20 Saturday Apr 2019
Posted in Workout Routine
20 Saturday Apr 2019
Posted in Spiritual Saturday
Tags
Anger, Attachment, Contentment, Detachment, Discrimination, Forgiveness, Greed, Humility, Lust, Passions of the Mind, Soul, tolerance, Vanity, Virtues
“Remember, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Stephen Covey
Read more at: Brainy Quote
Have you ever wondered how you can think about thinking? What part of you is watching you? My religion is ECKANKAR and we call this you—soul. Soul is a spiritual being. It is the real you. It is that part of you that can watch what you are thinking, saying, and doing. Soul is what thinks about what the mind thinks and what the body does. Soul uses your body to experience this life.
I believe in reincarnation. To believe in reincarnation, there must be a something that outlives the body and takes a body when it is time to live another life. This is soul. Soul experiences. Soul learns. Soul needs a body to experience things here. It needs a body to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. It needs to experience the mind’s memory, it’s intuition, and its subconscious, automatic processes.
Soul is the real you. It is a spark of God. God creates soul and soul exists because God loves it. Soul is forever. It never dies, it merely moves to another realm of existence when the human body dies. In this realm it interacts with other souls to continue its learning on another plane of existence. It can return here, it can go to other dimensions or planes, it will go where it needs to go to continue its spiritual journey.
I know this may be a little mind-blowing to some of you. I like using Saturdays to move away from the self-improvement chats and all the rest to dedicate one day a week to discuss my religion and some principles and insights it offers. I am not here to evangelize or push my beliefs down your throat. I merely want to educate. In ECKANKAR, we believe that each soul chooses the religious path it needs during this lifetime. Some souls select Islam, some Christianity, some Buddhism, some Judaism, or Hinduism. Regardless of the religion soul chooses, it is the perfect religion for that soul at the time. As an ECKIST, I believe this to be true. Your religion is yours and yours alone. It is exactly what you need in this lifetime to move ahead spiritually.
The viewpoint of soul is the highest. When you come to realize that soul is the real you, life gets a lot easier. Life isn’t scary anymore, when you realize that you have an infinite amount of lives left. Soul never dies. Soul is infinite. This life will come and go, but soul is forever. Soul takes all its experiences with it when this body finally goes to sleep for the last time. Soul needs these experiences to learn the lessons it needs to gain wisdom and progress spiritually.
Think about all the things you learn during a lifetime. You learn about love. You learn about work. You learn about loss and suffering. You learn about joy and ecstasy. You learn about horror and evil. Soul learns why the passions of the mind like lust, anger, greed, attachment, and vanity are dead ends. Over time, it learns that the virtues are ever-lasting. These are discrimination, tolerance/forgiveness, contentment, detachment, and humility.
When you are lustful, angry, greedy, attached to material things or ideas, or vain, there is a coinciding feeling, a pit in your stomach, an ache in your heart, or some other discomfort. When you are discriminating, tolerant and forgiving, content, detached, and humble, the feelings are lighter. You have a feeling that is long lasting. Things are just right. Soul needs to learn these things through millions of lives and even more experiences. It is the only way.
You are soul, a spiritual being, learning and experiencing through a human body, not the other way around. I wish all of you a Happy Easter tomorrow (for those that celebrate).
Baraka Bashad (May the blessings be).
Until next time…
Dave
19 Friday Apr 2019
Posted in Funny Friday
18 Thursday Apr 2019
Posted in Workout Routine
Tags
Deltoids, Front Raises, Lateral Raises, Rear Delt Raises, Shoulder Presses, Trapezoids, Upright Rows
Over the next few days I am pinned to my home. My Mom is away on a trip to Minnesota and since one of us has to be with my Dad (he’s suffering from Dementia), a trip to the gym will be too long. Hence, I hit my shoulders with my exercise bands today.
PM:
That’s it for today, folks!
Until next time…
Dave
18 Thursday Apr 2019
Posted in Thankful Thursdays
“The joy I get from winning a major championship doesn’t even compare to the feeling I get when a kid writes a letter saying: ‘Thank you so much. You have changed my life.” – Tiger Woods
Read more at: Brainy Quote
If you’re a golf fan or just curious about Tiger Woods’ recent comeback at the Master’s golf tournament, this article (link above to a USA today article) is worth a read. The embedded video in this article is worth a watch too. It is a collection of videos trashing Tiger Woods as he watches. Sports heroes like Tiger Woods is what I am thankful for this week.
There are so many examples of wrongdoing in this world. Open the paper any day of the week and you are bombarded with mothers killing their children, crazed teens contemplating shooting up their school, corrupt politicians bashing each other for wrong doing, natural disasters and other horrors for our daily ingestion. Negativity sells. Our heroes take us away from the horrific, showing us time and time again that the impossible is possible.
When I was growing up, one of my heroes was Bjorn Borg. I played tennis as a young man and became captivated with the exploits of Bjorn Borg, watching him dazzle crowds across the globe as he won one grand slam after another. Our heroes beat the odds. Our heroes overcome diversity. Our heroes can do things that are difficult and make them look easy. I still remember watching Bjorn Borg in a Wimbledon final on a Sunday morning and being locked to the television screen.
I am thankful for the example our heroes set. They show us how hard work pays off. They show us how persistence wins the day. They show us that despite human weaknesses, they can overcome any obstacle and win. They also show us that the important things in life are still the little things. A letter from a fan, their family watching them win a tournament, the small human interactions that are meaningful in our lives.
Who are your heroes?
I would like to close out today’s posting with a “Thank you” to all my new followers this week. It is a real joy to check on my blog and see new followers. It is an acknowledgment that someone enjoys my writing and follows along with my postings. It is a joy to interact with people in this medium. Without followers my blog would be less enjoyable. Thank you for your patronage and time.
We are approaching the Easter Weekend. I hope all of you who celebrate have a terrific weekend and enjoy some time off from work. My sister is off for four days and coming up to visit for a couple of days. It’ll be great fun catching up on a television show and movies, going out to eat, and hanging out.
I hope each of you is having a terrific week so far.
Until next time…
Dave
17 Wednesday Apr 2019
Posted in Workout Routine
Tags
Abdominals, Back, Biceps, Cardio, Crunch, curls, Lats, Pull Downs, Rows, Treadmill
AM:
20-minute Cardio Treadmill Hill Program Level 2;
Lat Pull Downs 1 x 30; 1 x 20; 1 x 10;
Leverage Lat Row 1 x 10; 1x 20; 1 x 30;
Compound Set 3 x 10 each exercise bulleted below:
Rope Crunch 1 x 30; 1 x 20; 1 x 10;
Crunch 1 x 10; 1 x 20; 1 x 30;
Have a great day, folks!
Until next time…
Dave
17 Wednesday Apr 2019
Posted in Wisdom Wednesday
“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.” – Jacob M. Braude
I have had to learn this lesson many times throughout my life. I run across a friend. I see them struggling with a challenge, neglecting their health, or giving up on life, and I want to jump right in and try to show them the error of their ways. Then, after a few weeks or months, realize that they are not going to do anything about their situation. Have you ever run into this?
You see, people are who they are. Deep down, all of us know our weaknesses. Some people ignore them. Others have tried to make a change and realized that they are too weak to change ingrained habits. They have settled with these weaknesses and literally given up. The pain of change is too great a price for these folks to pay.
If you have a friend or colleague that has glaring weaknesses that are ruining their life, you have two choices: Remain their friend or colleague and accept these weaknesses in their character or cut them loose. They will not change because you want them to. They will not change because it is in their best interest. They will only change when the weakness they possess becomes so painful that they must change themselves.
Regardless of your opinion, people are happy with the lives they have chosen to live. You may think to yourself, “God, how do you live like that?”, but this isn’t your life—it’s theirs. Happiness is defined by each of us. What makes you happy will not necessarily make your friend or colleague happy.
You also have to examine whether the person you are dealing with is empowered or disempowered. Empowered people believe they are in charge of themselves. Disempowered people believe they are ruled by outside influences and circumstances. The empowered person is the champion who conquers adversity and overcomes their weaknesses. The disempowered person is the victim who gives up and lives with their weaknesses. See the difference?
If you are empowered, you will have very little in common with people who are disempowered. In fact, disempowered people will frustrate you to no end. Empowered people learn, apply the learning to their current circumstances, and alter themselves to improve their performance, their career, and their productivity. Disempowered people have given up; they are convinced that outside circumstances and other people our “out to get them” and blame their failure on these outside elements. Disempowered people have given up on taking action or trying to change—they have made quitting a habit. Empowered people keep trying out new ideas, new options, and look for solutions—they persist, because they know they will win if they keep trying.
Change is hard. It is hard because the habits we have built for ourselves are hard-wired in our brains. To make changes, you have to learn how to unravel these knots in your brain and create new wiring; wiring that will serve you better now and in the future. To do that, you need to know how to exploit the same processes in your brain that created the bad habits in the first place. You also need to be self-aware enough to identify which of these hard-wired scripts no longer serve you.
One of the best books I’ve ever read on making changes is Mini-Habits by Steven Guise. The Mini-Habit is simply a habit that is so small that you would have to be on your deathbed in order to fail to do it. Steven’s first mini-habit was a single push-up every day. After he had managed to master this habit, he added writing 50 words a day and reading 2 pages a day in a book he chose to tackle. The genius behind the mini-habit is that it is so small, you can easily accomplish this habit without too much thought, stress, or willpower. In fact, this is the reason Stephen is such an advocate of the process. He researched willpower and motivation and found that both aspects of our makeup are too weak to overcome the hard-wired habits in our brain, especially when you consider all the other stressors in your life and how they eat away at your willpower and motivation to begin with. There is one warning he provides, however. Mini-habits, even though they are small, must be meaningful. One push up a day is meaningful towards improving your health. Writing 50 words a day is meaningful toward writing an essay, a blog post, or even a book. Reading 2 pages a day will help you finish that book in a shorter period than not reading a book at all or reading a bunch of pages one day and then failing to touch that book for a month before reading it again.
The real benefit of mini-habits is the ability to get started on something. Once you get started on a mini-habit, you will build momentum. Once you build momentum, you will be motivated to do more than one push-up, write 50 words, or read 2 pages. You’ll likely do more exercises, write 100 words or more, and read an entire chapter of your book. This momentum will build and build, particularly if you add rewards at critical milestones.
I’ve used mini-habits since I read his book a few years ago. In fact, I’m such a huge fan, I re-read this book each year in December as I build out my goals for the next year. If you want to make changes in your life and you just haven’t been able to find anything that will help you build a new habit or make these changes, give Mini-Habits a try, you won’t be disappointed. Here’s a link to Mini-Habits on Amazon: Mini-Habits by Stephen Guise (I am not an affiliate for Mr. Guise, his book, or Amazon).
To conclude this article, I’d like to remind you that changing yourself is hard, but not impossible. You have to be persistent, utilize a strategy that will work, and monitor your progress. Don’t worry about your spouse, your friends, or your relatives. If they want to make a change, they will. If they don’t, no level of complaining, arguing, or harassment will make them change; in fact, they may stick to their guns even harder when pushed. Believe me, I’ve been down this road with a few of my friends and you won’t win. People will only make a change in their lives when they are ready. They will not change because you want them to. Take care of yourself and make the changes you decide to make in your life. It will be difficult, but you’ll get there. I wish you well on your journey.
Until next time…
Dave
16 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Workout Routine
AM:
20-minute Cardio Treadmill Hill – Level 2
Chest Press Machine 1 x 30; 3 x 20; 2 x 10;
Chest Fly Machine 3 x 20;
Cable Triceps Push Down 3 x 20;
Cable Overhead Triceps Extension 3 x 20;
Calf Press 6 x 20;
Have a great day, folks!
Until next time…
Dave
16 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Ted Talk
When we think of AI, we envision movies like The Matrix and The Terminator. We naturally imagine a different world where a computer will be smarter than us and may have different values than we do. In this TED Talk, Nick Bostrom offers views of what an AI future would look like. Prepare to be astounded.
Until next time…
Dave
15 Monday Apr 2019
Posted in Workout Routine
Tags
Cardio, Hamstring Curls, Hamstrings, Leg Extension, Leg Press, Quadriceps, strength training, Treadmill
Hey, folks! I hope your Monday is going well! Today, in the U.S. is tax day. For some it is a day of dread. I hit legs and abdominals in today’s workout routine. My workout is below.
AM:
Leg Presses 4 x 20;
Leg Extensions 3 x 20;
Seated Hamstring Curls 3 x 20;
Crunch Machine 3 x 20;
20 minutes Cardo Treadmill Hill Program
Have a great week folks! I’ll see you tomorrow for another workout installment.
Until next time…
Dave
