Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – What is the Lesson?

Tags

Attachment, backup, creativity, Problems, redundancy, Resilience, Spiritual, spirituality

I missed yesterday’s posting because of a laptop that decided to die on me. I thought we lost power in the house, but actually it was my laptop battery. HP laptops need a working battery, despite being plugged in, before the operating system will kick in (My brother is a professional techie, and helped me figure it out).

Not a big deal since I have a desktop, but my desktop has been unused for about 6 months, and now I’m dealing with all of the updates that I didn’t do. Oh, well.

What does this have to do with spirituality? It is a lesson in undue attachment. I thought I was living a pretty detached life, but then this laptop thing happened and I went into a bit of a tizzy. The lesson was clear. I am not as detached as I thought I was.

Well, I’ve got a battery on order and things are back to normal, but wait….I don’t have a webcam anymore. Oh no!!!! Not a problem I’ll go to Amazon and place an order. Webcams are out of stock on Amazon, Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart. Logitech, a manufacturer of webcams is out too. I thought for a moment. It’s the remote work that has increased one thousand fold since the lockdown.

To overcome this, I’m using a Bluetooth keyboard and my iPhone app to make today’s posting. My PC is updating and is only at 24% so it was time to get creative. It was also a keen lesson on the importance of backup systems and redundancy. Lesson learned on a few different fronts.

I missed yesterday’s posting due to this debacle, but now I’m back on track.

The moral of the story. You always have room to improve and you are never safe from unexpected issues that pop up. It’s how you handle these problems and continue to strive forward that matters.

Well, folks. That’s all I got for today as I stare at a blue screen with 24% on it. I hope each of you has a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Give it a Rest.

Tags

Do something else, Give it a rest, Let it be, Problems, Take some time, Unconscious mind, wisdom

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

John Steinbeck

Ever run into a problem that you just couldn’t solve? You work your tail off. You brainstorm. You put in place a plan of action. You still fail. It can be very frustrating.

Take a break. Give it a rest. The solution will reveal itself. Sometimes after a good night’s sleep. Sometimes after a good meal. Sometimes after you’ve put it aside for something more pleasurable. The subconscious mind is a powerful tool. It continues to work on the problem, even when you aren’t. That’s why this quote is so important. You can apply it to any problem, goal, or task.

I love Steinbeck. He was a great writer. He also had a pragmatic way of approaching his problems. His goal was writing one good page a day. That was it. If he wrote one good page in 15 minutes, he was done for the day. If it took him 3 hours, that’s was ok too.

I’m at that step in book writing called “scene creation”. It can be difficult. A story reveals itself to you as you work through it. Sometimes you hit a great way for your character to deal with something; other times you’re just drudging through the day, hoping for some inspiration.

I like to chip away at things. I don’t like to grind through 3 hours of misery. I do a little here today. I do a little more tomorrow. It works for me. It also lets me give my story some time to develop in my head, as I think about it throughout the day. My writing time is between 12 am and 3 am. I do my best to get as much done as possible on my blog, journal, letter writing, and working on my book. I do a bunch of other things as well, but the bulk of my 3 hours is writing anything and everything. It’s quiet, because my family is sleeping and when I get up I can socialize, run errands, and all the rest without worrying about what I have to do today because it is already done. The only things I do during the day are my exercise routine and my meditation practice.

Whether you are writing, composing music, writing a computer program, or struggling to come up with a solution to a problem. Give it some time. Go exercise, sleep on it, watch a show, or spend some time on something else that takes your mind off of things. You’ll be amazed at what you come up with when you return to your work.

Stay safe, stay informed, and follow the guidance of your local authorities.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Solving Problems

Tags

Bifurcation, Chaos, entropy, Problems, Solving Problems, Spiritual, Systems, Transformation

There is nothing wrong with asking for help, but we must remember that our purpose for being on earth is to learn how to arrive at the correct solution to our own problems. We have to write the script and—as well as we can—figure out how to untangle the plot.

Harold Klemp, ECK Wisdom on Solving Problems, p. 2.

Imagine yourself in a boat. You’re enjoying the breeze coming off of the water. You see the sun dance across the surface. Everything is sublime.

You look down and see water coming into the boat through a hole. “Oh, my.”, you say to yourself. Troubles come into our lives unexpectedly. We’re floating along without a care in the world, and then a hole appears, and the water comes flowing in.

Problems in our lives arise this way. Some we can see coming. Others are unexpected. They blindside us.

Sometimes when we solve a problem, we try to bail out the water coming into our boat, hoping we can get rid of the water more quickly than it comes in. This is an example of our “system” trying to rid itself of entropy by getting rid of the excess energy coming into a system. This will work for a while, but we soon conclude that we have put a bandaid on the problem, but not solved the underlying cause behind the problem–the hole in the boat is still there.

Another solution to our leaking boat is to block the hole. This is like blocking out the entropy coming into our system. Here, we pull off our shirt or grab some item we brought with us and block up the hole. Is the hole still there? Yep. This didn’t solve the problem either. The underlying cause is still plaguing us.

Then we finally arrive upon our answer. We let the boat sink and swim to shore. We transform the system by throwing out the faulty boat and learn to swim in the water without a boat.

In the abstract, a problem is entropy throwing our system into chaos. The boat is our system. The hole is the problem. The water is the entropy overloading the system because of the weakness (hole) in it. Subsequently, the chaos overcomes the current system, and it transforms the system to a new and stable one that can withstand the water.

This is how problems transform us. When our lives are calm, we are satisfied and ride the wave of life. When a problem arises, sometimes we can block the problem, run away from the problem, or transform. Blocking or running away are temporary solutions. Transformation is the key. We have to rewrite the code that caused the problem in the first place.

Many of our problems are a disconnect with what is and how we want things to be. It isn’t the situation that is problematic; it is the way we “see” the situation. The problem is internal. Change the way you view a problem, and the problem typically ceases to exist.

I hope each of you has a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Minding Our Own Gardens

Tags

Autonomy, Cause and Effect, Independence, Law of Non-Interference, Learning from mistakes, Problems, Solving Problems

Most of our problems are self-made. When things go wrong, if we take responsibility and do something that gives us greater understanding, life becomes easier.

This is how it should be, rather than having someone always giving us spiritual, emotional, or physical healings.

The idea is not to hide from life: It is to live life, but without making the same mistakes we did before.

—Harold Klemp
The Language of Soul

This is a great quote. This quote applies to all of us. What I would like to talk about today is staying out of other people’s way.

All of us run across challenges in our lives. How do we deal with them? We just do. Our solutions may not be the best solution to a problem, but we solve the problem. Sometimes we learn something; sometimes we are just glad to fix the problem and get a breather. It is nice when someone comes along and helps us solve a problem, but what do we learn? Do we go back to that person each time this particular problem arises? No, we would run out of benefactors quickly if this is what we did. Even our families would get sick of hearing about the same problem repeatedly. It’s nice to get a helping hand from time to time, but it doesn’t help us solve a problem and avoid it again in the future.

When we get hit with a problem, we gain much more by solving the problem ourselves and learning what caused the problem in the first place. When we learn what caused a problem, we know how to avoid it. Hence, the problem and its precursor are no longer capable of causing us problems. When other people pitch in and bail us out, we fail to learn as much as we could have.

If you see your child struggling with something, what’s your first response? Dive in and help right? Your child is happy that their frustration is ended, but what did they learn? Sometimes you need to help. The child may be having a problem with something that is way over their head. Think about the day your child learned how to tie their shoes. Wasn’t it terrific? It was probably painful to watch them struggle with it, but when they finally get it, it’s such a rewarding experience for them. They feel great and you get to pile on the accolades. What if you keep jumping in to help them? They never learn how to tie their shoes and you have to continue to help them. Not a great solution right?

This is what I am talking about. We always want to jump in, but we have to hold back. We have to let other people learn from their mistakes. They can’t learn from them if we always solve their problems. Just like your kid learning to tie her shoes, they’ll be dependent on you forever, unless they learn how to solve the problem for themselves.

It’s alright to pitch in if someone asks for help. They’re a friend or colleague and we want to help when asked. It’s another thing to stick our noses where they don’t belong. What Harold Klemp is talking about is the Law of Non-interference. This law dictates that we do not interfere with other people’s lives unless we are asked. We allow our friends and family to figure things out for themselves. At least we should.

The same thing follows for us. Ask for help when you need it, but give a real effort to solving your own problems, particularly the puzzle of how you caused the problem to begin with. Most of our problems have roots in our own actions and decisions. We cause them. Learn what caused the problem and you’ll know how to avoid it forever.

I hope each of you has a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Patience and Compassion

Tags

Compassion, Difficulty, Failures, Fishing, Patience, Problems, Smiles, Tests, Wins

“The tests that are easy for us are difficult for others. This is the nature of life. And it means that we, as human beings, must learn patience and compassion. The wheel always turns.” – Harold Klemp – The Language of Soul

Fishing requires a lot of patience. People require patience too. Even you.

Have you ever found yourself becoming frustrated when you are having a difficulty? You try and try and try even harder and you still can’t get it right?

Compassion is trying to feel what the other person is feeling. Sometimes people are stumped by something you have mastered. It’s so easy to feel superior. It’s so easy to look down on others. It’s really easy to do this to yourself.

My wife is good at a lot of things I am not good at. I am good at some things she is not good at. We align perfectly in this respect. My wife’s discipline in the gym, puts me to shame. Her diet crushes mine. She motivates me to workout harder.

I am an academic. School comes easy to me. To my wife, not so much. I help her with her writing, show her how to study and learn new things, teach her how a consistent study habit is better than inconsistent studying. She learns that learning is easier when we are comfortable making mistakes.

We are all good at certain things and suck at others. It’s better to give ourselves a break when we are learning something new. When we learn something new, we fail. We fail frequently. When we fail, we can take it easy on ourselves. We can analyze why we failed, learn from it, and move forward. When we give ourselves the right to fail, failure becomes easier to deal with. Once this occurs, we learn more, because we are OK with ourselves when we fail.

People are like this too. Make it easy for them when they fail. Don’t look down on them. Don’t make snide comments. Tell them it’s OK. Help them see where they made a mistake and show them what they learned. Then help them start again.

You’ll be amazed how good it feels to help someone learn something or get a win for themselves. This is why my wife loves being a teacher. She gets to see her kids make little wins every day. She says, “When my students make a breakthrough, they smile from ear-to-ear. I never get tired of those smiles.” We are all kids in her classroom, looking for a patient teacher who will show us how to do something and keep working with us until we win.

I hope all you have a great Saturday! Here’s to patience and compassion for our friends, our loved ones, and ourselves.

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Complainers

Tags

Beliefs, Complaining, Delete, Distort, Generalize, habits, Limiting beliefs, Neural Pathways, Problems, Values

Image by Prettysleepy2 from Pixabay 

“When you are complaining, you become a living, breathing, crap magnet.” – T. Harv Eker

Have you ever worked with someone who blames others, complains constantly, and never gets anything done? They are toxic and uncomfortable to be around. What’s even more sad is that they don’t even realize what they are doing half of the time.

If you don’t think your thoughts are real, tangible things that create your destiny. Think the worst thing you can think of happening every day for the next month and find out where that thinking will take you. You see, the brain is an economist. It likes to save energy, because it consumes more energy than your body does. It conserves energy by automating everything you show it you want to do all the time. It does this by strengthening neural pathways each time they are used.

Complaining, playing the “blame game”, and all the rest, are habits. If you habitually complain, blame, and all the rest, your brain will continue to show you every reason possible that you are justified in your complaining and blaming. Your mind will delete inputs from your senses that counter this belief. Your mind will generalize inputs to reinforce the same thoughts across many areas. Your brain will alter inputs to satisfy what it already believes. Subsequently, if you believe that everyone is out to get you, things will always go wrong, and you will never get this or that, your brain will make sure you are right. Once these thoughts and beliefs are hard-wired in your brain, you are stuck with them, and your life will literally be a living hell.

The only way to salvage this situation is to take responsibility for yourself. You are 100% responsible for everything that you have in your life. You are 100% responsible for your results. You are 100% responsible for your attitude and mindset. Everything in your life as it is, is the result of your actions, your beliefs and values, your decisions, and your attitude.

If you are unhappy with your life, change your beliefs and values. Change your attitude. Take your time and make better decisions. Act differently. You have to do this. Your friends can’t. Your relatives can’t. Your husband or wife can’t. It’s all up to you. You dug the hole you’re in, you can dig your way out.

Stop looking for proof to justify your feelings. Your mind is already sabotaging you. It will find the proof, because you have hard-wired it to do so. Look at your beliefs. How can you make yourself happy? How can you make yourself calm and collected? How can you make yourself less worrisome? It all starts with your current beliefs and values. If you believe all of your problems are caused by other people (bad boss, stupid people, uncooperative support personnel), your brain will prove it to you. It will identify every weakness of the people around you and prove to you that they are all brain-dead and are out to get you. Change that belief to I have a great boss, the people I work with all want to win, and support personnel will do all they can to help me succeed in my role, and your brain will slowly but surely begin to prove that to you as well. You see how this works?

Changing your beliefs is not easy. You have built these beliefs over and over and over again. You can change them. You do this the same way you built them. You repeat a new belief you want to create over and over and over again. My boss is great. My boss isn’t perfect but wants to win like I do. My boss is there to support me. My boss takes care of me. My coworkers are friendly and supportive. My coworkers are fun to be around. Support personnel do all they can to accommodate my needs. Support personnel are nice to work with. Support personnel are just like me–they want to do their jobs well.

You can literally do this with any of your belief systems. You can rewrite them. You can feed them and stop feeding the limiting beliefs that cause you to suffer. Look for pain in your life. Look for suffering. These are both huge clues in finding your limiting beliefs. If you complain, are unhappy, and believe that everything and everyone is out to get you, these are all limiting beliefs. A negative person will find something wrong in every situation. A positive person will find something right in every situation and the people they work with. Guess who is the happier person who will continue to look for more right things in their life? You guessed right.

A positive person’s beliefs work the same way a negative person’s beliefs do. They distort, delete, or generalize all of their inputs to satisfy their belief system. Change your beliefs and you’ll change your results.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Harold Klemp, Mental Habits, Problems, Self-discipline, Surrender, The Language of Soul

Every problem contains a solution. The key is self-discipline and surrender of the mental habits to the Holy Spirit.—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Do you remember any problems in your past that took a while to solve? What solved the issue? Did you change something? Did you realize that the “problem” wasn’t really a problem? Did the problem resolve itself or did you have to do something to solve it?

Problems come in all shapes and sizes. Some of our problems arise because of a mistake in our thinking. Some problems arise because of personal neglect. Some of our problems involve people. Some of our problems involve things.

We have problems with our health. We have problems at work. We have problems with the stuff we own. We have problems with other people. How do we solve these issues?

I have solved problems by changing my mindset. This is what Harold refers to with mental habits. Some of our problems are literally caused because we want our world to be a certain way. These problems tend to fade when we look at our life and world differently.

I used to have a lot of focus on money. When I realized that I had more than enough to survive and thrive, my money issues disappeared overnight. I have also had problems with people in my life. When I realized that other people’s problems were none of my business, they faded from view.

Self-discipline can eliminate a lot of problems in life. If you exercise, eat in accordance with your body’s needs, and get enough sleep, many of the ailments that we suffer from will disappear. When we detach ourselves from material things, outcomes, and our egos, many of our problems fade away. When you adopt the belief that everything is in its rightful place in the worlds of God, our expectations no longer cause us problems because we begin to accept things as they are.

People are a source of problems. You may have a disagreement with a loved one. We are all human and these problems will arise. When we realize that everyone has problems they need to work through and that these problems are theirs not ours, life smooths out quite a bit.

Problems can also cause a lot of worry, particularly those problems we do not see a solution for. When we realize that problems are given to us to solve and grow and learn from, they tend to evolve into lessons. There is a solution to every problem we face. What I have discovered is once we solve a problem or a set of related problems they tend to stay away.

We all have problems. They arise, we change, we take action, we adjust. Problems are a reality. None of us will exist without problems arising in our lives or the lives of our loved ones. Problems arise for us to solve. They are not done to us. Be confident that problems have a solution, they will go away just as easily as they arose, and that you will be a better person when they are gone.

Cherish the problems in your life. They are what make life interesting and exciting. Problems are not really problems in the end. They are merely communications from God to alter our way of thinking and doing. Nothing more. They are teaching us how to become more patient, loving, and spiritual.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday

Tags

Challenges, Guidelines, Paradigm Shift, Paradigms, Problems, Robert H. Schuller, Signs, Trials

Image credit: http://www.brainyquote.com

I attend a monthly book discussion. This group discusses religious books and we interact with one another for about an hour about what we gained from the readings we have completed prior to the meeting. Today, we had a conversation about the challenges and trials each of us runs into throughout our lives.

One of my colleagues spoke up and said, “I think it is our mindset that causes the trouble. Some people may think that things are happening to them, while other people think things happen for them.” By changing that one word, problems, challenges, and trials all take on a whole new meaning. What if all of our problems, trials, and challenges happened for us and not to us. Something for you to think about.

This week is filled with working out, reading, writing, and interacting. From time-to-time I find myself stuck or waffling about trying to figure out how to move forward with one of my goals. The one I always find the most difficult is weight loss. So, yet again, I am tweaking my daily schedule to find that new thing I can do to move forward.

I finished the Kris Gethin’s 4-week-2-Shred program and lost some weight but not as much as I would like to. So, it’s off to a new program called Jim Stoppani’s Shortcut to Strength. I’m looking forward to this one.

I am at a point in my life that I consider anything that happens to me as something happening for me. We are all here in this lifetime to learn—to be better than we have been before. As our proficiency improves in one area the game changes to hit us with a previously conquered challenge and introduce a new challenge we must face to attain that next step forward.

The way we look at our world can cause us to be uplifted or degraded. What way would you like to look at the world? Are your problems outside of you, caused by other things and people, or are your problems inside you, caused by you and no one else? Do things happen for you or to you? These questions can only be answered by you.

Until next time…

Dave

Reference

Robert H. Schuller Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved October 8, 2018, from BrainyQuote.com Website: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/robert_h_schuller_107067

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday

Tags

Goals, Perseverance, problem-solving, Problems, Weight Loss

“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” – Robert H. Schuller

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/robert_h_schuller_107067?src=t_motivational

I’m still tracking my weight loss. Today’s weigh-in: 217lbs. One more pound. Steady and slow, but steady.

Today’s exercise routine was a Back and Bicep workout, coupled with 26 minutes of Cardio. I’m eating 5-6 meals a day but focusing on minimal carb intake (between 20 and 50 grams). I’ve discovered over the last year that I lose weight when I can keep the carbs low.

We are all unique. What works for me, may not work for you. What works for your brother or sister, may not work for you. It’s taken me a while to understand this concept, but it does apply to the types of foods you can eat and tolerate, the type of exercise your body responds to, the amount of sleep you need, and even the types of supplements that work or do not work.

I used to spend a lot of money on supplements. Now, I stick with just a pre- and -intra-workout powder. My body doesn’t like whey protein but loves meat. I can eat as much as I want and my body grinds through it. I recommend two different brands for pre-workouts that have proven to be effective—JYM Supplements and Kaged Muscle. I’m using Kaged Muscle’s pre- and intra-workout (named Prekaged and Inkaged appropriately). You can find these and other supplements on bodybuilding.com.

I’ll be candid with you. There are some days that I absolutely dread going to the gym. Today was one of those days. The caffeine and other ingredients in my pre-workout provide me with a nice boost and helps me get through days like today. Once I’m in the gym, I’m fine, but getting there is sometimes a challenge—this is when the pre-workouts really help me.

When we are pursuing goals, mistakes will be made, doubts will arise, and our motivation will be tested. These problems are all nudges to adjust our plans or reset milestones. When we pursue a goal, we are traveling over untraveled territory. Just like the settlers of the American West, we too will face challenges we are not prepared for. Like Schuller suggests, we adjust. We change gears. We pick a new route. We do not quit, we reformulate.

My road to weight loss will continue until I’ve gotten off the fat I want to get off. It will not stop. It will not cease. I will persevere.

Keep these things in mind as you pursue your goals of writing a book, creating a business, learning a new language or skill. You will run into problems—it is inevitable. Just remember: problems guide us, they identify something we didn’t think about when we first laid our plans. Keep going, keep adjusting, keep moving—you will get where you want to go—just don’t quit.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

Tags

Harold Klemp, Mental Habits, Problems, Self-discipline, Surrender

“Every problem contains a solution. The key is self-discipline and surrender of the mental habits to the Holy Spirit.” – Harold Klemp – The Language of Soul

We are all faced with problems from time-to-time. Some of them are large problems that could take years to resolve, while others are small, but pesky issues that need to be handled quickly, and are normally out of our hair in a short amount of time. Some of our problems are caused due to health. Some are related to money issues. Others relate to our work or relationships.

As Harold Klemp states, there is always a solution to a problem. Sometimes when we are not ready to solve a problem, there are no answers forthcoming. This is due to our emotions getting in the way. When we are letting our emotions get the best of us, it is impossible to think. We cannot elevate our consciousness to clear thinking until we have gained control over our emotions or risen above them.

See you tomorrow!