The theme of this second edition of Soul Hiker espresso is inspirations (after finishing this sentence I just realized I am jotting down this in a cafe` called inspirations…can I call that synchronicity?).

The topic of inspirations has been a pervasive thought clouding my head recently, possibly incited by a felt sense that moments of inspirations have been particularly lacking these days. Admittedly I have been feeling this momentary impasse in my creative journey for a number of weeks. Well, it happens.

Luckily inspirational stuff is not that hard to find if you look out for it. You can start close to home – in your neighborhood, circle of friends, local art gallery all the way to the hyper-connected corridors of the net.

I am listing two of the most noteworthy inspirational gems I have picked for this week. There are others but I have learned a thing or two about attention spans since I have been writing for the web. So here they go:

Cartoons by Steven Bonello: Colleague and friend Steven Bonello is a constant source of inspiration, humor & topics for discussion. He is an exceptional cartoonist with fire in his hand. Some of his sketches might perhaps be a little bit inaccessible to an international audience since his story lines are focused on local Maltese socio-political themes. He has captured in ink some of the thickest political gaffes in local political history and exquisitely conveyed those cultural quirks with flair and perspective.

You can also hire Steven for your own web or print projects…if you’re lucky that is. Steven is serious about his art and will not do it for just a paycheck but only if the proposal tickles his interest.

Progetto Hang: I was idling about in the alley ways of Rome two days ago when I met Luca Bertelli and Stefano Maura busking in Via della Maddalena just behind the Pantheon square. The two music students have partnered together to create and record their first musical project called Progetto Hang. The Hang is a weird flying-saucer shaped, inverted gong like instrument with a beautiful chime and magical overtones that sets it apart from anything I ever heard before. It’s truly mystical and it must be heard to be truly appreciated. The music captured my soul in the first 15 seconds and kept me standing there long time afterwards.

Luca told me that the project site is still under construction but will be updated with content shortly. I am embedding a video of him playing the Hang.

Related posts:

1. Launching Soul Hiker Espresso
2. Music for the Soul

From start I have to be honest by telling you that this post will describe nothing new – nothing you do not already know deep down. From my own observation I can say that most personal growth books and articles convey nothing profoundly new in reality. What they do successfully offer however is a fresh reminder of those juicy bits of practical wisdom that tend to make our lives better yet have the habit of continuously forgetting (Yes we need constant reminders let’s face it! ).

This post is just that. It’s a reminder of something you very probably know but I have colored it differently – hopefully in a way that appeals more to your sense of aesthetic and stick more to your memory.

It’s about a different approach I’ve been experimenting with lately I call the ‘pause, cancel and resume’ method. In short it’s about learning how to stop from the frenetic and constant doing, discarding what’s not vital to your life’s purpose and resume with a lighter and brighter schedule.

I have only started this approach recently but the effects have already been extremely positive and revitalizing. Let’s have a quick look.

Pausing: Life can be frenetic (I told you I’m not going to say anything new ). As Elbert Hubbard put it “Life is just one damned thing after another”. In fact I recently realized that I haven’t stopped for one weekend or one day from beginning of summer. I wasn’t pausing and what’s worse I wasn’t getting away from it all to get a better view and understanding of it.

I then decided to pause. Not in the sense of getting a break from my schedule. No. It was more of a mental pause. It was like shutting down all the mental to-do lists, the what-if scenarios, the constant pressing background thoughts such as “if I don’t get this right asap I will have to pay for it two months down the line” and all that crap.

I’m not sure which were the exact buttons I pushed to get there but apart from awareness and my regular meditation sessions I think the biggest factor was telling (or rather commanding) myself to pause. Simple. I just allowed myself to do it with no ifs and buts. I know it sounds obvious but as I said personal growth is obvious. It’s just that we keep forgetting the obvious.

Cancelling: In the pause state I started having a few but powerful realizations. The biggest one being that life goes on just the same (actually much smoother) without the frenetic doing and thinking. I wasn’t holding the earth but just myself. When I let go, the earth did not drop on my head.

These liberating thoughts allowed me to rethink a few things. What if I could cancel off a few things here and there from my routine? Say trying to solve a longstanding problem or a particular task you have been working on for a long time but got you nowhere.

I had a couple and I let them go. The earth did not shatter. The problem was that I was putting too much false weight on them. I thought that if they are not addressed my life will be stuck in a rut.

Cancelling them has freed up my mind and time and gave me more space to focus on the issues that matter most. I am still experimenting with it and to be honest I found a new sense of fun vanquishing old spectres.

Resuming: At which point should I undo the pause button and resume attending to plans, schedule, worries and all? Well the short answer is never…in the sense of never to go back to the original point of departure.

After canceling and parting away with some of the mental clutter and routine tasks, day to day life can resume with more lightness and less struggle and effort. This pausing, canceling and resuming is a continuous thing. I might get back to some projects I have canceled if I REALLY need to but not for the time being.

For now I am enjoying this new found joy of simplifying my life. Admittedly I am still at the beginning of it all and still experimenting with a few knobs here and there. But overall I think that the method is working magic.

No related posts.

One of the hottest topics in the personal development world is that of motivation. What sparks it off? and how can we keep motivated in our daily lives? Very often, and quite rightly, motivation is closely associated with enthusiasm and goal-setting, or in broader terms knowing one’s purpose in life. Mmhh…big concept isn’t it?

As with any other bulky concept that has far-reaching implications,  the best way to understand it – and ultimately make practical use of it – is simplifying it and deconstructing it into easily replicable parts. For this matter I had a very good help from my 4 year old daughter.

Kaya springs out of bed every single morning with sparkling eyes beaming enthusiasm for her new day. Every day has some novelty and something new she will discover and look forward to. Her world is one big playground. The unknown is not a source of anxiety for her as in us adults but a space of possibilities were new wonderful things can come her way. Everything is a stimulus that impinges on her fresh mind.

On the other hand, the average adult mind is bogged down by a long list of things to attend to, unresolved issues, unkown variables and dull routine tasks which most of the time are managed by an overworked brain and a tired body.

So what are the constants in Kaya’s world that we can re-adopt? or perhaps what are the constants in us adults that we need to discard or re-engineer?

There are a lot very good practical tips and techniques on improving motivation but I will focus on 7 items that I have observed from Kaya or I sometimes find challenging in myself

1. Don’t forget to Play: All work no fun dulls the mind & spirit. It’s certainly not on Kaya’s agenda. We have to appease the playful/childish part of our mind which desperately seeks leisure and fun instead of boring mundane tasks. Most of the time we shun it completely which puts us off balance and demotivates us.  Having the mind look forward for fun time whether in or out of our daily tasks will keep the motivation engine oiled.

2. Don’t stare at the unknown: Apathy is when we lose traction forward sometimes because we don’t see light (the goal) at the end of  our tunnel (the task or problem). The future is unknown to all of us. If you stare at it too long it may get you. It blacks out your vision and makes you lose the will to move on with your mission.

3. Remind yourself you are the director: I love watching or overhearing Kaya playing and directing roles in some tea party with her dolls and fluffy friends. It’s like she is the director of some movie in her head – “You sit here and you drink this or eat that”. The thing is that she feels part of the creative process – meaning that her plans and ideas are realized in her staged tea parties.   Do you believe you are you your own creative director?

4. Project it in HD: Visualization and imagery are a powerful self-motivating tool. Many practices and disciplines focus on visualization. The ability to project and visualize your goals or a desired situation are a way of instructing your subconscious to act in that direction.  Children naturally have very vivid imagination. When Kaya describes something here eyes stare & sparkle as if the whole thing is happening vividly right in front of her eyes. It’s a full screen HD projection – something we unfortunately lose and forget as our creativity is killed through the education process when we grow up.

5. Simplify, simplify & simplify more: You cannot be very motivated if you are swamped by things running concurrently. I have to admit that this is something I fall victim to sometimes. I have to remind myself to focus down on one plan – one goal. Kaya keeps things simple…of course she’s a child. But that’s it isn’t it? We get bogged down by so many things as adults that it’s hard to keep the fire going on one thing.   Simplifying and decluttering things can help us stay motivated much easier.

6. Get past the future: There is no tomorrow in Kaya’s world. Everything takes place here and now for her. As adults we are very much constrained by future outcomes, plans for a better life, more income or more security. Apart from creating general anxiety, this worrying about the future dissipates a lot of our energy and focus on our immediate actions and hence our motivation.

7. Leave the door open for other possibilities: It’s an irony that the more we learn and experience the more we limit our mind to possibilities. A child’s mind is more open to possibilities because it’s not a full vessel. By associating things to past occurences, we are limiting our mind to be set on certain outcomes only and discard the others. Of course this is in a way inevitable as it constitutes learning. The brain is by nature an associative engine. But through practice we can become aware of this limitation and transcend it and look ‘outside of the box’. This is what creativity is about and this is why children are in general more creative. By opening ourselves up to creativity we are automatically breaking the barriers to motivation.

No related posts.

Welcome to Soul Hiker espresso – the very first of a series of posts which capture the essence of Soul Hiker in short snippets of interesting and helpful information about personal development and related topics.

This issue’s theme: Improving life through tweaking those filter knobs!

We all have and use filters! These filters make us understand and interpret the things happening around us in a particular way. It makes us learn, act and respond in a particular way too. What are these filters? The filters I am talking about are things like our sensory perception, our beliefs and our past experiences which allow us to recognize patterns and give those patterns meaning.

Ultimately these filters are tremendously powerful stuff we are unaware of. If one learns how these filters work and how to tweak them the possibilities are endless – Learn 100 times faster, work super smarter, have wonderful relationships, persuade people and grow in all aspects of life. Why? well let’s hear it from some experts shall we? These are a few links which will tell you more about filters and how to use them:

5 Ways to Listen better:  A really interesting TED talk by sound expert Julian Treasure. In his riveting speech he explains how we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by noise which ‘deafens’ our ability to listen and pay attention to our immediate environment. We are losing our ability to listen and make sense of our beautiful world. He shows us 5 very practical tips on how to recalibrate our hearing abilities and improve our ‘sound filters’.

Personalities, conversations & frames: A very interesting post by Children book writer Anna Bradford. Anna talks about the way we filter our reality as our ‘reality frame’. She then quite eloquently argues that some people have the ability to draw other people into their reality frame. Such people can be great communicators, leaders or simply people expressive of their arts and passions.

The secret of persuasion: In this short video, Meredith Bell calls on her experience on the subtle but powerful art of persuasion. This is an excellent continuation to the above link. It shows how we can improve our influence and persuasion through understanding ‘reality frames’ and subjective perspectives.

Free report – Out of the Matrix: In this free report former International Psychic Spy, Gerald O’Donnell, reveals the Shocking Truth about your Mind’s True Power to control and Influence your Life, Surroundings and even Time. Cool stuff!

Related posts:

1. Soul Hiker Espresso: Inspirations of the week

This is a guest post by Jill Magso from the Silva Team

When our personal fountains of good will seem to have run dry or our stores of energy too sorely taxed, it can be difficult to believe that the source for all goodness and good will is really ours all the time. We often speak of filling up our tanks or replenishing our stores, but we rarely take the time to do so. And it is uncommon to be able to actually feel the well bubble up in our body, bringing life, energy, optimism and discernment to our entire psyche and everything we do.

Each one of us, left to our regenerative devices, bathed in a little loving kindness and given just a little space, can feel the fountain of optimism and cheer at least begin to percolate beneath the rocks. Our bodies and minds have within them the blueprint for healing and re-fueling. Sometimes all you need to do is prime the pump to feel the milk of human kindness begin to flow through your veins, into your own heart, and through you out to those you touch.

For today, notice when you feel your personal well of kindness being drawn upon, either because someone is making a withdrawal or a deposit, and notice how full or empty you feel. Simply by paying attention, taking note and being compassionate for our own needs we can begin to clear the way for our own fountain of good.

Step by step to the Meditation:

Find your comfortable seat with your sitting bones pressing into the surface beneath you and your heart lifting from the strength of your connection to the Earth. You can either sit Japanese style on your knees or with crossed legs in easy pose.

Begin with breath observation. For five breaths simply be breathing, noticing how your body moves to accept the breath and then to let it go.This is a guided meditation for which we’ll remain seated. As you inhale, imagine that you are growing roots out and down from your tailbone and deep into the Earth. Follow them with each in breath as they travel down, seeking nourishment and water. Feel them grow strong and begin to work their way between clods of Earth, dislodging small stones as they travel ever downward. Allow every inhalation to swell your roots and give them the energy to dig deeper, connecting you to the Earth.

When you feel completely stable, steady and fed, bring your awareness back up and into your heart. As you inhale begin drawing sustenance up from the Earth, through your roots and up the center of your body into your heart. Allow this feeling to collect here on every exhalation, spreading as a pond would gather from a spring bubbling up through the Earth. Continue for a minute or two inhaling up through your roots and into your heart, until your heart feels like it’s about to run over.

Just as your heart-pond is about to spill over its banks, take your next inhale and continue the path up through your heart center, up and out of the top of your head as if it were a great fountain that upon exiting your head split in every direction and then fell back to the Earth to pool around you and soak back into the Earth. As you inhale, draw this up through your center to the top of the fountain, a few inches past the crown of your head. As you exhale, imagine the stream splitting into infinitely sparkling differently colored lights and falling back down, creating a pool of light and color around you on the floor. Allow this liquid light to pool around you, and seep back into the Earth as a puddle would after the rain.

Stay here, inhaling up through the center of your body, and exhaling down and around your body in a great three dimensional circle, a cycle, a circuit of light, color, energy and health.

When five minutes have passed by timer or by music, bring your attention back to the feeling of your breath moving in and out of your body. Opening your eyes, reach your arms up and over head and draw your hands down in front of your heart.

Jill Magso is a member of the Silva Team and contributes to spreading enlightened ideas and sharing teachings about meditation practices. The Silva Method encompasses a variety of powerful exercises that take you deep into Alpha and Theta levels of the mind so that you can work within your subconscious as well as your conscious mind.

Related posts:

1. 10 ways to improve your meditation significantly
2. A simple visualization technique to keep calm under pressure
3. Mindfulness Meditation: My Path

How many times in a day do we hear ourselves asking the question, “Why did I do that?” Well, definitely more than once. You know you should have showed up for that interview for that dream job of yours but you don’t; you ought to have kept clear of eating dessert at that party as you were on a fat-cutting diet but you don’t; and you should have just put one step forward to experience the taste of success, but you don’t. You are certain of what you should have done but defying all logic and reason, you end up self-sabotaging yourself and doing the exact opposite. Why? The answer is – your self-sabotage behavior. Self-sabotage refers to the process of going out of the way to hold back, prevent or limit yourself from achieving your goal due to unidentified fears, lack of self confidence and negative self image. Self-sabotage encompasses a combination of negative thoughts, feelings and actions that create a stumbling block to success by fighting against your own self interests.

Self-sabotage and the Subconscious

“Was that really me?” The truth is, it was YOU. The decision to self-sabotage yourself was and always is purely your own choice. You might be wondering how could you purposefully do harm to yourself or prevent yourself from getting what you want. Unfortunately, you can and the root cause of the problem lies within yourself, within your subconscious mind. To be precise, self-sabotage is the result of a mental tug-of-war between the conscious and the subconscious mind in which the subconscious mind always wins.

Imagine you have a found an exciting new business idea or have been assigned a challenging project. Initially you find yourself all enthusiastic about it and begin to work dedicatedly towards achieving it. In a few days, you find yourself losing interest in it for no particular reason, all the excitement and enthusiasm fading away and eventually you leave the project unfinished and sweep it beneath the carpet. Most of us have been here, haven’t we? Have you ever stopped to think why this happens to us? Well our subconscious mind is the culprit. Although our conscious mind wants us to stay positive and work towards achieving our goal, our subconscious mind which houses our fear of failure, lack of confidence and “Oh! I can never do this” attitude, ultimately triumphs. Your subconscious mind prompts you to withdraw your efforts and leaves you a failure. So from now on, it wouldn’t be wrong to say – you are what your subconscious mind is and you get what your subconscious mind desires. Hence the harmonious relationship between the conscious and the subconscious mind is key in eliminating self-sabotage. Next time you do something, make sure you want to do it and have complete faith in yourself. After all, you can only lie to others, not to yourself!

Some Common Reasons for Self-sabotage Behavior

1. Fear of Success – Your own past experiences or those of others condition your mind to behave in a particular manner. You may have seen near & dear ones of your friend turning hostile to him after he became successful or you may be afraid that once you succeed, people may begin to pin higher hopes on you and you may not be able to reach their expectations. These experiences and thoughts linger in your mind and become part of your subconscious mind which then associates success with fear or pain. Hence every time you get close to achieving success, your subconscious mind will trigger your self-sabotage behavior and you end up losing.

2. Low Self-worth – You firmly believe yourself to be unworthy of success, achievement, relationships or money, i.e. you feel you do not deserve to have any of the good things in life. This low self-worth stems from your low self-esteem and poor self-image and ends up destroying you.

3. Lack of Self-confidence – You do not have faith in your own abilities and you feel your goals are unrealistic. Your characteristic way of reacting to any challenging situation is “I can’t” and your negative self will always whisper in your ears “This is complicated, back off.

4. Denying the Real you – This behavior manifests itself in the form of a “just-to-please yes” when you actually mean to say “no I don’t want to.” Every time you do something you really don’t want or like to do, you are denying your true spirit, sabotaging your desires and your right to live life the way you want it to be.

Tips to Overcome Self-sabotage

1. Identify and Accept your self-sabotaging behaviors – Some people may show self-sabotaging behaviors when it comes to success, some with money and some others with relationships. Realizing and knowing the areas where you sabotage yourself and learning to accept them are the most important stages in the first step to overcoming self-sabotaging behaviors.

2. Stop making excuses and Take responsibility – Stop blaming others or your destiny for all the things that go wrong in your life. You should understand that only you are responsible for your failure and only you are the one in power to change it.

3. Positive Visualization and Self-talk – Once you have taken responsibility and made plans to change, put your plans into action. In order to change yourself, you should change your self-image. Positive visualization is a method of creating vivid mental images of already having achieved what you really want and experiencing its pleasure. You should consciously allow your mind to visualize this image several times a day and soon you will find yourself believing in it and making efforts to make it happen.

Your mind constantly talks to you and most of the time the communication is negative and scares you away from your goals. Make an effort to listen to your inner communication and replace every negative word, phrase or thought with a positive one. Gradually you will find a tremendous change in yourself and you will emerge a more confident, capable and worthy individual.

4. Ask for Help – If you feel you are unable to get rid of your self-sabotaging behavior all by yourself, ask for help. Join a support group where your friends will constantly reassure your efforts and make sure you are on the right track. If your self-sabotaging behavior goes way beyond your control and you begin to have suicidal tendencies, be wise, turn around and seek the help of a professional therapist or a doctor. They have the skills and expertise to take you through procedures like hypnosis and dialectical behavior therapy in order to read your subconscious mind, find your sabotaging behavior and its reasons and advice remedial measures to overcome it.

As a closing note, a point that repeatedly needs mention is – “always choose what you want and what you believe” and dedicatedly work towards achieving it. By now, you all must know that nothing can stop you, not even your own self, if YOU decide so!

Related posts:

1. Overcoming Fear and Breaking Free from its Tyranny
2. Zen Proverbs, Koans and viral codes of the mind
3. Striptease of the mind: A peep into your naked self

This is a Guest Post by George Baker

If you are one of the many people who seem to jump from one task to another and living from one crisis to another, perhaps its time to examine the way your life is organized. Financial catastrophes, missed deadlines, forgotten appointments and omitted details can all be caused by a disorganized life. Whether you are currently suffering from a string of setbacks or if you feel like you are about to lose control, getting organized could be the most important project you take on right now. To help, here are 7 tips for organizing your life.

1. Just say no

Life is short and we want to do and experience as much as we can, but the reason so many people live disorganized lives is because they jump hectically from one event to another and have no time left for life-maintenance tasks. the way to address this is to say “no” to more opportunities and requests.

You don’t want to let anyone down, that’s probably why you’ll take on new projects for the parent association or you will join yet another team at work. If you say “no” the projects will still get done and you will have time to get a handle on other things in your life. Sometimes other people won’t understand, especially if you are known for saying “yes,’ but you owe it to yourself to get control of your time.

2. Prepare in advance

Mornings can be the source of a lot of stress, especially for those who have families. It’s easy to sleep later than you should and then have to hurry about trying to get ready for the day. Before you know it, you’re in the car headed for work or school and vital resources are left at home. Prepare in advance by putting all your books, bags, equipment and other things by the door so they are all ready for the morning rush.

This is just one example of how advance preparation can help. For every scheduled meeting, shopping trip, doctor visit, special meal, etc. there are things you can do in advance to make sure you are ready when the time comes to perform.

3. Prioritize your tasks

A disorganized person will flutter from one tasks to another as they come up during the day. Make a list of everything you need to do during the day and then choose the most important three tasks during the day. This makes sure your essential responsibilities are addressed while helping you avoid distractions caused by insignificant tasks.

4. Use a calendar

You don’t need a massive time management system before you can get organized. Take the small step of using a simple monthly or weekly calendar to jot down important events, deadlines and due dates. Keep the calendar with you and look at it at least twice per day; at morning and at night. You’ll be surprised at how this will help you avoid everything from missed birthdays to late payment notices.

5. Plan for the important things

Now that you have a calendar, use it to schedule the things that you want to do, but never seem to have the time. Your children are growing up. You and your partner are aging. You’ll never have that special talk, play that game or take that trip if you never list it among the other things you must do. This will help you become more satisfied with life as well as more organized.

6. Get some help

By now you have a picture of all the things you are committed to doing everyday. If you are too busy, ask for help. For example, if you are doing all the housework, ask the children or significant other to take on some chores. After all, why should you be working while everyone else in the house are at leisure? The same philosophy can work at the office or in any other role that leaves you feeling overloaded.

7. Throw stuff away

You are in a hurry to get things done, but before moving onto another project, task or event, think about the stuff that’s left behind. For example, most papers will never be looked at again so take the time to discard what you don’t really need and then file what’s left before moving on.

Take these 7 tips for organizing your life and use them. You may be surprised at how much better they will make your life.

George Baker is a writer and analyst of vacuum bags, being somewhat of an expert on vacuum cleaner bags.

No related posts.

This is a Guest Post by Jill Magso from the Silva Method Team

You have most likely noticed that some people are extraordinarily talented when it comes to taking solid decisions. They just have a great knack for knowing which decision to take at the appropriate time. Many of these individuals have established tremendous success in the world of business and other areas in life. How could they not? They have this brilliant ability to tap into their insights anytime, whenever they need it.

Wouldn’t you like to model their abilities? I’m sure you would but perhaps you lack such innate talents. Or do you? In all honestly, it would be wrong to assume the potential to develop intuitive decision making is impossible. Anyone can do it with the right effort.

Yet aren’t some people born with the talent of intuitive decision making? They may very well have been. Yet I will say that it is more likely that they developed their extraordinary decision making talent from years of trial and error and experience. They might not admit it themselves and in some cases they might not even be directly conscious of it.  Such skills are the end result of a lengthy process of making decisions repeatedly over time. Eventually, those with good judgment will pick up on what works and what does not.

In many ways, you could say that developing intuitive decision making follows the same pattern as any other skill development. Essentially, you need to want the skill first then you have to work at acquiring it. Decision making (or, more accurately, effective decision making) is a skill like any other. It can be effectively attained and there is no magic to it.

There is an old saying about luck that is right on the spot: “The more I practice, the luckier I get.” Efficient decision making is quite literally cultivated through practice.

It is quite probable that even people who are naturals at taking effective decisions had poor intuition or judgment earlier in their lives. This is not a good thing or a bad thing. That is just how their decision making process turned out for them at the time. Those that were wise or conscious enough began to pick up on those things that work and discard those things that do not.

How can this be done? Is a great deal of time commitment required to make this particular process work? Does there come a point where you eventually give up on trying to develop intuitive decision making skills?

If these are the questions going through your mind, you may be running the risk of suffering from paralysis by analysis. In other words, your fretting about making improvements in terms of your intuitive capabilities will undermine you actual ability to take time out and develop said skills.

The process for reflecting for improvement may not be as difficult as you initially assume. Here are some insights into how to gain the much needed improvements you require…

1. Be resolute on trying and just do it

First, when you wish to deliberately improve a skill you will need to take definitive steps to do so. No more “winging it” with a halfhearted attitude. You will need to actually stop and reflect on what you need to do in order to attain success.

2. Monitor your decisions and their outcome

This can all start with keeping a journal of your intuitive decisions and noting which decisions worked out well, which ones worked out poorly, and which decisions were somewhat of a mixed bag. Keeping and accurate log of all your decisions will allow you to examine these decisions on their own individual merits.

3. Reflect on your inner motivations & reactions to those decisions

Writing down (or typing down) your ideas and opinions on your decisions will allow you to determine how to improve them in the future. Of course, it needs to go without saying you must be honest with all your assessments and self-reflections or else the process will not be one of much value. You want to look for improvements upon making reflections and not look towards making excuses. Be mindful or this or else you will discover your ability to enhance your decision making abilities will be limited.

The above three points will also make you more conscious of the fact that intuitive decision making is something that can be developed and improved. To assume that improvements are outside of your capabilities means you see intuitive decisions as innate or magical. That is not the case as there is a science to the process. You just have to figure out your own approach to improving on the science.

This article has been written by the Silva Method Team.

For over 5 decades the Silva Method has helped millions of people around the world achieve their highest potential by working with the mind. By expanding the mind’s capabilities through meditation, creative visualization, mental exercises, and self-improvement, graduates of the Silva Method have gained profound achievements and lasting transformation in their lives.

The Silva Intuition System is a powerful program designed to heighten your intuition in order to make the right decisions, follow your destiny and passions, and bring out your inner compass. While conventional science will have us believe that we are limited to the 5 senses, there is one sense that has been left hidden for many people and that is your intuition. It is your most powerful and precious sense.

For more information please visit: http://www.silvaintuitionsystem.com

No related posts.

I often get back & make reference to Ekhart Tolle’s works in my article. No doubt that his books, mainly “the Power of Now” and “A new Earth”, have been deeply influential as I’m sure they were with most people who have read them. Tolle’s commentary on the deeper spiritual side of humanity is somehow profoundly revelatory and awakens a lot of your spiritual self, as I guess it’s meant to do.

Central to Tolle’s teachings is the notion of being. I would be rather pretentious if I’d expect to convey the concept in one humble post so I will not try. I will however try to make some simple points.

To start with, your being is different than your doing. So far this is linguistically self-evident but not obvious to us all the time. Many times we identify ourselves with our doing – our actions, achievements & failures. Our doing is however transient, only meaningful in a very narrow situation. What we did yesterday may not be relevant today. Our being however is always the same. It doesn’t change. You just are. It’s simple, profound yet elusive.

Our being is not our distorted self-image – our physical countenance, our life history, our socially formed beliefs, our wants or needs. Our being is that deep underlying essence which is not separate from other things around you or in the universe. It is one and the same with all things. Some people call it the inner self, some call it the Tao or God, the pervasive spirit underlying all existence including your own.

Our sense of separateness is a mind created illusion of the ego. The ego, in Tolle’s words, is trapped life energy which is cut off from the energy flow of being. It has a seemingly life of its own and can be self-destructive by feeding on pain, drama, suffering and fear. Collectively it causes the insanity we all witness around us –alienation, war, anger, disenchantment, hysteria and the whole shebang.

The egoic self-centric mind is responsible for much of our created suffering and self-deceit. It makes us feel separate from others and the rest of nature (and this is the arrogant starting point in many religious doctrines). It makes us feel that others are a threat and that the world is a hostile place. It forces us into undesirable behavior – reacting to others’ words or actions, by competing, being envious or judgmental and feeling threatened by others’ successes. On a different level it makes us attach ourselves to certain beliefs and objects of the mind. It makes us react by creating drama if we feel others are a threat to those attachments (think about religious fundamentalists in the past and present killing other humans in the name of God or their ideologies). This is the insanity created by the egoic mind and we are in it to the chin.

Our Being is the extreme opposite of that. It is light and free of any drama, attachments or needs. The being doesn’t react. It doesn’t need to. It just is. We have a glimpse of it in moments of deep calm and peace when we feel grounded and unshaken by happenings around us. We feel a deep sense of joy. It is a moment in time when our ego subsides and goes temporarily dormant. In that moment we are free from desires – momentarily free from that endless cycle of desiring and dissatisfaction – that eternal sense of never reaching your goal but always expecting it round the corner. Some people call this moment “at peace with oneself” or “communion with God” and some spiritual traditions have the objective of reaching this state through meditation and practicing the mind.

Whatever it’s called makes no difference because unlike the ego, labeling is irrelevant for Being. We can access Being sometimes. As I said, I believe this is the objective of some meditative practices. The reason why is simple to see. Meditation quiets the mind from chatter and inner commentary. When the mind becomes still and focused it becomes an entry point to that deep underlying calm called being. If you connect with it often, even for just a few seconds, you are reconnecting yourself with life’s creative energies. Life will start flowing through you. You will feel lighter, happier, more creative and your life will gain deeper meaning. This is not wishy washy talk. This is the long forgotten root of most religions and spiritual traditions.

If we had to embrace our lightness of being and make it our life strategy, the effect would be immense on an individual level. On a collective level I guess it would be the proverbial heaven on earth.

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