Henry Miller was a writer and artist who tested the boundaries of the literary world by incorporating mysticism, self-enquiry and philosophy into his work. Here are 7 Provocative Henry Miller Quotes That Will Ignite Your Soul

He was so controversial in fact, that in 1938 the American government banned one of his books for being in opposition to what was perceived to be moral at the time.

7 Provocative Henry Miller Quotes That Will Ignite Your Soul

1- One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
– Henry Miller

Our life journey can be shifted and altered at any time based on our perception, awareness and ability – or courage – to apply critical thinking to what it is we are experiencing. When we realise that we all have the power to shift the way we see things, a new level of empowerment is immediately uncovered.

2- The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
-Henry Miller

Awareness is a powerful tool that allows us to be present and in the moment. When we slow down and allow ourselves to just BE then life in all of its messy and wondrous glory, has the chance to unfold right in front of our eyes.

3- Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
–Henry Miller

I have learnt that there is no running from the wounded parts of ourselves. No matter how hard we try to avoid them, those parts will show up eventually. This is why it is so important to practice self-enquiry. Self-enquiry means looking into the parts of who we are that we perceive as bad or negative – and integrating them. When we truly embrace the whole of who we are – we are free.

4- I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.
-Henry Miller

One of the best ways to feel disappointed in life is to hold onto expectations. We do it all the time – with ourselves, other people, even the weather! But life has its own plan, and people have their own challenges and idiosyncrasies. When we choose to accept people as they are and allow life to be as it is, we cause ourselves a lot less pain and anguish.

5- If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.
-Henry Miller

Peace comes from acceptance of what IS. When we are in alignment with life and its messy ways, we have the opportunity to experience true, lasting peace. The pain is always in the resistance.

6- The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.
-Henry Miller

Love is something every single person needs and wants, yet at times we find it hard to give out freely. I believe the strongest, bravest people in the world are those who still choose to give love despite experiencing insurmountable pain. The world needs us all to give a little love now more than ever. The wonderful thing is that love is never-ending. You cannot run out of it. 

7- Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
– Henry Miller Quotes

There is a great big world out there, but so often we get caught in the mediocrity of our day to day world. Jobs, kids, bosses, neighbours – we live in a state of rinse and repeat only seeing a small version of what’s possible. Life is not meant to be this way. We are here to have an experience if we only allow ourselves that permission. This does not mean acquiring material possessions or living like a celebrity, in fact, you can live a life full of wonder quite simply. 

It all comes down to embracing the world around you with wonder. It means taking the time to appreciate all that is, in every moment. The smile of a child, the smell of the ocean, music, books and art. Beauty is everywhere if you look for it.

I hope these quite have touched your heart, and if you have any favourite Henry Miller quotes, share it in the comments!

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This Speech Will Help You Understand Why You Have To Go Through Pain Sometimes

Written and Spoken by Chiara Gizzi

Aristotle once said: “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

It is during our darkest moments… that we must FOCUS… to see the light.

It is during our hardest moments, our most difficult challenges that we must trust that this moment will not last forever.

In our most difficult moments we must remember that this moment will pass… we should remind ourselves that all difficult moments pass, the rain doesn’t last forever… the sun will shine again. We don’t know what this will mean in the greater perspective of our life.

Are you afraid of the dark? I used to be. Not only as a child who was scared of imaginary monsters under the bed – but as an adult too.

To live the human experience means to live both in the light and in the dark. Mother nature shows us this polarity in many ways. Day and night. Oceans and deserts. Summer and Winter.

When we are living in the light, life is good. We know who we are and where we are headed – nothing can stand in our way. We can see clearly.

While we want to spend most of our days in the light, that is, in positive emotions like joy, happiness and gratitude, it is an inevitable part of life that at times we will experience the opposite. There has to be darkness in order to appreciate the light, just as there needs to be struggle and hard times to truly appreciate the good times.

But what happens when darkness descends on your life?

Maybe you lose your job, or a relationship fails. Maybe your mental health takes a steep decline. Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair. Sometimes there seems to be no good reason for this to be happening. Darkness is just a part of life.

However it happens, when we find ourselves in the darkness, we can feel lost, alone and even scared. It can feel as though there is no hope for the future. Motivation disappears. Everything feels like an uphill battle.

It has taken me many cycles of light and dark in my life to understand that in the moments of darkness in our lives we are not lost, we are simply learning a new way of being. We are growing. We are expanding.

When a tree that has spent all summer blossoming in the sunshine begins to feel the inevitable pinch of the autumn air on its leaves, does it just shrivel up and die? No. It changes.

The inner knowing of the tree allows itself to surrender to the world around it with grace. The tree allows its leaves to change colour, shrivel and fall away – all the while knowing that this is not the end… just a new beginning.

Even though it may be hurting, the tree knows that come spring, as the air begins to warm and the light gets brighter new growth will come. And that is exactly what happens. As the season changes, the tree is renewed. After the months of darkness, the tree flourishes for another season.

Life is full of transitions. But, perhaps because we fear change, we resist the dark winters of our experience.

What if you made a different choice?

What if, instead of resisting our dark times, you embraced them as a time of rest, renewal and regeneration?

What if you could learn to love the darkness in your life as much as you love the light?

The thing is, without the darkness, you may never grow into the bigger, bolder, more beautiful version of who are.

We all know the stories of inspiring, amazing people who have turned their challenges into triumphs. We’ve heard countless stories of struggle and hard times that turned into powerful strengths that shaped beautiful lives. Would those people have been able to achieve such greatness had they not been forced into the darkness?

When we experience difficulties, it is important not to try to avoid them. We must learn to embrace them as an integral part of our life experience. You never know what you can become. There is a reason for everything.

Instead of asking WHY ME…
ASK: Why now?
ASK: What does this mean?
ASK: What CAN I DO right now to make this situation better?
ASK: How can I see this from a different perspective that will help me feel better?

You always have the choice to trust the process of your life, trust in the Universe to support you and believe in your heart that the light will return. You can choose FEAR or FAITH.

You can surrender. You can trust and believe that your life is a miracle – even if you don’t always understand it.

The darkness is not the end. It is simply a chance to grow into the person you need to be when the light breaks through.

If you are in the darkness today, I want you to know that I see you. You are loved. No matter how hard it seems, you are worthy of joy and you can get through this.

The light is never far away.

Never lose hope.

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How many times have you been in a conversation or even argument with someone and you have found yourself wishing they could see things from your perspective? But no matter how hard you try, the other person seems determined to misunderstand you? 

Why We Reject Opinions Different To Our Own And How To Make A Different Choice

Do people really go out of their way to misunderstand each other? Occasionally I think some people do! But for the most part, I believe that human beings are good, that we want to connect more than we want to argue and fight.

So what are some of the reasons that cause us to discount other people’s points of view?

Observer Bias.

Every person has a unique set of biases, assumptions and preconceptions based on many things including age, sex, race, environment etc. Essentially, observer bias is when we alter what we see by only noticing what we expect, rather than the whole picture.

Cognitive Dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information. It is known as the ‘psychological stress’ experienced when a person participates in an action that goes against their own personal set of feelings, ideas, beliefs, and values.

In his book, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, author and psychologist Leon Festinger found that human beings seek out psychological consistency to function mentally in the real world. He expresses that someone who experiences internal inconsistency tends to become psychologically uncomfortable. 

Fear.

Simply put, sometimes we are so attached to our own points of view that it is too scary to consider an alternative. Human safety relies on connection – we are pack animals. We gravitate to people who share common views and ideas as a primal behaviour. If we are to consider opinions that go against the ideas of our pack – we risk putting ourselves in danger.

Do any of the above examples sound familiar to you? Perhaps you have experienced one or all of them in an exchange with another person. Maybe you have done them yourself – even unconsciously.

So what now?

The psychological processes I have mentioned mean that what we see and hear is filtered through a lens that can cause us not to necessarily have the ability, or the desire, to view things from another’s perspective.

Our brains are wired to avoid pain. When we are presented with information that goes against what we feel, believe and perceive to be true – it can cause us physical stress. Perhaps this explains the occasional emotional outbursts that occur when points of view differ.

We are here on this planet to learn and grow. We want to become more conscious, loving and accepting of both ourselves and others.

Why We Reject Opinions Different To Our Own And How To Make A Different Choice

To make the choice to take on another person’s perspective means intentionally creating distance from your own point of view. It does not mean that you have to adopt their perspective at all. 

You are entitled to your own opinions. Just like everyone else. 

What it does mean is accepting that you may not have all the answers. That can be challenging for our ego to accept!

Think about a recent conflict that you may have had. Now, try to set aside your point of you and think about the mental state and perspective of the other person.

Notice the resistance you may feel. Breathe into it. Keep going.

Use your imagination to think about why the other person has their point of view.  Ask yourself – what is it about this person’s experience of life that has created this perspective?

Using empathy in this way to see things from another person’s perspective is humility in action. It is emotional intelligence. It’s actively choosing to operate from the heart instead of from fear or conditioning.

I believe this is one of the single most important practices we need across the globe in 2021. 

Everywhere we look there is fighting and division – it is truly heartbreaking. 

If we can all be brave enough to choose to accept differing perspectives, without fearing that we will lose ourselves in the process, the world as we know it would shift dramatically towards a more loving, conscious and accepting place.

It all starts with us. So, what choice are you going to make?

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It’s no secret that we are living in a very challenging time in the history of the world. At times it can feel quite hopeless. With that hopelessness can come a whole plethora of other emotions like sadness, despondency, anxiety, fear and anger.

Here are 4 Powerful Ways To Process Your Anger In Turbulent Times

Personally, I have felt most of these emotions regularly lately, and still do at many moments throughout my day to day life. I live in Sydney, Australia and I have been in lockdown for almost 10 weeks. I have felt the energy of anger moving in me many, many times throughout the ups and downs of the past year and a half since the Covid19 pandemic began. 

This isn’t an article about the pandemic though. This is an article about being human. I want to talk about anger – a human emotion often misunderstood and labelled as ‘negative’. 

Why do we do that? Why do we label some emotions as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’? Emotions are neither. They just are.

What can be challenging is the behaviour that comes from an inability to be with our emotions. This can mean we express them in ways that are harmful to ourselves or others.

4 Powerful Ways To Process Your Anger In Turbulent Times

Many of us have not learned how to correctly process our emotions in life. This can lead to the suppression of those emotions. 

Suppression is particularly common with the emotions that we perceive as painful, or those that we feel unsafe to confront – perhaps because we fear being judged or even outcast by our peers, friends or even our family.

This can happen to both men and women. Suppression of anger for women could be due to a woman not wanting to seem “too emotional” or even “crazy”. For men, they are labelled as weak for expressing emotions – the saying “man up” comes to mind.

This conditioning is more damaging than any emotion.

And here’s the other thing. Emotions are smart – they know what’s what and they do not appreciate being ignored. Emotions (aka the wisdom of the body) are so smart they will even allow you to THINK you have pushed them away – at least for a while. 

Eventually, though, those emotions you tried to hide from that are intimately connected with the deep wisdom of your physiology, will show up in your life. 

It could be hours, months or even many years after an event.

Suppressed emotions or trauma can show up in many different ways, such as physical illness, mental illness and even as an excess of whichever emotion that was suppressed.

So now that we understand the importance of processing our emotions – how do we do it?

Well, each emotion is different – and each human being is different, too. We all process emotions in different ways. These are the ways that have helped me.

4 Powerful Ways To Process Your Anger In Turbulent Times

1- Therapy.

If you don’t first know that you have trapped emotions, or where they come from, how will you ever know to start processing them? If you are reading this article, you have some idea that you have anger and that you need to process it.

Speaking with a qualified counsellor or therapist can be powerful in helping you to uncover where your anger stems from so that you can set about learning to process it healthily.

2- Movement.

When emotions are trapped in our physical body we need to use our body to move them through us. There are many ways to do this. One way I love is perhaps a little surprising – it’s dancing! Yep, when I feel like there is some anger I need to let go of I put on some music and shake it out like nobody’s watching. It is incredibly therapeutic.

I have also found boxing to be helpful. Using my hands to punch through my anger was cathartic. And as an added benefit, it’s awesome cardio.

3 – Setting Healthy Boundaries.

Whatever your emotions are in a given moment are a message from your body. Sometimes that message is letting you know that a boundary of yours has been crossed. Boundaries are what separates you and your feelings from that of another person.

When you feel a boundary has been crossed – be that through a disrespectful comment or someone crossing a line physically with you, emotions will show up to let you know.

Learning to determine what your boundaries are and setting them with the people around you allows you to better understand yourself and your relationship to the world around you.

4 – Acceptance. 

This one is probably the toughest of all – and perhaps the most important. Your feelings matter. Read that again.

Whatever you have been told by those around you or even perhaps from the nasty inner critic, you are important and your experiences are real. Learning to accept yourself in all of your emotional glory is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.

Feeling anger isn’t bad. Emotions are the messengers of the body. When we learn to deal with them in healthy ways, they can help us to evolve closer to the truth of who we truly are.

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Even on your worst day, you are living miracle – Peter Crone

Speaker: Peter Crone

Peter Crone on the Miracle of human life:

The expression I use, is I say,

We are all masterpieces and works in progress simultaneously..

So to be human is to be extraordinary.

I have a quote, which is says,

Even on your worst day, you are a living miracle.

If you think about the trillions of reactions that are happening just within the biochemistry of our physicality, it’s, it’s overwhelming that we can eat food with friends at a dinner table and our body will take care of the process of digestion went to secrete the bile from the bile duct, when to release more hydrochloric acid, to break down the food, the mechanisms that then have to actually occur as it goes through the small intestine and food is separated, you know, absorbed, and then it’s taken to the cellular level and there’s all of this metabolism that takes place at an even deeper level. So that the apple that you just ate at some point will become a liver cell.

I mean, that is just mind blowing like magic, right? Yet we don’t think about it.

So when you really understand the endless myriad of transactions that are happening in the human brain and the human body, that actually gives us the experience of being live, it’s humbling.

You kind of can’t help, but feel a sense of gratitude and grace by virtue of the fact that I have a human as a human, I have the capacity to see the people I love. I have the capacity to communicate the way that I feel about myself, life and others. The fact that I can smell the sense that I can hear the dulcet tones of a loved one or a child telling me what they feel. And I can taste the extraordinary abundance of these different flavors that we get to experience by virtue of mother nature.

Just those five senses that we take for granted every day from when you really get it, it becomes impossible to not revere life, your own, and others’

To recognize what an immaculate conception, every being is by virtue of the gift that it is so we get to experience life in its whole.

Being human IS the opportunity.

And so when you recognize that by virtue of your, by virtue of being here, and again, I am not in any way diminishing or dismissing the hardship that many people go through. There are people literally starving. I can talk about the joys of tasting food and people are like, well, that’s great for you. I don’t have any. And so that is something that collectively we have to do a better job of right. There is such inequality.

That is, to me, something that really hit home many years ago was the,

just to be alive is itself a miracle.

And from that moment forth, I stopped berating myself. I’m not perfect. And there’s so, so humility and patience that we can develop when we understand that and then afford others. And so certainly as it relates to kids, you know, their central nervous system is developing at every stage as it is still for me. If I try and take up a new language or I try and take up a new activity, I’m not going to be that good at it because it’s not something that I’ve assimilated into the way that my brain is currently programmed.

So if we could afford each other just a little bit more patience, a little bit more compassion, a little bit more empathy for the fact that it is difficult.

It is sometimes challenging to take on a new task and that’s okay. Then that again would make for a much more loving and accepting society.

But within that, we never neglect the magic that it is to be a human being.

And I know honestly, to be any form of life, you know, you just, yeah, just the intricate details of say a little bit spider, like, I mean, it’s just insane. Like that is magical. Now. I might not necessarily want that spider crawling across my face in the middle of the night, depending on what kind of spider it is, but I’m certainly going to Revere the fact that that is an expression of life and it at some level is just absolutely mystical.

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This Is Why We Suffer (and This Is How We End Suffering)

Speaker: Peter Crone

Transcript – Peter Crone on Suffering and How To End Our Own Internal Suffering:

The way life occurs to us is that there’s always somewhere to get to, until you realize that there isn’t

…Similarly suffering is always present until we realize that there isn’t suffering. And that to me is the beauty of the human experience.

So, suffering is unavoidable by virtue of we’re here, but nonetheless, the opportunity, the possibility that it is to be human is to transcend suffering.

And it’s such a beautiful design again, because if it weren’t for the previous suffering, we don’t get to experience the latter freedom.

As an adult, I got to see myself in a picture and all black and white of me as a child and my cute little onesy, whatever it is running with my arms out, my mother is sort of very gently ushering me from behind. So you can see that she’s sort of directing me towards somebody who you can’t see because they’re off camera. They’re out of frame from the picture. But I know because of the setting, it was set at a Harbor at a dock where the boat had just, you know, come to birth and we’ve probably come off the boat and I’m running towards my dad because my dad worked on the boats. And as I looked at that photo and it’s this whole black and white, and this adorable little child, which you know, is running towards his father, who he loves his dad. And what had occurred to me is at that moment, one of the most important parts of love is the energy of missing somebody.

We often think that love is I’m with someone I’m sharing a dinner with them, I’m going to bed with them, or it could be a family member who I’m living with or I’m sharing time with constantly. But that denies the flip side of the same coin, which is one of the most beautiful aspects of love is what feels like the absence of the experience of love. And we can call that missing somebody… and why it was so profound for me is to see that little child run towards his dad with the excitement of the fact that for a minute, for minutes, maybe a day, maybe a week, it could be longer…. We experience the separation from that, which we love.

And if it weren’t for the experience of separation, we would not appreciate the joy of love.

And so why I use that example as it relates to suffering and freedom is because separation is hurtful, it’s painful, and that is suffering. And in this case, suffering is where we become separate from the knowledge, from the true wisdom of our true essence, whilst freedom is the remembrance and the awakening to the essence of who I am at my core, which is freedom.

So the two are inextricably connected and simultaneously necessary in order to experience one or the other.

If it weren’t for the experience of missing, I don’t get to go to the depths of the joy of love and equally, if it weren’t for the pain and the seeming inconvenience of human suffering, then I wouldn’t get to experience the elation and the joy of liberation that is true freedom.

When you really understand that dynamic…. it’s so beautiful to see the duality of everything. And I would actually take it a little deeper, which is to say the freedom really is the container. Like the love is the container that holds both.

We have the joy and we have the misery, we have the happiness and we have the sadness. And this is where if we can be big enough, expanded enough as human beings that we make space for all of it… it would be as nonsensical.

You know, for people who think they just want to be positive and happy, that is like asinine. It would be like me saying, no, no, no. All I want to do is inhale. Cause that’s so good. You get oxygen. If you’re like, what the hell? Like if it weren’t for the fact that I get to exit and let go of, you know, in this case, obviously physiologically biologically the toxins of carbon dioxide and stuff that no longer serves me because it’s already served its purpose in my body. Then I wouldn’t get the joy of having that cyclical process of inhale exhale that keeps me alive.

So similarly, the actual nature of duality, both parts are flip sides of the same coin that are an inherent experience of being human. And the degree to which we can embrace both is the degree to which we are truly free to allow all aspects of what it means to be human.

So suffering is really one aspect, but it is an aspect where there is ultimately a form of ignorance. And I don’t mean that as a judgment. I mean, it truly, in the fact that we don’t know something.

We suffer because we don’t know how extraordinary we are. We suffer because we don’t know that we actually are loved. We don’t, we suffer because we don’t feel safe. And it is in that ignorance than not knowing the absence of knowledge that we suffer.

And the process of awakening is realizing, Oh, these are lies. And as I transcend lie, I expand into my bigger nature, which then is the experience of liberation, which is contained in the safety that we are held and beneficiaries of life, because we are fundamentally loved.

The way I look at it is that this dimension that we are in as human beings to me is a revelatory dimension. What does that mean? Life will reveal where you yourself, as a being do not experience freedom.

Life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you’re not free.

So why is that a completely different perspective or different way of looking at the experience of life? Because most people are playing the human game. What is the human game they’re trying to accumulate, right? Accumulation of status, accumulation of possessions, accumulation of finance. And they’re trying to play the game of I’m becoming a better human by virtue of what I have usually… now that’s not wrong, but it’s also, to me, it’s a powerless game to play.

Whereas the awakening process of who I am as a being who is limitless, who is in its infancy and its true inherent nature, nothing but love peace, power, freedom.

That is to me, the game, that’s really at foot for human beings. That is the opportunity that it is to be a human is to awaken to the true essence of who I am rather than being defined by the persona that has been conditioned over time. That is now founded in the essence of survival. That is two entirely different approaches to the human experience. One is linear and one is vertical, right? So linear is okay, hopefully over time I’m going to improve. I got a promotion, I got a corner office. I got a bigger home. I’ve got a nicer car. I’ve got a little bit more money. That is, you know, there’s again, no judgment, but it is a futile dead end method of trying to find internal value by using external and exogenous means to bring some sense of worth.. versus discovering. Wow. My inherent nature is freedom.

My inherent nature is love. My inherent nature is peace and life is constantly giving me the opportunity to awaken to those qualities by virtue of presenting to me ironically, where I don’t experience that.

So that’s why, again, I said, life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you’re not free.

We often look as those circumstances as frustrating as things we don’t want, but that’s precisely why they’re being given to us because we’ve yet to see how powerful and extraordinary we are that we have yet to integrate those experiences and see that I can truly be with whatever is occurring and maintain my inner sense of peace and freedom and love.

We arrive as beings, but shrouded in constraint, we arrive as souls, but constrained by fear and the game of this particular dimension of planet earth and being human is Oh, awesome. We are set here so that we can reveal where we are confined, constrained and have some sense of separation and limitation. And so life is the process of sloughing by virtue of these trials and tribulations. And these sort of confronting circumstances really is a form of resistance, which just like polishing a diamond is allowing us to recognize where we still feel constrained or we arrived with our bucket of fears. And as I say, you know, the “ winner of the game” is who can get rid of their fears the the fastest, not that there is any urgency, but we could say, and I would assert the true liberation and true freedom, which is my main product is when we have confronted all of the fears that we arrived with to recognize that in fact, there is nothing to fear itself whatsoever. And that was always just a narrative that was part of our persona or our ego. That was just simply the cocoon in which we found we needed to live in order to stay safe. When in fact it’s quite the antithesis of that, which is true. Security is when I no longer need the illusion of external security.

If the experience I have with another person is of some form of disharmony, of judgment of hostility. Then that really is a reflection of what’s going on inside of me.

So as I say, as we express, so we experience, right. So if I’m expressing anger towards whoever or whatever the circumstance may be, then I am experiencing anger, right? So this, this water travels through say a garden hose. If the garden hose was sent in today, I had a feeling internally, it would feel the passage of the water when it was cold or hot, or how fast it’s moving. So likewise as we express our emotional state, we’re under the impression that it’s by virtue of what’s going on outside of us, but whether it is or not in terms of our interpretation when nonetheless experiencing all of that.

So then why wouldn’t I, if I know that correlation, if I’m, if I’m actually aware of that formula, then why wouldn’t I, wherever possible, bring an experience of love and joy to whoever it might be, because then I’m equally the beneficiary of it. And this is why exercises like gratitude journals or going and being a volunteer and being of service to a community feels good. Why does it feel good? Because what I’m actually doing is I’m bringing the experience of my true self is what I would have saw and I’m sharing to another, I’m giving to another. And therefore I am equally the beneficiary of my own active contribution.

You know, Einstein said, you either, you look at the universe in one of two ways, everything is a miracle or nothing’s a miracle, right? And so really when you get, we are beneficiaries of life, even though again, I’ve been through a ton of what felt like unnecessarily hardship that at the time, my little persona was like, I don’t want this. This sucks, but really in hindsight is often the case we’ve recognized. Wow. If it weren’t for those events, if it weren’t for those hardships, then I wouldn’t have discovered that expansiveness of what I’ve just stepped into and why I use the expression that smooth seas never made a good sailor, right? So we need adversity itself is the catalyst for growth. It is. Life is the greatest teacher by virtue of the fact that it gives us challenges so that it can, as I said earlier, slough off anything that is confining us, anything that is holding us back a constraint that is in some way, limiting ourself expression, we need some resistance to get rid of that.

And that is at times a very difficult pill to swallow, but it is nonetheless the catalyst to discover that really we are held eternally.

It’s like the metaphor of the image of these trapeze artists, right? The experience for anybody who goes up on a trapeze from the perspective of the ego is fear. If there’s no net, right? You, you would feel such trepidation of letting go of the trapeze bar to transition maybe to your partner and be caught in the absence of knowing there was some safety net and that’s the ego’s experiences. It goes through life. It feels that at any turn its existence is in potential danger. Everything can come across as a potential threat, and that’s an exhausting place to live from.

Conversely, if we can tap into this deeper essence of understanding the nature of life and particularly the nature of who we are, then at every turn, there is always a safety net. It might not feel like it, but we can drop, we can fall. We can miss the grip of the partners. We transitioned from trapeze bar to trapeze bar and it’s okay. And that we could say our errors and mistakes are failures and it’s okay.

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Mel Robbins explains how to control your mind and direct it somewhere positive.

The 5 Second Rule That Tricks Your Brain Into Taking Action

Speaker: Mel Robbins | Full Interview Tom Bilyeu

Transcript – The 5 Second Rule – USE THIS TO CONTROL YOUR BRAIN

There are so many people in the world and you may be watching this right now and you have these incredible ideas and what you think is missing is motivation and that’s not true.

Because the way that our minds are wired and the fact about human beings is that we are not designed to do things that are uncomfortable or scary or difficult. Our brains are designed to protect us from those things because our brains are trying to keep us alive. In order to change, in order to build a business, in order to be the best parent, the best spouse to do all those things that you know you want to do with your life, with your work, with your dreams you are going to have to do things that are; difficult, uncertain or scary. Which sets up this problem for all of us, you are never going to feel like it. Motivation is garbage, you only feel motivated to do the things that are easy right?

Tom: Why do you think that is?

Mel: I know exactly why that is because I’ve studied this so much because for me one of the hardest things to figure out was why is it so hard to do the little things that would improve my life. And what I’ve come to realize is that the way that our minds are designed is our minds are designed to stop you at all cost, from doing anything that might hurt you. The way that this all happens is it all starts with something super subtle that none of us ever catch and that is with this habit that all of us have that nobody is talking about.

We all have a habit of hesitating. We have an idea, you’re sitting in a meeting, you have this incredible idea and instead of just, you know, saying it, you stop and you hesitate. Now, what none of us realize is that when you hesitate just that moment, that micro-moment, that small hesitation it sends a stress signal to your brain. It wakes your brain up and your brain all of a sudden goes, “Oh, wait a minute why is he hesitating he didn’t hesitate when he put on his killer spiky sneakers, he didn’t hesitate with the really cool track pants, he didn’t hesitate with a NASA t-shirt now he’s hesitating to talk something must be up.”

Then your brain goes to work, to protect you. It has a million different ways to protect you one of them is called the spotlight effect. It’s a known phenomenon where your brain magnifies risk, why? To pull you away from something that it perceives to be a problem. And so, you can truly trace every single problem or complaint in your life to silence and hesitation, those are decisions.

What I do and what’s changed my life is waking up and realizing that motivation is garbage I’m never going to feel like doing the things that are tough or difficult or uncertain or scary or new. So I need to stop waiting until I feel like it. And number two, I am one decision away from a totally different marriage, a totally different life, a totally different job, a totally different income, a totally different relationship with my kids. Not like one decision I’m divorcing you in a marriage example but one decision on, you know, could be having a conversation with your spouse and you feel your emotions rise up and within a tiny window those emotions can take over and can impact how your marriage goes or you can learn how to take control of that micro-moment and make a decision to act in a way that actually shifts your marriage. Your life comes down to your decisions and if you change your decisions you will change everything.

In the scheme of life hitting the snooze button is not that big of a deal but here is the thing about life; none of us wake up and say, “Today is the day I destroy my life.” What we do is we kind of check out because it feels overwhelming or we check out because we’re afraid or we check out because we start listening to self-doubt and then we make these teeny-tiny decisions all day long and we don’t even realize it. Decision to not get up on time, a decision to not eat the right thing, a decision to snap at your kids, a decision to not speak at a meeting, a decision to not look for a job, a decision to not deal with your finances, a decision to not call your parents like whatever it is.

All day long these tiny decisions that take you so far off track and then you wake up like I didn’t… And you look at your life and you think, “How the hell did I get here?” And more importantly how do you get back over there and you have no idea.

And so, I was so trapped and I know from your story you felt the same way. Like, you knew that there was more in store for you but you couldn’t figure out how do you close that gap. How do you find the power that’s in you, how do you discover your greatness, how do you solve these problems I feel so overwhelming. When you can … I mean, I would go to the grocery store and the items would scan and I would be sitting there readying my excuse because there was no way that my check card was going to clear.

I got in this struggle with myself that a lot of us find ourselves in and that is you get trapped in what I call the knowledge-action gap. You know what to do but you can’t seem to make yourself do it. Right? I mean every one of us is one Google search away from a list of instructions that if you follow any of them it will change your life.

But how do you get out of your head and stop thinking about what you need to do and actually do it? And in my case this stuff was pretty easy; get up on time, make breakfast for the kids, get them on the bus, start looking for a job, don’t drink so much. Instead of isolating yourself pick up the phone and call a friend, get yourself out into the woods and go for a walk, start running again. Like all these little things that I was capable of but I couldn’t get out of here, could not get out of here and if you are stuck that’s the problem. The problem is you are in your head, your thinking. That is the universal problem and it all starts with this knowledge of what to do and then you hesitate and you think about whether or not you feel like doing it.

When you set goals when you have an intention on something that you want to change about your life your brain helps you. What it does is it opens up a checklist and then your brain goes to work trying to remind you of that intention that you set. And it’s really important to develop the skill and I say that word purposefully, the skill of knowing how to hear that inner wisdom and that intention kicking in and leaning into it quickly.

So for me, my brain is saying, “That’s it right there move as fast as rocket, Mel.” I wanted to change my life. And I think most people that are miserable or that are really like dying to be great and dying to have more; we want to change, we want to live a better life, we want to create more for our families, we want to be happier. The desire is there again it’s about how do you go from knowledge to action. So the first thing in this story that’s important is realizing that the answer was in me and my mind was telling me, “Pay attention.”

Anyway, the next morning the alarm goes off and, I pretended NASA was there. It’s the stupidest story I literally went; five, four, three, two, one I counted out loud and then I stood up. And I’ll never forget standing there in my bedroom; it was dark, it was cold, it was winter in Boston. And for the first time in three months, I had beaten my habit of hitting the snooze button. I couldn’t believe it and I thought, “Wait a minute counting backwards, that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

Well, the next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. And then I started to notice something really interesting, there were moments all day long, all day long. Just like that five-second moment in bed where I knew knowledge, what I should do. And if I didn’t move within five seconds my brain would step in and talk me out of it. Every human being has a five-second window might even be shorter for you. You have about a five-second window in which you can move from idea to action before your brain kicks into full gear and sabotages any change in behavior. Because remember, your brain is wired to stop you from doing things that are uncomfortable or uncertain or scary. It’s your job to learn how to move from those ideas that could change everything into acting on them.

When you understand the power of a five-second decision and you understand that you always have a choice to go from autopilot to decision maker everything in your life will change. You will be a different negotiator, you will be different in sales, you will be unstoppable in the gym because you will realize the amount of garbage that you put in the way; of your hopes, of your dreams, of your potential, of your confidence, of your courage. Everything comes down to the decisions that you make. We all know what to do none of us know how to make ourselves do it. I started researching it why does something so stupid work, why? Why does something so silly create such powerful and profound change? Well, here is why; The rule is a form of metacognition. Metacognition is a fancy-pants term that means something really simple. You can outsmart your own brain in furtherance of goals.

There are tricks that you can use that actually outsmart the tricks your brain plays on you. In furtherance of a higher purpose we all know this, you can restrain yourself if you are in a situation that calls for it. You can jump into a raging river to save your dog or your kid, you can direct yourself in ways if it’s important to you. And so, the rule what it does is it does something really remarkable.

When you count backwards; five, four, three, two, one what you are actually doing is you are interrupting what researchers call habit loops that get encoded as closed loop patterns in your basal ganglia. That’s the part of the brain where your feelings, where your emotions, every habit that you have which is nothing more than behavior that you repeat that you don’t even think about.

And so when you go; Five, four, three, two, one it interrupts what’s going on here that’s spinning without you thinking and it moves and awakens your prefrontal cortex. So when you hit one, your habit has been interrupted so you’ve interrupted self-doubt, you’ve interrupted maybe snapping at your kids, you’ve interrupted the desire to grab for a drink, you’ve interrupted procrastination. You’ve also by counting backwards done an action, it’s awakened your prefrontal cortex that is the part of the brain that you need that’s awake when you are changing behavior when you are learning new things. When you hit one it’s also a prompt. So, in the language of research, you’ll hear people talk about starting rituals, that is something that’s proven to help you learn a new habit. The five-second rule when you repeat it becomes a starting ritual that triggers you to act with confidence, that triggers you that this is a moment for courage, that triggers you to shift gears. And because you’ve also done the manual work of awakening the part of the brain that you need to change, you’ve set yourself up for success. It doesn’t work if you count up because you can keep going and also counting up doesn’t require focus. If you count backwards; Five, four, three, two, one it again awakens the prefrontal cortex and it prompts you to move. When you start to use it and then you read about it you’ll see that it’s being used all over the place; they use it in the armed services in order to align troops and get them to start an exercise, they use it in elementary schools; five, four, three, two, one at big assemblies to get a huge room full of kids to stop talking.

Tom: Simple and interesting example, yeah.

Mel: Because it requires you to focus it’s not a habit. It will become a habit that prompts you to have confidence and courage, but in the beginning, it interrupts patterns of behavior that you do on autopilot, it helps you assert control and it teaches you how to become the kind of person that moves from thinking about something to actually doing it.

I think we are all flawed and that’s the beauty of who you are. And instead of trying to make yourself perfect in every area it’s so much easier when you accept the things that you are terrible at or that are your weaknesses or that are things about your wiring.

Look if I were diabetic I would take insulin I happen to be somebody that’s wired for anxiety no big deal. Figure out how to, instead of fighting those things actually trick it, because the truth is that you are never going to feel ready to make these changes. You are never going to feel like doing them but you can always make a decision that’s always in your control. Staying with somebody that treats you like garbage is a decision, it is. Staying at a job that you hate is a decision. Staying in the body that you are not proud of is a decision. Is it going to be easy? No, it’s not going to be easy to change it’s simple, do a Google search and then use the five-second rule to force yourself to do that stuff.

Change comes down to five-second decisions and this is why the five-second rule is important for everybody to know. It’s your job to push yourself. And I don’t care if you are Dr. Martin Luther King Junior or you are Michelangelo or you are Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote Hamilton you will struggle with self-doubt.

And everybody that you admire, everybody, and the list is the same; Oh, Oprah Winfrey and I want to be like Tom and I want to be like Branson and I want to be like Jay-Z and I want to be like … Everybody is listed, Bill Gates.

Do you know what those people do? They do not have the habit of hesitating they trust themselves.

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It is not possible to be positive ALL the time. Do this instead.

How Do I Be Positive All The Time? – The Answer Is Not What You Expect – Inspirational Speech

How Do I Be Positive All The Time? – Inspirational Speech – Watch FREE On Youtube:

Download or Stream “How Do I Be Positive All The Time?” –  Now on iTunes, Spotify, GooglePlay, Apple Music, AmazonMP3, Deezer and Worldwide MP3 Download
Speakers: Josiah Ruff

Transcript – How Do I Be Positive All The Time? – Inspirational Speech

So this young man asked his mentor: “How Do I Be Positive All The Time?”

The mentor responded: “Not be human… because no human is positive all the time.”

It is impossible for any human to achieve a state of positivity 100% of the time.

And so… the goal should not be to achieve a state of perfection… because that doesn’t exist.

Instead… The goal should be to grow.

To do the daily self work that creates YOUR best self. The best version of YOU.

And in that daily self-work you will find clarity.  In that daily self-work you will find intention. And absolutely… in that daily self work you will bring out MORE positivity every day.

You will NOT be perfect.
 Perfection doesn’t exist. 

It will not happen overnight.
 No great change happens that fast.

There WILL be set backs.
 There will be negative moments.
 There will be negative reactions.
 Some old negative patterns will come up.

But, if you are committed to continue working on yourself every day, those negative moments will not last. They will become less and less frequent and less and less meaningful…

because what comes out, is always what is inside… and if what is inside you is mainly positive, then what will come out will be mainly positive.

So feed yourself with that positivity and intention every day. Find what resonates with you in books, audio… the best teachers that make YOU better.

Commit to feed yourself that positivity with the same importance you give food or water.

 The food is fuel for your physical body, and the self work is fuel for your soul… feed both every single day for a truly strong life.

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The conscious mind is a creative mind. The subconscious mind is a programmed mind. A habit mind.

Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind With These 3 Powerful Steps – Bruce Lipton

Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind With These 3 Powerful Steps – Bruce Lipton – Inspirational Video – Watch FREE On Youtube:

Speaker: Bruce Lipton, Author The Biology of Belief
Music from Curious Cinematic, Fearless Motivation Instrumentals

Transcript – Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind With These 3 Powerful Steps – Bruce Lipton

I’d like to discuss the nature about how our life has been programmed, and how these programs control our life, our vitality, and our behavior in the world. Recognize this, if you buy a new computer and you turn it on, the built-in operating system prepares it to work. But if there are no programs in that computer, then the computer can’t really do anything.

Well, let’s now relate this to a child. When the brain develops, it’s got an operating system but there are no programs in it. So nature created the first seven years of our lives to download behaviors by observing our parents, our siblings, and our community. And in this way, a child can learn all the behavioral characteristics necessary to be a functional member of a family and a functional member of a community.

Well, however, since we are downloading the programs by observing other people, what happens if we download programs from our parents, or our family or siblings, that are not very positive programs? That are actually very negative programs that have an adverse effect on our health?

Well, it turns out, science has revealed that during the first seven years of our life, our brain is designed to download programs just by observing other people. It’s a state of hypnosis, which is a characteristic or brain frequency called Theta, which is just below consciousness.

The first seven years of a child’s life is installing the programs that, when consciousness kicks in at around age seven, consciousness has use of programs to create the behavior in their relationships, in their family, community, et cetera. We now know about 70% of those programs that we download from others are negative, and disempowering, and even self-sabotaging. And as we go through our life you say, “Well, where are these programs?”

I say, “Well, they’re in the subconscious mind.”

And then you say, “But what’s the other mind?”

I say, “Ah, the conscious mind, that’s the one that kicks in at age seven. That mind is connected to your personal identity, your spirituality, and the difference between the two is profound. The conscious mind is a creative mind, the subconscious mind is a programmed mind a habit mind.”

So I say, “Why is it relevant?”

I say, “Well, if you’re running from the conscious mind, then you’re creating your life from wishes and desires and aspirations.”

However, if your life is under the control of the subconscious mind, it’s just going to play back the programs that you downloaded from other people. Since other people didn’t plan your wishes and your desires, the download you get may not even allow you to get in to the life you really wish for. So here comes the important issue.

Are we running our lives with conscious mind, or are we running our lives with the subconscious programs? Well, it turns out, science has revealed that only 5% of the day are we operating our nervous system using the conscious mind’s creative wishes and desires. 95% of the day, our life is coming straight out of the programs in our subconscious.

The reason why this is happening is that, when conscious mind is controlling our biology, sort of like a driver holding the wheel, taking us into the direction we want to go, our wishes and desires. However, when we are thinking, conscious mind has to let go of the wheel and go inside the brain. Why? Thought is an inside job, it’s not outside. So, what happens when consciousness is thinking? It’s not driving the vehicle.

I said, “Well then, what happens to the vehicle? Our body, when conscious, is thinking?”

I go, “Subconscious is autopilot.” So the moment we start thinking, biology’s taken over by the programs that we acquired in the subconscious. Now, here comes the problem. 95% of the day we’re operating from these programs, and the vast majority of them are disempowering and self-sabotaging downloads.

So we’re not leading a life that takes us towards wishes and desires, we’re leading a life that manifests the issues that we downloaded from other people, mostly negative. And therefor we struggle through life. And I say, “Well, why is there a struggle?”

I said, “Because you’re not operating from wishes and desires any longer, you’re operating from the habits you got from other people.” So this becomes a very profound issue. Because it says, then, that the life that we’re leading has already been controlled by the downloaded programs. This is not a new idea, for 400 ideas the [Jesuits 00:04:49] have told their followers, “Give me a child until age seven and I will show you the man.”

What they were saying was actually telling people, “If you give me an opportunity to download programs in the first seven years, that will determine the child’s rest of its life.” Why? Because 95% of a person’s life is coming from those programs. So the issue now is facing, what should we do with these programs? And the first issue is, what are the programs? Why? Because they were being downloaded in the last trimester of pregnancy, and all the way through the first seven years of life.

So, basically, you weren’t there when you were in the womb, and if I asked you, “What program did you get when you were zero, one, or two years of age?” You’d go, “I have no idea.” Because consciousness wasn’t even engaged at that point. So the first thing you need to know is what controls your life? 95% from the programs. Yeah, but what are the programs? And here comes a simple insight.

95% of your life is coming from the program, so your life is a print-out of the programs downloaded in your subconscious mind. And so significance is easy. Look at your life, the things you love and desire and wish for, that come in to your life, they come in because the subconscious has programs to acknowledge that. But here’s the more important part. Where you struggle in your life, where you want to have a certain outcome but you work hard for it, you put a lot of effort into it, you’re sweating over it to make something happen.

Why are you struggling so hard to create those wishes and desires? And the answer is very simple. The programs that you were downloaded with do not support those ends. So as a result, your behavior is sabotaging you. And then, this is the link and the catch for all of it is, when you were playing subconscious programs, why are you playing them? Because conscious mind is inside thinking, and as a result conscious mind is not observing the behavior that’s coming out from the program.

And since most of those programs are self-sabotaging and disempowering, you yourself don’t even see that you’re engaged in the process because subconscious is playing that, and conscious mind is not observing it. And why this then becomes important is it’s necessary for you to understand these programs, because we can change those programs. And when we change the programs in the subconscious, we re-write the character of our lives.

Well, the conscious mind is a creative mind, it can learn in any number of ways. Reading a self-help book, watching this particular video, going to a lecture, you can easily download new knowledge into the conscious mind. Significance is, the conscious mind is creative and it can be very smart. But the issue is, downloading new knowledge into the conscious mind does not change the program in the subconscious. It’s a different mind, and learns in a completely different way.

The subconscious mind is the habit mind, and by definition we don’t want to change habits very easily, especially for example, consider when did you learn how to walk? Before you were two. I don’t care what age you were at, almost all of us never have to relearn how to walk. And I say, “Well, thank you subconscious mind, because you downloaded the habit of walking.” And it tries to resist any change to that. But when you get a negative belief, it also tries to resist change.

So the issue is this, how can I put programs into the subconscious mind? New ones to replace the ones that are sabotaging me? And the answer is this. There are only three ways that you can re-write subconscious mind.

The first way is through hypnosis. This is the process that you downloaded programs in the first seven years. So every night when you go to bed, just when your conscious mind falls asleep, your subconscious mind is in operation.

So, if you put earphones on as you go to bed and hear a program, it’s not going into the conscious mind, but it’s going straight into subconscious mind and can reprogram it. How do you get new programs after age seven? Repetition, practice, anything you needed to learn, you had to repeat it and repeat it to create a habit. So if you want to change the habit that’s not supporting you, you have to engage a habit that does support you.

If you’re not a happy person, you can say every day, no matter how unhappy you are, you say to yourself repetitively, “I am happy, I am happy.” Over the day, you keep saying that. Guess what? Repetition, habituation, will change the program and one day you’ll wake up and guess what? Your subconscious mind’s already got a “I am happy,” program.

And lastly, the most effective way to change subconscious programming is through energy psychology. These are mechanisms that enhance super-learning, and therefor you can download new behaviors in matters of minutes. To understand super-learning, energy psychology and how it works, on my website, brucelipton.com, under resources, I have over 25 different energy psychology modalities that you can review, and identity one that feels the best to you. Because using these new processes, you can re-write your beliefs and radically change the character of your life in matters of minutes.

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The luxury of being able to spend time alone is becoming rare.

We live in a world where we are constantly being exposed to people. Whether it’s in person, over the phone or online, we are constantly “in touch” with the people in our world.

And in lots of ways, this is a great thing! Being connected to our tribe is a fundamental human need. We need to know that we have a community around us in order to feel safe, loved and supported.

But when we do this continuously we can actually forget how to BE without the influence of other people.

This is why learning to love your own company is so important.

Watch the video on YouTube:

When You Learn To Love Your Own Company These 4 Things Will Happen

1. Your Mind Will Clear

Our minds are in a constant state of chatter. Sometimes it can feel like a jungle in there! When we take time to be in our own company, we give ourselves the opportunity to clear out a lot of that mental chatter and tune into our inner voice, our intuition. From this place, we can make better decisions and overall achieve a much greater sense of peace and clarity.

2. You’ll Remember What You Love

When you spend time alone without the influence of other people you are able to reconnect to the things that you love and make you happy! This can mean doing something creative like painting or drawing, or even a hobby you love that you can’t do with other people. Indulging in your creativity without the influence of others is a beautiful way to connect to your self.

3. You Will Feel At Peace

When you spend time alone, you give yourself a gift. Sometimes, the people around us can cause us stress. Family friends, work colleagues can all put pressure on us, whether they mean to or not! When we are alone we have an opportunity to rest and renew.

4. Your Relationships Will Improve

It’s interesting to note that by spending time alone we actually get better at relating to others. This is for a couple of reasons, the first being that when you spend time alone, you then value the time with others more highly. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by peoples presence, you embrace it!

Secondly, when we take time alone to understand and value ourselves, we are better able to understand and value others. We build our empathy, compassion and patience. 

While it’s true we all need to spend time with others, its clear that time alone is just as important.

Do you like to spend time alone? I’d love to know what you have gained from it! Share your experiences with us below.

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