It’s funny how our perspective can shift our reality.
Be prepared, I am going to try to be positive. I feel like I’m at a point where I could go either way, so I’m going to wax upon gratitude and positivity for a minute, and give myself a pep talk.
I’m writing this to myself, mostly, but if it helps you too then that’s an added bonus. I need a pick me up, a reminder, and maybe you do too.
However, if you are wallowing in self-pity, or are overly pissed off at the government or some other bullshit - I understand. You might not have the room for my words today. You might want to sit in your rage and simmer for a while, without someone trying to convince you to crawl out of your black hole and view the sunrise.
That’s okay, just stop reading and go back to sleep. Bookmark this post for another day when you’re feeling more open to an optimistic reminder of how beautiful life can be, when you pay attention.
Here’s a final trigger warning..
OK - here we go.
A Positive Role Model
I remember when my father was in the hospital after a failed knee surgery. It was his 10th surgery, and they suspected an infection in his artificial knee. As a result, they removed the entire knee and told him he would have to go without it for two months. Then, if (and it was a big if) they could get rid of the infection, they may be able to give him a knee.
Imagine not having a knee..
I expected him to be downtrodden. I even prepared a pep talk before visiting him, preemptively deciding to help pull him out of the victim mentality I was sure I’d find him wallowing in.
I even brought $5000 cash along with me to the hospital room. I wanted to gift it to him so he wouldn’t worry so much (that was when I was making money, and believed it really could buy happiness).
But when I walked into his hospital room, he had a huge smile on his face. He was extra kind to the nurses and deeply appreciative that there was a potential solution. When I asked him about his positivity, he simply said he was determined to find goodness in the situation. He refused the money, and refused to be negative.
To this day he is still one of the happiest people I know.
Happy as can be, even without a knee..
A Tragic Accident
(Trigger warning - graphic image below)
Last summer, my brother Jeff got his hand caught in a saw. It cut off two of his fingers and gashed through half his palm. Having learned from my father, we both knew he had two choices - allow this accident to break his spirit, or use it as an opportunity to find the goodness in life.
Remarkably, he too found goodness. He later told me he felt a newfound love for his wife, who had taken care of him, and immense gratitude that they were able to sew one of his fingers back on. Through experiencing the accident, he had discovered a deeper level of being. He’s now living in more love than ever before.
Me & my brother, Jeff, mere months after his accident
The Growth Edge
I, too, have had setbacks. I no longer have many of the things I once did. I can't walk without pain due to being run over by a car when I was 10. I lost (or walked away from) much of my wealth and status. I often feel deep contractions in my chest, including waves of sadness and pain in my body.
I don’t have many people calling me anymore, and I certainly couldn’t show up in someone’s hospital room with $5000 cash just to cheer them up.
Perhaps the two are somewhat related..
But what can I do?
I could go on about how I’m getting old, or how I used to make a lot of money. I could moan about how life has disappointed me, and that most people suck.
OR
I can tell myself that each painful contraction is an opportunity for growth. That the discomfort in my body is simply toxicity being purged from my cells.
I can remind myself that I’m sitting beside the ocean in Belize right now as I write this, and I am still in possession of my uncanny good looks.
All Things
I can be grateful for the interactions I do get to have.
I can be disheartened, or I can trust that all things under heaven are good.
My mom’s favorite Bible passage is, “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord.”
But what does “good” mean?
Does it mean I end up rich and without pain?
I choose, in this moment, to believe that I am on a one-way path back to the divine, and each trial is an opportunity to release that which no longer serves me.
It’s All A Game
As a society, all of us are at a major turning point. For the first time in human history, there are more sick people than healthy people. We are in the largest extinction event in 65 million years. We just ended a 2,160-year cycle, shifting from Pisces to Aquarius.
Are we in the end times?
For sure we are.
Is all death a new beginning?
Absolutely.
Is this the greatest opportunity in thousands of years to become enlightened?
I tend to think so.
I, too, am at a turning point. I am about to complete my 45th trip around the sun. My body is not what it used to be. My 20-year career ended. My 10-year marriage ended. I’m not feeling very loved right now.
What should I do?
I have no idea how I’m going to make a living, or where I am going to live, or who will love me.
And my body also has it’s own challenges:
I have a tinea versicolor infection on my skin, a type of fungus.
I wake up extremely achy and exhausted every morning.
I have a hard time walking due to pain and can no longer run without extreme shin pain.
Do I take medication for the fungus, drink coffee for energy, and find people to complain with about the government, the declining dollar, and the uncertainty of life?
OR
Do I take this as an opportunity to get my diet right, seeing the fungal infection as a gentle warning that I need to quit sugar?
Instead of worrying about not being able to run, I can praise God that I can still walk and carry a kettlebell with strong, healthy shoulders.
Instead of worrying about money, I can know I am better situated to grow than I have ever been in my life.
(I’m still going to drink coffee. God, how I love coffee.)
It’s all perspective. It’s all a game. We get to choose - which side do I want to be on?
Finding Gratitude
I intuitively know that my perspective has incredible power over how my life unfolds.
My spiritual guru and guide, David Hawkins (a fellow kinesiologist doctor) wrote in Power vs. Force, that the most important thing any of us can do - is focus on the good, and what strengthens us.
Only through looking for the good can we become illuminated.
When Christ was asked about the greatest commandment, he said it was ‘To love God with all our hearts and minds.’
This is the most important law.
Yet I have had so many false belief systems branded inside of me. In the past, I have cursed, robbed, and taken advantage of others. People dear to me have hurt me, so badly. I could, and maybe should, be very angry.
And yet, what good does that do me?
I have spent a great deal of time thinking this over. The only philosophy I have found that doesn’t drive me to the edge of insanity, is that it’s all divine, it’s all perfect, and I am on my way home.
Every fucked up thing we do, or experience, is a lesson - an opportunity.
We can either see it that way, or we can suffer. The choice is ultimately ours.
I Listen, I Feel, I Release
I really like C.S. Lewis. He, too, is a Christian thinker, or he was anyway (dead now, bless his soul). In one of his books Mere Christianity, an older demon is talking with a younger demon about how they can defeat man and God. The older one says to the younger one, ‘we don’t need to defeat Tim or God - we just need to make the other voices in Tim’s head so loud that he can’t hear God.’
With that in mind, I have been doing a nightly meditation. The meditation is one where I breathe very slowly and allow any voices in my head that are blocking me from hearing the divine to arise and go. I breathe very slowly, and allow whatever voice or sensation or thought that comes up to simply be.
I listen, I feel and then I release.
I know that underneath all the pain, the light of God is waiting to come out.
“I stand at the door and knock.”
I recorded my last meditation - try doing it with me. (I’ll leave it down the bottom, at the end of this post).
It’s only breathing. The background soundscape has the ability to rewire our brain. It’s so fucking powerful. It’s easy to go into a deep state of trance if you just focus on your breathing, and on feeling.
If you focus on two things at the same time, it’s easy to go into a healing state.
Remember Tim, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” These are your words, these are your thoughts - what are you focusing on? I know that I am a child of nature, I am co-creating the world around us.
So what do I focus on?
If God’s word came at the beginning, then sound existed before light. Either way, the only thing we can be sure of is that everything is simply energy, frequency, and vibration.
A Disease, Or An Opportunity?
Deepak Chopra, in ‘Quantum Healing’, states that terminal cancer patients who go into remission all share one thing - a transformation in mental attitude.
Those who died saw a disease, those who healed, saw an opportunity.
So today, I will rejoice all of my opportunities.
This must be my foundational principle. When negative thoughts creep back in, I will feel them, I will transform them. I will raise my frequency, using just my thoughts and by changing my perspective.
When life kicks me in the balls, I will take a breath. Like Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump - I will look up into the storm and shout, “Is that all you have!?”
Thank you, life, for teaching me.
Thank you. God, for giving me eyes to see all this beauty.
You got this Tim, I believe in you.
Just breathe.
A Gift
Here is the meditation I recorded, mainly for myself, but I think you’d enjoy it too. Make sure to get comfortable and set aside about 30 mins just for yourself. No distractions, no to-do lists, no screaming kids or whiny partners.
Just you. Do this for you.
I’ll see you on the other side.