Sunday Story...Cleaning house

Sunday Story…Cleaning House

It is that time of year. The time when we start opening windows, cleaning the closets, and generally rebirthing our lives. It is spring. The time of renewal. The time when life starts anew and we can look forward to warmth and sun. Many of us will spend time cleaning our homes, washing the winter’s dirt off and generally getting in touch with the growing side of life. I love a fresh spring breeze blowing through the house, clothes dried on the outside line, and a feeling of renewal surging inside me.

There are some other places that need some sweeping out as well. Let’s start with your insides. Yes, your insides. Your liver, your kidneys, your colon, and all the rest need to be cleaned up and restarted. As we live our bodies accumulate waste and toxins in various places…liver, kidneys, and colon just for starters. A “cleanse” is designed to help flush out excess waste and de-toxify various body organs. Think of it like hitting the re-set button for your body or a spring cleaning for your body. Finding a good quality cleanse program to pull all that accumulated waste out of the organs and pipes will do wonders for your skin, hair, nails, and your mental outlook. You will lose some excess weight, some inches off your belly, and improve the way you feel about yourself. Do not go for the quick fix on this one…you know… the three day take some pills and see what happens cleanse. This will not create the healthy habits we need to sustain a healthy regimen. It takes 21 days to create new habits. It takes 21 days to replace bad habits with good ones. It takes 21 days to get all the sugar, flour and junk out of your system. There is no short cut to optimum health.

Another place to look at a little spring cleaning is your mind. What…a mental cleanse? How do you do that? A friend of mine recently took a red pen to a newspaper to highlight the negative news, a yellow pen for neutral and a blue pen for the good news. 60% of the articles were red and only 15% were green! We are surrounded by negativity in the news media and in television programming. We grab some people and put them in weird situations and then watch them and their relationships fall apart and call it reality TV. I spend a fair amount of time with children and I have yet to have one of them tell me that he or she wanted to be a couch potato when they grow up. A Doctor, a Lawyer, An Astronaut, or the President, yes, but never a couch potato. So what are you going to do to clean up your mind, how to rid it of negativity and mediocrity? Start with a cleanse of mass media…that’s right turn off the TV, stop reading the newspaper, listening to talk radio. Turn it off for 21 days. And in that 21 days replace the TV and it’s negativity with positive messages. Positive messages from books from Stephen Covey, Maxwell Maltz, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Joel; Osteen, Anthony Robbins, Bob Proctor, Eckhardt Tolle, James Arthur Ray just to name a few. You could listen to many of these books on CD (or tape) in your car on the way to wherever you are going. Imagine what it would be like to fill your mind with positive messages throughout the day instead of drivel about things you cannot do one thing about. After all, the only thing you can transform is yourself not me not the economy, not your boss or your spouse. 21 days of no TV. Sit and talk to your loved ones. Better yet, sit and listen, really listen to your loved ones.

Do we dare talk about your soul? How about a little soul cleanse? Another one that is not so easy to look at. How will we scrub some of the debris that we have been carrying around for these years? We have mentioned this before. Inspect the stories you are telling yourself. How are they serving you? Spend 15 minutes a day sitting in silence. Just sitting and breathing. When a thought comes up, recognize it, wave at it even and then say to yourself, “thought”, and go back to breathing. How long? 15 minutes a day for 21 days will have it be a habit. Meditation is listening; listening to your breath, listening to the rocks move, linking your breath to the emptiness that surrounds us. Then add prayer. Prayer is speaking; speaking your intention into the world. Whether you pray to a supreme being or a divine source, or you just speak your intention and express your gratitude. Again in 21 days your daily prayers will become a good habit that feeds your soul.


Body, mind, and soul all working together. A beautiful thing to behold. When our thoughts our deeds and our emotions are all in harmony, all working together we can be assured of a successful life. Our loved ones will be better looking and our children well behaved (well…I might be over the top here). Restore yourself in the spring just like your lawn, your house, and your garden. Spend the time getting right with yourself…clean your body, mind and soul. You will be amazed at the results. And if not…well, you can always go back to doing what you were doing before right?

Namaste

John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”

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06/27/08

Sunday Story
Listen to the Rocks Move
I live in an animate universe. When I say that I mean the natural world has ways that are always speaking. In the universe I live in, the rocks move, trees weep, and plants sing. The problem is we are not listening. When a butterfly expresses gratitude to the flower can you hear it? When the mountain heaves a sigh are you listening?
This natural order goes by many names. For today we will not be naming it. Imagine the secrets the rocks could tell you if you could hear them, if you had the patience to get really, really still and listen carefully.
Guess what? The universe is constantly talking to each of us. At least I hear it talking to me. As you all know, I do a lot of physical training. Training for marathons, grappler’s quest, ultra marathons, Ironman races and my TaeKwon-Do 5th degree test are all things I have been doing recently. As matter of fact, one of my sayings is: “Shut up and train.” Well on May 17th I ran 50 miles and completely trashed my knee. You may have seen me limping around. No problem, I will start riding my bike! Last Sunday my road bike was stolen off the back of my car! Gee, do you think there is a message there? First my knee, then my bike, and the pool is closed all summer. Maybe my training needs to slow down? Maybe I need to spend a little more time listening to the rocks move (hard to do when you are running and riding). So, I am back doing Tai Chi K’ung (join me if you wish). And I am spending a lot of my training time just sitting and listening. Now I can ignore these messages if I choose to. But I do so at my own peril. Maybe I go and get a new bike and get hit by a car. Try running and break a leg. Who knows? But what I know is the universe is speaking to me and loud enough for me to hear. I am sure if I would have been listening better, I would have heard it before this.
Lately I have been struggling with forgiveness and anger. I have been working to forgive others for real and imagined wrongs done to me. This is a real challenge point for me. It may be the Italian in me or it may be just my growth edge. And yesterday you know what arrives in my inbox right? You guessed it--- a number of quotes about forgiveness and anger. How does that happen?
Here is one of them:
A decision to hold on to a grievance is a decision to suffer. Whether the other person deserves to be forgiven or not, throw away the grudge for your own sake.
– Michael Josephson

So what is my point? What are you listening to? Have you turned off the background noise long enough to hear the rocks move? Because the TV, the computer and all the rest of our modern conveniences (cell phone, texting, my space, etc) are all conspiring to shut off your hearing. If you can get back in touch with the natural order, with the language of the harmony of the world you will hear it speak. And you will be able to move effortlessly, magically through life. The ability to listen and interpret the rhythm of the world may be your greatest gift. What are you listening to?
Namaste
John