"Man" On FIRE!

Watching a bit of Man on Fire, the 1957 version with Bing Crosby (not Denzel Washington, who played an incredible role that hit so close to home in the later version that I shook in the parts where he shook).

"That's all I have to say about that." - from Forrest Gump).


At the end of the film, Bing's girl says about his son, "He's growing up".

Crosby replies, "So am I".

How cool is that? "So am I".

We're all still growing up, and we all, myself very much included, need to remember this and allow ourselves to continue growing, upwards, forever closer to our best possible selves.

Why live any other way, than our strongest, smartest, happiest, harmonious and most passionate selves?

IT'S A GREAT WAY TO LIVE!

Why fear our inevitable deaths? Why not instead look death in the eye and say, "Take me anytime you'd like; I'm living fully and freely in the NOW, and giving life EVERYTHING I HAVE!"

"I'll fight you and will not go quietly into the night. But if you win and snatch the life from me, I can say, I WASN'T AFRAID TO LIVE."

Death ALWAYS happens to EVERYBODY........LIVING happens among FAR TOO FEW.

Just make sure that isn't you. Whatever you dream about, DEVELOP! Live your dream! Live while you have LIFE!

You and I ARE going to die. The question is, ARE WE REALLY GOING TO LIVE?

Entertaining God

If God is watching us, the least we can do is be entertaining. - (I don't know who said this but their sense of humor makes me laugh inside as much as the look on Bella's face and Sofia constantly flipping her sticky hair off her neck because it was so hot, which of course Brosden and I imitated to perfection until she ordered us to stop.)

Last night I got nothing done that I told myself I "needed" to do when I got home. I promised my son I'd play ONE game of Four Square, which turned into 40 games of Fun and Ridiculous Squares, Circles, and Hearts (Sofia's favorite shape although she "can't draw them berry well yet".)

By the time we were done playing I was so sweaty and tired that I took a shower and fell into bed, unable to do any of the many things I "had" to get done.

So when I woke up today I felt as if I had failed in some way, and that the walls before me I couldn't climb yesterday were now higher higher today. Sound familiar?

I honestly wondered if I wasn't anything more than a tiny little hardworking ant, and a source of great entertainment to some God up above.

I started to question the purpose of it all, ............until I looked at these pictures and the sleeping faces of the children I had co-created into this world. (I began writing this Friday morning but ran out of time to finish).

Still, I was less than confident that I could have the energy to give to everyone and everything in my life today. I had given away too much the day before.

Then I heard this from Wayne Dyer, paraphrasing:

Sages do not collect anything. They give everything, and the more they give, the more they have to give.
- Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching

So my challenge today, as is all of ours, was to be a little wiser, a little more "sagier", and a lot more likely to knock down the walls before me before the walls before me collapsed down upon me.

To Be Continued.........

Surfing Waves of Emotion

......................LIFE EROTIC...........
.............LIFE SUBLIME .................................................
..............................LIFE PSYCHOTIC...................
LIFE DIVINE.........................

.......................................Life and its emotions
.......................................A simple simplistic rhyme

.......................................Not demons to be feared
.......................................Forces from which we hide

......................................They are choices to be made
......................................Empowering waves that we can ride

We can't decide which waves come to us from the ocean of life.
We can only decide which ones we're going to surf.

(My life-loving son, playing in the rain - this past Sunday night)

Peace, Passion & Play!

Practice Picking Better Waves to Ride Today!

- Adam Stuart

Using Unhappiness as Motivation

This is from Odyssey Spirit. I wish more people were "odd" like her.

From: Odyssey Spirit ~~Chris tina~~
Date: Aug 25, 2007 2:58 PM


Using Unhappiness As Motivation


"Desire is a more powerful motivator than fear ever dreamed."
We fear obesity and rejection in order to motivate ourselves to diet. We scare ourselves with thoughts of lung cancer and emphysema, visualizing ourselves in hospitals on respirators to get ourselves to stop smoking. We visualize our lovers leaving us so we'll be nicer to them. We became anxious about unemployment to get ourselves to work harder. We feel guilty to make ourselves do what we think we should. On and on it goes, using unhappiness to get ourselves to do or not do, be or not be.
Why do we use unhappiness to motivate ourselves? Perhaps we believe that our desires aren't enough. If our happiness isn't dependent on it, maybe we won't be motivated enough to change and pursue what we want. So we turn our "wanting" into "needing" believing it will somehow make our desires more powerful and our actions more purposeful.

Needing something implies that there will be a negative consequence if we don't get it. We need food and water to live, or we'll die. We need to breath, or we'll die. But do we really NEED to be thinner? Have that new car? Get that raise? Unfortunately, the unhappiness (fear, anxiety, nervousness) resulting from turning this want into a need take lots of our emotional energy and leaves little left to actually use towards creating what you want.

What if our happiness wasn't based on getting what we wanted? Would we still have motivation to pursue your desires? From personal experience, I can tell you the answer is a resounding YES.

"When we use desire for our motivation, the difference between wanting and attachment becomes clear. Wanting is moving toward. Attachment includes the experience of need and, often, fear of our very survival. We use attachment to connect our selves to the object of desire with our fear, our sorrow, our guilt, our experience of need, as if that draws the object of desire to us. But it doesn't work."

"To believe that I need something requires, by definition, that I also believe that I cannot be okay without that something. It may be an object or an experience that I desire. In this view of reality, if I don't get it, that very not-getting threatens my well-being, my hopes for happiness, my ability to be okay. When I use un-happiness in order to help myself get what I want, or to get you to give me what I want, I live in that need. That experience is self-extinguishing - it is the state of non-being. The very thing I do to help myself cripples me, choking my life force and my ability to create."

"The experience of desire is self-fulfilling. It allows happiness now. It permits a sense of well-being, of okay-ness. It simply acknowledges, "more would be welcome. This is the more that I welcome."
- Emotional Options, Mandy Evans

We also use unhappiness as a gauge to measure the intensity of our desires. The more miserable we are when we don't get what we want, the more we believe we wanted it. We fear that if we are perfectly satisfied with our present conditions, that we might not move towards changing them or taking advantage of new opportunities. This simply isn't the case.

Let your desire and wanting be your motivation. Focus on the imagination, inspiration, creativity, and anticipation that desire creates. Let that feeling be your guide.

Unhappiness To Motivate Others
We get hurt to try and make our spouses take notice and to get them to change. We get irritated with our children to make them move quicker. We get angry at the sales clerk so they'll treat us with respect. We get angry at our employees to make them work faster. All in the attempt to get others to behave as we want or expect them to. For more information on how we motivate others with our unhappiness, see the relationship section.


Unhappiness To Show Our Sensitivity
We become visibly sad when someone we love is unhappy to show them we care about them. Believing it would be callous and insensitive if we were not unhappy when they were unhappy. We even have cultural set guidelines for determining how long a spouse should mourn the death of their partner. God forbid a man dates shortly after the death of his wife. That would surely mean he didn't really care for his now deceased wife, right? This is another one of those beliefs we've passed on from generation to generation. We as a society then reinforce that belief.



Contrary to conventional wisdom, psychologists from the University of California in Berkeley and Catholic University in Washington, D.C., say laughter is the best way to get over grief when a loved one dies. In the past, it was thought that a person had to "work through" the stages of anger, sadness and depression after a death. "It may be that focusing on the negative aspects of bereavement is not the best idea because people who distanced themselves by laughing were actually doing better years later," one of the researchers said. "We found the more people focus on the negative, the worse off they seem later." (UPI)




I specifically remember an incident in High School where my fellow team members tried to teach me that "unhappiness is a sign of caring". Our senior women's basketball team was in the state finals. It was the last game of the tournament and if we won, we would be state champions. We lost. The scene was in the women's locker room after the game. I was sitting in front of my locker, head down, thinking of all the mistakes we had made, what I could have done differently, and feeling very disappointed. There were a few girls quietly crying in the corners, being consoled by other team members. There was no laughter and no discussions. The environment was a very somber, much like a funeral.

I distinctly remember thinking to myself... "hey, wait a minute, the game is OVER. There's nothing I can do to change that. What's the point of feeling miserable about it?" And I started thinking about all the things I had to look forward to.

My mood changed almost instantly. I felt happy and ready to go on with my life. I stood up, started changing out of my uniform, and began joking with some of the other girls, hoping to help them "feel better". The reaction I got was remarkable. The dirty looks, the exasperated sighs, and one of the more assertive girls angrily said to me, "God Jen, don't you even CARE that we lost? You obviously didn't have your heart in the game."

That's when I learned that I had to be unhappy to show I cared. Actually, I decided I COULD be happy and still care, but that it just wasn't a good idea to let others see my happiness in the face of what some saw as a traumatic and difficult situation. If I wanted others to view me as a sensitive and caring person, I would have to hide my happiness.

auther found soul2soul .com

posted by : Odyssey Spirit ~~Chris tina~~

Become Fully Free

I entered this play
naked and crying

I'm determined to leave it
laughing while dying


I'll play my part
until my part is over

I'll play it fully
feeling deeply all over


Life is incredible,
alive and sensual

An exciting Heaven on Earth
mixed with seasons of Hell


Our forms and identities
nothing more than empty shells

Covering our true nature
our beings, our selves


Allowing this self
to feed on life's servings

Allows yourself
to return to the living


Allowing your being
to feel all of life's feelings

Allows you to be
a complete human being


Close your eyes
and quiet your mind

Listen to your spirit,
and no longer be blind


Your lines are written
on the script of your soul

The show is YOUR life
and YOU have the starring role


So step into the bright lights of the stage,
unafraid to feel, to shine, to be

Play your part fully
and become fully free



Copyright © 2007 by Adam Stuart

Breathe In ~ Breathe Out

"We rush, we toil, we hurry, we haste
Life nothing more than a god-awful race

Breathe in ~ Breathe out
Peace and Happiness is around

Just hidden behind the the mess, the clutter
the stress and the frown

The world is created
with everyday thoughts

Are we happy with the lives we've made?
Or have we thought what we should naught?

Breathe in ~ Breathe out
It's not too late

Change the way you think
and you change your fate."

- Adam Stuart

Think honest thoughts and create harmony. Think loving thoughts and create laughter. Think of your higher purpose and create Heaven, because we create in our lives that which we think most of.