ONE STEP AT A TIME

"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step."
-- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Does the prospect of changing and growing seem monumental to you? Just too much to tackle?

Then consider this approach. Take a simple step of affirming your openness to experience more or something new. Or a different first step might be to let go of judgment by embracing the neutral. Begin to see the people, activities and things around you as neither good nor bad.

A journey is made of many small steps. Don't focus on a far-off destination if you’re not clear how to get there. Build a foundation that is solid for you. We get to new places one step at a time.

"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time."
-- John Wanamaker

*** Do you feel an urge or calling in you to be or do more?

EGO'S TRICKS

"One of the great dangers of transformational work is that the ego attempts to sidestep deep psychological work by leaping into the transcendent too soon. This is because the ego always fancies itself much more ‘advanced’ than it actually is."
-- Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson

The Tibetan teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, warned of the trap of spiritual materialism. He says we must be ever diligent to spot the ego's use of the spiritual journey to further its own ends.

We may think it's spiritual to yearn for divine connection. And yet, if the longing is to fill an emptiness inside, just how does this differ from the one who yearns for money or possessions to fill the inner void? Do we look to our spiritual practices as proof of our evolved consciousness or as protection against fears?

Any time we use spiritual disciplines to maintain our identity and security, we are not yet on the path of genuine spiritual development.

"Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment."
-- Chögyam Trungpa

Is your spiritual development important to you?

BELIEVE IN YOUR OWN SUCCESS

"What you believe yourself to be, you are."
-- Claude M. Bristol

Do you believe, deep down inside of you, that you can succeed in what you want to do?

Beliefs are strong, and they have the power to attract what is believed to us. If we doubt our ability to succeed, if we in fact believe we WON'T succeed, then sure enough, that’s what will happen.

What do you believe about yourself? You have the power to change your beliefs, and that will change your outcome. Set goals you believe you can accomplish. Your beliefs will shape your actions. As you achieve these goals, you'll begin to believe you are capable of succeeding and of doing even more.

"It is better to believe than to disbelieve; in so doing you bring everything to the realm of possibility."
-- Albert Einstein

"Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution."
-- Dr. David Schwartz

Our process is clear. First 'know yourself' - your personality and direction in life. Then 'create a plan'. Next 'heal yourself and what holds you back. Then you can expand and 'grow yourself'.

BE AWARE OF YOUR MOTIVES

"Ordinarily, everything we do is in our self-interest. Everything."
-- Anthony de Mello

"Remember, most of the things you think you need are ego trips designed to bolster your image and your perception of security.... You'll waste a lot of energy satisfying your ego only to find that, as soon as it's got what it wants, it ignores all your efforts and promptly nails another list of demands to your forehead. The ego will always try to force you to slave for its vision. I wouldn't stand for that BS if I were you."
-- Stuart Wilde

"We have no need to teach pure motives to the mind. All that is necessary to make the mind pure is to undo the negative conditioning to which it has been subjected; then we will be left with pure, unconditioned awareness."
-- Eknath Easwaran

Access your own inner wisdom by tapping into your subconscious and intuition. Release stress, blocks and negative emotions, and spark imagination and greater vision.

GO FOR PASSION!

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life."
-- Frederico Fellini

How do you ration your passion?

In what situations have you experienced your life to the fullest? Do you live your passion as fully as you can? How do you limit your experience of passion?

Passion emerges when your essence expresses itself. How do you stop yourself from fully expressing who you are?

"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark."
-- Henri Frederic Amiel

"We could hardly wait to get up in the morning."
-- Wilbur Wright

*** Do you feel an urge or calling in you to be or do more? Then honour it and open to more meaning and fulfillment by exploring your life purpose. Maybe it is time to do life instead of life doing you!

DEFINE 'RICH'

"It ain't so much trouble to get rich as it is to tell when we have got rich."
-- Josh Billings

How do you define 'rich'?

If you want greater wealth, what does that mean for you? A large annual income? If so, how large? A beautiful home? Health? Security? Happiness? To be in service?

Get really specific about what would bring you a rich life. There are no right and wrong answers here. Don't judge your desires. Just dig deep to discover what it is that you really want. If you want things, explore what qualities of life those things represent to you.

"No one can tell whether they are richer or poor by turning to their ledger. It is the heart that makes a person rich. One is rich according to what one is, not according to what one has."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed."
-- Edmund Burke

BELIEVE YOU ARE A CREATOR

"Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you."
-- Shakti Gawain

We hold the power to create whatever we desire. Our ability to manifest the changes we desire depends on the depth and passion of our beliefs and on the focus of our attention.

With this understanding, we, as individuals and as society, can design a whole new future for ourselves. Our challenge is to break free of society’s world view, to truly empower our imaginations to create brand new realities. It brings a whole new meaning to 'vision.'

What do you passionately desire for your own life? For the planet?

"By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The non-existent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired."
-- Nikos Kazantzakis

INSPIRED TO CHANGE?

Are you getting the most benefit from these short Inner Journeys? Here are some ways to progressively stimulate more and more growth and change from these messages:

Read them quickly for momentary inspiration and move on to the next email.
Print them and keep them visible so you are conscious of the message during the day.
Take just 30 seconds and write in your journal as little as one word or a few sentences about how you connect with each message.
Take just 3 to 5 minutes to relax, reflect and contemplate on the messages that touch you. And then write a short note in your journal.
When a message really hits home, make the effort to explore the program that delves into that topic more deeply.
At a minimum, if a message strikes any nerve at all, take a few seconds to become aware of what nerve was struck and what it means to you.

This process builds awareness, and awareness brings change and growth - automatically!

"Everyone stumbles over the truth from time to time, but most people pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing ever happened."
-- Sir Winston Churchill

*** Awareness is the key to all change. Begin to trust yourself more deeply as you uncover new dimensions of who you are.

COMMUNICATING WITHOUT WORDS

"The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual - as we think so will we act."
-- Martha Graham

Every movement and non-movement we make is a form of communication.

How do you communicate fear, withdrawal, avoidance, shutting down, disagreeing, and an uncaring attitude?

If you aren't sure, others can probably tell you. Begin to pay attention to what your eyes and arms and facial expressions communicate. Our body language speaks louder than our words.

"An avoidance of true communication is tantamount to a relinquishment of my self-being; if I withdraw from it I am betraying not only the other but myself."
-- Karl Jaspers

*** Do you feel an urge or calling in you to be or do more? Then honour it and open to more meaning and fulfillment by exploring your life purpose. Maybe it is time to do life instead of life doing you!

OPEN TO TRUST

"When I grip the wheel too tight, I find I lose control."
-- Steve Rapson

WE SEEK TO CONTROL OUR LIVES WHEN WE DO NOT TRUST, WHEN WE DO NOT LOVE. Our ego, perceiving itself to be vulnerable and insecure, uses control in an effort to protect itself.

At the root of our need to control, we find FEAR. It may be fear of the unknown. Fear of not coping. Fear of loss. Or possibly even fear of looking stupid. And as our efforts to control other people and events invariably fail, our fear increases.

Trust, on the other hand, is a quality of the soul. While control is a tool of the mind, TRUST AND FAITH ARE ASPECTS OF THE HEART. Trust comes with the deep knowing that we are spiritual beings in physical bodies. When we trust enough in life to give up our need to control, we can relax and open to the flow of energy in our lives. This brings peace of mind.

"The only real security in life lies in relishing life's insecurity."
-- M. Scott Peck

"Do not abandon trust when your ego thinks things should be different than they are."
-- Wayne Dyer

Discover the power of trusting yourself. Connect with your inner guidance that knows the way. Life can be easier and more fulfilling.

REVIEW YOUR LIFE

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."
-- James Levin

Take a few minutes today to reflect on what has happened recently and to put the last week in perspective. What made an impact on you this last week? What do you want to set as a goal for next week?

Reflection helps us step back from the details of our lives and see the bigger picture with fresh eyes. It's worth a few moments of your time. Review your week and come up with at least one conclusion, insight or learning and write it in your journal.

"Just because we increase the speed of information doesn't mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture."
-- Dale Dauten

Access your own inner wisdom by tapping into your subconscious and intuition. Release stress, blocks and negative emotions, and spark imagination and greater vision. Go deeper....

DON'T THINK AWAY YOUR FEELINGS

"When emotions are managed by the heart, they heighten your awareness of the world around you and add sparkle to life. The result is new intelligence and a new view of life."
-- Doc Childre and Howard Martin

How do you intellectualize your emotions?

Many of us live so much in our heads that we intellectualize our emotions. We analyze, rationalize and explain them away so quickly that we don't actually experience them.

Learn to honour your emotions at all times by being willing to feel them. Of course, you may need to exercise some judgment over how and when you express them.

"Learning to be aware of feelings, how they arise and how to use them creatively so they guide us to happiness, is an essential lifetime skill."
-- Joan Borysenko

*** Restart building a new foundation for your life. Clear blocks and transform your life.

THE KEY TO CREATIVITY

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
-- Albert Einstein

Do you know the key to creativity?

It rhymes with weed. It produces the oak tree. We often eat it or grind it up for flour. It can mean cause or origination. You guessed it. It is SEED.

Our minds love to associate one thing to another. But as we get stuck in very fixed patterns of thinking, we think of fewer and fewer connections. We are ruled by habits, associations and automatic responses. So we must stimulate our thinking with lots of different seeds to chart new paths in our brains.

"Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive."
-- Napoleon Hill

"Anyone can look for fashion in a boutique or history in a museum. The creative explorer looks for history in a hardware store and fashion in an airport."
-- Robert Wieder

ALL IS MIND

"I want to know the thoughts of God; the rest are details."
-- Albert Einstein

Everything -- absolutely everything -- that happens in our lives has a spiritual cause. Mental, emotional and physical events are only effects.

When we are struggling with any challenge, whether it be ill health, a lack of money, a lost job, relationships, an accident, whatever -- we need to look for the spiritual learning. We can ask ourselves, "What quality does my soul want me to live more fully?"

"I went to the root of things, and found nothing but Him alone."
-- Mira Bai

FEELING TRAPPED? SLOW DOWN

"If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else."
-- Natalie Goldberg

Feeling trapped in some way? Give yourself space. Space to do nothing but breathe. To intentionally relax those tight muscles. To just for a few precious minutes, let it all go.

The world will keep turning if you tune out for a short while. And your world will begin to recover its balance.

"It's important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity."
-- Thomas Moore