Each of us lives in our own self-prescribed little boxes defined by our ideas, beliefs and boundaries.  Each decision we make is made with the assumption it will provide comfort and safety and be the best option for our well being. Some of these decisions are made by default out of habit and due to very old constructs and ways of seeing the world.

One of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself, is to step off the merry-go-round and take a look at the boxes you live in to see if they’re still serving you (or if you’re bold – if they ever have). If they are, but you’re feeling stifled and confined, why not stir things up a bit by changing your routine or the people you spend time with.

If you see that the boxes are no longer working, make some new choices that break down those walls. Start by saying yes to new ideas and new ways of being and doing things and no to things that aren’t working.

It’s rejuvenating to open windows and doors and let fresh air and energy into your life. Taking down walls is far more radical, but the result is the same: life becomes more magical when the dimension of the unpredictable and mysterious is let in. You become teachable and open to the new and unknown and ready to receive the many gifts on the other side of those walls.

When you start saying yes to the whole that life has to offer rather than restricting the flow by your need for control, your world expands and unforeseen possibilities appear out of nowhere. It is then that we realize how much we were missing living inside of our small boxes with our endless filters refracting and distorting what was right in front of us, engaging instead with only our projections.

This is the world of delusion where many people reside because they truly believe that a constructed, controlled world is better (read safer) than the real world. It is a reactive, survivalist stance that instigates this limiting viewpoint, typically based on a deeply wounding heartbreak or disillusionment. I’m not suggesting that the need for withdrawing from the world and licking one’s wounds isn’t worthwhile, when needed. Rather, it’s when this temporary retreat becomes a habitual way of living that a refuge becomes a prison. The longer one resides there, the more difficult it becomes to leave, requiring something of a catalytic event to change things.

I have experienced all different degrees of walls coming down in my own life, some imposed by people and events outside of me and others initiated by me. Either way, it ain’t always easy to move out of our comfort zones, but it is almost always for the best.

Saying yes is another way of putting down our weapons of resistance and greeting what shows up in our lives with open arms. I used to joke with people that I’d rather raise my hand and volunteer for life’s lessons and tests than wait around until I hearing a loud banging on my door telling me I’ve been drafted.  What that means is that saying yes is akin to showing the universe that you’d like to take your medicine the easy way, not by having to be forced.

I know, sometimes the most direct route can be rough, but it’s usually so much less dramatic and time consuming. Go right up to your fears and issues and meet them halfway and ask them what they need from you. If you turn your back and run, they will follow you around making your life miserable. Plus, the idea of them is far more terrifying than the reality. I’ve found when I walk right up to the things in my life I’d rather avoid, they are so much smaller and easier to deal with than I expected.  I’ve also noticed that when I’m willing to face my demons, I score some pretty nice karmic points and I become aware of how life seems to be on my side a bit more and even conspiring to help me out.

Becoming aware of the boxes we’ve created can be done in a number of ways. One of my favorites and one I’ve used with my clients, is to look at the things we say we always do or never do. Start there and that will show you all kinds of things about yourself. These are the boundaries that we’ve erected around us. Look at them and see if they make sense anymore. Watch your habitual ways of thinking and behaving. Chances are there are some areas that really need updating.

If you feel stuck, it is up to you to see how small your world is and do whatever you can to break down the walls and live a bigger, more expansive life.

Saying yes works well if you need to push through your resistance to the unknown.

Saying no works well if you need to stop people pleasing and accommodating others’ needs instead of your own.

Only you know which one will shift things in your life.

1.    What are you afraid of?
2.    What are you obsessed about?
3.    What/who are you attached to?
4.    What /who are you cut off from?
5.    What is necessary to have, do, be for you to feel happy?
6.    What must you do before you die?
7.    What limits, burdens and imprisons you?
8.    What is the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams?
9.    What is your biggest regret or failure?
10.    In what areas of your life are you living a lie?
11.    Do you feel that you are doing what you were born to do? Why? Why not?
12.    What is the greatest gift that you have to offer others?
13.    What is lacking the most in your life right now?
14.    In what area of your life are you thriving?
15.    If there was one thing you could change right now what would it be?

According to Wikipedia, the illusion of control is “the tendency for human beings to believe they can control, or at least influence, outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over”. This belief, I think, stems directly from how much our lives seem to support that illusion. In other words, when things are going well or going our way, it “appears” as though we are in command to some degree, bending life to our will.

However, when things begin to fall apart and our circumstances abruptly change, we usually feel as though we’ve somehow lost control. We throw around words like lucky or unlucky, depending on what happens to or around us. We talk about how certain things are “meant to be” or that there are no accidents.

The bigger the change, the more it becomes clear that we have much less control than we think we do. At any moment, without notice, our lives can change dramatically. We can have an accident, be involved in a natural disaster, get sick, lose a loved one, get fired, etc. We all know this; we have all experienced this, and yet we still behave as though we have control over our lives.

According to a recent study, the illusion of control is strongest when we are in a position of power.  From an article in Science Daily, called Power and The Illusion of Control:

CEOs of Fortune 500 companies routinely overestimate their capacity to turn mergers and acquisitions into huge profits, leading to financial losses for themselves, their companies, and their stockholders. Even ordinary people seem to take on an air of invincibility after being promoted to a more powerful position. The consequences of these tendencies, especially when present in the world’s most powerful leaders, can be devastating.

In a new study, Nathanael Fast and Deborah Gruenfeld at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Niro Sivanathan at the London Business School and Adam Galinsky at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, show that power can literally “go to one’s head,” causing individuals to think they have more personal control over outcomes than they, in fact, do.

“We conducted four experiments exploring the relationship between power and illusory control – the belief that one has the ability to influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance,” said Galinksy, “In each experiment, whether the participant recalled power by an experience of holding power or it was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to Manager-Subordinate roles, it led to perceived control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the individual. Furthermore, the notion of being able to control a ‘chance’ result led to unrealistic optimism and inflated self-esteem.”

If control is an illusion, then why do we hold onto it so tightly? My guess is that we need this illusion in order to suspend our disbelief long enough to fully engage in our lives. Without it, we’d be paralyzed with fear, looking over our shoulders wondering when something bad might happen. Our illusion of control gives us a feeling of being able to do the impossible, transcend limitations and create new opportunities. Our greatest inventions come from the belief that we can create something out of nothing. If we simply resigned ourselves to our mortality or the fragility of human life, we would never attempt to do anything.

Problems arise when this belief in our ability to control things goes too far. People with lots of power and/or lots of money often fall prey to this because their lives are buffered by the ability to manipulate or buy their way out of problems and suffering. This option is not available to people without authority or means.

What fascinates me is that those without power or money often turn to each other to solve problems. Or to the divine, in whatever way they understand that. They use inner resources rather than outer resources. Of course, not all. Some take a negative approach and manipulate others by stealing or simply escape altogether through addiction. But for the most part, those without power or means  tend to live life with a greater awareness of change and death, and therefore approach life with respect and humility.

As evidenced by our failing economy, the illusion of control at its extreme can extract a tremendous price (there are endless examples throughout history that reveal the same thing). Life is not a casino, and when it is seen as fodder for manipulation to be used for personal gain, the illusion falls down hard and fast. Life has, and always will have, the upper hand, and it has some not so subtle ways of reminding us of that.

Anything that flies high eventually has to come down. Like it or not, there’s no way to outsmart change or death. They’re inevitable. We can only pretend they’re not, but sooner or later, they’ll come knocking at our door.

Is it not better then to meet life as it is and stop the pretending? To some extent yes, as long as we learn to accept change and death without fear.  Nothing wrong with wrapping a bit of illusion around us for comfort. The trick is to not to buy into it too deeply or get too attached to things staying the same. This is where a bit of Zen acceptance and surrender comes in handy.

There is some freedom in letting go of the illusion of control. We can relax our vigilance and begin to allow it all to unfold, as we would a movie. However, life is not a spectator sport. For as long as we live, we are players on the field, engaging in the game. What we think, say and do matters, but not in the personal way we typically think of it, but rather in a big picture kind of way.

To get a glimpse of that you’ll need to speak with the director.

Outside of the basic necessities of fresh air, clean water, food, sleep and love, there is one thing that all human beings long for above all else: to be seen and heard. And also to be appreciated and validated. These are precious morsels that truly feed the soul, and are not experienced nearly enough. On the deepest level this means expressing who we are, without censor or hindrance and finding ourselves wholly accepted by another.

Without a witness or mirror we are lost unto ourselves. Our minds and emotions become random and disordered in isolation. It is the reflections of others that anchor us in the present moment and give us perspective and meaning.  Our ideas and feelings bounce back to us so that we are no longer blind and deaf allowing us to find our location in relation to our environments.

We simply cannot fully know ourselves without another. The flip side is that we can also lose ourselves in another (but that’s another topic).

Either extreme is blinding, as are the twins of selfishness and selflessness. Too much of anything is always too much.

With that said, not much comes close to being really seen and appreciated by another. This is the true meaning of unconditional love, even if it is only temporary or a moment in time, it is a beautiful thing to experience and to give to another. In the same vein as with all things spiritual, it takes presence and attention, dropping the agenda and really tuning in and listening to another. Just be there. Be available. Fully. Just capture someone with your presence.

There is no greater gift we can give than to soak in another’s raw, radiant beauty. Time and space stop and nothing else matters.

We are all moving so fast that we often only give others a cursory glance or brief acknowledgment, so busy are we with what is rambling inside of our own heads. Running through life gets us nowhere fast and we miss just about everything. What we are seeking is all around us, and yet we don’t see it because our vision has become blurred by our rush to get to the next thing on our list.

Do you ever miss people right after you’ve seen them? If so, then you know what I’m talking about. We blink and the moment and the people in it are gone, whizzing past us in a whirlwind of doing and movement.

You know how it feels when someone isn’t really listening to you? They’re distracted by something and you find yourself in the middle of  monologue? Neither one of you is really present. Just warm bodies and talking heads, but no real contact.

No wonder we feel so lost and lonely sometimes. What we really need at those times is to spend some time being fully present with someone and having someone be fully present with us.

We also need to spend time being present with ourselves. Time in which we fully listen to our bodies, our hearts, our desires, our ideas, etc. Just quality time slowing down and listening.

The sweet nectar of life is all around us, juicy and delicious, waiting for us to partake.

Years ago, Emmet Fox wrote that the word, individual, means indivisible. Upon reading that recently, I decided to do a bit of research. Sure enough, indivisible is listed as one of the definitions of individual, though most of us don’t think of it that way. The idea that an individual cannot be divided or separated from the whole illuminates the deeper truth that we are all connected. Though we are unique, individual expressions of the divine, we are not separate or apart from it. To think so, is to deny the essence of who we are.

The illusion of our separateness is what makes our lives exciting, but it is also what gets us into the most trouble.  It is a double-edged sword requiring a delicate balance between our needs and desires and the needs and desires of those around us. Selflessness as well as selfishness are both necessary as long as neither is taken to extremes of martyrdom or narcissism. Navigating this fine line seems to define a lot of our experience in this 3-D world.  Loving oneself is a necessary prerequisite of loving others.

Giving and receiving are part of the circle of life and when the input and output are in balance, life feels good. It is when the scales are tipped too heavily on one side or another, that life feels painful. It seems we are constantly making adjustments in both extremes, in order to find our way back to the middle again. The costs of living too selflessly or selfishly are great to our health and well being, but in order to know those extremes we often have to touch them. Some of us get stuck in those extremes and life becomes a living hell for awhile. Some of us don’t ever find our way back a place of balance. Some of us are fortunate enough to get help and support to do it.

We are not alone, and it is our belief that we are that puts us in danger. Feeling cut off from others, unloved or undervalued leads to a distorted perception of our place in the world. By the same token, feeling worshiped or overly important can create a false idea of us and our place in the world.

As a friend once said to me, he neither wanted to be placed on a pedestal nor crucified; instead, he preferred having his feet on the ground. Staying grounded requires finding our place in the whole, seeing each and every one of us as significant and necessary for our evolution. This, of course, has never been more clear than it is now. There is no escape from the mistakes of the past or from the current destruction of the planet we call home. We collectively created the mess, and it is up to us to solve it. The economic crisis drives this message even deeper. The era of the individual in the sense of the word that means separate is over. The true meaning of that word is bubbling to the surface in the midst of our turmoil, reminding us that are are indivisible, that we are in this together and that we need each other.

The earth is a ship traveling through space and we are its passengers. There are no lifeboats or evacuation plans, therefore, we must work with what we have: together. Those who think only of themselves will continue to lead us astray into certain destruction. It is those who think of the survival of the whole who can save us.

All the best spiritual and political leaders taught that love and cooperation are the answers. Competition implies that someone has to win and someone has to lose. We are now past the point where there will be winners and losers because we are all in the game. The question is not so much will we survive, but rather if we survive how much of what we have now will remain? The answer seems to me to be based solely on how quickly we are willing to stop operating as independent agents and acknowledge our connection to the whole.

Why is it so easy to take the people, places and things in our lives for granted?  We get comfortable with the old and familiar. We get lazy and unconscious and begin to feel entitled to what we have rather than grateful as we would be for a gift.

With all the collective emphasis on the Law of Attraction and manifestation techniques, there is the risk of putting too much attention on what what we want or what is missing from our lives rather than on appreciating what we have.  With our economy in crisis, it is illuminating so many things that we falsely assumed were permanent fixtures of life, barely realizing their fragile roots or that their very existence was based on a mass agreed-upon illusion.

As the John Lennon lyric so aptly states, “You don’t know what you got, until you lose it,” we are waking up to our own blindness to the incredible privileges that have graced our lives: work, housing, food, clean water, material goods aplenty, a multitude of entertainment choices…the list goes on. Suddenly, these aspects of life that we assumed were a given, are now threatened, and oh how much more precious they seem! Suddenly, our lives are not so much about what we don’t have, but rather being grateful for what we do have.

The restlessness and incessant need for more lessens when we shift our perspective even slightly and see the value in choosing what we have. It is as if a veil has come down and America has been caught with its collective pants down. No longer can we deny that people on this planet are living unsustainable lives under intolerable conditions. This awareness is now bumping up against our formerly sheltered and buffered lives. No longer can we pretend that we have transcended our humanity. We, too, are facing issues connected with our survival and there is no where to escape that reality.

In this context, the self-help movement with its promises of salvation and material wealth, seems a bit shallow. We cannot survive this major evolutionary shift by continuing to support the every man out for himself mentality.

That chapter of our story is over.

There is no denying now that we need each other to survive. We have to come together to share resources, not accumulate them, to share knowledge freely, not turn it into another product to sell, to cooperate, not compete.

The spiritual naturally becomes political when it involves the survival of our planet. Hiding on a mountaintop is no longer an option for anyone who considers him- or herself a member of a global community. Yes, we still need to meditate and we still need to practice principles of conscious living, but we also need to take action. We can no longer afford to be spectators in this game of life. We are being called our to take ownership of our lives and accountability for the lives of everyone on the planet.

Choosing what you have, sharing what you know, and being who you are with all of your wisdom and skills are some of the first steps in this process. Just the simple act of opening up your life to the bigger picture will shift things in miraculous ways.

Human beings are tribal in nature, always have been, always will be. We need each other. Even our natural affinity with online social networks reveals this. The post WWII model of nuclear family life is outdated and unsustainable. It is a model of excess, draining resources and creating waste. Our planet and our economy will no longer support that lifestyle. Instead, we will be forced (since most of us didn’t volunteer) to live more cooperatively in relationships and networks of interdependence. Bartering will replace monetary exchange as people look for more creative ways to purchase what they need. Sharing big ticket items among a group of families will make them more affordable and accessible. Gardening, public transportation, free local entertainment will replace their higher cost alternatives.

None of us knows how far down the rabbit hole we have to go to learn these lessons, but go we must, the window to turn things around already past. In the meantime, look at what you have and see it for all it’s preciousness, because tomorrow it may be gone.

A friend and I were speaking yesterday about the fact that there is no arriving in life. There is no destination. It’s all about movement–constant movement. Yes, there are plateaus and periods of stillness and rest, but ultimately, we cannot hang onto any state of being.

This is a double edged sword. When we achieve equilibrium and a sense of contentment, we tend to want to stay there. Instead, something comes along and dashes our best intentions. We start feeling antsy or restless or bored or just plan depressed–life feels off again, and we question what happened. Life happened. Change happened. We are cycling through something, learning something, getting another perspective, whatever you want to call it. The break is over and it’s time to experience something different.

This can be frustrating and even agonizing, but imagine where we’d be if our feelings and state of being never changed? When we’re feeling depressed or out of balance, all we can think of is wanting that to change.

Accepting the full spectrum of experiences seems to be the only way to navigate this 3-D world. We can either be with what is as it is or we can fight against it. In my experience, resistance to what is, only makes it last longer and feel worse.

This is a tough thing to get. Perhaps I’m a slow learner, but most of my life has been spent seeking a solution to the way things are. The search for transcendence and enlightenment is all about wanting things to be different. I’ve always assumed that if I looked long and hard enough, I would finally find someone or something with an explanation that would help me escape the pain and challenges of existence.

The answer–acceptance–had been there all along, but until recently I didn’t like that answer. I saw it as giving up or resigning oneself to a life of quiet desperation. I didn’t see it as the powerful tool it was, until recently. A convergence of a number of circumstances in my life had brought me to my knees leaving me with few other options, so I decided to give it a try.

And to my amazement, it worked. I began to feel glimmers of peace and contentment in ways that I never had previously. Instead of working hard to change the externals, I focused on changing my reactions and overall attitude. It made a huge difference. I shifted my viewpoint from seeing circumstances happening to me to simply happening.

It was as if I’d found a port in the storm, a place to be in the midst of the apparent chaos unfolding around me. A huge breakthrough, to be sure. However, there is also a trap here. There is a fine line between acceptance and complacency or acceptance and passivity, which goes back to what I wrote earlier: there is no arriving. Great, I can control my reactions and experience more peace and comfort in my life, but I cannot then get stuck in this neutral zone, hang out there avoiding and ups and downs.

To be truly awake and alive, we need to stretch; we need to break down the barriers of the familiar and the habitual on a regular basis. To do this requires coming out of our caves and putting ourselves deliberately in situations that keep us on our toes.

Think about it: where are you playing it safe? Hiding out? What are you avoiding? What limitations define your life and your being? To really look at this you need to take stock.� Make a list of things you believe you can’t do. See what that looks like. Beyond that you can make a list of things you ALWAYS think, feel or do and things you NEVER think, feel or do. You will� begin to discover how small your world is, how much of a box you live in.

Basically, if you’re not stretching on a regular basis, you’re not living. If you’re not trying new things, challenging yourself, scaring yourself and making yourself uncomfortable, you are living a limited life.

Muscles that aren’t stretched become toxic and stagnant. So do we when we don’t stretch. Acceptance and surrender and being in the present are all beautiful tools to create peace and equilibrium. But we also need movement and change and growth. For each of us this looks a little different. That’s what makes it so exciting.

Where are you willing to stretch?

1. You don’t take things personally.

2. You speak less and listen more.

3. You are more interested in inner peace than you are in happiness.

4. You know more than you believe.

5. You recognize that there is a lot you don’t know.

6. You care more about people than things.

7. You listen to and follow your intuition more than your intellect.

8. You trust yourself more than the opinion of others.

9. You see giving and receiving as one and the same.

10. Practicing gratitude is part of your daily routine.

11. Meditation comes as naturally to you as breathing.

12. You have a direct experience of a higher intellegence.

Thinking gets us in trouble. It takes us on the road to nowhere, spinning us around and around until we end up with a migraine or collapse from exhaustion.

Far better to look and observe what is right in front of you. Act if you feel called to act, but reduce the noise in your head down to a bare minimum. Most of it is useless, repetitive chatter anyway. The mind is like a radio broadcast that is always on. The least you can do is to turn the volume down, so that it moves to the background.

As I’ve said before, the body never lies. Nor does the heart. It is when our thoughts are pouring over our feelings that clarity becomes confusion. A simple question that begins with the words, “What if…” initiates a chain of thoughts that lead us into a place of random speculation, zapping us right out of the present moment.

Thoughts can be addictive. More specifically, certain themes trigger a bio-chemical reaction in our neuro-pathways and we revisit those themes over and over in an attempt to relive certain experiences or feelings.

The past is dead and the future is still a dream. Life only exists in the present. Our thoughts pull us away from the present, keep us adrift in a sea of memories and possibilities, leaving us unengaged from what is right in front of us.

Again, we can return to the body. If you want to tune into the present, the quickest path there is to tune into your body. Become aware of your five senses. What do you see right now? Hear? Feel? Taste? How is your breathing? Shallow? Deep? Are you tensing any muscles in your body?

So much money spent on spirituality, personal growth and consciousness development is wasted. The truth is simple, but no one can make money on simple. Waking up and becoming aware and conscious is the simplest thing, available to all without fancy books, seminars, CDs and DVDS. It is free. It is here. It is now. Nothing added. Ram Dass in a book he wrote many years ago summed it up in three words: Be Here Now.

That’s it. The secret of enlightenment. The answer to all seeking. The place where all life happens. The rest is an illusion. But the mind doesn’t like simple; it leaves it with nothing to do. Like a monkey in a cage, it screams and shakes the bars demanding to be let free…free to roam through the archives of your life, emptying boxes of files everywhere and making a mess. When it’s through there, it heads into the realm of fantasy projecting your hidden desires and dreams in a chaotic kaleidoscope of images.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Each moment we are in it, but how much of it do we really experience, so distracted and seduced are we by the thought circus in our heads.

Look, breathe, feel, touch, taste, listen, move, but stop thinking so much. Just allow the thinking to go on without you. Pretend you’re in another room and your thoughts are just part of the background noise.

Give yourself fully to the present. It’s quite extraordinary when you really begin to participate in it. For one thing, it’s always changing. For another, it’s mysterious — you never quite know what’s going to happen next.�� Besides there is a big difference between hanging out backstage behind the curtain or sitting in the audience than being on the stage performing. The rush of being part of something, part of life cannot be imagined, it has to be experienced firsthand.

All that is required to make that shift from spectator to performer is to pay attention. It’s what puts us smack dab in the middle of the game.

The underlying process to waking up is to remove anything and everything that is in the way or interferes with it, remembering that the true and natural human state is this place. The rest is a trick, a lie, an illusion, a trap, a prison, etc.

We need to remember who we are. We are Divine and our natural state of being is wholeness, perfection, health, prosperity, peace, joy, love, connectedness, oneness, etc.

We move back and forth between remembering and forgetting, between expansion and contraction, between love and fear. The path is about spending less time in the place of forgetting, contracting and fear and more time in the place of remembering, expansion and love.

Why is this so difficult to grasp or to put into words? Why is it so difficult to experience at will? It is what we all know exists, what we search for and long for, but often miss. When we do find it for whatever brief period, we rejoice; when it’s gone, we feel devastated. This is why people use drugs and alcohol–they are looking for this sensation or place of being in the flow…this place of joy and bliss and connectedness. Drugs and alcohol simulate it, but it’s not nearly as good as the real thing, and when you come down from a drug high you are even further away from the real thing–a viscous circle with the only escape being one or more of the above paths at work in your life.

The place is the place where miracles and healing and manifestation happen. It is the space in between everything. This is what Christ meant when he said the Truth will set you free…it is this place…this high energy, almost manic blissful place where life seems magical and wondrous that he was speaking about. To be human and remember your Divinity is about as good as it gets…it’s like being in love with Life.

When someone is in this place it affects everyone around him/her. They can feel the energy because that person has tapped directly into Source and has become a clear channel for that energy and it is electric and intoxicating.

To access this Source requires nothing more than clearing the channel and removing whatever is in the way physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, energetically, etc.

This will allow us to access this Source more at will rather than at random.

Sometimes it seems so random. I’ve worked hard for years with all the techniques, but lately it just seems to happen without anything specific preceding it, as if I’m just finding the location and then the channel opens up.

Maybe my son was right and there are two “earths” and one is underneath the other one. One is REAL and the other one is a lie, a simulation or game. There are doors and escape hatches from the matrix earth into the real one, and perhaps we slip into it when we dream or meditate or take hallucinogenic drugs or sometimes just randomly have a peak experience. But then we always come back into the matrix–the limited earth, the painful earth, the challenging earth. Finding the doors are the key to a better life. Death is one door, but there are many, many other doors, and within this false earth there are clues everywhere about how to access the REAL one. It’s tricky and requires lots of work and removal of the false persona that we’ve been led to believe is real. When we remember who we are, we automatically have access to the REAL earth. But remembering ain’t easy; luckily there are lots of catalysts around that can trigger a memory.