Archive for February, 2010

By Christine Kloser

For most of my life I’ve been conditioned to march to the beat of a familiar drum… the drum that says, “fall into line, don’t break the mold, do what everyone else is doing, follow the pack, don’t make waves, fit in with the crowd, etc.” The beat of this drum had become so familiar to me that I didn’t even notice it was beating in the background of my life.

In all honesty, that familiar beat had been running my life. Yes, I stepped out of the usual nine-to-five corporate mold that society teaches us is what success looks like. But, I stepped into an entrepreneurial mold that had a similar beat… “Do what everyone else is doing.” And, so I did – for several years – until I realized that I didn’t want to be marching to the beat of that drum anymore.

And, so the quest began to march to the beat of my own drum… to do the deep inner work to discover what is true and right for me. I have made much progress on my quest. I’ve discovered so much more certainty within myself, while also feeling less certainty on the external level. The beauty is that I’m finding comfort in the “I don’t know.” Because what I DO know, is that I’m beginning to march to the beat of my own drum. And, with certainty like that, it makes any external uncertainty a non-issue.

So, what does it take to march to the beat of your own drum?

Opening Your Eyes
First, you’ve got to open your eyes to the truth of what is happening within you and around you. You must raise your level of consciousness and become keenly aware of your own thoughts, feelings, motivations, etc. It’s only when you begin to open your eyes to the truth (and allow yourself to see it and feel it) that you can begin to shift what isn’t working. For many years I had an inner inkling that something wasn’t quite right with a part of my business. And, it wasn’t until I looked into those dark corners that I could see for the first time what I wanted to shift, how I wanted to shift and what had been holding me back from a life of total freedom. And, it had nothing to do with my business, but everything to do with ME!

So, step one is to take a look and see if there’s anything you’ve been staying blind to that it’s time for you to see.

Compassion
Please, please, please… have compassion for yourself on this journey. I used to think that every time I saw something unpleasant about myself, my life or my business that I was “supposed” to use it to beat myself up. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you open your eyes and begin to see things… you must learn to have compassion for yourself as you become more conscious and free yourself at a deeper level. Marching to the beat of your own drum requires that you LOVE yourself forward (that’s a fabulous phrase I got from my spiritual teacher), not that you beat yourself up. So, as you do the work to find YOUR unique rhythm, have compassion for yourself and who you have been up until now. You have always only done the best you could with what you knew at the time.

So, step two is to allow yourself to see something that isn’t working for you and have compassion for yourself as you see it.

Commitment
I love the word commitment! I learned many years ago, at the very first personal development program I attended in 1995, that commitment equals freedom! At first, I thought the trainer was crazy, but the more I thought about it the more I saw the truth in this. When you are totally committed to something (in this case, your authentic expression in the world) you don’t have any other options. Your choices of being “less than your best authentic self” get taken away. And, that’s a good thing! Why would you want to be committed to anything less than pursuing your authentic expression in the world 100%?! It makes no sense. So, if you’re going to walk on this journey of marching to the beat of your own drum… COMMIT to it! And, let it take you where you’re meant to go.

So, step three is to make a commitment to yourself right now that you will do whatever it takes to release the “should’s” from your life and learn to march to the beat of your own drum!

© 2010 Christine Kloser

Would you like to use this article? You may as long as you include the following information along with the article: Christine Kloser, author of The Freedom Formula, helps entrepreneurs put soul in their business and money in the bank. If you want to thrive in your purpose-driven, profitable business (while enjoying a soul-satisfying life), send for my special report, How to Avoid the 3 Massive Mistakes Made by Most Conscious Entrepreneurs and my audio, 7 Strategies Entrepreneurial Authors Need to Know… Before Writing a Word, both of which you get (at no charge) when you request my Conscious Business Success Kit at www.LoveYourLife.com.

Freedom is our destiny:

‘Come to the edge,’ he said.
‘We can’t Master, we’re scared.’
‘Come to the edge,’ he said.
‘We can’t Master, we’re scared.’
‘Come to the edge.’ he said
They Came.
He pushed them….
They flew
Freedom is our destiny.
Let us take steps to carry us into the greatness
which is our birthright

This is the quote at the front of the book

The Journey: An Extraordinary Guide for Healing Your Life and Setting Yourself Free

I have just spent the weekend as a Trainer at The Journey Intensive and I have seen people who came in scared and leave soaring. I was priveledged to share the awakening of 3 delgates, their shining faces and diamond like eyes fill my heart my gratitude.

I feel very blessed to have first experienced The Journey Intensive 10 years ago. Over the past 3 year or so I have explored other healing modalities which have been opening and releasing. This weekend and the experience of reading and using the abundance process in Brandon’s new Book Consciousness The New Currency written with her husband Keven Billett have taken me back to this wonderful process. Today I feel energised and ready to begin living large. I do feel free and open after spending the weekend with other seekers of truth and freedom.

Is Freedom Your Destiny?

Suzie

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STRESS.  A 6 letter word that is used so frequently…”I’m so stressed out”, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.  I’m just stressed right now”.  Really?  Is stress that prevalent in our world today?  I know it is, but sometimes I wonder if it’s just an overused word.  I wonder if sometimes the word stress is used instead of “busy” or “beat”.  Is stress used just because that’s what we’ve been taught or because we hear that word so frequently that we want to be part of the “stress crowd”?  Is it cool to be stressed?  Does being stressed mean we’re successful?

Absolutely NOT!

I rarely use the word to describe myself.  I guess mainly because I just don’t stress.  I may have a lot on my plate, or I may be under a time crunch but I wouldn’t say that I’m stressed.  I just know what I have to do and do my best to get it done.  But really I believe the secret to not being stressed is to believe in well-being, to believe that everything will be okay, to trust that it’ll all work out.  And this is what I do!

When we’re stressed, we’re basically feeling and thinking negative thoughts, our confidence is low (“I can’t do this”), and we’re dreaming up what an awful future we have.  And when we do this, we feel terrible.  We have anxiety and nothing is right.  If we continue this pessimistic view, what we will see is more of the same…more shit to be stressed about!

But it doesn’t have to be this way!  There’s really no need to stress, no matter what your situation is.

To believe in well-being is to be optimistic, and when you have optimism you have hope.  When you change your perspective to seeing the glass half full, it is!

So I’m not saying that you should look at something that is dark and yucky and call it light and shiny.  I’m just saying shift your gaze.  Instead of looking at your problems and stressing over them, look for the solutions.  When you take your focus off what you don’t want and focus on your well-being, then the Universe will bend over backwards to give it to you.

Next time you start to utter the word “stress”, or you feel stressed and overwhelmed just remember to look in another direction.  Think back to the last time you were stressed.  After the stressful situation ended, didn’t everything work out?  You’re still here, you’re still alive, and you have so much to be grateful for.  It really is okay.  No matter what happens, it all works out in the end.  It may not work out like you had planned, but it did work out and may actually even be better than you planned.

Have Faith.  Believe.  Have Hope.  Live Easy.  Now these are cool words!

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Sunday night I watched a 60 Minutes segment about the story of Stephen Greenspan, the guy who literally wrote the book on gullibility. 

Two days after publishing his book, the author learned he was a victim of Bernie Madoff. 

The expert on gullibility lost over $400,000 in an investment scam.

At first that just sounds ironic – the expert on gullibility being taken in by a shyster.

But then yesterday someone at Good Vibe U reminded me of the brilliant Jill Bolte Taylor talk at the TED conference. 

Jill is the neuroanatomist who spoke about how fascinating it was to have a stroke as a person who had studied the internal workings of the brain for years. 

Odd, right?

Then I was thinking about my boyfriend’s cousin, Sheldon.  He’s a politician (or rather, was) here in my home state whose father was killed by a drunk driver when Sheldon was just a teenager.  During Sheldon’s lengthy political service, he was a strong advocate against driving under the influence. 

Last month he resigned from the state senate two days after being arrested for drunk driving.

My first thought was, “What the hell?!” 

But this is no secret, and it’s not ironic or coincidence.  It’s just vibrational alignment at work. 

Does it kinda though make you think twice about what you might be lining up with, that maybe you didn’t necessarily mean to? 

It did me.

I listened to Abraham counsel a person (the Toronto 2009 workshop) who believed that because she spent her days working with poverty clients she was impeding her own financial abundance by doing so. 

I personally spend a lot of time talking with and writing about people who experience struggle in exercising their deliberate creation skills.  Should I get more spotlight on success stories?!  lol

In my former work I used to preach to employees that whatever you do, do NOT spend your retirement money!  Do not, do not, do NOT spend your retirement money on anything other than retirement! 

(Because everyone who quits their job cashes out.  Bad idea in financial planning world.)

And then I quit my job and started liquidating my 401k to cover expenses while I built a coaching practice.  ha

We get what we think about, right?

I’m curious about your take on the subject.

What about the woman who is passionate about children’s vaccinations reform?  Or the guy who actor who immerses himself in the new role to the point of “becoming” the character?

(Or for that matter, the pilot who trains for emergency landings?)

How do we do what we love and feel passion for without experiencing the dark side of it?

(Although Jill’s experience could hardly be called dark!  Quite the opposite, it sounds.) 

I guess my question is, is it possible to live by the sword without also dying by it?  In fact, maybe the question to ask is how we live by the sword and also thrive by it. 

Maybe it’s as simple as holding that intention in mind.

What’s your take?

PS to Kim – I had to use your gorgeous photo for this post since I couldn’t imagine a better looking one with a sword in it nor a better example of someone who flows the good vibe no matter what she’s involved in!

Related posts:

1. Clean Living & Successful Manifesting
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I have always loved the idea of the Valentine’s Day holiday. Growing up it was a time of hearts, candy and Valentine cards for everyone in school. Even in High School Valentine-grams were sold as a fund raiser by some school groups. The idea: send a card and heart-shaped sucker to all your friends, your sweetie too, if you like.

As an adult, however, the function and the experience of Valentine’s Day is completely different. Valentine’s Day becomes a measure of your success at romantic love. It is a great reminder that you couldn’t get a date one day out of the year. It is a great judge of whether your company is romantic enough and whether they treat you like you are something special. Or not. It is a ruler with which to measure how much love you receive in the shapes of chocolates, roses, diamonds…. After all, if you didn’t receive a diamond, it’s not true love.

This was, at least, traditionally true. Thank goodness things seem to be changing. Now, for those of us on a spiritual path we see this holiday in a whole other light. Because we know that everything is about energy and about shifting our energy in the direction we prefer, we know that no day can measure our romantic love. We know that feelings of not being loved enough or not being romanced properly are actually only a reflection of our energy, our own love. For most of my adult life Valentine’s Day has been a celebration of love. The love you have inside, not the love that someone may give you.

As a celebration of love, I have traditionally participated and held Valentine group dinners, a chance to gather with friends, lovers, family, all. Everyone I love. Sure, receiving a rose is touching and appreciated, but sharing love and joy with many people is a far greater celebration. It becomes more festive, more energized and more grandiose.

Just ask everyone at the Jardin here in San Migule de Allende. I don’t know if all of Mexico is like this or not, but yesterday I was egged upon entering the plaza. To our great surprise the whole town seemed to be out celebrating with music, confetti-filled colored eggs, paper flowers and paper puppet clowns. Everyone was downtown: lovers, families, children and friends. Kids of all ages ran around breaking the eggs on one another, on strangers (like me!), laughing and having a great time. People sat before a concert in front of the cathedral. Families sat on a bench eating fresh corn. Everyone seemed to have received a balloon, clown or paper flower. Everyone was laughing and celebrating. Now that is what Valentine’s Day is really all about when you are on a spiritual path: it is about celebrating Love and Life, with all.

Love & Light, Kalyn

~~~

Kristopher & Kalyn Raphael, or K2, have been spiritual life coaches for ten years. They work directly with people taking them on journeys, cruises, leading classes on the internet and coaching groups. They are both published authors and are the founders of The Golden Flow(TM)system of accelerated enlightenment and The Toltec Mystery School. Follow Kalyn’s blog by subscribing at KalynRaphael.com/blog