To do or do not

As Yoda told young Luke when he said he’d try to raise the spaceship from the swamp: ‘Do not try. Do or do not.’

And while we may not be faced with spaceships that need raising from swamps on a day-to-day basis, it is a good perspective to ponder.
How often do we tell ourselves that we are trying our best, but…

The distinction between trying to do something or deciding that we are going to do something is conviction. When we decide to try something, there is some part of us that is uncertain about the event. It may be that we are uncertain whether we like doing it, whether we like the taste of it, or even whether we can do it at all. When we decide to do it, we will actually do it no matter the outcome. We do the best we can, and if it is within our abilities we will have success. If we are not successful the first time, we can either decide to learn more about it, hone our skills and abilities; or we can decide that we are not willing to put our time and energy into mastering whatever it is we are doing…

The choice is always our own.

The real question then becomes why we would try doing things, rather than decide to do them or not do them. Where is the uncertainty coming from?
Is it because we feel pressured? Do we feel we should do it, but we don’t really want to? Are we having a hard time stepping out of old patterns and habits, perhaps to the point where we say ‘yes’, while our whole being is screaming ‘no’?

Ultimately most choices are not that hard.
We either want to do it, or not. We either can do it, or not. We either will do it, or not.

As soon as we tell anyone we will try doing it, chances are we are accommodating the other person while we truly don’t see a way in which we can make it happen in the first place. And rather than saying, ‘Sorry, no can do’, we’ll say ‘I’ll try’.
This may seem nice toward the other person, it may even be the polite thing to do. Yet it has a tendency to put our own needs and desires on the back burner as pretty soon we are trying to accommodate everybody around us, rather than taking care of the things we really need in our lives.

So ultimately it may be a good time to take Yoda’s advice: ‘Do not try, do or do not.’
.
.
Pendant by Taliswoman Me   www.taliswoman.me

Personal power

In this time of polarities even the term ‘personal power’ seems to be brought to its extremes. People either seem to feel that they don’t have any (personal) power at all in a world that seems to be regulated by big corporations, or they go out of their way to exert their personal power ~ almost with an ‘anything goes’ attitude.

As with anything that is brought to its polarities, the point of balance is likely found somewhere in the middle. And as with anything that seems to come up in this point in time, that middle ground is not always as easy to find as one might think.

On one hand it does seem like big corporations have more influence than they know how to handle correctly, and consequently greed takes over while integrity is lost…

But to truly look at our personal power, it is a good idea to first look at what this power entails as it is not domination of one person over another. That would be bullying and is something else entirely.
When we talk about power, we are talking about expression; especially where it concerns personal power.
This would define personal power as the personal expression; the expression of who we genuinely are. The expression of our potentials.

When looking at personal power in this respect, there seem to be very few instances where we would be bothered by big corporations of whichever kind. It suddenly is all about us. About ourselves and how we create our lives.

The one thing that could hinder us to no end in using our personal power this way, is if we give that power away.

Sounds logical?
Yet it happens more often than one may believe.

The moment we buy in to what other people tell us to do, we are taking a step away from our genuine selves and therefore away from our personal power.
Now there are situations when this is not a problem; for instance in our jobs. After all we are getting paid to do our jobs in a specific manner, and our boss is the one telling us ‘when’ and ‘how to’.
But in pretty much all other area’s of life, when we permit other people telling us what to do or how to behave, we are not taking our own decisions anymore and are as such diminishing our personal power.

Ultimately, our personal power has a lot to do with taking responsibility for ourselves and our lives. Not just for everything that is working out fine, but perhaps more importantly also for those things that don’t work at all.
The moment we decide to do that, we have taken back our power and have truly experienced personal empowerment!
.
.

School of life

When I look at people’s Facebook pages, more and more often I find that they have stated under ‘Work’ something to the effect of ‘student at the Universe’ or ‘student at the School of life’.

Certainly from a spiritual perspective, we can learn most from life itself! Especially as life gains us life-experiences which are truly our own, rather than thing we learn from books and teachers which may or may not relate to us, or to our personal truths.

Yet, from that very perspective the ‘school of life’ is a contradiction in terms, as a school suggests a place where we gather knowledge, while life is where we amass (life)experiences.

That being said, there is value in both.
Perhaps not quite as much in our traditional education where almost everyone can tell you that they had to learn things they haven’t used since leaving school. But certainly it is a good idea to ‘back’ your experiences with a certain amount of knowledge.
And sometimes it is not about ‘learning’ something that we didn’t know, but more about hearing a particular truth explained in different words. In words that resonate more clearly with our own experiences, or perhaps even with long-forgotten memories…

From that angle, it can be fun to take a class or a course, just to see what it is about. And to then take that what we have learned and put it into words that resonate with our unique experiences To see where knowledge and experience coincide, and where they move in different directions. To perhaps even explore that different direction for a bit in order to see whether it is a direction that suits our particular path, or if it is a different path altogether.

The interesting thing about this is that sometimes we have learned something ~ and perhaps even experienced it in our own lives ~ but until we are told that very same thing in words that resonate with us, we fail to truly incorporate it in our every day lives. Not because we don’t understand it, or fail to recognize its value, but rather because the explanation didn’t fit into our frame of reference; didn’t seem to have an application within the structure of our lives.
And then, suddenly, just by changing a few words all pieces start to fall into place!

Perhaps that is because ~ at least to a certain extend ~ we are all students at the ‘School of life’, or maybe it is because we are tenacious in finding the right words to express a particular truth.
Either way it allows us to move forward on our paths through life!

Energy Art by Taliswoman Me
www.taliswoman.me
.
.

The longest moment

When we are looking forward to a certain event, it seems like time moves more and more slowly. While at the same time it is moving way more quickly than we anticipated where it concerns those chores we still have to do before day’s end.
Similarly, something that only happened last week may seem like years ago, while something that happened a year ago feels like it only happened yesterday…

Time is funny that way!

Overall it seems like we have never enough time to enjoy the good things, while there is plenty time figuring out how to resolve the challenges that may pop up in the future, or dwell on hard times that once were.

The way we perceive time often is linked to our emotions. And it is only natural that we would like happy, pleasant, joyful times to last forever! The tricky thing is that we tend to also look at all the things that can go wrong. The plans that may not work out as well.
In a sense we look at all the what if’s, both in the past as well as in the future.

What if I had decided differently? What if I had told them the truth? What if I had taken into account that the unexpected happens and things can go wrong?

In doing so, it seem like the time flies by rapidly, and we don’t get anything done…

So what if we would decide to live in the longest moment ever? That moment that some may even say is eternity?
What if we would start focusing our attention right on this very moment?

Instead of bringing back memories of the past, or overplanning the future out of fear that something may go wrong; what if we would take a deep breath and look at what we want to do right now ~ be it a chore, something fun, or even meeting a challenge of some kind head on…

This moment right now is when we can make the biggest difference. When we can achieve the most. And our awareness of this very moment, right now, wil give us an inkling of what will come into our lives, giving us plenty of time to react appropriately to it, or even plan for the obvious solution.

So, what if it isn’t time that is moving, but rather events and situations ~ life in general ~ is moving in and out of this moment that is right now? Leaving us to be living our lives highly effective, and aware in the longest moment… Ever…
.
.

Seven daises

Dais, according to the dictionary: a low platform for a lectern, seats of honor, or a throne. Middle English; from Old French deis, from Latin discus.

The thesaurus provides us with seven words for it, including ‘dais’: dais, platform, stage, podium, rostrum, stand; soapbox.

If we had those seven ‘dais’ ’, what would we be telling the world?

On the ‘dais’, would we tell about history? Something old, from long forgotten times? And if we did, would it be our own (family) history, or something more general? Something close to our heart, still pertinent today in some ways?

On the ‘platform’, would we talk at all? Or would we rather play music, the truly Universal language? If we played music, would it be a happy tune? Or rather a mournful song?

If we stepped on ‘stage’, would we be ourselves? Or would we be an actor ~ in a sense ~ just showing the world what we want them to see? Or even what we think they want to see?

Would the ‘podium’ be waiting for us to dance? To move, perhaps to a tune only we can hear?

And when we climb the ‘rostrum’, what would we want to sell? Would we sell ideas? Antiques? Or just those things we no longer need but that may have value to someone else?

Standing up on the ‘stand’, what would our message be? Would we dare making a stand? Making our message one that can truly make a difference, to ourselves and to the world in general? Or would we keep ‘playing it safe’?

And finally, when we find ourselves on our ‘soapbox’, would we be riding our ‘high horse’? Would we be shouting and screaming, ranting and raving for anyone to hear? About how we are being wronged? About how the world is ‘going to hell in a hand basket’?

Seven daises, seven perspectives.
Seven aspects of ourselves that we may or may not want the world to see or hear.
Stepping up to the dais ~ by whichever name ~ takes courage!

The thing we are all too often forgetting is that in our lives, we are the guest of honor! Therefore we are seated in the seats of honor; sometimes even on a throne!
So perhaps it is time to step up. To ~ at least to ourselves ~ be totally frank and honest, and to answer those seven questions as what our stories, music, performances, ideas, truth, or even ‘stuff’ would be, if we had seven daises.

I am certain it would tell us all lot about ourselves…
.
.