Passion

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire." — Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch

"Anyone can dabble, but once you've made that commitment, your blood has that particular thing in it, and it's very hard for people to stop you." — Bill CosbyComedian

"One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested." — E. M. Forster

"Chase your passion, not your pension." — Denis Waitley

"With out passion you dont have energy, with out energy you have nothing." — Donald Trump

Enthusiasm

"If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm." --Bruce Barton

"en·thu·si·asm: a strong excitement of feeling, passion, zeal or fervor."

Are you enthusiastic? What about? Your enthusiasms are signs from the universe (or God) of areas for you to explore in your life. The feeling of enthusiasm is a natural response to something that interests, intrigues or excites you. I believe that enthusiasm, along with curiosity, are two ways for you to tell what path you are supposed to be taking in your life. Another way of saying this is enthusiasm and curiosity can lead you to your purpose in life.

You may also be one of those (like I used to be) who didn't much get excited about anything. I generally used logic and thinking as my primary way of moving through the world. Someone wise mentioned to me that I was missing a lot in the world by not owning and expressing my more positive feelings, such as enthusiasm. I listened and changed.

Expressing enthusiasm can feel like being a kid again. You feel energized, freer and lighter, or at least I do.

Make a list of all the things that you are enthusiastic about now. Try to do at least one of these each day or week.

If you don't feel enthusiastic about anything, it's time for a change. It could be a sign of depression that you could explore with your doctor or therapist. If you're just in a rut, then try something new this week. See if it engenders enthusiastic feelings. If not, try something else that you are curious about. Your life will change for the better.

Motivation and Action

"Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something." -- Andrew Carnegie

This is a powerful, albeit obvious, statement about the human condition.

First, it says that our desires, our dreams, our wants are powerful motivators. They spur us to get up out of our chairs and move. As a child, motivation came easily and naturally. We were motivated to crawl, to walk, to communicate. Motivation is the difference between something being difficult to achieve and being easy to achieve. The more motivated you are, the easier it is to take action. Even dull or difficult jobs take on an excitement and become easier when we are powerfully motivated. In fact, it is more difficult to not take action when motivated. I have dieted many times. When I was powerfully motivated, the weight seemed to just fall away by itself. Eating healthfully was easy. Exercising was easy. But when I just decided (in my head) to lose weight, every choice was difficult, with lots of backsliding and little success. The only real difference was motivation. It was certainly not knowledge, will-power or planning.

Second, it says that action makes things happen. Action is our way of building a life, fulfilling our desires and even fulfilling our destiny. When we take action we are building momentum, speeding up the fulfillment of our dreams or our desires. Your dreams are not created by sitting in a chair (unless, of course, that is your dream!). Dreams are created, brought into life, by focusing your energy on that dream. By making it as real as possible and then taking action to achieve it. Without the action, a dream is just that, forever a dream.

Think back on your past achievements. What desires and dreams did you have that led to those accomplishments? What was your motivation? What actions did you take to accomplish these things? Which ones were difficult and which were easy? What special qualities (such as persistence, intelligence, courage, gratitude, etc.) were used in each accomplishment?

What insight do you gain from these questions and answers to help you with a current dream, or a current obstacle in the path of your dreams? Have you clarified your dream and focused your energy (both inner and outer) on it? Are you motivated? Are you taking appropriate actions to create your dream?

Relish Discomfort

And, no I'm not talking about pickles!

Discomfort is a sure sign that we are stretching ourselves. That uneasiness, that queasiness, is proof that we are stepping outside our boxes, that we are trying on something new and discovering new facets of ourselves. This is the stuff life is made of!

It's funny how humans are conditioned to desire comfort and sameness. We get to a place and we stop. We think, this isn't so bad, I think I'll stay here. Of course, the world is constantly changing and so are our lives. Most of our unhappiness centers around trying to keep things the same. We become very attached to our lives, just the way it is, thank you very much.

Sameness leads to dullness. Sameness is the opposite of growth, of insight. Sameness is not something to cling to. Sameness is not something to be desired, although we all do it.

As we take on new tasks, new jobs, new areas of growth, we often feel discomfort. We may question what we are doing, why we are doing it. We may feel fear or anxiety. But that is the necessary step that comes with true growth, with real expansion of self. Each stretch we go through expands our lives and the richness of our experience.

Excitement is often masked as discomfort, maybe an uneasy stomach or tension in the chest. Breathe into it and let it be.

Is there some area of growth or expansion you are avoiding? Is there something that keeps coming up for you to try, but you find a million reasons why you can't or won't? Life is change, whether you desire it or not. So stretch yourself. Give in to your higher desire to be more and to express your talents in this world in new ways.

Find Your Grail

I was lucky enough to see the hit Monty Python musical, "Spamalot", this weekend. It was incredibly funny and entertaining. We had such a great time. If you get the chance to see it, go!

One of the songs in the play was "Find Your Grail", meaning find who you were meant to be, or find what you are meant to be doing in this life. The song expressed the true joy of being you and only you. So many of us plod down a path that was laid out for us by our parents or our upbringing and circumstances at birth. We fall into our careers based on whim or chance or what will gain us the most money. We choose as a 19 year old, either after high school or in college, what we will do for the rest of our lives. Our career choices often become our identity. Our egos cling to this, creating a huge story about our life as a ____ (doctor, teacher, mechanic, VP, mother, etc.) We puff up with pride or cringe in embarrassment about what we do. We take it on as if it were who we are. We eventually believe that our professions are who we are and that without this profession, we'd be no one. We weren't born being this vocation, it is a choice and can be unchosen. After all, when introductions are made, the next question is often, what do you do? And we answer with our career choice, I'm a doctor! A much more interesting question is "who are you when you're not at work?"

Find Your Grail. I like the picture of going on a holy quest for the grail, the answer to life's questions about who you are meant to be. Everyone goes on this quest at some point in their lives. Some do it early, some late. Some do it thoughtfully and well, some don't. The quest is to discover who you are, what your unique gifts are and how they can be expressed in the world.

What can you do today to begin this quest?

• Take stock of where you are.


• What are you doing with your time and energy?


• How do you feel about your career or lack of one?


• How do you feel about your life, in general?


• What talents and gifts do you have that you can share with the world?


• In what ways and how often do these get expressed?


• What are your favorite things to do, things that make you feel more alive?


• Make a life list of things you want to do before you die. Then start doing them. You'll find out a lot about you are and what you are interested in by this exercise.

In case you're interested, the song lyrics can be found at http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/spamalot/findyourgrail.htm

Double Dare You

Are you thinking about doing something out of your comfort zone? Maybe something that feels a little wacky or uncomfortable? Possibly something that causes you to seize up and be afraid? Good for you!

Stepping outside your comfort zone has so many benefits and so few downsides that you'd be crazy not to do it. However, that's not what most of us do. We fantasize about it, we dream about it, but when the fear comes up or when others judge us for our desires, we close down and sit down squarely in the middle of our own personal comfortable box.

One of the main jobs of our egos is to keep us safe. The ego will advise us to stay the course, to choose "wisely" and be "rational", meaning to stay the same and don't take any risks. Our thoughts scare us into behaving ("I'll get hurt", "this wouldn't be good", "it can't turn out well, look at everyone else who has failed at this", etc.). Egos were formed mostly in early childhood. Things that were dangerous then, are no longer dangerous, but try to tell your ego that! This means that many of our thoughts about taking a risk or trying something new are based on faulty thoughts, beliefs and assumptions about what may happen.

Taking a calculated risk, stepping outside our comfort zone, trying something new and daring, all have benefits. Just a few of them are:

• we feel better, more exhilarated, more excitement and passion


• we win even if we fail because we always learn something about ourselves, we gain insight


• our lives take on new dimensions, we meet new people, we learn new skills, we often feel something new, we have new experiences


• we gain self-confidence


• these new experiences are often the "door opening" to something even bigger and better


• we look forward to these experiences with happy anticipation

I double dare you to step out, live large, be bold and experience life!

Please leave a comment and let me know what you're thinking about doing to step outside your comfort zone.

Take Out the Trash

I read this phrase, "take out the trash", recently in a movie review and thought how much trash is in each of our lives. We look around our home or office and say, hey, there's no trash here. We organize, we declutter, we simplify...no trash here. And we do keep our homes and cars clean, our lawns nice, but that's not all that needs to be cleaned up. We take better care of our homes and cars than we do ourselves and our spirits, especially when it comes to trash!

What is trash?

Trash is negative thoughts and negative images hanging around in our ever-busy minds. Often put there by 100% voluntary consumption of violent TV, movies and books.

Trash is beating up on ourselves for all sorts of real and imagined faults. We're often kinder to strangers than we are to ourselves.

Trash is filling our lives with meaningless, even harmful, distractions that make us dull and lazy. Ruts and giving up begin here.

Trash is living small, staying in the box you grew up with even when it doesn't serve your best interests any more. Only a tree should stay stuck in the same place its entire life.

Trash is living with things that you dislike or even hate. You get to choose.

Trash is settling for less than you desire, less than you deserve.

Trash is sitting on the couch watching TV or playing computer games for endless hours when you could be exercising or meditating or living your passion or even playing with your spouse or children.

Trash is eating more fat and sugar in a day than a family of ten needs.

Trash is polluting your body and mind, killing your spirit with alcohol and other addictions.

Trash is hanging out with friends and family who run you down, take advantage of you, don't listen and validate and believe in you.

Trash is looking in the mirror and saying anything besides "I love you and you're beautiful/handsome."

Trash is going to a job you hate year after year, living in fear, not allowing yourself room to breathe and grow.

Trash is any attitude, belief or value that doesn't serve your highest and best interests.

You take out the trash in your house every day or every other day. You take it to the curb every week or so. You clean up your lawn once a week or every two weeks. Your car gets cleaned every week (okay, every two months!).

But how often do you clean out the trash in your most treasured possessions: Your mind and your body, your Self? How many years or even decades have you been living with trash? Can you feel it? Can you see all that trash piling up around you, holding you back, holding you down? Is it time to take out the trash?

Please leave a comment.

Copyright 2007, Mary Anne Fields and Life Unfolds. All rights reserved.