My Reflections from 2014
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My Reflections from 2014
In 2014, I was beginning to see some faint outlines for my future, although I had no definite idea about what the picture was. The sales for my two books, Talking Man to Man and Life Is a Lazy Susan, had dropped down to one or two books a month. The speaking gigs which came from my book’s initial releases had also dried up. After my first book, I started coaching for free to learn my style and build up a cliental base. After my first book, I had started coaching for free. With that coaching, I began developing my coaching style and building up a cliental base hoping that I could eventually charge for my coaching.
On a personal level and without knowing it, I was developing my understanding of reality and the human condition. I had gleaned a tremendous amount of information from the spiritual teachers I had recorded for my website BroadlandsMedia.com, and now I was starting to form that information into my way of explaining it. Philosophers and spiritual teachers had been expanding on the human condition and tools for making life easier for thousands of years. I was taking the first intentional steps toward joining their chorus. In that effort, I was beginning to build my Self-Compassionate Living philosophy, even though I didn’t have that name yet.
These essays are insights or reflections into my thought processes during the week that I wrote them. May you find some useful insight sin them as I did.
The New Year is here. Do you want a positive or a negative start
to it? That’s your choice. I vote positive; I think you deserve it. However,
society and our own personal emotional and thought programs may not feel the
same way. If you’re the type to make resolutions, I can imagine the internal
pressures and the external pressures you might be feeling are mounting.
First Posted December 30, 2014
Updated March 15, 2021
Updated March 15, 2021
This Holiday Season and New Year, I’m giving you a holiday gift. It’s a seed for a JPC plant, and I want you to plant this seed in your mind and heart. Water it with questions. Diligently tend to it with self-compassion. Patiently let it grow, and watch it slowly begin to bloom in your life.
First Posted December 24, 2014
Updated March 13, 202
Feeling broken or incomplete is difficult. For that matter, feeling several emotions at one time is difficult enough. Your emotions want action now, but your dreams are frequently more subtle. Your emotions don’t care if you’re living your goals; they want action. To accomplish your dreams, you have to know what you really, Really, REALLY want and then wait for the emotions to subside so you can see beyond them.
First Posted December 22, 2014
Updated February 15, 2021
Updated February 15, 2021
Life is a constant choice to be selfish or kind. How we
navigate those choices has a direct impact on our mood and emotions. When selfish feelings arise, may I suggest that you sit with those uncomfortable feelings
and discover what bubbles out of them with time? I suspect you may find that
the layers of kindness and selfishness blend into one another and that the only
threshold is what our most profound beliefs and motivations are.
First Posted December 19, 2014
Updated February 1, 2021
Updated February 1, 2021
Letting yourself be happy, that is a key to enjoying a meaningful life. Living
a life full of Joy, Peace, and Contentment (JPC) is an exercise in letting go
of our emotional survival programs.
First Posted December 17, 2014
Updated February 1, 2021
As you go through your day, practice healthy self-talk. You will have good days and bad days while learning it. However, as you practice, you will find yourself feeling fewer negative emotions each time you succeed at it. Those negative feelings will only continue to decrease with more practice and success.
December 15, 2014
Updated November 19, 2020
When I look up at the Universe at night, I can’t help but wonder who’s looking back at me—not so much in a metaphysical way, but more in a self-reflection way. If we are lucky, we have seven, eight, nine, maybe even ten decades to live an existence from which we usually want to enjoy a meaningful
December 11, 2014
Updated November 9, 2020
How do our first thoughts affect our behavior? I wondered that as I awoke this morning thinking about our first thoughts (there’s some humor in that as my first thought of the day was about our first thoughts). I was thinking about the first thing we think about as we experience different situations all day long.
December 8, 2014
I was recently having a trying time, and a friend asked me if he could do me a favor. I answered sure, but only if he wanted to. He said he was more than willing, and that was why he had asked if he could help. I told him that there’s a difference between being willing to and wanting to.
December 2, 2014
Throughout history, every society has developed stories and myths about the Great Hero. It’s an archetype for us to aspire too. The stories of the Great Hero are an epic story of a hero who faces daunting travails in their continuous effort to achieve his or her ultimate goals. Underneath the entertainment, though, it is the story of you and me.
June 24, 2014
A Positive Change began in February 2014 when a client I’ve had worked with for almost six years limped into my studio.
June 3, 2014
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It was a Thursday in late May of 2009. I'd been living with deep depression and anxiety for five months by that point, and it was killing me.
Updated February 26, 2020
June 3, 2014
Overwhelming Emotions will rule our lives if we don’t recognize them. You’ve heard this. I’m repeating it because it is easy to be controlled by our emotions.
Updated May 3, 2020
May 31, 2014
Miracles happen to us all the time. Usually, it is when we allow ourselves to be in that luminous darkness of crisis that we can see them.
May 19, 2014
Liminal Space defined: At the threshold or in-between conditions. Or maybe, I’m just in a midlife fog. Is there a difference? I’m not sure but I know both seem to feel true most of the time.
May 13, 2014
We can choose a better, happier, more satisfying path. Letting go of emotions is one way to start. Eventually, we learn, if we don’t glue ourselves to a feeling, we don’t have to let it go.
May 9, 2014
The feeling of internal organization is what prevents us from seeing the bigger picture of our lives. When we try to package our lives into controllable containers, I believe we limit ourselves and our options.
May 3, 2014
As emotional beings, our emotions filter everything we experience. That means that every thought, physical sensation, memory, perception, belief, and experience goes through our emotional filtering system and gets colored by it.
April 28, 2014
I’ve regained a lot of my footing since those dark days, but, career-wise, I still feel lost. As I speak with more and more people in coaching or at the talks I’m invited to give, I find the career lost-ness feeling is a pretty common theme.
April 24, 2014
Emotional Awareness opens up the motivations which influence or even control our lives. And thus, in midlife, when we feel confused or lost or depressed or anxious or in a fog, it helps to know we are actually feeling something.
April 17, 2014
Reality and God. What You’re Feeling Now Can De-focus Reality
This is where the past five years have been an amazing journey for me! I’ve found peace and contentment are always present in my soul. If I’m not feeling it, it’s because it’s not an emotional energy to be felt. It’s a state of being not a feeling.
April 13, 2014
My Reflections
Reflections are a way we can see ourselves. We can see our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions if we look closely. I teach Awareness as an essential tool we have to create a meaningful and peaceful life. I feel I need to practice what I preach. So, I occasionally work out my observations through writing, and when I think I’ve made some critical insights, I post it. It is a form of accountability for me.In my previous career, I was a record producer, and I would tell the artists that I worked with that “there is nothing like an audience to teach you how to play in front of an audience.” In a way, posting these reflections are my audience. These pages are a way I can work out my thoughts, observations, and insights, and maybe you and I can both grow through them. Ram Dass said, “We are all just walking each other home.” These pages are where I work out my offerings to that journey we are all on. Thank you for joining me and for inviting me to join you.
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May you grow from these writings as much as I have.
Dear Friend,
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