Again, this is some information I shared with a local non-profit as part of a compasssion fatigue workshop:

In life, we receive in response to our giving. So when we ask a question, we are giving a question, and so will receive a response to that question, always. To ask more empowering questions, here are a few principles:

Ask open-ended questions based on the assumption of infinite possibilities, not limitations. These kinds of questions usually begin with a “What…?” or a “How…?”

• Let’s do our best to believe, trust, know, expect that the person we are asking the question of actually has access to good responses to those questions. (This includes those questions we ask ourselves and our Divine Source!)
• When seeking to empower others through asking questions, let’s “hold the space” for the other person to respond. We empower others to the extent that we allow them to come up with their own responses to the questions that we ask. And if a response doesn’t make sense, let’s keep asking questions for the sake of clarity until things do make sense to us and to the other person.
• If we cannot ask a question from a genuine place of love, respect, and curiosity, let’s not ask it. Sometimes people have no interest in being coached or mentored. Sometimes we aren’t in a good space to offer assistance without attachments. It’s all good. And it’s all good enough for now.

I sincerely believe that the quality of our lives is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions that we ask and our openness to receiving the responses to those questions. The more empowering the question, the more empowering the response.  Just because we ask a question believing that it relates to some kind of objective reality, does not mean that it actually does. So an apparent non-response to a question could mean that we anre not dealing with reality at all, only the projections of our emotional addictions.

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How often have we said, “What a nice person!”? How much have we wanted that affirmation for ourselves? There have been times in my life that I wanted other people to think I was “nice,” regardless of whether I actually was nice or not.

I don’t feel this way anymore. Honestly, I would love to see the word “nice” disappear from use by all people for all time. It’s time for us to let this word go forever.

Nice is not who we are called be. We are called to be who we really are, and I guarantee that nice is not one of those things.

Here’s how I see nice people. If you either see yourself as a nice person or want others to see you as a nice person, you may not like what follows. So in case you are wondering, I’m definitely not going to be nice to nice people and those who like nice people here!

1. Nice people are pushovers.
2. Nice people are doormats.
3. Nice people do not ask for what they want.
4. Nice people do not negotiate for what they want.
5. Nice people do not tell the truth out of a fear.
6. Nice people care way too much about what others think of them.
7. Nice people have way too much patience with the status quo.
8. Nice people sacrifice themselves and their own truth upon the altar of social conformity with the creed of “I’m not good enough” playing like a looped recording in their brains.
9. Nice people don’t rock the boat.
10. Nice people don’t do interventions.
11. Nice people let bullies knock people down grind them into the dust.
12. Nice people would rather allow themselves to be ground into the dust than stand up for what is good, right, and true.
13. Nice people are afraid of their own power.
14. Nice people avoid the necessary conflict that occurs between compassion and injustice.

You may think I’m not being nice in being so tough on niceness and nice people. That’s very perceptive of you. Having suffered from an addiction to niceness for way too long, I’m a little passionate about setting people free from this particular prison.

So if you are a parent, stop telling your kids to be nice! Encourage them to be who they really are and do what they really want to do! Give them the freedom to say “No!” even as you continue to be the boss. Teach your kids to negotiate by negotiating for what you want!  

Stop playing the tape in your brain that says certain things are not nice. The world doesn’t need nice right now. The world needs the truth expressed with as much love and compassion as possible. And the truth cannot be expressed from a place of niceness. It can only be expressed from a solid foundation of spiritual empowerment.

We have the problems we are currently having as a species for two fundamental reasons:

1. Most people are afraid to tell the truth.

2. Most people are afraid to hear the truth.

This is why it is so critical that we banish niceness from the face of the earth as soon as possible. We need to be bold in speaking the truth from our perspective. We need to be desirous of listening to the truth from all of the sources of truth in our lives. When we have released these fears around speaking and listening to the truth, we will have the world that the prophets and sages have spoken of for millennia.

Go forth and release your fear! Speak your truth with bold compassion, and listen for the truth in everyone and everything you encounter!

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I’ll tell you a little about what’s been going on with me lately. I have been realizing things about myself that were either unknown to me or just outside of my conscious awareness. I’m making connections and making distinctions that – while not always pretty or flattering – are pretty accurate, and the truth is setting me free as I open myself up to it.

We need to become aware of the things that are true about ourselves (or that we think are true but are actually false). To create awesome lives, we need to see and know what we do not see and know about ourselves right now.

We’re all going through our lives with blind spots. These blind spots come in all shapes and sizes. The problem is that these gaps in our fields of perception blind us to a lot of stuff that is right in front of our faces. I’m not being hyperbolic here. I really mean that these things are right there to be perceived, and we just don’t see them at all. Yet, we are constantly bumping into them like invisible force fields, closed glass doors that we think are open, or invisible glass ceilings that we do not think we can pass through. As this happens constantly (again, no hyperbole intended) we wonder what is going on. Hint: You attracted it through the resonance of your personal energy field(s) with other energies that harmonized well-enough with the circumstance to bring it into your experience.

To the extent that we do not perceive our true and false selves and to the extent that we deny, suppress, and ignore our false and true selves, we suffer. This lack of perception leads to disruptions in our connections to the powers that are our birthright. As a result we experience suffering and pain. We create illusions that reinforce the lies that have become attached to our being (because we allowed them to attach themselves in the first place), sapping our strength and power. We do not fully experience our connection to the Source because we are pointing our attention in the wrong directions.

If it is the things that we do not see and do not know that we most need to deal with in order to experience our true selves and our true capabilities. How do we do that? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Get someone else with a different perspective to help you see the things that are hiding in plain sight. You need someone who will not let you off the hook and who will hold you accountable for the way you are creating your reality.

2. Remember a truth that is sprinkled throughout this blog, your experiences are a mirror of what is happening within you. Everything! When you see or experience anything that creates any kind of automatically emotionally charged reaction for you, realize that you attracted that circumstance and your reaction gives you clues as to what you really think and feel. These thoughts and feelings are clues to your deepest motivations or what I like to call intentions.

3. Pretend that you are just stepping into the middle of your life for the first time, right now. You could imagine that you are an alien from an advanced civilization who has hijacked your body. This being comes from a world that has already solved all of the problems and issues that plague you and many of your fellow humans at this time. This being would have access to your thoughts and feelings and memories. What would this advanced, enlightened and absolutely compassionate being’s perspective be on your experience of your existence? What would he or she find confusing, amusing, limiting, untrue, etc?

4. Keep a journal or some other kind of record of things that have your attention and look for patterns and themes. Realize that anything you experience as outside of you is an excellent reflection of the drama of what is actually going on within you. These can be waking or dreaming experiences, “real” or “imagined.” They can involve situations that have no obviously direct connection to you. It doesn’t matter. They are all giving you useful information that can help you transform your life when you pay attention. If you are not yet skilled at interpreting your reality or “reading between the lines of your life,” get someone who can help you develop those skills so that you can understand what your life is telling you about what is happening within you.

5. Come up with other ways that feel joyful to create more objectivity with regard to your experiences. Come up with other creative ways to hold a mirror up to your experience.

Who we are is more than enough. This is not what we have been taught so far. For most of us this idea has not yet become true. There is nothing deficient or lacking in our being. We just happen to have acquired some things that are not in harmony with the truth—with who we actually are. When we release these things (and release them we will!) our lives become unfolding adventures that are beyond our ability to imagine at this time. We exist to experience a Life of infinitely unfolding possibilities.

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Be here now. There is power in the present moment. In the present there is no resistance. There is no fear. There is no anxiety. There is no guilt or shame. Now is perfect as it is. It is complete because it is the only real moment. How do I know this despite all of the apparent evidence to the contrary?

Over 15 years ago, I had a moment. It was not an ordinary moment (at least not yet). It was what could be termed a mystical experience, a spontaneous cosmic moment, a space-time mind-blowing moment, a profound experience of the broader possibilities of consciousness. Whatever it was, it came at the perfect time and in the perfect place to show me that what I thought was real was not. The Real is awe-inspiring in ways that the human imagination cannot approach. I know that my experience was beyond the confines of the power of my imagination to create. I could have lived a million years in workaday consciousness and never come close to imagining what I actually experienced in terms of a sense of union with the entire cosmos and the reality of the Eternal Now as a multidimensional reality. There are no words – try as I might – to convey the wonders that I experienced.

That experience put me on a quest that led me to many more wonderful and amazing discoveries. Again, things I never thought I would know or experience. When you have no idea that something even exists, how can you have any expectation that you will ever experience it?

But the main point I want to communicate right now is that the cosmos is always now. When we struggle against the present moment with our fears, resistance, doubts and rationalizations we are not in the flow of the moment. We are in conflict with the entire cosmos and the Creative Source of All Goodness. Right now everything is effortless. Right now, everything is changing. Right now everything is alive and vibrant and full of infinite possibilities. Now is the fulcrum for shifting everything for the benefit of all life everywhere.

Every good thing is possible, right now. There is no need to wait. Every good thing can be experienced right now. The universe and the Creative Source await our clear, singular, and uncompromised intentions to realize greater possibilities than we have thus far allowed.

The apparent limitations, challenges, problems, barriers, and structures that seem so permanent and solid only exist because people give their energies to their sustenance. When enough of us realize that every ridiculous thing humanity has created is not lasting or permanent but is easily and effortlessly changeable, these things will wither away or be transformed right before our eyes.

People are saying it will take so long for this or that good thing to come to pass. As our certainty is, so shall our experience be. Read that one again. Are you sure that what you think you know for sure is actually true? Are you willing to bet your life on what you think you know?

Let’s clear out all of the falsehoods we have accepted as truths. As we focus more and more with greater clarity upon all of the good possibilities that await our desire and trust to fully realize them, we become certain and those possibilities appear, not in decades or years, but in the present moment of our attention.

There is a huge shift in human consciousness on the horizon. In truth it has already begun. The time is coming when what I write will actually make sense because what I’ve just described will have come to pass in ways that will be impossible to deny. This shift may be experienced right here and right now for those of us who are willing to release our fears and live from our deepest passions and highest aspirations. There really is no time other than the present. Let’s make the most of it!

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We’ve all had circumstances in our lives where things do not go as we planned or as we had hoped they would. We pour our time, energy, creativity, commitment, and love into something only to experience fear, anger, confusion, disappointment, despair over the end of something we really believed in and truly wanted to work out. We desire to create and sustain good things (otherwise we wouldn’t bother). So why don’t things always go the way we hope they will?

The short answer to this question is, “Because space is being created for something even better.” Let me elaborate.
In my world nothing happens by accident. Nothing. Everything that exists has wonderful potential purposes, and I believe that one of my main jobs in life is to take whatever circumstances I have attracted into my life and do the best I can in that moment to make the most of them whatever they may be.

One of the ideas I depend upon every single day goes something like this:

I can trust God, the universe, myself, and other people to conspire perfectly for my benefit and for the benefit of all. Regardless of circumstantial appearances, I can trust that all things are working together for the highest good of all concerned.

I think many people believe that things often get much worse before they get better. Despite this faily commpn belief. many of us assume that if things aren’t going the way we want them to go they must be “BAD.”

This kind of thinking denies us the opportunities to maximize the circumstances that we attract into our lives. If you think about anything that has happened in your life that you didn’t want to happen, chances are the first thing you did was resist it. In some way you denied it or pushed back against it, thinking “This can’t be happening!” or “I hate this!” or “I wish this would just go away!” or whatever exclamatory phrases occurred to you at the time.

What if, instead of resisting, we chose to act as if this thing we do not want is actually an opportunity? What if we have actually been waiting for this very moment to take our lives to a whole new level? What if the thing that we do not want is actually the secret doorway to an unbelievably wonderful future?

We all have stories of circumstances that we thought were terrible that actually turned out to be “blessings in disguise” once we had the benefits of time, experience, or perspective. How about we take that attitude all of the time, regardless of appearances? What do we lose by doing this? (Perhaps the sick pleasures that go along with being “right” and miserable?) Thinking that there is absolutely no possibility of anything good ever coming from a particular circumstance only delays the realization that whaever has happened or is happening is a great growth opportunity.

What I know for sure is that our chances for success are much better if we are open to the possibilities within less-than-desirable (or downright horrible, terrible, absolutely no-good) events and circumstances. While most of us resist these kinds of experiences out of habit, my hope is that we can all open up at least a little bit more to the possibility that even the worst circumstances and events hold the seeds for real progress for ourselves and for others.

Good farmers plant their seeds. They trust that the seed, sun, rain, and soil will do what they are supposed to do (well, at least organic farmers do!). All of life is rigged for our benefit, whether we believe it or not. Perhaps the next time something doesn’t go the way we want it to (or even right now!) we can choose to believe that it has a useful purpose, even if we can’t see it yet. Let’s believe that it may very well be exactly what we need to expand into an much more expansive experience of life. I humbly submit that that is exactly what it is.

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I believe that asking good questions is an important aspect of living a good life. I have asked some questions in my life that have led me places I never thought I’d go – some of them wonderful and some of them not so great. So, I’m going to ask you a question. Perhaps you have already asked it of yourself. It’s related to my previous post on identity. Take your time with it. Really sit with it when you have some time by yourself.

Who Are You?

Are you really what you tell people you are? Are you really what you think you are – your weaknesses, money, job, relationships, abilities, fears, hopes, the sum of the material circumstances over which you currently exercise stewardship? Are you your circumstances? Are you your memories? Are you your feelings? Are you your intentions? Are you your actions? Is that really the way you are and will always be?

I guess it’s more than one question I’m asking here.

I do not believe that we are any of these things, separately or collectively. At most, these are some of the symbols we create for our benefit, whether we realize it or not. All of these things are perfectly designed to help us realize who we really are.

These symbols we create that we tend tothink, say and act as if they are us are specifically designed by us (unconsciously, of course) to help us look past the images and surface features of our lives to discover our true nature. No matter what we have experienced, these shadows cast by the light of our souls beg us to go deeper into ourselves and into the very Source of our being.

We are so much more than we now realize. There is incredible potential within each of us, and there is nothing about our current circumstances that can or will ever change that truth.

At some point we will perceive the false nature of every apparent limitation. When we allow that to happen, our magnificence will dissolve what appeared to be permanent and immovable. In that moment there will be nothing to keep us from being who we really are. In truth we are each wonders beyond description.

 No mistake was made in our design. There is nothing wrong with the materials that form our being. We have been made in the invisible image of the Ultimate Power. We are heirs to riches beyond our abilities to reason or imagine.

Unlike people who inherit great wealth upon another’s death, we only receive our full inheritance when we realize that our Source is very much alive – not only alive, but the very Source of All Life. And in that knowing we realize that we have been fully known all along – guided, protected, blessed, loved, and accepted. Always. In all ways.

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On a pretty regular basis when I engage people in conversation, they’ll say all kinds of interesting things to me like:

“Well, you know, that’s life.”

“Ah, that’s just the way it is.”

“That’s just the way people are.”

“That’s just the way I am.”

Here are my responses, respectively,

“Well actually it’s not.”

“What do you mean by, ‘just the way it is?’”

“Do you really think that is true?”

“Well, I appreciate your perspective. The thing is, I really don’t see you being that way at all.”

Most people are trying to live their lives while carrying around an incredible array of limitations that they have allowed to dominate their consciousness. I use the word “dominate” because these limitations are always based on fear, and they seek to control. These two things are at the foundation of any dominant/submissive relationship dynamic.

Many people are dominated by their fear-based programming much of the time. And while this may be common, it need not be so any longer.

More and more people are starting to wake up. More people are beginning to see more clearly how they are the common denominator in all of their experiences.

You get to choose what you accept as true and what you reject as false. The quality of your life will be a function of how expansive and inclusive your thoughts, feelings, way of being, and body sensations are. The quality of your life will also be largely determined by how much constriction, limitation, and fear you refuse to accept. The best way to know how things really are is to let go of everything you think you know.

If that sounds difficult or impossible, let me suggest the following exercise:

Ask (at least once per day, every day) the Divine Source (God/The Universe/whatever you call the Ultimate Power of the Cosmos) to help you let go of whatever it is that is holding you back. Do not just say the words, but ask with a deeply sincere desire to know the truth. Pay attention and be aware of what is going on around you and within you.

In a very short time, circumstances will conspire to help you see the truth by highlighting how you are currently creating your reality. Some of these happenings may not be what you want, but they will be exactly what you need. You can use every circumstance of your life to let go of another lie that you have allowed to dominate your perceptions.

If you do this, you will be on the fast track to enlightenment. There is no better teacher than life. It is showing you everything you need to know. Actually, it always has been. It’s just that many of us have not been paying much attention, until now…

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Last night I watched the finale of Lost with my wife. I really enjoyed it despite some apparent continuity issues that I won’t go into here. One of the reasons I really enjoyed it was because of the one of the themes that came out at the end of the series: we really and truly need each other.

Why is this so important? Well, to me it is so important because it highlights something that is not so obvious today. Many lead insular lives. Many people have set up their lives (as much as they possibly can) not to depend upon the help of others. So many of us are struggling with so many things in our lives, and most of the people around us have no idea of what is really happening with us.

In the Lost finale, we see the different characters asking each other for help and doing their best to help each other. Even Vincent, the dog, comes to be with Jack at the very end so that he doesn’t have to “die alone.” This simple act harkens back to the very beginning of the series when Jack accepts the role of leader of the survivors—“If we don’t find a way to live together, we’re gonna die alone.”

This theme really resonates with me for several reasons:

1. It’s actually true.

2. We need to do as much as we can to live this truth.

God didn’t create us so that we could spend our lives hiding from each other, pretending that we’ve got it all under control. God didn’t put us together so that we could tear each other down by acting from the lies that we tell ourselves, the lies that we try to get other people to buy. God put us together so that we could help each other and ask others for the help we need.

Each one of us is here for very general and specific reasons. Generally it’s to give and receive as much love as possible. Specifically, you are being called to be who you really are and do what you absolutely love to do. Being and doing these things will help everyone and everything else to achieve the best possible expressions of life.

Let’s do more to offer the help that we were created to give. Let’s start asking for more of the help that we really and truly need. Everything we need to make the most of our lives is completely with our reach—both the giving and the receiving!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post on another major theme from the Lost finale…

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