Principles of Growth for a Life of Passion

By Robert Rabbin

Even Buddhists want to live passionate lives, in spite of their equanimity. Passion is life force itself, the very energy whose intensity, love, and enthusiasm for beauty and creativity produced this infinitely exquisite universe, whose mystery is beyond measure.

If we are to honor the ancient stardust within our DNA, we must become passionate, we must allow the pulse and power of universal forces free reign in our lives. For each, this will look different, and yet something in our eyes, something that is friends with wildness and sudden shifting plates of earth and collisions in deep space, will look similar and always familiar, as if when we meet each other, we meet ourselves.

We tend to grow into passion little by little, though we may sometimes take big leaps, because we are not able to take it in all at once. One day at a time, we grow into our truly passionate, authentic self and life. One day at a time, we shed old and useless selves, skins, patterns, fears, and ideas.

Growing into full possession of our passion and authenticity can be supported by certain principles. Here are some I've found to be useful:

Growth is an archeological dig into the deepest layers of self.
We must develop patience and persistence. We need to fall in love with the process, because we may need to dig and dig, haul tons of dirt, sleep in dusty tents for a long time. We should not be put off from deeper digging just because we find a shard of valuable pottery.

Growth toward passion is a law unto itself.
We cannot apply conventional standards of measurement. Neither success nor failure; neither good nor bad; neither right nor wrong exist in the context of growth. If we are on a journey without end, how can we know of our success, of our achievement, of our attainment? We can notice our escalating freedom and joy, and how much happiness we inspire in others. But this is not a goal; we just notice this happening as a consequence of the process of continuous growth. When we apply rigid achievement criteria, we immediately condition the process--we create tension and fear from the beginning. Our path is one of learning, applying, practicing. The more we grow, the more we are able to grow.

You are responsible for your own life.
We often develop the habit of blaming someone for our unhappiness or frustrations; likewise, we hold the hope that someone will come along and rescue us from what doesn't work in our life. Both attitudes are false: they do not correspond to reality. The simple fact is: each one of us has to do our own work. We must create our happiness, our fulfillment, our joy, our passion.

The point of power is now.
The past lives within you as the present. Yes, we are conditioned by the innumerable experiences and decisions that have occurred in the "past." But where is the past now? It is within us as the present. Even if we know why everything happened, we would still have to change what does not work for us in the present. We still have to see clearly into our life as it is now. We must become conscious of those factors within our psyche that drive and motivate us. We must become aware of our fears, insecurities, hopes, and wishes. We must become very conscious and aware of all that happens now, both within us and around us.

No one is to blame.
As we liberate ourselves from past conditioning and patterns of self-suppression, as we discover new reserves of strength and courage, we might be tempted to blame someone for having obstructed our freedom in the past. We might want to confront someone for a past hurt and speak a truth that we had been unwilling to speak. We ought to be careful as we do this. It is not appropriate to blame someone for our lack of freedom in the past. No one deserves to be abused just because, from our new vantage point of clarity and power, we want a different kind of interaction.

As we change, our understanding of the past will change.
We often feel the need to come to terms with the past in a definitive way. This is difficult, and perhaps not necessary. It is important to learn from the past, and sometimes we will need to resolve or heal something that occurred in the past so we are not carrying heavy ghosts. Still, how we see and understand what happened, and who did what to whom, is a function of how we see ourselves now. As we continue to grow and evolve, our interpretation and understanding of the past will always reflect new growth and the perspective of higher altitude.

We are always free to change our experience of what happens.
No one is in the way. We do not need anyone's permission, nor do we need a certain configuration of conditions in order to experience life in a free and joyful way. This may seem untrue, because we associate experience with external conditions, even with our internal states of mind and emotions. Through meditation and growth, we discover a place of equanimity, of clarity, and of happiness that is not a function of external conditions or internal states of mind and emotions. It is like climbing to the highest point on the highest mountain, still on the planet but high above everything. We would be wise to learn how to create the experience of freedom and joy, regardless of external conditions or internal states.

What we discover, we must express, or it is not real.
It is not only good, but necessary, to fully and honestly express one's passion and truth. Expressing the truth helps us stay free from self-deceit and hypocrisy. Expressing our truth implies that our deep flows and swirls of motivation, the creative urges of our soul, penetrate the vital essence of each thought, word, and action. We are like artists, or dancers, who give themselves to powers of magic and mystery, and who bring into the world what no one has seen, but when they do, they recognize what no one has ever seen as being eternal and mundane, personal and impersonal, real and unreal, stunning and glorious, and on and on and on.

We should try to be fluid and flexible, because nothing stays the same.
It is okay to change our beliefs, attitudes, values, priorities, commitments, and patterns of reaction and behavior. Life is growth: growth implies learning, learning implies change. This does not mean we are without a center or core, or that we are irresponsible and superficial. We can have a solid set of values and commitments from which we act. We can have goals and intentions. It is just that we will need to regularly visit these to see if they are accurate and if they reflect who we are becoming as we grow toward passion and truth. In a sense, our life is a series of transitions, with each moment being both a self-contained lifetime and a bridge to new life. We will need to learn how to live gracefully with change, how to negotiate transitions, how to incorporate our new discoveries into the arch of our life, spanning unknowable distances.

It is important to respect your limits; however, most limits are self-imposed.
It is important that we proceed at our own pace. Since personal growth is continuous, we need not be in a crushing hurry. We may need to rest, to take a break, to allow time for the integration of what has been recently discovered. We might not be ready to see something or deal with something. This is fine. There are no requirements, no final tests, no punishments. Life is growth; it is continuous. We need to respect how we need to proceed: the manner, the pace, the intensity. We should respect our limits. At the same time, let us not forget that limits are self-imposed. In terms of consciousness and awareness, we are essentially without limit. But we cannot drink the whole ocean all at once. The limitations that we encounter and go beyond in the process of self-discovery are self-created and maintained within us. Still, let's be kind and gentle with ourselves, and with each other, even as we know the most important thing in life is to grow towards passion and truth, towards life, towards full freedom.

You will no doubt create your own set of principles, which will nourish your growth and which may be of help and support to others. The main thing in life is to realize that before words filled our heads with seeming reality, there was, and is, reality itself. The Hindus refer to the qualities of reality, or consciousness, as Sat-Chit-Ananda: Being-Consciousness-Bliss. I prefer Walt Whitman's phrase: passion, pulse, and power.

When passion, pulse, and power breach the sea-walls of our language-based seeming reality and our petty patterns of self-imaging and all our concessions and self-betrayals and excuses, we hear within us the roar of the cosmos, the cosmic roar. That's when life begins.

As a pioneer in the field of executive coaching, Robert Rabbin founded The Hamsa Institute for Enlightened Leadership in 1990, and as a skilled and inspirational keynote speaker, leadership adviser, and self-awareness teacher. For more information, please visit the website: Robert Rabbin.com

Finding Innovation Inspiration

By Darcy Eikenberg

Let’s pause for a moment to celebrate three unique innovators who died this year: Curtis Allina, Art Clokey, and Walter Morrison.

What–you haven’t heard of them? I bet you know their creations well: Pez, Gumby, and Frisbee.

I dare you not to grin when saying those three words! Pez, Gumby, and Frisbee collectively represent fun, silliness, play, and many more happy emotions we want in our lives today.

When each of these gentlemen’s obituaries appeared within a month of each other, it made me pause. What lessons did their innovations teach? As I strive to be more creative and innovative, what inspiration can I take from their journeys? After exploring their lives and legacies further, here are the top three things I discovered:

1. Great Innovation Can Happen Even if Life’s Hard
You’d think that if you were a master of something as creative, as inventive, as FUN as any of these three playthings, that you probably lived a charmed life. But that was far from the truth:

• Clokey was sent to live in a children’s home when his mom’s new husband rejected him after his natural father died in a car accident.

• Allina’s family perished in concentration camps in the 40s, leaving him as the sole survivor.

• Morrison, a WWII pilot, was shot down and spent 48 days as a prisoner of war in Stalag 13.

Those setbacks didn’t get in their way–in fact, they may have led to even greater creativity and innovation. For example, Morrison’s aeronautic skills helped him refine his original flying disc. The abandoned Clokey was eventually adopted by a well-known composer who introduced him to an artistic life that certainly led him to pick up a handful of clay.

2. Accept Whatever Comes
Gumby’s 1956 debut on “The Howdy Doody Show” led the stop-motion character to his own short-lived series and ongoing syndication. But his popularity faded in the 70’s, and creator Clokey struggled financially, according to published accounts.

Then a young comedian named Eddie Murphy played a foul-talking Gumby on Saturday Night Live in the 80’s. Many expected Clokey–the man who created TV’s religious-toned “Davey and Goliath” and who once planned to become an Episcopal priest–to be shocked and ashamed at how his creation was mangled.

But according to interviews, he loved it, although he was happy it was on late at night when children were sleeping (remember, this was the pre-TiVo era.) By accepting someone else’s interpretation and going with the affectionate outpouring, the edgy performance rejuvenated Gumby, and put the green guy in the hands of a whole new generation.

3. You Don’t Have to Create to be Creative
Pez was originally a Viennese mint, marketed to adults as an alternative to smoking. In fact, the stemmed dispenser was designed to look like a cigarette lighter. When the idea emerged to repackage the candy for children, company exec Allina had to persuade the conservative, European home office that the change would make sense.

Pez historian (now there’s a job!) David Welch told The New York Times that no one really knows exactly whose idea it was to put heads on Pez dispensers. However, Welch shared, “The idea came from the United States. And for the idea to have come out of the United States and made it to Austria where it could be approved, Allina was the only guy who could have made that happen.”

So whether Allina actually envisioned a Santa head on a stack of peppermints, we’ll never know. But he was the one to enable the creative move, to actually make it happen, and in the end, is credited with making the now multi-million dollar industry come to life. Not a bad legacy.

Speaking of legacy, it is worth noting one other thing these three men had in common. They all lived long lives: Pez’s Allina passed away at 87. Gumby animator Clokey died at 88; and Morrison, Frisbee’s father, died at 90. They left behind not only their respective innovations, but also buckets of inspiration for the creative spirit in all of us.

Where do you find your innovation inspiration–at work, outdoors, or at home in your garage? From music, TV, or a stroll through the mall? Who inspires you most–people you know well, or people you’ve only known from afar?

A Magic Bullet For Personal Growth

By Victtor Da Ponte

If there was one thing we could focus on to take our personal and spiritual growth to ever expanding levels what would that be? And how would we go about it?

There is one thing than can be done that would ultimately encompass all of the major key principles of personal development and that is: have heartfelt appreciation for everything in our lives. Appreciation administered correctly to yourself will drag along with it every major attribute needed to fully access true-self and embrace all of life in every sense of the word and in every possible way.

Having an appreciation for all that life is, is simply being thankful to it. Appreciation is one of the major catalyst to consciousness, because through appreciation we are able to accept the unacceptable and the unimaginable nature of reality. Thankfulness ultimately leads to fully loving and respecting what or whom you are thankful to. It can create a magical chain reaction that leads to true emotional freedom and empowerment, making it's application to one's life infinite, since what we can appreciate and be thankful for are limitless.

Those things which we find most difficult to appreciate in our lives actually hold the keys to access the portals to our greatest potential. Take for example being appreciative when a loved one is on the "attack" or is being abrasive, most people sort of lose control and get on the defense against that person. The question then is: who controls you, the other person's anger or you? For most people, the answer is other people's anger.

So what is there to be appreciative of in these situations? This leads us to the insight: they are your reflection, your mirror! How can that be possible be you ask? Good question. The answer is that their anger can show you your level of self control, your self-worth among other things. In a nutshell their anger will show you who you are, what you believe in and what your commits are. Under this perspective it can become easy to learn to appreciate them for showing you who you are and where your weaknesses lie.

Now guess what will happen when you fully integrate real heart-based appreciation with your difficult friend or loved one. You will have peace the next time they do become angry and abrasive. This means that they will not have anyone to "fight" with. And if you do not engage yourself in their anger because you are actual thanking their anger the only conclusion they will ever be able to draw out of their interaction with you is that they are out of control and you are in control. Then you have the control over yourself and the ultimate influence over them. When you really apply these principles in your life the results can be absolutely amazing. But don't believe a word I say, my ultimate goal is not to convince anyone but rather to help them have the experience, because experience is the ultimate truth for all of us. So with that said, let's put this to the test a bit.

Here are some steps you can take to integrate appreciation of those difficult things in life. First, think of a person with whom you sometime lose control over yourself with. Once you have identified this individual your intention during this appreciation process will be to let go of your defensive reaction and to settle in with appreciation. This is key! Your intention will control the outcome. In addition, you must be willing to sustain this intention UNTIL! That's right - until. You must commit until it is done. Correct? Good. OK.

Think of this person bringing into focus their anger and sustain that focus, then think to yourself or speak out loud the following:

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I respect you, I accept you, I forgive you.
I am grateful to you, I am grateful to you. I truly appreciate you.
I thank you, I thank you, I thank you.
I respect you, I accept you, I forgive you.
I appreciate you, I appreciate you, I appreciate you.
I respect you, I accept you, I forgive you.
I have always appreciated you and I always will.
I have always appreciated you and I always will.
YES, YES, YES, YES, YES, YES, YES

Repeat these phrases until you are fully appreciative of their anger.

This is just one example. Obviously you can do this with an infinite amount of things and circumstances. Let's go over some other key areas to apply this to: money, family members, God, the universe, your neighbors, you work, your childhood, painful memories, fears, worries, and more.

Following is one of my favorite ways to apply appreciation in a way which has the greatest immediate impact on the quality of life. I like to refer to this as my circle of comfort...

I simple tell my mind/subconscious mind to bring in anything and everything that I am not 100% comfortable with in my life and in my immediate environment. Tell your mind to bring in as much detail as possible of what is not comfortable for you, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It could be that the bathroom door is open, anything at all - you get the picture. The beauty of this process is that it will allow you to bundle up many, many things at once by leveraging the subconscious mind's ability to process a million times more information that we can consciously. What will happen is that in less than 5-10 seconds it will bring up things you didn't notice, were uncomfortable for you, but nevertheless were there bothering you unconsciously.

Here is what you can do. Close your eyes and tell you mind: "Bring in to my awareness everything that I an not happy with right now." After about 5-10 second, more if you need, simply begin the same process as above, repeating the statements with the intention of appreciating all of those things that are not comfortable for you. Continue repeating the phrases until you feel completely appreciative of those things.

How did it go? Feel totally at peace now? If not, just repeat those statements again and again until you are able to let go completely. It is a matter of sustaining your intention until the subconscious mind perceives that it is safe to let go. I hope that helped.

Victtor Da Ponte has been in the personal development field for more than 20 years, he now leads seminars which to help people integrate their hearts and minds and life mission, including fire walking and sweat lodges. Learn more about Victtor's work by claiming a Free mini-course on the iMaster Techniques or visit his blog.

Habit

By Edwin Harkness Spina

"Man is a creature of habit." This simple statement is deceptively profound. Most people's lives are comprised of a collection of habits that dictate many of their physical, emotional and mental actions and reactions. Depending on the level of conscious awareness you invest in a habit's creation, habits can either enslave you, turning you into a mindless automaton, or free you to pursue creative, joyful activities that enhance and give meaning to your life. Most people have a mixture of good and bad habits.

Habit is defined as an acquired behavior pattern followed until it has become almost involuntary. Habits can be good or bad, productive or non-productive. Good habits lead to skills, such as learning to ride a bicycle. They also save you time and energy by automating the performance of desirable actions. Brushing your teeth or driving a car are examples. These acquired behavior patterns free your mind from having to concentrate, as would be required of unfamiliar actions.

Bad habits predispose you to undesirable outcomes. Excessive drinking, smoking, drug use and overeating are examples of bad habits that can harm your body and impair your judgment, aside from wasting your time.

Common sense tells us that you want to replace bad habits with good ones, which is the basis of all self-development and evolution. But as almost everyone who has ever tried to quit smoking will tell you, this is not always as easy as it would seem.

Smokers are addicted to nicotine. But according to modern brain science, all habits induce emotional states that produce chemicals in your brain. Consequently, you become addicted to the chemicals secreted by your brain no matter what kind of habit you create!

With every thought or action you undertake, you create electrical pathways in your brain. As Joseph Dispenza says in the movie What the Bleep do We Know?, "neurons which fire together, wire together." Repetition etches these patterns more deeply into your brain.

To replace a bad habit with a good one, you need to break the association with your emotions and the chemicals you've grown accustomed to, and rewire your brain. This requires concentration and will.

If you are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge your non- productive habit, you will have a hard time replacing it. If you are not convinced a particular habit is bad for you, you will have no incentive to change it. But, if you are aware of your unwanted habit and are willing to devote your attention to it, then it can be changed. Deeply focused concentration, such as during a visualization exercise, increases the potency of your thoughts and more deeply affects your brain's rewiring.

Remember, it took regular action to install your unwanted habit - possibly over the course of several lifetimes - so it will take regular action to undo it. This is where your will comes in.

You strengthen your will, as well as your habit, with repetition. Every time you consciously reject the urge to give in to your bad habit, you strengthen your will. Every time you consciously undertake an action to install a new, positive habit, it becomes easier. This is how you rewire your brain and overcome your addictions.

When these habits are of a positive nature, this self- reinforcing cycle produces positive results, but the contrary is also true. This demonstrates a principle that Jesus taught, "For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath."

In other words, consciously acting to install positive habits strengthens your will and further attracts more like experiences. Giving in to bad habits, weakens your will, not only making it harder to install good habits, but doing so may cause you to lose what good habits you already had.

Can there be any better reason to develop your will and consciously establish positive habits?

The development of good habits is meant to improve your life, free you from the grip of negative habits and attract even more positive experiences to you. At the same time, always remember to be guided by wisdom and not convention. You should strive to perform good actions based on your own inner wisdom and conscious choice, not based on convention - not even good habits. This is the ultimate freedom.

Edwin Harkness Spina is an award-winning author and speaker. Ed is dedicated to presenting practical mystical techniques to improve people's lives and expand their minds. His workshops and seminars emphasize the practical application of these techniques to help others manifest their dreams. If you would like to increase your potential for intimacy by clearing your energy centers, please visit Energy Center Clearing

Full Spectrum Leadership

An Idea That Was Built For These Times

For over forty years the principles and practices of Full Spectrum Leadership have been taught by luminaries such as Alexander Everett, Werner Erhard, Buckminster Fuller, and Jim Quinn. These intrepid leaders blazed a trail in the second half of the Twentieth Century upon which untold thousands of today’s leaders journeyed. Their development of leaders goes unparalleled still today.

The conditions that prevail at this time in the 21st Century call for an even greater degree of leadership to be brought forth. The entire “personal development” industry must now be focused on establishing an even stronger foundation on which tomorrow’s leaders must stand.

To that end, two significant organizations have combined to introduce Full Spectrum Leadership Training to the next generation of 21st Century leaders. Doug Cameron, the co-founder of The Eppica Centre, and one of the rare individuals personally mentored by the late Jim Quinn, invited Peter Comrie of The Wealthy Attitude to join forces to develop a training circumstance that would significantly impact 1000 of tomorrow’s leaders.

Why this, and why now?

Most everyone is aware of the growing complexity of the world we live in. Do you think that situations and events in the world are moving quickly now? Sysco Systems (the Internet infrastructure builder) has recently announced a new platform for delivering video over the Internet that is 12 times faster than anything we have experienced so far. Twelve times! This single technological innovation will transform, and open up new possibilities, unlike anything we have engaged until now. And, this is only one company introducing one innovation. There are thousands of company’s working on more innovations and new products than we can ever imagine.

The startling speed, and the resultant complexity, ergo confusion, creates, no demands, that leaders find a new clarity and vision to lead groups of people in new and innovative ways. So where do leaders, either fully seasoned and experienced leaders, or the next generation of leaders taking their first steps on their journey, go to find the focus, the clarity, and the wisdom to make the right choices.

Ironically, they go where leaders have gone for thousands of years.

They go to the TRUTH.

Leaders are not born, they are developed, they are trained, and they take 100% responsibility for the entire life experience. This is what Full Spectrum Leadership is all about.

Find out the whole scoop at: http://www.fullspectrumleadership.ca/

Perception - The Reality Beyond Matter

A note from peter@thewealthyattitude.com on Friday February 26, 2010

Hello again everyone, the question is simple. What is real?

The plethora of books, videos, seminars, gurus, and opinions about our reality on this spinning orb is almost overwhelming. The one idea though that keeps pushing ahead of all others is that, we are making it all up, that we are living in a hologram.

Our proposition here at The Wealthy Attitude is also very, very simple. If indeed we are living an experience we are "making up", let's "make up" something absolutely magnificent.

This video will likely convince you where the power in your life exists. Enjoy...

Perception - The Reality Beyond Matter

Pursue The Means - Live The Dreams

The Butterfly Circus

Hello there everyone and welcome back. If you have been a subscriber here at The Wealthy Attitude for any time you know that one of our most favorite people is the outstanding Nick Vujicic. Nick's contributions have positively impacted untold thousands of people who simply needed to know that they were indeed "whole", just as he knows he is.

Nick's latest initiative will propel him in to the company of our times greatest personal awareness contributors. Take the next twenty minutes to appreciate what he tells us all about in...

The Butterfly Circus

Pursue the Means - Live The Dreams