throw you off track.

Act with confidence, but not with arrogance. Live with humility, but not with despair.

Live each day with the very best of expectations. And find positive value in even the most undesirable outcomes.

Keep your focus always on what’s genuinely important. Take a deep, calm breath, and know that by choosing to find real goodness, meaning and fulfillment, you will.

— Ralph Marston

Unlocking the Mysteries of Time

"We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling -- whether it's trying to stop the years racing past, or speeding up time when we're stuck in a queue, trying to live more in the present, or working out how long ago we last saw our old friends. Time can be a friend, but it can also be an enemy. The trick is to harness it, whether at home, at work, or even in social policy, and to work in line with our conception of time. Time perception matters because it is the experience of time that roots us in our mental reality. Time is not only at the heart of the way we organize life, but the way we experience it." This article explores Claudia Hammond's book, "Time Warped: Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception" -- "a fascinating foray into the idea that our experience of time is actively created by our own minds, and how these sensations of what neuroscientists and psychologists call 'mind time' are created."

http://www.dailygood.org/story/550/unlocking-the-mysteries-of-time-maria-popova/

Do Good

The way to feel good is to do good. The way to feel successful is to take the actions that bring about success.

You cannot truly feel what you do not truly live. Be honest and authentic with yourself, with others, and with life, because anything less is just cheating yourself.

Spend this day being a unique and enthusiastic expression of life’s goodness. See how much of a positive difference you can make, and experience what a genuine, positive feeling you get from doing so.

Seek to add richness to the lives of others and be delighted at how much richness it brings into your own life. Do something good and useful just because it is the right thing to do, and discover how right it feels.

Let go of the tiresome fight to gain advantage, and direct your energy toward appreciating and creating goodness. Move beyond the need to prove yourself and focus instead on improving all of life.

Give more and more of your own unique goodness to those around you, to the world, and to life. And feel the outstanding richness as it grows increasingly abundant for you.

— Ralph Marston

Confessions of a Late Bloomer

In this important article, psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman asks us to reconsider how we evaluate an individual's potential. We tend to "conceptualize ability as a static property, something hard-wired into the brain by genes that are prepackaged and already activated at birth." And if someone does not display that hard-wired ability early on, we dismiss him or her as un-gifted and less likely to succeed. The reality of achievement is far more complicated: abilities often reveal themselves over time, are fostered by finding purpose which may come at any stage in life, and can develop from facing obstacles that we often consider road blocks to success. Here Kaufman makes a compelling case for treating everyone in our lives as if they have the potential for greatness.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/489/confessions-of-a-late-bloomer-scott-barry-kaufman/

Start Moving

There’s a way forward. To find it, start moving.

To make some progress, you must make some effort. Get going, make the effort, persist at it, and the progress you seek will come.

If you’re concerned about making mistakes, your concerns are very well founded. But holding yourself back because you fear you’ll make a mistake is the biggest mistake of all.

The positive possibilities are out there. The way to discover them, and to make the most of them, is to get yourself out there too.

A positive change requires positive action. This is the moment you have, and this is the time to take that action.

Though it may feel very comfortable where you are, it can also feel great to get yourself in motion. Get moving, and get more of life’s best treasures coming your way.

— Ralph Marston

A Delicious Revolution

"Until we see how we feed ourselves as just as important--and maybe more important than--all the other activities of mankind, there is going to be a huge hole in our consciousness. If we don't care about food, then the environment will always be something outside of ourselves. And yet the environment can be something that actually affects you in the most intimate -- and literally visceral -- way. It can be something that actually gets inside you and gets digested." Alice Waters is the owner of Chez Panisse restaurant and founder of The Edible Schoolyard. By actively involving a thousand students in all aspects of the food cycle, Alice shares the extraordinary effects that connecting with food has had on children and what we can do to plant seeds of revolution.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/551/a-delicious-revolution-alice-waters/

The Idea of A Local Economy

In a total economy everything has a price and is for sale. Sometimes critical choices that once belonged to individuals or communities become the property of corporations. This can lead to the disintegration of communities, households, landscapes, and ecosystems. Aware of this, nation leaders developed the means of limiting and restraining such concentrations. But now all of these means are arguably either weakened or in disuse. People are in danger of losing their economic security and their freedom. According to some, the way forward is developing and putting into practice the idea of a local economy...celebrated writer Wendell Berry shares more.

http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=5152