THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

Live Now"
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
-- Annie Dillard

We lose the power of the moment because we're so rarely in it. We're reliving the past or speculating about the future. We continue to believe that tomorrow's the day when I'll be more capable, more wealthy, more fit and more loving. Meanwhile, I'm just putting in time, dreaming of better things but not making any concrete move to realize them.

When you find yourself thinking of the future or the past, bring your awareness into the present moment. Really experience how you feel and what's happening around you, without judgment. If we can treasure each moment, our lives will be rich, no matter what we have accomplished.

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever."
-- Horace Mann"

If, before going to bed every night, you will tear a page from the calendar, and remark, 'there goes another day of my life, never to return,' you will become time conscious."
-- A. B. Zu Tavern

Improve your luck

Maximise chance opportunities
We all have an equal number of chance opportunities it's just thatsome people happen to notice them more easily than others.

Build a network of luck
Lucky people are open to new experiences. More seems to happen tothese people because they constantly bump into the right people andhave positive encounters. Make smiling a habit and adopt an openposture. Talk to people in queues and don't be afraid ifrejection .Make contact with old friends.Deliberately create new experiences in life

Get out of your rut.
Vary your route to work or and from schoolpicking up the kids. Try new and more interesting types of food and instead of watching television listen to the radio (or vice versa). Make a numbered list of six new experiences you've always wanted to try and throw a dice to decide which one to do first.

Listen to your lucky hunches
Instead of trying to work everything out logically, learn to trust your intuition more. That's why lucky people seem so much happier in life they are doing what their heart tells them to do rather than listening to their heads.

Boost your intuition
Try meditating three times a week for 20 minutes. Find a quiet,calm place and make yourself comfortable. Repeat a word or phrase over and over in your mind. Try and focus solely on that word or phrase,and not any other thoughts that you may have about everything else you have got to do. After all, practice makes perfect.

Find out what you feel
Imagine that you are talking about a difficult decision to an old man in the Himalayas who does want to hear the logical argument, just ,what you feel about your options. Close your eyes and listento yourself telling him out loud exactly what feels right and wrong.

Expect good fortune
Have goals but hold them lightly - you can't force these goals into being, but you can match them against the many new opportunities you encounter and take strides forwards.

Set Goals
Write three headings on a piece of paper Short term, Medium term Long term. Make these goals specific, not I want to be happy, but I want a bigger house - know what you want. Make them relatively achievable may be not a mansion, but something with more space than the home where you're living now.

Overcome Fear
Fear of failure means that you might avoid trying to succeed. Take your goal and write a list of benefits - imagine what good would flow from achieving it and write this down. Now write a list of obstacles to overcome in order to achieve our goal - is it reallyworth the effort.

Turn bad luck into good
Your house purchase may have fallen through, but there maybe a better house about to come on to the market. Remind yourself about people in worse situations than you. See if there isn't another way to achieve your goals.

Don't dwell on the negative
Go to a place where you can cry scream or punch something for 20minutes - being able to prevent your emotions will do you good. Visit the gym watch a funny film or arrange to see a friend to take your mind off your problems.

THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

We Project Our Strengths

"Any situation that you find yourself in, is an outward reflection of your inner state of beingness."
-- El Morya

We have discussed that OUR WORLD MIRRORS WHO WE ARE BACK TO US.
When we get upset by something outside of us, our reaction shows us that we have an inner wound to be healed.
Just as we can be unconscious of our wounds, we can also be unconscious of our strengths. If you are really drawn to the positive qualities in another person, you are being invited to own those same qualities in yourself.

"The people we are in relationship with are always a mirror, reflecting our own beliefs, and simultaneously we are mirrors reflecting their beliefs. So relationship is one of the most powerful tools for growth... if we look honestly at our relationships we can see so much about how we have created them."
-- Shakti Gawain

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

Feeling safe
"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are -- chaff and grain together -- certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.."
-- Dinah Mulock

We cherish our best friends and our special communities because we feel safe to be vulnerable when we're in their embrace. And yet I have discovered that as long as I identify with my self-image, with my ego, there's no safety possible anywhere. When the ego is on watch, even a dear friend's truth may trigger reactions like anxiety, self-criticism and fear.

The only true safety exists in living the truth of our soul, our essence.

"Open your body and your mind to the subtler levels of experience, letting go of your attempt to control, to be right, not worrying about appearances, not trying to be safe."
-- Stephen Levine

THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

Choose Differently Today"
It is always your next move."
-- Napoleon Hill

The great benefit of heightened awareness is that we have more choice in how we live our lives. At any moment, we can purposefully choose a new experience for ourselves.
We can choose to pay attention, breathe more deeply, laugh, rest, play, appreciate, do something different - the possibilities are endless.
Whenever you remember, TAKE YOURSELF OFF AUTO-PILOT and really examine your situation.
Take charge and make a choice that will enrich your experience.
At the end of the day, reflect on what happened and how you felt when you chose a new line of thought, feeling or action.
"We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life.
But we can decide what happens in us -- how we can take it, what we do with it -- and that is what really counts in the end."
-- Joseph Fort Newton

"When a defining moment comes along, you can do one of two things. Define the moment, or let the moment define you."
-- Tin Cup (the movie)

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
-- Neil Peart

THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

What inspires you?

"It is never about how good your voice is; it is only about feeling the urge to sing, and then having the courage to do it with the voice you are given.
-- Katie in 'True to Form' by Elizabeth Berg

How often have you allowed fear and your inner critic to stop you from doing something you were inspired to do?

"Life is either a grand adventure or nothing.

" When we allow fear and criticism to stop us in our tracks, we give up that grand adventure. What a waste! Helen Keller "Be an all-out, not a hold-out."
-- Norman Vincent Peale

THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

Tune Into The Inner Critic
"A critic is a legless man who teaches running."
-- Channing Pollock

Are you aware of your inner critic? We all have this voice that tells us we are bad, stupid, clumsy, cowardly.... Although its intent is to help us succeed, the harsh self talk of our critic just serves to drain our energy and lower our morale and immune system.
To defuse the inner critic, we need to recognize when the critic is speaking.
We need to know that this voice does not necessarily speak for who we really are.
This is an old pattern that may no longer be serving us.
We want to open to the possibility that the words are not likely true.
We can ask ourselves, "Are these words helpful?""No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Abilities wither under faultfinding, blossom with encouragement."-- Donald A. Laird"Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business."-- Norman Vincent Peale

THE DAILY GURU...Messages That Guide You Daily

Opportunity

"We are continually faced with great opportunities which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems."
-- Margaret Mead

"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
-- Francis Bacon

"What is opportunity, and when does it knock? It never knocks. You can wait a whole lifetime, listening, hoping, and you will hear no knocking. None at all. You are opportunity, and you must knock on the door leading to your destiny. You prepare yourself to recognize opportunity, to pursue and seize opportunity as you develop the strength of your personality, and build a self-image with which you are able to live -- with your self-respect alive and growing."
-- Maxwell Maltz

The DAILY GURU...

Struggling With A Decision?
"You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind."
-- Dale Carnegie

My anxiety level spiked the other day as I wrestled with whether to choose option A or option B. I was so afraid of making the wrong choice! And then I remembered, with deep gratitude, Susan Jeffers' sage advice:
There are no wrong decisions! Whatever we might choose in life will bring valuable experiences if we are open to receive them. "Lighten up! Whatever happens as a result of your decision, you'll handle it!"
-- Susan Jeffers

A New Look At Old Attitudes
"I can change. I can live out my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past."
-- Stephen Covey

I was eating lunch with a friend who shared that she disliked one of the vegetables on my plate and hadn't eaten any since childhood. I suggested that sometimes our tastes change and maybe she could give it another try. She did, and to her surprise, she enjoyed it. Her world became a little richer as she opened to new possibilities.

Is there something in your life you might be willing to give another try?

"Change. It has the power to uplift, to heal, to stimulate, surprise, open new doors, bring fresh experience and create excitement in life. Certainly it is worth the risk."
-- Leo Buscaglia

The DAILY GURU...Love Yourself

Love Yourself
"It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others."
-- Sydney J. Harris

"We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are."
-- Don Miguel Ruiz"

There is no freedom like seeing myself as I am and not losing heart."-- Elizabeth J. Canham"If we could learn to like ourselves, even a little, maybe our cruelties and angers might melt away."
-- John Steinbeck

The DAILY GURU...Take A Break!

Take A Break!"

A good rest is half the work."
-- Yugoslav ProverbStrong work ethic?

You can still justify taking a break. In fact, we NEED to take breaks -- regularly and frequently. Why? WE WORK MORE EFFECTIVELY WHEN WE DON'T WORK SO MUCH.Rest periods and vacations break our work routines. They help SHIFT OUR THINKING from its habitual, stuck patterns. They create the SPACE FOR ENERGY AND CREATIVITY to flow. They give us TIME FOR REFLECTION, so we can step back and look at what's happening in our lives with greater detachment. We become more sensitive and aware.And finally, we are stronger when we BALANCE DOING with BEING. All work and no play throws our life out of balance and endangers our health. Our bodies and minds need sufficient rest for recuperation. This is critically important with the level of stress in our lives these days."The time to relax is when you don't have time for it."
-- Sidney J. Harris

"I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently."
-- Ernest Hemingway

The DAILY GURU...Balance Material And Spiritual

Balance Material And Spiritual

"What is [the role of money in the search for meaning? Is our relationship to it one of the chief factors that keeps us in our prison, or could it also be a tool for breaking out, for awakening to a life filled with intensity of purpose?"
-- Jacob Needleman

Our personality has a need for security. As a human in a material world, we need money to survive. If we don't have enough for basics, our lives cannot function. At the same time, with too much emphasis on the material, we lose the spiritual awareness that brings meaning and fulfillment. The key lies in the balance.

What draws most of your attention, time and energy: spiritual growth or money? Reflect on (or better yet, journal on) the balance or lack of balance of these two in your life."Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"View money and things not as something you create to fill a lack, but as tools to help you more fully express yourself and realize your potential."
-- Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer

The DAILY GURU...Live Your Own Life

Live Your Own Life

"We don't always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think SHOULD. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail
...We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people's expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart."
-- Julie Cameron

We are each unique beings with a unique path in life. If we wish to be fulfilled, we need to go to our own hearts for direction. We might regularly ask ourselves:
- "What do I really want to do?"
- "What brings me greatest happiness?"
- "How can I bring more of these into my life?"Life wants us to go for what brings us most joy and meaning."It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
...I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing."
-- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"Let me listen to me and not to them."-- Gertrude Stein

"What you must dare is to be yourself."-- Dag Hammarskjold