2009-06-30

I Will Be Changed Forever

The Dalai Lama once said, "If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry."

In addition to other things, I have been worrying that my passport still hasn't arrived, and I leave today.

Last night I began a change. At midnight I wrote a poem to myself, and began taking back control of my own life.

This morning my passport arrived.


I Will Be Changed Forever


To Britain and Rome
Two empires of fortune and fame

I leave for these old worlds
Today on a plane

I'll be going back in time
Back thousands of years

For answers, for learning
For feelings, for cheer

My life is so short
I must make it full

Let every person alive and dead be my teacher
Let every town and city be my school

From the very best of Britain
To roaming barefoot in Rome

My heart and mind will be changed forever
For the better before returning home

I will drink in each moment
Savoring each slowly as they pass by my lips

Feeling them drop deep down inside me
Rippling one by one in my soul......

And my spirit they will enlighten and uplift


~ by Adam Stuart
~ to Adam Stuart
June 30, 2009
12:00 am

2009-06-28

Size Does Matter

Sofia's gone again,
I do not know where

I was promised to be told during the drop off. Sofia was crying and I didn't want to make it worse. So I left with a promise that hasn't been kept, except for the one I've made to myself....

No matter what, I am responsible for my own thoughts, feelings and actions....and therefore my life. No one else. If I am going to evolve into my highest self, I have no room for negative and limiting emotions....for myself or anyone else.....no matter what. This is crucial, and the difference between growth and stagnation.

I've even told God that I will not do anything Christian (or Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim) to get something from Him, to get into Heaven. I respect Him, myself and my fellow man too much, to give only in order to get something back. This is manipulative and dishonest.

Instead I will give, everything I have, everything I can be......everything for free. Because once I'm gone, I can give no more. And everything I've "gotten" in life can't be brought with me anyway.

So here I am, giving myself naked and honest, with what feels like a gun to my heart. The trigger has been pulled, again and again......yet my heart keeps beating, keeps bleeding.......keeps loving, keeps hurting.

I can't even bring myself to include pictures


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The truth is living this way isn't easy, and I would say not recommended for the weak. Yet this is exactly how the weak stop being weak and become strong. And how the strong who are weak become strong again.

It's when you've gone to your absolute limits, when you feel you can't go on any longer, when you KNOW you can't go on any longer........you're breaking apart faster than you can put yourself back together, and it hurts more than ever to hold on

This is when you must. This is when you must have faith in yourself and hold on to the higher world inside of you, refusing to give in to the limiting "what is" in order to create the better, brighter and more unlimited "what could be".

Just as the teacher can't take the test for the student, the coach can't play the game for the athlete....neither can the God live the life for the human anymore than He can eat or think for you and I. He can only advise, nurture, demonstrate......He leaves the making of our lives better up to us.....

It's our responsibility to choose to face this reality and take that responsibility. From the movie Bruce Almighty:

God: Parting a soup is not a miracle, Bruce. It's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs, and still finds time to take her son to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them. What they don't realize is *they* have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.

And when you know what you have to do, but can't find the strength to do it......you have to pray. This is my prayer from this morning that I share with you now. I don't know why..........except in maybe giving up my ego and identity and giving in to a deeper spirituality.........I, you, the world.....we all become much better than we are........We become what we could be


Today truly is a brand new day,
the day I've been waiting for all my life.

All my actions today result in the realization of my dominant thoughts and dreams

Today I think, feel and act as if I have everything I want.....bringing everything I truly want into my life because I have first truly and dominantly brought them into my heart and my head

I act, feel and think happy, healthy and abundance of every kind. There are no limits to what I can think, do, be or have

Just for today I allow only positive, powerful, and prosperous thoughts of every kind into my head

These thoughts lead to positive, powerful and prosperous feelings

These feelings lead to positive, powerful and prosperous actions

These actions lead to positive, powerful and prosperous creations

Today I evolve into something I nor this planet has ever seen.....because this planet HAS never seen me before in its 4.5 billion year history.....nor has any other planet

What will I do with this universal uniqueness of me?

Will I languish in the shallows of shallow thoughts, feelings and actions, ignoring this uniqueness and go through the motions of living, day after day until my days are done?

Oh Me! Oh Life!

Walt Whitman

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew'd,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.
That you are here-that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.


Or will I see myself and this day as the special and rare gift it truly is? A day of real growth, where I am determined to be more than I was the day before, that what stopped me yesterday will stop me no more. This is the day I grow legs and climb out onto the shore, giving me an entire new world to explore!

I choose to do this, to grow and evolve into something more....and I wake up tomorrow into something I never was before....with new worlds of even greater possibilities to explore

Since the size of our worlds are the same size as our hearts and minds.......size does matter.....and instead of languishing my life away in the small of the shallows, the pettiness, negativity and limitation.......today I grow legs and climb the highest mountain I can find.......looking down on where I used to be, all around me to where I now am, and up above to where I could go

I go from being broken, crying, falling apart, an amoeba in the stagnant shallows .........to having legs capable of carrying me all the way up the mountain..........to having wings that allow my spirit to soar to higher and higher worlds

Today I become free!

(I wanted to find just the part with Walt's poem, but what I found hit me like a ton of bricks. - turn off the SPIRIT song above.

This is exactly how I teach, and today I appreciated it more than ever.

Every once in awhile a teacher will tell me they wished they could "teach more like me". Even rarer one will say they are going to try. I am very honest when I tell them it's not only very difficult, but very dangerous as well, because you are breaking tradition, and the egos trying to protect it, as well as breaking years of ingrained habits of thought.

But, since we are not in the business of manufacturing standard products but nurturing and enlightening individual people, that is exactly what the job requires......breaking down limitations and building creators of their own consciousness and lives, helping them develop their own ability to crawl out of the shallows and out onto the shore.......giving them the evolutionary tools to discover and explore newer, higher and more exciting worlds

We teach them how to live again




That the dead are whispering to us to be fully alive before we die




And that we must find our own inner voice before it is too late

2009-06-22

SET YOURSELF FREE

Look at you

Look at me

There is nothing

We cannot be


Are you willing to find out?

Are you willing to believe?

Are you willing to hold on,

Until you see what I see?


- Adam Stuart
June 22, 2009

(Bella, above, holding up the peanut butter people she made)


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* written for my children, your children, and the return of the fearless and courageous child within us all.......the one whose dreams are deaf to impossibility, and whose focus on happiness keeps them on the path to personal paradise

I have spent the last few weeks in a very unhappy state, having to deal with not knowing where Sofia is living. Her mother's arrangements have changed and out of her insecurities, irrationally refuses to tell me where, being ugly and disrespectful in the process.

Making it worse was my best friend's sister just passed away in her sleep, and I felt deeply and even fearfully how precious life and love is, and how quickly and suddenly it can be taken away. (I looked at these pictures often of our last walk together before Sofia left)

Out of my fear and anger I could have easily called in the legal cavalry, which although would have given me what I wanted, would have also easily made the situation much worse, with a beautiful child caught in the middle and her dreams of a beautiful world crushed by the ugliness of adults.

So instead I held onto what I know to be right, which is love, what's best for the child. It wasn't easy. I had to disregard my ego and give center stage to my spirit telling me there was a better way. I studied the lives of Lincoln and Franklin, two masters at communication, in order to gain much needed insights and become more than I am.

I can't stand feeling sorry for myself or others because it keeps us in our sorry state of thinking and living. I told my son that if his life stinks it's because he has stinking thinking.

It's much better to put new, fresh thoughts in our head with each new, fresh day. It's no different than brushing your teeth and showering. It needs to be done daily if our hearts and minds are to remain clean, healthy and evolving.

We have to think and feel strong and capable on a dominant basis if we and others are to become stronger and more capable in reality, able to turn away from what's wrong and towards what's right.


I didn't know how I would feel better and get rid of my own stinking thinking, just that I had to. Since I found myself feeling sorry for Sofia's mother with her fears and self-imposed limitations, I let it go in indifference and began thinking courageous and unlimited thoughts for myself, Sofia and the rest of the world.

I saw STOMP and reaffirmed my belief that we ARE ALL incredibly talented in some way, and as we go through the tough times, we MUST focus on our dreams versus difficulties if we are to achieve the realization of these gifts.

Miss Elizabeth stopped by to tell me her birthday was coming up, and I made her a card from the kids and Shanghai and took it to her. I thought of Kelly who had just died, my friend's sister who was also handicapped, and how he told me I was her first collegiate heartthrob. I focused on how pure and innocent good love can be, and even though I couldn't focus on this for another, I could focus on this for myself, and see how pure and innocent the good life can be.

I have also been invited to Europe at the end of the month and spent my thoughts and energy planning the trip of a lifetime. A few days ago, before I got Sofia back, as bad I had been feeling not knowing where my daughter was laying her head at night, I began feeling really good. (Sofia picking off the petals of the flower in "He loves me. He loves me not.")

I realized it was because not only had I set myself free from being involved in an unhealthy and limiting relationship as I had been in the past, and changed my world drastically for the better because of it......but also because I allowed my inner voice to be louder and more clear than the outside world, setting me free to rise above reacting out of the lower emotions of anger and bitterness, which would have only created a world of even more anger and bitterness. (Exclaiming "Daddy loves me!")

And if I've been able to climb this high out of my own life events, I can only imagine how much higher I'll soar after experiencing close-up the life events dating as far back as 10,000 years of humanity (Stonehenge, Rome, Shakespeare, etc)!

I can only imagine how much stronger my dreams of beauty and truth will beat in my heart, that as one wins another doesn't have to lose. That as we win, so does the world. That we are all only limited by our own thinking and acceptance of what "reality" really is.....

And as we change our history of habitual thoughts and actions, we give light and strength to others to change theirs.

I see this beating turning into a pounding, a great drum drowning out the fears, insecurities, and limitations in myself and others more than ever before.....returning us to the time when we were all courageous and free............

having the strength to focus on the good v bad, the great v horrible......where the impossible is possible and the too-difficult-to-handle is met with an unstoppable and passionate desire to face and learn from it, using it as a stepping stone to overcome and rise above to new heights of thinking, feeling and living.

To a time when we were gods in the chrysalis, happy, brave and beautiful, daring to dream unlimited dreams and living in and out of our hearts v our fears.....living happily in our own personal paradise v hellishly in our own self-created prisons of "But I have no other choice" and "Look at what's been done to me".

And as we win back our hearts and minds, our spirits soar, and so does the world, rising and evolving around us.....our own history-in-the-making giving inspiration and strength to the present and the future.

What each of us does in this life DOES MATTER to the lives that are around us, as well as those coming after us.

When we choose to rise above our current challenges and limitations......we choose to set ourselves free

2009-06-12

Sitting in the Stands of Life

6/11 – Magic v Lakers,Game 4


Went to the game. Enjoyed it thoroughly even though we lost, because I was able to constantly think of what I wanted to happen v. didn't (We're going to score v. I hope we don't miss this basket). That was a victory in itself, being able to control my own thoughts and emotions no matter what the external world was doing (or not doing).

But I couldn't help looking around and thinking that so many people spend their lives sitting in the stands, watching life pass them by, entertaining or numbing themselves watching others live their lives.

Instead of being inspired by the tiny percentage of players they are watching who developed their gifts to NBA caliber, and using that inspiration to develop their own gifts (which is usually the non-egoic dreams we have, the passions we follow)…..they think small of themselves, lying to themselves that others are lucky, or born with gifts, while they weren’t.

There has to be a way to get all of us living as our largest selves. Because even as you are pursuing your passion(s), you are living as your largest self, getting better and better at what you would do for free, and closer and closer to living your dream.

Maybe we aren't the next Thomas Edison, but can't we also overcome thousands of failures, realizing that we are getting one step closer to our success with each and every failure that we learn from? Why do we give up so easily on ourselves? Why aren't we our own biggest fan?

Why is it so hard to believe in ourselves?.........and so easy to believe in others who already believe in themselves?

Because that's what we ask our brains to find out. Why aren't we achieving our most important dreams? How can we justify settling?

What if instead we shifted our focus on HOW CAN we achieve our most important dreams? How CAN we justify trying no matter what others say and no matter how long it takes?

If we were able to ask the dead what they wished for the most, I'm sure most would say, "Just one more chance to live again, to live fearlessly, courageously, and energetically.

Maybe we should ask our future dead selves what we would wish for? If our answer is the same..........maybe we should live as if each of our todays is that one more chance..........

One more chance to get on the court of life, versus choosing to sit in the stands and watch it pass us by.

2009-06-09

When Worlds Collide

Well, my son didn't even make it 24 hours. His mom and I are really working together to get his behavior with me duplicated at home with her.

At the drop-off yesterday he started acting up as soon as he got in her car.

Recently his mom, other dad and I sat down to figure out why the difference. We came to the conclusion that I don't hope he'll behave, I KNOW he will.

When the bar has been set, when he fails to meet it, mom lowers the bar while I raise it. When he chooses to do less, I make him do more. When he chooses to shrink, I make him expand.

When asked, Brosden said I'm like "this world that collides with others and makes them more". During a pick-up at Denny's last week Bella noticed a man with his pants down around his butt and said, "Eww".


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As I walked over I noticed he had a baby. I appealed to his sense of fatherhood and told him I wasn't telling him what to do, but just as he had a right to wear his clothes how he wanted, I had a right as a father not to have my little girl see his underwear.

He looked down at me as if I was crazy, and I smiled back with a look that told him I meant what I said. He hesitated, then pulled up his pants saying he was in a hurry getting dressed that morning. I told him I knew what that was like and really appreciated what he did....and I meant that too.

"Winning" isn't about controlling or defeating another, it's about elevating another to a higher level of thinking and being.

Brosden knows this and trusts me when I collide my world with his. He tells his friends that "when you get past his intimidating toughness, he's just a big squishy."

And I am. At the center of my being is a swirling, nurturing, overflowing core of squishy love.....

The greatest source of power and energy ever to have existed....

And after I die will continue to exist and grow in the lives of others.

I am not a father, a teacher, a man, etc......these are only outside things. What I really am is the present moment.

I can choose not to be present by living in the past and all its mistakes and failures, or I can live in the future and all its unknown fears.....

Or I can shut both these out and become fully conscious and aware of all the power and possibility of this present moment, acting out of love, of strength, of happiness and courage.......out of unlimited possibility.

When we choose to do this, we become so much more than what we were just a moment ago.......and so do the others around us.

And things that never existed before in our lives, now do.