Ever catch yourself yelling at the GPS in your car? You’ve programmed your destination and everything should be tickety-boo. But Thelma with the British accent is telling you to turn left, and you’re sure she must be wrong, so you override her… turn right… and promptly get lost. Here’s the thing. You told the GPS what you wanted, but you resisted the directions it gave you. Crazy, huh? The same thing happens with our internal GPS,our personal emotional guidance system. Its job is to lead us where our heart wants to go. When we don’t follow, it physically hurts. We feel a gnawing ache in the pit of our stomach. So why do we resist? Most of us probably aren’t even aware we’re doing it. Fear is hijacking our ride. It’s taking us on a detour miles from the place we really want to go. Wouldn’t it be great if we could think differently? Do differently? Spoiler alert. We can. Instead of resisting, try allowing.Let yourself go where your GPS is leading. The energy of life wants to flow like water and take us downstream – where things are easy, fun and joyful. It’s up to us to allow it to. How many times have you slammed on the brakes when what you really wanted to do was hit the gas pedal? Sure, it takes practice; any new habit does. But the payoff will be huge. The payoff will be feeling good.
Pop music. It’s catchy, sure, but have you ever noticed how it sometimes focuses on the past and what went wrong there? Think of The Beatles and “Yesterday”, or Adele and “Hello”. The melodies are beautiful, but the lyrics are filled with sadness and regret. Energetically, they’re vibrating at a lower frequency – and listening to them makes us vibrate at a lower frequency, too. Kind of like a tuning fork, eh? Most of the time, we probably don’t even realize it; we’re too busy singing along with Spotify to notice. Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh knows a thing or two about this. He’s a big fan of Now. Visit his Buddhist monastery in France and you’ll notice there’s a tradition there. At designated times during the day, the sisters and monks ring a mindfulness bell. Everyone within earshot stops their conversations and whatever they are doing, and brings awareness to their breathing. The bell is a reminder to come back to this moment – the one where our life is unfolding… Now. When you think about it, some of the best music brings us back to now… where we feel a smile on our face and joy as we sing along. Regret over the past and worry about the future don’t even enter our minds. How do we get there? Change the playlist, baby, change the playlist. Pharrell Williams anyone?
Wouldn’t it be great if we were constantly surrounded by love? Nothing but positive vibrations, loving words and intentions swirling around us from sun-up to sundown? Last time I checked, the world we live in was a little more cranky than that. Nuclear war, terrorism, murders – you name it – there’s enough bad stuff going on the world to keep the TV newscasts in business 24/7. The more we watch, the higher the ratings, the higher their profits. Ever notice how awful you feel after you watch? It drags your vibration down, pure and simple. The good news is that we can literally change our focus and changethat vibration. Yup. One of my favourite spiritual teachers, Pam Grout (author of “E-Squared”), knows all about it. Pam sees life as an energy lab where we create our own reality . Stay with me, okay? And she loves experiments. My favourite one asks you to look for “Sunset Beige” cars the next time you’re out on the highway. “Ha!” I thought. “Like anyone drives a Sunset Beige car.” Lo and behold, when I changed my focus and looked for them, I discovered that they are – well – everywhere. Just like good in the world. Just like love and kindness and compassion and joy. They are everywhere, too… swirling around us from sun-up to sundown. And all we have to do is look for them. We really do get what we look for. Bazinga, baby.
Positive momentum. That’s what you want when you’re starting a new venture…hmmmm… I don’t know… like a website, blog and podcast dedicated to mindful living, meditation and self-care, right? Whether it’s a new venture or life in general, I’ve learned in my time on Earth as a human that our pendulum needs to swing in the direction of what we want, without wasting a moment of our time or energy on what we don’t want. Sound too easy? It’s actually metaphysics at work. We are energetic beings, and everything around us is energy, agreed? The higher a frequency we vibrate at, the more we attract people and things into our lives that are also vibrating at that high frequency. You’ve heard it referred to before as the “Law of Attraction”. So how do we raise our vibration? We’ll talk more about that in future posts. For now, spiritual teachers Esther Hicks and Abraham have what might be the best starting point of all: be grateful for the general wonderful-ness of life: for our bodies breathing in and out all night long while we sleep without any help from us, for our heart pumping 24/7 and keeping us alive day in and day out, for the roof over our heads, for the well-built cars that we are privileged to drive, for the good food we have access to that nourishes us, for the electricity that makes it possible for us to power our lives. Think about it for a minute. Do those things make you feel good? Does it feel good to express appreciation for them? I thought so. The better you feel, the higher you vibrate. Welcome to the good vibrations club. 🎶
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
