The Power of Belief

The Power of Belief

The Power of Belief

In this short 10 minute video The Power of Belief Eduardo Briceno explains how failure is the way to the greatest success. He explains that the way we understand our intelligence and abilities deeply impacts our success. Based on social science research and real life examples, Eduardo Briceño articulates how mindset, or the understanding of intelligence and abilities, is key. When students or adults see their abilities as fixed, whether they think they’re naturals or just not built for a certain domain, they avoid challenge and lose interest when things get hard. Conversely, when they understand that abilities are developed, they more readily adopt learning-oriented behaviors such as deliberate practice and grit that enable them to achieve their goals. But this belief is itself malleable, and there are clear actions we can all take to establish a growth mindset and enable success for our children, our peers and ourselves. 

TEDx

 

About TEDx

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE

Empathy: The Power of Connection

Empathy: The Power of Connection

Empathy: The Power of Connection

In recent years, the process of ‘restorative justice’ has been used more and more frequently as a way of dealing with crime. In this article ‘Empathy: The Power of Connection’ Steve Taylor Ph.D says that as a part of the process, offenders are brought face to face with the victims of their crimes, to hear how they have suffered as a result. The aim of this encounter is to bring healing, for both victim and offender. The victim transcends their rage with some understanding and forgiveness towards the offender, and the offender empathises with the victim, becoming aware of the real meaning of their crimes. This process changes lives. Victims feel free of the weight of hatred and are able to move on; offenders have a wider sense of perspective, and are less likely to re-offend. Sometimes offenders don’t meet their specific victims, but just the victims of similar crimes. But this still leads to a new awareness, and new patterns of behaviour.

This highlights the amazing power of Empathy: The Power of Connection. To a large extent, all crime and all cruelty are the result of a lack of empathy. It’s a lack of empathy which makes someone capable of attacking or oppressing other people. A lack of empathy for another tribe or country makes warfare and conflict possible. A lack of empathy towards other ethnic groups, social classes or castes makes oppression and inequality possible.

What is Empathy?

According to the book, Empathy: The Power of Connection, empathy is the ability to ‘feel with’ another person, to identity with them and sense what they’re experiencing. It’s sometimes seen as the ability to ‘read’ other people’s emotions, or the ability to imagine what they’re feeling, by ‘putting yourself in their shoes.’ In other words, empathy is seen as a cognitive ability, along the same lines as the ability to imagine future scenarios or to solve problems based on previous experience. But in my view, empathy is more than this. It’s the ability to make a psychic and emotional connection with another person, to actually enter into their mind-space. When we experience real empathy or compassion, our identity actually merges with another person’s. The separateness between you and the other person fades away. Your ‘self-boundary’ melts away, so that in a sense – or to an extent – you become them.

If you experience this state of connection with another person, then it’s impossible to treat them badly, except unintentionally. You recoil from their experience of suffering in the same way that you recoil from your own suffering. In fact, you feel a strong desire to relieve their suffering and aid their development.

Empathy has powerful psychological benefits for us too. Research shows that people who are more empathic feel more satisfied with their lives, and have better relationships. Some scientists used to belief that human beings are naturally selfish and individualistic, but more and more research is showing that empathy – not selfishness – is ‘hard-wired’ into us. Animals often show empathy towards one another, even to members of different species, and this manifests itself in random acts of kindness. As Lynne McTaggart – author of The Bond – puts it, ‘Animals often partner up with members of unrelated species…There are even instances of an animal from one species adopting those of another.’ And within their own species, animals often share food to make sure that weaker members of their group are fed, even when they have to sacrifice their own food.

Are Women more Empathic?

Studies have suggested that women are generally more empathic than men. For example, studies have shown that women are significantly better at ‘reading’ people’s emotions purely from looking at their eyes. Other research has shown that women’s friendships tend to based on mutual help and problem sharing, whereas men usually develop friendships based on shared interests, such as sports and hobbies. Men and women have also been shown to have different speaking styles. Women’s conversations usually last longer, because of their use of more ‘back channel support’, such as nodding, smiling and other gestures. If they disagree, they tend to express their opinion indirectly rather than making a statement, helping to avoid confrontation. On the other hand, men tend to more blunt and opinionated. They use more imperatives and tend to ‘talk over’ more. As the psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen puts it, ‘men spend more time using language to demonstrate their knowledge, skill and status.’ This makes sense: after all, the vast majority of ‘man’s inhumanity’ throughout history really has been man’s. Almost all wars have been orchestrated and fought by men, and most social oppression has been inflicted by high status men, seeking to protect and increase their power and wealth.

This also makes sense in terms of women’s role as mothers. Surely their nurturing role encourages empathy, because of the need for a strong emotional connection to children. At the very least, you could say that this emotional connection would have made it more difficult for them to lose the ability to empathise.

Empathy with Nature

Empathy can spread beyond other humans, to other living beings and to nature itself. Many of the world’s tribal peoples respect nature because they sense that it’s alive, and because they feel connected to it. They sense that all natural things – not just animals but plants, stones and the whole Earth itself – are not just objects but beings, who are part of the same web of creation as them. They empathise with plants, animals and the Earth, and so are reluctant to damage or destroy them. As the great Native American philosopher Luther Standing Bear wrote, for the Lakota Indians, ‘Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept the Lakota safe among them.’ As a result, wrote Luther Standing Bear, anticipating the modern animal rights movement, ‘The animals had rights – the right of a man’s protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to man’s indebtedness – and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved an animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing.’

This attitude brought a sense of responsibility. Many indigenous peoples saw – and still see – themselves as the caretakers of nature, with a responsibility to preserve harmony. As Chief Edward Moody of the Nuxalk Nation says, ‘We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.’

To a large extent, our environmental destruction is a manifestation of our lack of empathy for nature, and the Earth. Our strongly developed ego means that we experience a sense of ‘otherness’ to nature, that we can’t sense its aliveness, and so don’t feel any qualms about exploiting and abusing it.

Healing through Empathy

Actually, according to the book ‘Empathy: The Power of Connection, just as the lack of empathy makes cruelty and oppression possible, the presence of empathy heals conflict. The wider empathy stretches – from victims to offenders, from one ethnic group to another, from nation to nation and religion to religion – the less brutal and more harmonious a place the world will become.

And perhaps most importantly, as Restorative Justice shows, to some degree empathy can be nurtured. When people are brought together in a neutral context, with an open, trusting attitude, empathy naturally establishes itself. Distinctions of ethnicity, religion and other superficial ‘identity badges’ begin to fade away, as does the sense of grievance and rage derived from past events. The same could be said of nature too: when human beings spend time in natural surroundings, relaxing into its stillness and space, a bond naturally establishes itself.

And it’s this bond which is surely our true nature.  The book, Empathy: The Power of Connection, shows that the concept of separateness is an illusion. Empathy is simply the experience of our true, the exchange of feeling through the channel of shared consciousness which unites not just all human beings, but all living and non-living things.

Empathy: The Power of Connection

Think of someone you love, and be aware of the warm feeling that wells up inside you. Hold on to that warm feeling, and let it spread throughout your body, including to any parts of you body where you feel discomfort. Let it flow into your mind too, so that you feel empathy and compassion to your own thoughts, even the negative ones. Think of all the people around you, in the rooms or buildings close to you, and imagine that warm glow of compassion leaving your body and spreading to them. Think of all the people in your city, in the streets and buildings, and expand the warm feeling to them too. Thinking of all the people in this country, across the towns and countryside, and expand the feeling to them too. Then expand it further, to all the people on this planet, the millions of people in all the different countries. Feel the glow of compassion spreading from your being to the whole world, and into the space above you, rising up into the sky and the whole universe.

Cultivating Empathy

  • Use your imagination to picture how the world looks through other people’s eyes. Think about how other people’s predicaments make them feel, and how their experiences mould their perceptions.
  • When you speak to other people, give them your full attention. Don’t think about other things, look into the distance or look at your i-phone. Giving people your full attention shows that your respect them, and establishes a strong connection, which enables empathy to flow between you.
  • Before you condemn another person for behaving badly, think about the reasons for their behaviour. Is it because of bad experiences they’ve had in the past, or because of personality traits that they have no control over?
  • Be altruistic and kind to others. Make sure that your life contains an element of service, where you part the needs of others before your own e.g. caring for the sick or elderly, charity or voluntary work. Altruism and service help us to transcend separateness, and to connect with others, creating a follow of empathy.

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website. Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE.

The Game of Life

The Game of Life

You have come to this planet to learn. There is no right or wrong, simply frequency selection. That’s it. You have come to integrate experience and let go of judgement. This is the game of earth and you are all playing very well. Having fun? Writes Michael Forrester a motivational speaker who wrote the article ‘The Game of Earth Is Yours To Play’. But for a lot of people The Game of Life is not always fun.

Michael writes that earth is a game of decension and then reascension. You already know what it’s like to be a multidimensional being in the 5th, 6th, 7th and so on dimensional realities. You’ve been there, done that. You already know that you are connected to absolutely everyone and everything simultaneously, but what would it be like if you didn’t know that? What would it be like if you had a veil that hid all of your power from you and made you think you had no power? You see, you are so powerful that you must play the game of life with limited being, with limited perspectives, limited awareness and limited everything, otherwise where’s the fun in always being in the realm of the highest power.

When a teenager plays a video game and gets really good at it, they can play the game every day and win over and over against even the hardest obstacles or opponents. So then they are faced with a dichotomy. They want to continue playing their favorite game but they’ve already mastered it. So what will they do to not lose interest? They begin to select weaker players who they will then match against stronger opponents. Then they master those as well and continue selecting the weakest players of all until they can face the strongest obstacles or opponents. This is the game of life you are playing on earth. It is a grand experiment and you are blessed with genetic material from the entire universe to help you along the way.

How To Win the Game of Life

You have divine energy and infinite power so you have chosen to descend to see how difficult it would be to ascend while still in physical form. You think you can’t walk on water, or fly? That’s only because you believe you can’t, and at the moment it’s not in your best interest to do so. But you can.

Your goal was always to change your vibrational experience. Oh, and you added linear time to the mix while you were at it. Instead of seeing all concurrent realities at once (as you normally do on the other side), you have chosen to see only one perspective and one path in front of you.

Most human beings on the planet have difficulty comprehending that time does not exist. You bound this energetically to your DNA so that you could perceive time. But it doesn’t exist. Time is circular and not linear. You recreate yourself infinite numbers of times per minute so that you can feel what you call time. That’s why you are never the same person from day to day. You are never even the same person from second to second. You are constantly in a state of flux, refreshing a new version of yourself energetically and you have so much fun doing that without even realizing what you are doing.

Every single reality you believe in whether past, present and future happen simultaneously. That’s why your greatest gift is the present because that’s all you have to effectuate change to create a different vibrational reality for yourselves. Being in the present and in the “now” is all you have to do to change your vibration. You don’t have to meditate or sit in front of 30 candles in a low lit room with incense and soft music. You just have to be in the “now”. That’s it.

The mind was setup to be the operating system of limitation so that you could have this very unique experience as a dense being. There is nothing wrong with having a limited perspective. It is unique and beautiful in many ways. In 5th dimensional realities, which are what you are now heading towards, this limited perspective decreases considerably. You will see things from multiple perspectives and you will manifest immediately, as opposed to the lag time you experienced in your past. You will start using the 5th dimensional format more and more. Instead of wondering why you’re blocked energetically, you’ll just align with the new frequency. This means that close to 100 percent of all disease will disappear as well.

When you start using the heart as your filter, everything will become easier. Until now, most of you have been using your mind. The mind is the 3D filter. The heart is a multidimensional filter capable of electrical electromagnetic energy that the mind is not capable of. “Think with the heart, not the mind.”

In every year that now passes, you will understand more what time really is. You will only use time as a marker that you can refer back to if necessary. Think of a library and how you know exactly where the book you need is to retrieve the information you require. This is how you will eventually interpret time.

The answers will come. If you are open to them, they will come. If you find you’re not getting the answers, sit quietly and breathe. Deep breaths in and out. This helps connect you.

Carry a journal with you. Write down your thoughts. You will have so many aspiring thoughts in the months to come that you will forget them if you do not write them down. Some of your other lifetimes may come into your focus and you will start to question the nature of reality. Write it down. This moves it through physical vehicle and it then becomes more valid to you. As you write things down, the frequency is encoded in the words you write. When you read it again, you access that vibrational state and feel the inspiration.

The levels of the lower masculine energies dictate that a specific pattern of thought or experience must be followed chronologically in steps 1, 2 and 3. In divine flow, you will proceed very differently. You’ll start with step 1 and then go to step 15, then back to step 7 and then step 2, etc. Yet your experience will be complete as you pick up everything you need along the way. Why? Because you will be operating primarily through the heart center.

You may have found yourself already sharing much of your time with different projects and people as you enter into this phase. Lower masculine energy wants you to DO. The activation of the divine feminine energies want you to just be. The divine masculine energy says as you are you pulse out. As you spiral up, the divine feminine energy reads frequency and the divine masculine engages that frequency.

What is your version of the truth? Do you think it is THE truth? With the exception of love, there is no absolute truth and you will start understanding the different perspectives of truth on the planet and why they exist.

You are always putting yourself in a “now” moment that creates a vibrational signature. You have an agreed upon a set of circumstances that you define as your collective history and then you have another subset that is your personal history. As you change your vibration on an individual level, you decide whether you want to align with the collective version of the “truth”. Your individual frequency may suddenly align with a version that is so far from your current perspective that you could not even relate to it yesterday. That’s when you have jumped timelines, something you’ll also become very aware of.

It is not so much what you think that creates your reality. It is what you feel. If you feel really good, your reality changes. If you have trouble feeling what you want, your ego is in the way. So imagine what it would feel like to have what you want. That will help get the mind out of the way so that you can manifest your desires.

If you have read this far in this article, then you are likely doing all the work you need to do to release holding patterns and you are ready to move forward. You are guiding those receptive to galactic information. It will get easier for you to speak with others about consciousness and all those things we discuss here. You may also be processing persecution issues from other lifetimes which will also release as universal truths are revealed. It will become conscious and accepted for all.

Your awareness of what sound is will also shift. It is through sound and frequency that all is created and generated. All matter vibrates and creates sound. However there are different dimensional versions of sound which many of you may start to hear. For example, the universe, earth and collective consciousness all have their own sound. Each of your individual organs has its own sound. There is actually a symphony that is created for your body and you may start to hear these sounds as you look within yourself.

Do you feel like the earth’s consciousness is not moving fast enough so that all may awaken? Why are people taking so long? It’s not them, it’s you. Shift timelines and go to where you want to be. If you feel you are stuck somewhere that you don’t want to be, you have the free will to shift at anytime. Can’t shift? It means that your current reality is serving you somehow. You would not be on your current timeline if it was not serving you. You would be on another version where the collective would be doing something different. You can create anything you like, but it is the limitation in your beliefs that prevents you from shifting.

The frequency of the collective affects you and your frequency affects the collective. This simple understanding will enable you all to change the planet. If you don’t like your environment, city, state, country or the people in it, don’t fret on those things you dislike. Focus on the things you do like because any emphasis on what you don’t like keeps you on that frequency. Those who constantly relive history and emphasize horrific historical facts maintain that vibration. Those who focus on violence and the evil desires of others maintain that vibration. Those who think negatively, maintain a vibration that is perceived as negative.

Think positive and be positive. If you are drawn to media that promotes all the bad in the world, check within yourself as to why you are drawn to that information. This alone will change your reality and help change mass consciousness.

You are a divine being of light and infinite energy. You are so blessed to be experiencing your life right now. It is perfect. You are perfect and you are loved more than you could ever know. As the great Gandhi once said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

by Michael Forrester

There is a book called Seat of the Soul and it was written 25 years ago and the message then is the same message that is needed now.  It is about the values of the soul and by living within the heart. As Michael Forrester states in the above article living within the heart will make life a lot easier. Especially for the time you are incarnate on earth living through The Game of Life.

You can purchase this book through the link below:

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website. Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE.

Thinking is an Addiction

Thinking is an Addiction

Why Thinking is an Addiction?

Thinking is an Addiction and during Psychotherapy not thinking gives away the best clues to what is wrong. If you have ever tried to give up an addiction it would not have taken you long to appreciate that addictions are hard to overcome.  In this short video Eckhart Tolle discusses the phenomena of excessive thinking and he says quite clearly that thinking is an addiction.  A thinking addiction is a lot harder to break than smoking or drinking according to Tolle.  One of the reasons he believes this is so; thinking is part of our pseudo self. As a result many of us do not want to let go of our thoughts. During a Psychotherapy Session it is often when the client goes blank and stops thinking that the truth emerges through their unconscious or unthinking actions and words.  Thinking is an Addiction-Psychotherapy

Being in the present moment is one way to prevent the thinking addiction and Tolle discusses other ways you can stop those excessive thoughts. A short but very informative video presentation by Eckhart Tolle.

How to break the habit of excessive thinking?

Searching for Change and Life’s Purpose

Searching for Change and Life’s Purpose

Searching for Change and Life’s Purpose

Searching for change is something that  so many people want to know, they tend to look for  their purpose in life and they run here there and everywhere searching for the answer. Invariably they end up feeling confused and frustrated as the elusive “What is my life’s purpose?” remains unanswered.  But how can a question like searching for change can be answered just once, there are a multitude of answers available. What was the purpose for the child changes in the adult. It is the changes in life that cause a lot of people angst.  Change is not something that comes easily to the human being. As a result of this aversion to change a person may stay in the same town and profession as they feel more comfortable being where they know and doing that familiar job day after day.  However nothing is permanent not even life itself. Change is a constant in nature with the altering seasons and change is a constant in your life.  When it is time to make changes, trying to cling on to the old can be difficult and very uncomfortable. When you desperately hang onto the old you are closing yourself off from all the great possibilities that change and the new adventures can bring. Searching for Change

Certainly change can be a lot more exciting than staying still. It would be very boring looking at the same things every day of your life.  Although change may seem frightening at times, if you accept the change and don’t fight it, then your journey on earth could be a lot smoother.  The most constant thing in life is change.  But as human beings we do resist it as much as we can.

If you are a spiritual person or you believe there is more to life than this physical existence. You just need to look at the heavens to appreciate that there is a bigger picture than life on earth. Just as each day is followed by night – change is a constant in the microcosm of earth and the macrocosm of the universe.

If the universe decides it is time for you to change direction, and who knows the reason, you are better trusting in your intuition and allowing yourself to go with the flow and accept the change. The Universal Being, Divine Source, Higher Self or God, whichever you prefer, has a master plan, also known as the Divine Plan and you are but one part of it.  When the time for change is upon you, you will intuitively know and any resistance will cause for a bumpy ride. Also you are probably going to end up in the same place in the end.  If not in this lifetime then in a later one. Searching Change and Life’s Purpose 

But rather than resist and delay your own evolution why not figure out what you want? When the opportunity for change is given to you you can then move in the correct direction instead of taking a hundred diversions, as you work through the confusing energy of resistance. Searching Change and Life’s Purpose 

Here are some simple questions you might want to ask yourself and eventually find the answer to:

  • What do you want to be doing in your life?
  • What is it you would do if you had adequate finances to do anything?
  • What events have made you feel excited and motivated?
  • What is stopping you from changing your life – right now?

It may take a little time to have clarity in answering the above questions but just stick with them and keep repeating them to yourself.  You may find that meditation will help you find the answer or even walks in nature. Any place where you do not have to think about anything other than your questions.

Just be patient and spend some time listening to yourself as you ask the questions.  Money is the question that causes all sorts of problems as money and the fear around the energy of money can be very distracting. But try and go beyond your fear about the lack of money and just stick with the questions.  Try not to limit yourself in any way.

If you believe that you deserve the best that the world can offer then it will be yours for the taking.  Believe in yourself, believe in the changes that have been happening throughout your life and then your life will change for the better.  You will be living the way you want to live. And when you start living the life you want to live you will not only find your life’s purpose, or at least one of them, but you will also be happy and content.   Change & Purpose of Life

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy every step along the way.” ~ Wayne Dyer

The Malady of Active Laziness

The Malady of Active Laziness

The Malady of Active Laziness

There is a wonderful term that Sogyal Rinpoche uses in his book: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. The term is ‘Active Laziness’ and the malady of active laziness is something which we all suffer. The story to illustrate this in the book is about a very poor man who manages to accumulate a sack of grain and he had had to work very hard to achieve this:

“He was proud of himself, and when he got home he strung the bag up with a rope from one of the rafters of his house to keep it safe from rats and thieves. He left it hanging there, and settled down underneath it for the night as an added precaution. Lying there his mind began to wander “If I can sell of this grain off in small quantities, that will make the biggest profit. ………..  I’ll become rich …….Plenty of girls will be after me…….we’ll have a child …what on earth are we going to call him?  Looking round the room, his gaze fell upon the little window, through which he could see the moon rising.

What a sign….I’ll call him ‘As Famous as the Moon.’ Now while he had been carried away in his speculation, a rat had found its way up the rope……”

Extract from:  The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

In the story the rat gnawed through the rope which resulted in the bag of grain falling on the man killing him. As his mind distracted him with all sorts of thoughts about this and that he was not paying attention to the present which resulted with him not noticing the rat nor the bag falling onto him. And as a result of this he died with none of his distracting thoughts coming to fruition.

The story illustrates a form of active laziness that we all suffer from.  We fill our minds with so many thoughts about improving our levels of comfort or wealth that we actually forget to be present and live in the moment.  We talk about all the important responsibilities we have without actually taking responsibly for one of them or taking action in the present to make them happen.  In the western world we cram our lives with constant activity to achieve wealth and comfort that we forget to look at the wealth and comfort of our soul. Our mind distracts us to the level that we lose sight of the real meaning of life.

We are constantly active amounting more material possessions not realising that when we die not one material item will follow us into the after-life.  We are lazy about improving our spiritual attributes as they don’t seem so important in this material world.  But when we die, all that will follow us to the after-life and the next reincarnation are the spiritual attributes. The activity we do in the material plane of existence with our thoughts and ambitions for more wealth and bodily comfort is a waste of time when we die.  The improvement of our inner-life that we are so lazy about is the most important part of each incarnation. It is our spiritual growth that will matter when we leave the earth and rest before the next life-time.

Our time on earth during this life-time is but a tiny dot on the landscape of the time that we will spend in the after-life and subsequent reincarnations.  Maybe it is time to stop the Active Laziness and instead focus on what is important.  The physical body or new home is not as important as the spiritual soul and the development of compassion towards others rather than just ‘Me, me, me’.

Replace the Active Laziness with Active Living and wake up to what is important in life.

Books written by Sogyal Rinpoche can be bought using the link below:

The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying            Living Well Dying Well

                                       

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE

What Bullying Does

What Bullying Does

If you wonder why you allow yourself to be bullied as an adult have a look at this video of a child describing when she was bullied on the school bus.  If a child is not supported when he or she is bullied it can have devastating consequences.  The effects of the bullying are not good at the time of the event but their effects may be felt for years afterwards. This is a very poignant video that shows the lack of support that was given to a little girl from the Principal, Bus Driver and Law Enforcement Officer, These people are looked up to by all children and so their lack of help would have been all the more devastating for this child. They did not support this little girl as they discredited her words and  they make no attempt to stop the bullying.  The fact that the officer almost called her a liar by saying ‘the bus driver would not do that’ further undermines her confidence and trust.   This a very sad thing for an eight year old to go through and unless the emotional trauma is dealt with appropriately as she grows up she will forever be affected and wounded by this event. What Bullying Does

This wound will cause her all sorts of problems in her life.  Bullying can eventually lead to depression and fear, it has to be addressed and stopped at the source.  Thank goodness the mother supported her child and no doubt that will be a comfort to the little girl. Indeed, I wonder how the mum  continued to video as she must have been feeling absolutely awful. However it is great that the mum decided to do something about the bullying and the little brother, well he was quite amazing. This video of the 8-year-old girl’s giving her heartbreaking account of being bullied went viral, garnering more than 22,000 views in just a 24-hour period which demonstrates how interested people are in the subject of bullying.

We are all subjected to bullying at different levels. It can happen when shopping, walking down the street, at work and often at home.  Bullying can manifest in every avenue of life.

However, bullies can only exist if there is someone to bully and the type of person that gets bullied  tends to lack assertiveness and at an unconscious level seems to radiate fear. So when a person allows him or herself to be bullied, s/he must have some long-term fearful memory within their psyche. This memory is very fearful and as a result it does not allow them to stand up to the bully. Or, when they try to, it only takes a breath of wind for them to crumble.

If you find yourself crumbling when you try and stand up to being bullied remember this little girl and how unjust you think her treatment has been.  Then reflect on your own life and appreciate as an adult you have the tools to correct any childhood bullying you have experienced, You do that by not crumbling, instead you appreciate you are a grown-up. You re more than capable of standing up for yourself – you have a voice that will be heard. If necessary you can give back as good as you got – a bit like the little brother seems to have done.

Good luck and if you have any inspiring stories to tell – post them to our Facebook Kumara Healing Connections community and help other adults overcome their fear of bullying.

How To Believe in Yourself

How To Believe in Yourself

How to Believe in Yourself

It is sometimes really hard to believe in yourself when everything is upside down and falling apart. You don’t seem to be able to get ahead and it looks like your efforts are making no difference.  And indeed people look at you as if you have already failed in life and what is worse you start to believe them. Pulling yourself out of this all too familiar scenario can be tough, but it is possible as this short video explains.  How to believe in Yourself.

Jim Cathcart thought he would never make a difference. An average student from a working class family with no athletic or special skills, he expected an unremarkable existence. But one radio message in 1972 changed the direction of his life & authored his belief in his potential. Today, he’s a Hall of Fame Speaker, and has authored 16 books. While changing himself, Jim also discovered how to help others believe in themselves, too. In this 9 minute video Jim Cathcart explains How To Believe in Yourself and you can do that by first Knowing Thyself and working from there plus then applying what he suggests.

TEDx Talks

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE

The Power of Silence

The Power of Silence

The Power of Silence

Modern humans have lost touch with their inner ‘true self’ says Steve Taylor Ph.D  a lecturer in psychology at Leed University, UK. In his article below, Steve says that: “Silence and stillness are a means to recovering happiness and contentment. In the modern world silence has practically ceased to exist.” which few of us can deny when we reflect on our daily busyness.  The Power of Silence

The human race has stamped its authority over the planet Earth not just by covering its surface with concrete and destroying its plant and animal life, but also by burying the natural sounds of the Earth beneath a cacophony of man-made noise. We live our lives against the background of this cacophony, with the jagged mechanical sounds of urban-industrial society continually assaulting our ears: the roar of trucks, aeroplanes and trains, the clanging and thudding of machinery, the noise of building and renovating, the chatter of radios and TVs in other people’s cars and houses, and pop music blaring from every conceivable place.

But nothing, of course, has done more to obliterate silence than the car. In the modern world it’s very difficult to go anywhere where there’s no possibility of being disturbed by the sound of passing cars, and the only chance that city or town dwellers get to experience something of the quietness which existed everywhere in the pre-car world is sometimes on Sundays, when the mad rushing to and fro of modern life slows down. This quietness seems so foreign now that it seems difficult to believe that a hundred years ago and before it was everywhere all the time. Back then this quietness would even have filled the busiest city centres, which would have probably had a noise level equivalent to that of a modern small village.

There’s also more noise than ever before inside our houses. It’s unusual to go into a house nowadays where there isn’t at least one television set chattering away somewhere, even if the residents aren’t actually watching it, and other forms of home entertainment compete against TV to produce the most noise: radios, CD players, computer and video games etc. In fact the only sound which is largely absent from people’s houses nowadays is the voices of their occupants actually talking to one another.

Living in the midst of all this noise is bound to have a bad effect on us. All man-made noise is fundamentally disturbing. We find the sound of birds singing or of wind rushing through trees pleasing, but mechanical noise always jars and grates. And since we live our lives against a background of mechanical noise it follows that there’s always an undercurrent of agitation inside us, produced by the noise. This noise is certainly one of the reasons why modern life is so stressful as well. In modern life our senses are bombarded with massive amounts of external stimuli. Our fields of vision are always crowded with different (and constantly shifting) things, and our ears are bombarded with a bewildering variety of sounds — all of which clamour for our attention. Our senses have to absorb and process all this material, which takes up a lot of energy, and means that we’re liable to become drained of energy or ‘run down’ easily.

We can get out of this state by removing ourselves from all external stimuli and letting our energy-batteries naturally recharge themselves i.e., by relaxing. But there’s so much external stimuli around in the modern world and people are so unaccustomed to the absence of it that we may never be able relax properly, which could mean living in a permanently ‘run down’ state.

This lack of quietness has also meant is that people are no longer used to silence, and have even, as a result, become afraid of it. Along with inactivity, silence has become something which most people are determined to avoid at all costs, and which, when they are confronted with it, unnerves them. People have become so used to the frantic pace and the ceaseless activity of modern life that they feel uneasy when they’re left at a loose end with nothing to occupy their attention even for a few moments, and they feel equally uneasy when the noise they live their lives against the background of subsides. Why else is it that they need to have their radios and televisions chattering away in the background even when they’re not paying attention to them?

In other words, in the modern world silence has become an enemy. And this is a terrible shame, because in reality silence is one of our greatest friends, and can if it’s allowed to reveal itself to us have a powerfully beneficial effect on us.

Inner Noise

It’s not just the noise outside us which causes us problems, though, but also the noise inside us.

In the same way that the natural quietness and stillness of the world around us is always covered over with man-made noise, the natural quietness of our minds is constantly disturbed by the chattering of our ego-selves. This chattering fills our minds from the moment we wake up in the morning till the moment we go to sleep at night an endless stream of daydreams, memories, deliberations, worries, plans etc. which we have no control over and which even continues (in the form of dreams) when we fall asleep. This ‘inner noise’ has as many bad effects as the mechanical noise outside us. It actually creates problems in our lives, when we mull over tiny inconveniences or uncertainties which seem to become important just because we’re giving so much attention to them, and when we imagine all kinds of possible scenarios about future events instead of just taking them as they come. It means that we don’t live in the present, because we’re always either planning for and anticipating the future or remembering the past, “wandering about in times that do not belong to us and never thinking of the one that does” as Blaise Pascal wrote. And this constant inner chattering also means that we can never give our full attention to our surroundings and to the activities of our lives. Our attention is always partly taken up by the thoughts in our minds, so that wherever we are and whatever we’re doing we’re never completely there.

It’s probably possible to say that there’s also more of this ‘inner noise’ inside human beings than there’s ever been before. The hectic pace and the constant activity of our lives, the massive amount of external stimuli we’re bombarded with, and the barrage of information which the mass media sends our way, have made our minds more restless and active. We’ve got to juggle dozens of different problems and concerns in our minds just to get by from day to day, and every new thing we see or every new piece of information which is sent our way is potentially the beginning of a whole new train of thought to occupy our minds.

The True Self

Ultimately, the most serious consequence of both this inner chattering and the noise and activity of the modern world is that they separate us from our true selves.

Our ‘true self’ might be called the ground, or the essence, of our beings. It’s the pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-itself which remains when we’re not actually conscious of anything. It’s what remains when our the activity of our senses and the activity of our minds cease. The sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the thoughts which run through our minds are like the images on a cinema screen, but our ‘true self’ is the cinema screen itself, which is still there even when there aren’t any images being projected on to it.

Experiencing this ‘consciousness-in-itself’ can have a massively therapeutic effect. It brings a sense of being firmly rooted in ourselves, of being truly who we are. We also have a sense of being truly where we are, realising that before we were only half-present, and everything we see around us seems intensely real and alive, as if our perceptions have become much more acute. But above all, we experience a profound sense of inner peace and natural happiness. As the Hindu and Buddhist traditions have always held, the nature of consciousness-in-itself (which means the consciousness inside us and the consciousness which pervades the whole universe) is bliss. Getting into contact with the pure consciousness inside us enables us, therefore, to experience this bliss. Indeed, it could be said that it’s only when we do this that we can experience true happiness. Usually what we think of as happiness is hedonistic or ego-based that is, based around pressing instinctive ‘pleasure buttons’ or around receiving attention and praise from others and increasing our self-esteem. But the kind of deep and rich happiness we experience when we’re in touch with the ground or essence of our beings is a natural, spiritual happiness, which doesn’t depend on anything external, and doesn’t vanish as soon as the thing which produced it is taken away. It’s a happiness which comes from experiencing the divine inside us and also the divine inside everything else, since the pure consciousness inside us is the same pure consciousness inside everything else, and the pure consciousness of the universe itself.

Making Contact with the True Self

Whether we’re in touch with this ‘true self’ or not depends on how much external stimuli our senses are taking in from the world around us, and on how much activity there is going on in our minds.

If there is a lot of noise, movement and activity taking place around us then we can’t help but give our attention to it; and in the same way, when there is a lot of ‘inner noise’ taking place we have to give our attention to that too. And when our attention is completely absorbed in this way either by external stimuli on their own, such as when we watch TV; by ‘inner noise’ on its own, such as when we daydream; or by both of them at the same time it’s impossible for us to be in contact with our ‘true self’ to any degree, in the same way that it’s impossible to see a cinema screen in itself when it’s full of dancing images. Being in contact with our ‘true self’ is a state of attentionless-ness, when our minds are completely empty.

What we have to do if we want to get into contact with this part of ourselves is, therefore, to withdraw our attention from these things. And this is, of course, what we do when we meditate: first of all, we remove ourselves from external stimuli, by sitting in a quiet room and closing our eyes. And then there’s only ‘inner noise’ standing between us and consciousness-in-itself, which we try to quieten by concentrating on a mantra or on our breathing. If we manage to stop the inner noise (and therefore stop our attention being absorbed in it) pure consciousness immerses us and we become our true selves.

And this brings us back to the most serious problem caused by the massive amount of external stimuli (including noise) which our senses are bombarded with in the modern world, and by the intensified ‘inner noise’ which modern life generates. It’s not just a question of completely closing yourself off to external stimuli and shutting down ‘inner noise’, so that you can experience a state of total immersion in pure consciousness. It’s possible to have a foot in both camps, so to speak; to live a normal life in the world, being exposed to external stimuli and experiencing inner noise, and at the same time still be rooted in your real self. That is, it’s possible to be partially immersed in consciousness-in-itself, and for your attention to be partially absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. But this can only happen when there is just a moderate degree of both of the latter.

It would probably have been quite easy for our ancestors to live in this way, because they weren’t exposed to a great deal of external stimuli and because their lives were relatively slow-paced and stress-free, which would have meant that their attention needn’t have been completely absorbed by external stimuli and inner talk. Perhaps this even partly explains why native peoples seem to possess a natural contentment which modern city dwellers have lost because their more sedate lives mean that they’re able to be in touch with the ground of their being as they go about their lives, and that they can therefore continually experience something of the bliss of which is the nature of consciousness-in-itself.

For us, however, this has become very difficult. There’s always so much noise and activity both inside and outside us that our attention is always completely absorbed, so that we can’t be in contact with our real selves. We spend all our time living outside ourselves, lost in the external world of activity and stimuli or in the inner world of our own thoughts. We’re like a person who plans to go away for a few days but finds so much to occupy them in the place they go to that they never go home again, and never again experience the peace and contentment which lie there. This is certainly one of the reasons why so many people nowadays seem to live in a state of dissatisfaction — because they’ve lost touch with the natural happiness inside them. That natural happiness has been buried underneath a storm of external stimuli and what Meister Eckhart called ‘the storm of inward thought’.

As a result of this it’s essential for us, in the modern world, to go out of our way to cultivate silence ourselves. Circumstances may oblige us to live in cities, and our jobs may be stressful and demanding, but we’re still free to remove ourselves from external stimuli and to try to quieten our minds by meditating, going out into the countryside, or just by sitting quietly in our rooms. We don’t have to fill our free time with attention-absorbing distractions like TV and computer games, which take us even further away from ourselves. We should do the opposite: stop our attention being absorbed like this so that we can find ourselves again.

We need silence and stillness to become our true selves and to be truly happy. ‘Be still,’ said Jesus, ‘and know that I am God.’ But he might have added, ‘and know that you are God.’

Why asking for help is hard?

Why asking for help is hard?

Why Asking for Help is Hard

We do have to ask ourself why asking for help is hard to do.  Maybe we were brought up to be fiercely independent and not to show weakness.  However at some point in our life we all need help and yet we feel unable to ask for assistance. We prefer instead to soldier on alone, isolated and separated from our family and friends.

But if we really struggle with asking for help from our fellow human beings then it is a good time to remember that help is also available from the inner worlds.  There are enlightened beings who are available at all times to help us. If we can learn to ask, there is a great chance we will get the help we need.  Why asking for help is hard?

As Master Jesus said:

“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. Everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth?”

Extract from:  The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

Learning to ask for help will change our lives, but there is no doubt that a lack of practise is a burden for all of us. Asking for help is something we just don’t know how to do. Or maybe we are lazy, feel unworthy or the opposite we feel too arrogant to want to ask for help. There are many reasons we are unable to ask.

Whatever the reason or excuse it is time to let go of that old habit and develop a new one.  

If we feel we need help then now is the time to learn to ask for that aid and see how we get on. It is not a difficult thing to learn to do. It just takes action and the more we practice the better we will become at asking for the help we need. If we don’t give it a try how will we ever know if asking for help works to improve our situation?  Be courageous and also humble so when you ask for help you are doing it from the bottom of your heart.

Ask for the meaning of your life so you can transcend the darkness and live in light. Ask for assistance in whatever form you need it.  Ask with truth and compassion. Ask with love in your heart and wait for the response. It’s not a hard thing to do and you might even enjoy the process.

Curated by Liz McCaughey

Curation

At aMIndset we value good content for our readers. In that spirit, we will often curate or excerpt content from top quality sources on the web.The very internet itself was created on the foundation of linking, sharing, and recommending good content from other sources on the web.

Curation means finding good, well-written, and highly relevant material for our readers. By choosing content from your site, we are giving it our vote of approval. This not only means that we excerpt your content, but we also give it our highest recommendation, and we encourage our readers to view your content on your own website.
Our curation is designed to send our readers to your site so you get new visitors exposed to your top quality content. We curated your content because it was outstanding in some way.

Full details of aMindset’s Curation Policy can be found HERE