Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Reciprocity

Tags

Altruism, Ego, Giving, Leo Buscaglia, Reciprocity, Saturday, Selflessness, Spiritual

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

Leo Buscaglia

Giving, teaching, empathizing, sharing. These all involve doing something for someone else. Giving another person your time, even if it is to just listen to them. Share what you’ve learned, share your happiness, share something that is special to you. The pay back for these actions is contentment, happiness, and a warmth you can’t get from doing things for yourself.

This warmth is something that is hard to explain. It is like your heart gets warm. It permeates your whole body.

Doesn’t it feel great when you can help someone and that frown on their face turns to a smile? Maybe you’re a good listener and one of your friends needs to vent. Isn’t it great to just listen to someone vent and work things out for themselves?

Spirituality doesn’t have to be a formal religion. It doesn’t require a holy book or going to a service or meeting. It literally is nothing more than tapping into that inner part of yourself that knows what good is. It doesn’t concern itself with the petty and small ego. It gives. It gives without concern for anything in return. It gives because others need it. Nothing more.

When you give of yourself without expecting anything in return, the ego shrinks. You can’t live without an ego, but you can live with a shrunken one. Whenever you think about others more than you do yourself, the ego is put aside. This “putting aside” demonstrates that the ego is not all you. It is only a creation of you so you can survive.

I’ll stop there.

Have a great Saturday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Attitude Adjustment

Tags

Attitude, Blessings, Ego, God, Gratitude, Little Self, Mind

If we want to keep the blessings of life coming to us, we must learn to be grateful for whatever is given.

—Harold Klemp

The Language of Soul

Gratitude is an interesting character trait. It requires us at times to really dig deep to find something, something to be grateful for. As the quote says, we must LEARN to be grateful for whatever is given.

So, how do you learn to be grateful? I think this is an individual endeavor. What works for me may not work for you. I started out with the 5-minute journal and followed the instructions that it provides at the beginning of it when you pull it out of the package that arrives. “List three things you are grateful for” in the morning. “List three things you are grateful for” in the evening before bed. This simple, short exercise helped me finally grasp what it means to be grateful.

When I first started I listed out the common things everyone is grateful for. I was grateful for my wife. I was grateful for my stepdaughters. I was grateful for my immediate family. After a while, when I began to see the benefits of explicitly writing down what I was grateful for, I began to get more detailed. Instead of “I am grateful for my wife” I would write down “I am grateful for my wife because she works so hard to take care of me and our girls.” When I began writing the specifics of why I was grateful for something, the feeling I had changed to a stronger feeling.

There’s another quote I began to think about during this time period. The quote reads, “Things are done for us, not to us.” I don’t know who the author of this quote is, but it had an impact on me. Think about that for a moment. Things are done for you, not to you. Think of the last time you had that “woe is me” feeling. Now think about this quote. It is hard to capture gratitude when things are crumbling around you, but if you truly embrace, “things are done for you, not to you”, you begin to see that God is doing everything for you so you can become a more spiritual being.

Maybe God is trying to tell you to change your diet, or it’s time to get a new job, or it’s time to move to a new area. If you believe that God is doing things for you and not to you, some events in your life that are traumatic or unsettling, take on a whole new light.

These attitudinal changes make a huge difference in how you approach your day. Think how good you will feel when you discover that nothing can rattle you, that your internal happiness cannot be affected by the changes in weather, what other people do or don’t do, or how things turn out for you. The human mind is so feeble and incapable of grasping the whole that we rarely see how God works in our lives, nor in the lives of others. It is beyond the human mind’s capability to see the infinite amount of variables that intertwine to make our reality.

Gratitude is a simple character trait. It is being grateful for your life. It is being grateful for what you have. It is being purposefully grateful for the blessings that God has given you. The ego and the human mind are very small vessels. They are necessary for our survival, but easily offended, upset, and dumbfounded. This is where a faith-belief must take hold in your heart. If God is perfect, which IT is, everything in this universe must be in its rightful place—everything. Everything that God does for us must be received as a blessing not a curse.

When you begin shifting your attention from what you don’t have to what you do have your life will take on a whole new meaning. Try this out. Use a pad of paper, a journal, or a computer program (I use MS OneNote) to do my gratitude journaling. It has made a huge impact on my life and it will do the same for you.

If any of you try this, keep me posted on any changes you feel or what impact this change in attitude brings into your life. Feel free to leave your revelations or insights in the comments below.

As always, have a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Do One Thing

Tags

Ego, Expectations, Giving, Lifting, Love, One Thing, Rising, Sacrifice, Slight

Image by andreas160578 from Pixabay

Before you can improve your life and find a measure of happiness, you must learn to do one thing every day out of pure love. That means, don’t expect anything in return—neither thanks nor happiness. Pick that occasion carefully. Then, whatever that one act of giving of yourself to someone else is, do it with all your heart.

—Harold Klemp

The Language of Soul

What does this quote mean? I pondered this quote for years before I really understood its meaning. It means to literally do something for God. I like to focus on yard work for this one daily gift. I do it as a means of pitching in around the house, but anyone can go through the motions. When you do something out of pure love, it means you put all you have into that one thing. You take one more step to do the job better than you would normally do it.

When you do something of this nature every day, you get something back, even though you don’t expect it. The ego depletes when you do something of this nature. That is a good thing. The ego tends to get us in trouble, particularly when we feel like we’ve been slighted or disrespected. When the ego is eliminated or ignored, you cannot be slighted or disrespected. The ego is the only thing that can define slight or disrespect.

It is hard to explain the feeling that comes when you’ve done a good job for a good job’s sake. It is there, even if it is slight. You feel a rising inside. You feel something that is deeply fulfilling. Try this out for a day if you’d like. Then, pay attention to how you feel as you do the job and afterwards.

It’s these little things we can do each day that make a huge difference in our lives. I have found that the little things we do have the largest impact.

I wish all of you a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Cardio

Tags

Cardio, Ego, Exercise, healthy living, Injuries, Random Program, Treadmill, weight lifting, Workarounds

PM:

• 25 minutes Cardio Treadmill Random Program

Today I wanted to address our limitations in the gym. Each of our bodies is unique. My particular “uniqueness” involves the effects of a lower-back surgery I got in 2003. This surgery helped me decide to retire from the Army in 2005 and resulted in nerve damage to my left sciatic nerve. Occasionally I’ll suffer from numbness in the left leg and a tingling sensation in my left foot. This is what they call neuropathy. I could take medication for it, but prefer to just grin and deal with it. Because of this unique condition I have to avoid certain exercises like deadlifts, squats, and lunges. I don’t have the balance in my left leg and although I can still do deadlifts and squats, I prefer not to. Each time I have incorporated one of these two exercises in my routine I hurt my back. It’s not fun to hurt your back. So, I do other exercises that are easier on my back and still get a decent workout in.

It is really crucial to take care of yourself in the gym. Weight lifting is no joke. I read somewhere that you should check your ego at the door. This is solid advice. I see so many young people lifting weights that are way too heavy for them. The form they use is horrific and they are just asking for a major injury. Ah, youth.

Anyway, this is my contribution today. Do you have any issues with any exercises because of a medical or physical condition? If you do, reply in the comments section with the problem you have and what you do instead.

See you at the finish line…

Dave