LIFE LESSONS

There are so many great lessons we all get from life. I personally made a list with some of the most important ones so far, lessons who have had a great impact in my life, and they have helped me become the person I am today. I know there are many more to come and I am ready and open and receptive to them all.

1. We get treated in life the way we teach others to treat us. Yes, you heard me. Don’t you just love to play the victim card? Don’t you just love to blame others for how they are treating you, for how they are making you feel? And here I am referring to those people who feel victimized and  mistreated by those around them, who can’t accept the fact that they are the ones responsible for what is happening to them, for how others are treating them, At one point in your life, you allowed them to mistreat you, and little by little you got into the mess you are right now. Respect and love yourself and others will do the same.

2. There are no mistakes, only lessons we need to master. The idea is for us to learn from everything and everyone, of course, if you want to, and if you don’t, well, your life will look at 40’s the same way it did when you were 20 and at 60’s the way it looked when you were 40, and so on.

3. Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself. A lot of people think that the moment they decide to forgive somebody who once hurt them, the person who receives the forgiveness is the only one who will benefit from this kind gesture, but that’s not the case. I can tell you that the person who will benefit the most is the person who does the forgiving. Holding onto anger and resentment can do you no good; it’s like having a clenched fist 24/7.

4. Resistance to what is will eventually weaken and destroy you. We’re resisting change, we’re resisting our problems, resisting the weather, resisting our friends and family, resisting our responsibilities, our job, our boss… our lives. There are so many things we are resisting, not realizing that resistance will only make things worse. Carl Jung talks about this, warning us that what we resist not only will persist but will also grow in size.

5. Life is all about the journey and less about the destination. A lot of times we get so caught up in what we want to achieve, that perfect picture, that end result, that we forget to live and to really enjoy life, to enjoy this journey that is called life. Now, you may want to take a deep cleansing breath, and allow yourself to be present in everything you do; allow yourself to enjoy each second of your life; to observe the world around you; to observe the people that are present in your life and the beauty that is present within you and all around you, life in general.

6. People deserve a second chance. The moment you forgive somebody, chances are that you will also give them a second chance, a chance to be near you, without trying to remind them of what they did to you, treating them not as they are, or as they once were, but rather as you want them to be. By doing this, you are also allowing them to grow and to become better and better every day. Your ego might tell you to “let these people go” but what does your heart tell you? We are all humans, we all make mistakes, and we all deserve a second chance, and why not, maybe a third and a forth, a sixth and a seventh…

7. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody will. Don’t expect others to see gold where you can only see dust. If you don’t believe in yourself, if you don’t believe that you are a capable, a worthy human being, chances are that nobody will. You will act on that belief and people will treat you based on what you think about yourself, based on how you treat yourself and based on how you act and behave in the world.

8. Our attitude toward life will eventually determine life’s attitude toward us. If you think life is unfair, that bad things always happen to you, changes are that life will treat you unfairly, and you will always have many reasons to complain about, while on the other hand, if you think life is a gift, a gift for you to enjoy, not to keep, that wonderful things always happen to you, that wonderful people are being drawn to you, life will give you all of those things and even more. Just how there is a law of gravity, there is also a law of attraction, and based on this law, you attract in your life that which you think about all day long, you attract that which you are, because you see, like attracts like.

9. If you love yourself, chances are that others will love you also. It’s all about self love, it all starts with self love. If you don’t have love for yourself, how can you expect to get it from somebody else? Love yourself and others will love you also.

10. The world has plenty of information but not enough inspiration. If you think about it, now with the technological revolution, we get access to so much information. Let’s take for example a tiny chip. How much information can you store on it? Isn’t it incredible? We have more information than ever… but when it comes to inspiration (in- spirit) I would say that we have a deficit. We focus too much on the outside and not enough on the inside. We can’t seem to understand that it all starts from within. If the inside is a mess, the outside will also be a mess. Listen to your heart, listen to your intuition and know that: “The only real valuable thing is intuition.” Albert Einstein

11. The world won’t change if you don’t change. You hear people all the time complaining about how crazy the world is and how they want it to change, but if you tell them to make the first step…: “What? Me? Do you think there is something wrong with me? I am perfect, there is nothing I need to change. It’s these crazy people that need to change, not me. They are the ones who are destroying us all, not me… Those bastards!” You see, the outside world is a reflection of who we all are on the inside, and all this madness that is taking place around us, is a result of our collective consciousness, and unfortunately it’s a very polluted consciousness. It’s not just them, it’s us, us all. If we want the world to change, we have to start with ourselves, and trust me, there is something wrong with many of us. With you, with me, with he and she…

12. Loneliness is different from solitude. There is a difference between being lonely and being in solitude. When you are in solitude, you take advantage of it to get in touch with you inner self, to meditate and to quite you mind, and that constant need to be around others in order for you to no longer feel lonely, will disappear. Wayne Dyer talk about this in such a wonderful way, saying that we can never be lonely if we like the person we’re alone with. If you like yourself, if you have no problem with your own person, if you have accepted yourself completely, you will be content with having some quiet time, away from all the noise. You will feel happy when alone and also when surrounded by other people.

13. The more we express our gratitude, the more things we will have to be grateful for. The law of attraction works in all that is good and also in all that is bad, and it’s only up to us whether we choose to focus our attention on the negative or on the positive. Focus your attention on the many great things you have and you are grateful for, and you will see that the more you do that, the more reasons you will have to express your gratitude for.

14. Patience is a virtue. In order for things to happen, in order for anything to happen, we need to be patient. We first plant the seed of greatness and then we wait for it to grow, we allow it to grow; we take care of it and we protect it. Great things take time and we need to learn how to give time, time.

15. Courage is not the absence of fear. Fear, that crazy fear who won’t allow us to move forward, who won’t allow us to grow and transform our lives and of those around us will always be present in our lives. Even though many of us know that fear does not exist and that fear is only in our mind, we choose to be paralyzed by it and we choose to allow it to control our lives, our dreams, our goals and the level of our happiness.  Fear will be present whenever you want to stretch, whenever you want to get out of your comfort zone and whenever you want to do more, be more, have more. What we need to do is look beyond it,  and to always be aware of the fact that most of the things we fear never happen, because FEAR is  nothing more than False Expectation Appearing Real.

GET THE BLISS IN YOUR LIFE

"Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real." Deepak Chopra

I remember hearing someone say to me: "I feel so good, so euphoric and I have no idea why I feel this way."  I started smiling because I knew what's going on. There are people who think they're crazy just because they are feeling the way they're feeling for no reason, they are unable to realize what's going on and what is the reason for their euphoria.

What usually happens is when you are totally present and engaged in the now, you get to feel exactly like this person was feeling, EUPHORIC and if you are not aware of your feelings and emotions, if you are not used to observing yourself, it will just come and go without you knowing what really happened.

I believe that BLISS is our natural state of being, BLISS is who we are, it's something that we come in this world with. But as we grow older, because of all the ideas that our parents, teachers, friends, you name it, put into our heads, we lose touch with who we are and we start believing that life is really a struggle and that we need all kind of material objects, all kind of expensive stuff, all kind of outside stimulation to really be HAPPY.

I would stay away from this word, HAPPY, and you know why? If you need something or someone to feel HAPPY what will happen when that something or someone goes away? you will go from HAPPY to UNHAPPY, and I guess you don't want this to happen to you.

It's not difficult to go from HAPPY to BLISSFUL. All you have to do is start observing yourself, your thoughts, your emotions and behaviors. Once you do that, you will train yourself to become present in everything you do, and  no longer identify yourself with who you are, with what you have and how you look. You are none of these things, you are more than that. this is your false self, and the real self is that which is observing all your thoughts, your action, your behaviors and so on.

When you stop identifying yourself with all the above, things will start to shift and you will find yourself feeling euphoric more and more often. You will start seeing life, start seeing yourself and the whole world from a different perspective, more relaxed and detached from everything and everyone, life will no longer be struggle for you because you have now learned to go with the FLOW and not against it, you have now learned how to really live life and how to really enjoy it. You have learned to be present and engaged, leaving behind your sorrows, your worries and frustrations, leaving behind your past and always focusing on the present moment, but still having a clear mental picture of how you want the future to look like.

You will no longer allow yourself to dream of the day when you will be happy, because you will now understand what John Lennon was trying to communicate with his song: "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans."

Life is, and will always be, in this moment, right this very moment and that is exactly where BLISS can and will be found. Do not look for it in your past or in your future, always look for it in the now.

Have a BLISSFUL Life....

Are you grateful for what you have?

How many times have you asked for something and when you received that something you realized that is not really that important, that you could live without it? It starts like this: you have a thought and that thought is communicating to you that something wonderful will happen once you get that which you just thought about. It could have been an expensive pair of shoes, a car, a new apartment, some really cool friends, a new wife, a new cat, a mouse etc. And you just knew it then that once you will get that something you will really be happy. You kept complaining here and there about your life and how it feels so empty and how much you need a change, you need something to give meaning to your life. You fantasized, you hoped and you dreamed about that day when all things will change for you.

I often hear people talk about their unhappiness and how their whole life will change once they will get rich, once they will get somebody to love and appreciate them, once they will get their career moving to another level and so on. And once they get all those things they dreamed and hoped for, once they receive all those things that they thought will eventually change their lives and make them happy, they act like it’s not really a big deal. They don’t even show some appreciation, some gratitude.

They get and they get and then wish for more and more and they never seem to really be satisfied. Where is the peace in more is better? If we continue living this way we will never be happy. We can’t just pretend that we are entitled to everything and when that everything is offered to us act like total ungrateful people because we just realized that we want more and that we can’t be satisfied with that which we just received.

Our happiness can never be found on the outside. We will never find it there. In order for us to be happy, in order for us to be at peace with ourselves and those around us, we have to look within. Your husband can’t make you happy, your wife can’t make you happy, your possessions can’t make you happy. We are just deluding ourselves into thinking that they will and we wait for things to happen in order for us to finally be fulfilled. We wait for people to show up in our lives knowing that they hold the key to our happiness. That’s not how it works. They will make you happy for a while, I am not saying that they wouldn’t but eventually you will go back to your initial state, feeling empty on the inside, lonely, confused and lost.

Maybe you should start considering being grateful for everything that life has offered you so far. Maybe you should start being grateful for the wonderful person that you truly are, for the wonderful people that are present in your life, the people that love you and appreciate you. Maybe you should start being grateful for all the wonderful things that you received from life, those things that you got for free. Those are your real treasures, those things that came to us for free, those things that can not be bought, like our body, our health, our mind. We take them for granted most of the time just because they were free and we put so much value on those things that can be bought with money. What happens if you loose a leg, or an arm? What happen if you loose your sight? That is when you truly realize what is valuable and what not. You fight with your partner over money, over things that are really superficial, you fight with your family and friends over things that 1 year from now will no longer matter to any of you, instead of appreciating every single moment you have with them. Nothing ever lasts forever. Nothing lasts forever but we prefer to act like this is not the case.  You will leave them eventually. They will leave you. We will all leave this planet in the end and all the things we stressed and worried about will mean nothing to no one.

Decide to develop an attitude of gratitude, and decide to give thanks for everything that happens to you, for everyone that shows up in your life, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your present situation. Be grateful for your life.

Be grateful for all that you have and all that you are. Be grateful for everything and everybody and start showing your appreciation more often. Make it a habit to write down at least once a week that which you are grateful for. If you haven’t done this before you might not know that, the way it will make you feel is really spectacular. Expressing gratitude is one of the 12^th activities that are scientifically proven to increase our level of happiness. It is a simple thing that will bring you great results. You have nothing to loose. It does not take that much energy or time and it will really improve the quality of your life. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace to our present and creates a vision for the future. “When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears.” Anthony Robbins

Until next time, wish you all a peaceful and meaningful life.

Love you all.

DO YOU CHOOSE LOVE OR FEAR?

Why is it easier for us to have negative feelings and negative thoughts than it is to have positive, loving thoughts, positive and loving feelings? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Is it maybe because we have created all that is negative, and it is easier for us to accept it and identify with it? We can accept insanity, hate and sorrow, but we can’t accept LOVE and compassion? LOVE is within us, we were all born with this emotion, it was given to us, that’s all there was to be given, but as time went by, we started creating a new world for ourselves, a different world, a world which is nothing more than an illusion, an illusion to keep our ego alive.

There are only two emotions in the world, only two emotions we can express, and those two emotions are FEAR and LOVE. All the other emotions with whom we are all so familiar, are nothing more than subcategories of these two. Where there is LOVE, we may have peace, joy, content, serenity, forgiveness while on the other hand, where we have hate we will have anxiety, sadness, depression, fatigue, judgment, guilt and so on. You see, where there is LOVE, fear can not survive, and where there is fear, LOVE can not survive. They can’t leave together, for only one is real, while the other is just an illusion. Whenever we find ourselves in a situation where we might be feeling sad, depressed, angry, judgmental etc. , we need to realize that we are in fact feeling fear, a fear of something and we also have to keep in mind that fear was created by us, fear is not real, we made it up, while on the other hand, LOVE is real, LOVE is our natural state of being, that’s who we are, that’s what created us, and that’s what’s real. So why choose FEAR when you can choose LOVE? Why do it?

You see, it is all up to us. It’s a choice we make. We either choose LOVE or fear, happy or unhappy, and it’s all up to us. I know many of you will go: “What? This is insane! What do you mean it’s up to me? How can I feel LOVE when my boss is yelling at me all the time? Or how can I feel LOVE when I go home after 12 hours of work,and I see the sink full with dishes and my husband asking me what’s for dinner?” Well, it’s all in how we choose to look at the situation, whether we choose to respond or react that makes the difference. It’s our attitude toward everything that happens to us, and around us. that will take us to that state.

I believe that it all starts falling into places the moment we decide to take responsibility for how we feel and what we think, because when you no longer blame others for your misery, that’s when you start seeing things from a different perspective, that’s the moment you begin to notice the shift that is taking place in your life. When you start saying yes to the universe, yes to LOVE, fear will no longer have its place in your life, for that which is loved can not be feared, and that which is feared can not be loved. These two can’t coexist, and when one is present, the other is absent. Never forget this, for it will help you on so much on your journey to self discovery.

Life is so simple but we choose to complicate it, we choose to create all kind of problems for ourselves, and we get so attached to them. We can accept fear, loss, pain, doubt so easily, because we have created them, we have created this world of insanity and it’s hard for us to let it go. We say we want too, but do we really mean it? We get so attached to them and if we give them up for a while, and things get better for us, we feel peaceful, we feel LOVE…  but, you see, because this state of being is so unfamiliar to us, conscious or not, we start creating all kind of problems so we can feel “normal” again. This is how things function in the real world right? In the real world life is harsh, in the real world there is poverty, there is pain and there is fear. How can we live in a world that does not exist, how can we dare to be happy when there are so many problems waiting for us out there? This is exactly what we do. Most of us, whether we realize it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, do just that. Being nevrotic, feeling bitter and frustrated is something normal for many of us, this is how life is supposed to be, this is how we see normality. When we see people walking on the street with a serene and cheerful face, people that walk along us smiling, we may think that they are crazy, we think that there might be something wrong with them, but what if there isn’t anything wrong with them, what if there is something wrong with us?

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” Einstein

Happiness is a choice, peace of mind is a choice, and that choice is LOVE. After years and years of polluted training, after years of being told that life is a battlefield, and you have to fight against the enemies in order to stay alive, wanting to shift your focus from all those situations and all those people that were “making you unhappy”, to finding your true self, which is pure LOVE, it’s not going to be an easy job, but believe me, it’s not going to be harder than what you were doing until now. Give up all your past beliefs and all your past limitations and look within, that’s where you will find your true nature, that’s where you will find your real self. That’s where you will find real LOVE. Look for what you really are, not for what you think you are.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”  Carl Gustav Jung

let go.... and you will be HAPPY

Here is a list of 15 things which, if you let go on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. Not anymore. Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change. Ready? Here we go:

1. Let go your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. Let go your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. Let go up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. Let go your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. Let go your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly!

“A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle

6. Let go complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.

7. Let go the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. Let go your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.

9. Let go your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell

10. Let go labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer

11. Let go on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

12. Let go your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.

13. Let go the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

14. Let go attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another,  attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.

15. Let go living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves.  You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.

Have a great life of abundance HAPPINESS