Spirit in the Village

Food for Thought Fridays - Observing the Cycles of Life

Posted by Kevin Boon. Follow me on Twitter.

The last several months have been one of the most enlightening personal growth experiences of my life. Challenging in many ways, during this time I have made my focus on personal growth, meditation and connecting to what many call the deeper wisdom that lies within each one of us. This morning as I meditated I was putting my attention on the day to come. As I reflected there was a subtle awareness that I was coming to the end of a cycle.

What is a Cycle?

Cycles of Fame

The first time I ever heard the expression “cycle” in reference to life was from an interview where George Harrison (Video) explained the rise, fame and eventual break-up of the Beatles. He talked about the cycle being like energy or a feeling. Being in the band felt good in the early to mid 60’s and then as the decade went on the good feelings gradually diminished. By 1968-69 the bad feelings were dominant and the band had to break-up.

What happened? They matured. They got married. They developed other interests. Eventually the role of being a Beatle was no longer fun.

The energy for the Beatles eventually had to die.

Cycles within a Career

Careers have cycles. When you start a new job or business there is a new energy that feels exciting and good. Good feelings might last for year, two years or twenty years and your intuition says, this is good, keep going. And then something happens, an event, a trigger where you observe the energy starting to wane. The energy of your job starts to fade, you become less passionate and over time those good feelings can turn negative.

Knowing what I know today when you stop enjoying your job or career it’s usually a good time to ask what can I change? Many stay in jobs longer than the natural cycle and they end up feeling miserable. Over the years this impacts our health, our relationships and our quality of life. Cycles are different for everyone. Some cycles last 20 years and others last 6 months.

Source: Flickr Evelyn Arthur Richman

Cycles for Inner Reflection and Personal Growth

This latest cycle for me began with the loss of a job. I remember the first instinct (after losing the job) was to go within. The instinct was strong. My intuition was telling me, Listen! Go Within! Observer your feelings, thoughts and take time to connect with your inner being. The problem we often have with jobs or careers is we get too focused on the work and we lose connection with who we are. We forget about our needs and what makes us happy.

The events in the last several months of this cycle have moved in slow motion for me. Every event, challenge or experience has been magnified, vivid and right in my face with thoughts and emotions triggered at every level. Meditating, journaling, writing and talking about my experiences have been my way to gain clarity and make sense of all that has happened.

What is great is the experiences have made me stronger, have allowed me to connect to my real interests and passions and have enabled me to feel more authentic within my relationships and life.

Enjoying the Cycles of Life

Every experience in life has a cycle. Whether it’s a job, a relationship, success, fame or an illness or our life, everything is born and eventually dies. A subtle awareness of the cycle makes you realize cycles are good. If you are going through a bad cycle then it is good to know that it will eventually come to an end. Cycles can be fun and when one ends it should be celebrated. There’s a new cycle coming. It’s part of the process of life.

My instinct tells me that I am coming to the end of this cycle even though outward events have not yet manifested. The feeling is there. The feeling is a good one.

Life is good.

Food for Thought Fridays - 5 Reasons Why My Blog is Perfect

Posted by Kevin Boon. Follow me on Twitter.

In our society we get sucked into a number of conditioned behaviours, one being the idea of perfection. Many of us feel that to prosper we need to be perfect. Traditionally women have been conditioned to think constantly about their appearance or the need to be slim or beautiful. Men are conditioned with the need to make money and have a successful career. Many of us carry this burning need for perfection in whatever we do.

While it is good to strive for our goals it is our attachment, fixation and addiction to perfection that creates stress and suffering.

The Perfect Blog

In the blogging world I’ve found myself having this desire to build the perfect blog; to create quality posts, have perfect post frequency, great layout and design and hundreds or thousands of readers. The reality is my blog is imperfect at least according to the norms of the experts.

I’m learning however that perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

Here are 5 reasons why my blog is perfect:

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
If you look at Susan Boyle’s recent success she was able recognize her own perfection and overcome society’s pre-conceived assumptions about her appearance. My blog is the same in the sense that those who look deeply enough can see the perfection.

Learning is difficult when one starts at perfection
If my blog and experiences were too perfect then people might become suspicious and worse yet they might think it’s impossible to do what I do. Blogging, Facebook, Twitter and social media are the great equalizers of our generation and everyone should feel they can have a voice and more importantly express who they are.

Marketed perfection is fake and provides no learning
Corporations have difficulty creating a real voice in the social media world because of corporate speak or too much fake marketing. Many bloggers attempt to be like corporations and create this illusion of perfection, but for readers their content feels contrived. My posts are not attempting to market the illusion of perfection. In the web world people want more authenticity.

Organic growth allows a person to evolve
By allowing my blog to grow naturally or with flow I’ve let go of the need to make everything perfect. If there is a bad post or a gap between posts it shows there is real person behind the site. This is good. Organic growth is better for me because my interest is in building relationships and a site that will be around in 10 years.

Perfection is about the journey not the destination
Most people see their goals as an end game. My life will be better after I have this experience. The exciting part of building this blog has been the opportunity to see it evolve and share the experience with others. Relaxing into the journey is part of the perfection.

Meditation Update

I’ve been following through with the meditation Deepak Chopra provided to the audience on Monday. This meditation has been so powerful that I’ve decided to increase my length of time in meditation to 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. I’m feeling more empowered, centered and connected through this experience.

This meditation has helped me to connect to pranic breath (I think that’s what you call it). This is breathing that comes from a deeper place and is difficult to explain. If there are any experts on pranic breathing please send along any information.

Food for Thought Fridays - Life Balance, Good Friday & Song Writing

Posted by Kevin Boon. Follow me on Twitter.

This week was crazy with a lot of distractions, interruptions and my own difficulty managing my time as events came up. Despite the craziness there were insights that are worth sharing.

Managing Life Balance in the Midst of Chaos

Sometimes life throws curve balls and our best intentions and plans can get thrown off. As I write about Life Balance I find my biggest test is bringing balance into my life during those times of chaos. Chaos can arise from external events, emergencies, our own or other people's challenges.

When chaos erupts my advice is to simply allow the flow of life to happen, be flexibile, be positive, stay focused on the job at hand and listen to your intuition. Remember every day is a new day and your goals and plans will still be there.

Good Friday

For millions of Christians around the world Good Friday represents the heart of the Christian teachings: the crucifixion of Christ. Many will pray, fast or spend time with their families and in three days Easter Monday will celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We have built a tradition of giving little chocolate eggs and bunnies to celebrate this day. I’m not sure what chocolate has to do with it but I’m always happy to receive.

Image Source: Just Hungry

Many years ago I was listening to a talk from Marianne Williamson who is a spiritual author and teacher who appears a lot on Oprah. She was talking about the cross, the crucifixion, the resurrection and Lenny Bruce, the Jewish comedian.

Lenny said, “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.” Source: The Brainy Quote

Electric chairs, can you imagine that?

The Resurrection

Marianne’s message was that millions within our religious communities remain focused on the crucifixion and as a result we stay focused on the burdens of our lives. Marianne says the real story of Christ was the resurrection and Christ’s teaching of how to overcome the burdens of life. I’m not saying that we throw away the crosses because they are important symbols for people, but I do believe that focusing on the resurrection in our own lives is the key to finding inner balance, peace and happiness.

To all Christians, Happy Easter and to our Jewish friends, Happy Passover.

Song Writing and the Creation Process

My process of creating and writing songs generally develops a life of its own and I find it important to get out of the way, listen to my intuition and write down the inspiration that comes. When my mind is too involved, nothing happens.

When I wrote the song A New Day & Who Ever Thought (about Barack Obama and his election to US President) the song began from a conversation my wife had with some business associates in California way back in 2007. Over the months that followed I was influenced by events of the campaign, and from a musical side, chords and styles of music came to me.

In this case some of the influences were Robert Johnson (Awesome Video), The Beatles (Video), and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Video).

Nothing was written down and the actual writing of the songs did not come together until after the election on November 4th. On the Friday after the election everything began to flow and within a couple of weeks of casually picking up my guitar, coming up with chords and writing lyrics the song came together.

My New Song - Developing a Life

There is a new song that has been building in the same way and developing a life of it’s own. The process has evolved a little differently and started with chords and a little riff that sounds more like a North American Indian drumming song. Since then the music has progressed to more of a harder rock tune. For the last two weekends I began coming up with words, but interestingly the words were not flowing.

Over the last few days some events emerged that have given me a topic to write about. Last night words started to flow.

I’m still not sure where this song will go but hopefully over the next couple of weeks I’ll have something to work with.

The trick to song writing is to allow the song to come from your soul.

That’s it for now… have some important work to complete today.

6 Tips for Bringing Flow into Your Life

Posted by Kevin Boon. Follow me on Twitter.

Few people have ever considered aligning with the natural flow of their lives. We are so caught up in our careers, family and other responsibilities and rarely do we take time to look at what we are doing and ask; Is this what I really want? Time flies and often we wake up in the morning, get busy and before we catch our breath the day is over and we wonder where all the time went.

The demands on our time can feel overwhelming.

Meditation, Intuition & Focusing on the Positive

Over the last few weeks I’ve been putting my focus on the concept of flow with a desire to bring the experience more fully into my life. Starting with meditation I now meditate every day to calm my mind, relax and observe the thoughts, feelings and sparks of creativity that come up for me. Listening to my intuition is the next step and is critical for this process. I’ve learned that negative thoughts, feelings or reactions are an indication that flow is missing. Only by shifting to the positive thought or feeling am I able to get into flow.

Focusing on the positive takes effort; it requires awareness and an attitude (which can include affirmations or visualizing) to consistently bring me back to the state where I want to be.

What is Flow?

The best example I can use to describe flow comes from sports. An (American) football quarterback having a great game where every pass seems to connect and every play moves the ball forward is in flow. His team wins and he becomes the hero.

The professional golfer who consistently hits every drive or putt perfectly is another example. There appears to be more than just skill, focus or determination at work for an athlete when they’re in the flow. They have trained their body and mind for years but what I'm finding is it’s not just conditioning that creates flow. Even the best athletes can have a bad game.

For me the definition of flow goes beyond our body or conscious mind. Flow is when our conscious mind steps aside and we allow our unconscious or intuition to guide us. Flow is when we just let go.

Why is Flow Important?

Many believe that success comes from our ability to use our mind, set goals, commit to action and stay organized and focused. While there is some merit to this advice, in my experience action without flow is useless. If you look at nature, instinct and natural flow are the only rules to the game.

As a society we pay a heavy price for not going with the flow of our lives, the results being stress, poor health, damaged relationships, career or financial frustrations.

What’s your Flow Like?

Whether managing your finances, your career, family, finding a job or building your business, a good question to ask is; how is my flow going? Does your mind and experience consistently flow in a positive direction or do you find yourself getting trapped in negative thinking, stress or frustration?

Here are 6 steps for what I’ve learned so far about bringing flow into my life.

This is a work in progress so be patient or feel free to offer suggestions.

1. What does flow feel like for you? – Go back to a time when something was flowing for you. How did it feel? What were you thinking? What was the situation? If you know what flow feels like you have a reference point.
2. Where is your flow level RIGHT NOW? – How smoothly do your days generally go? Is there a natural rhythm that kicks in or do you find each day a struggle? Are some days better than others? Take specific parts of your life and ask how much flow is there in my career, finances, relationships, health, family, etc.
3. Where would you like to be? – Don’t be afraid to dream big on this one. Think of your goals and your life. What would your life feel like if you were totally in the flow? Write it all down.
4. Focus on the present moment and let your intuition be your guide – Begin to use meditation, intuition, journaling, dreams, to become aware of your thoughts in each moment. Negative thoughts are usually a good indicator that flow is not happening. When you have a negative thought become aware and go to the next step.
5. Learn to shift your thoughts, feelings and beliefs from negative to positive as much as you can – Use affirmations, visualizations, law of attraction methods or whatever techniques work for you. Here are some of the resources that have helped me. (Zen Habits, Good Vibe Coach, Abraham Teachings, Inner Noodle) There is so much available to teach us how to shift our thoughts.
6. Be kind to yourself – Recognize that moving into a positive flow is a process that can take time, it doesn’t happen overnight especially if you’re used to a life that has been a mixed bag of flow and non-flow experiences.

Flow is the engine that brings balance and good things into our lives. Without flow action, goals or focus are pointless.

Moving towards positive thoughts and listening to our intuition are guides that can direct us into flow. Flow allows us to make better decisions and move more confidently toward the outcomes that make us happiest.