I am Via Saashi!  I love liberation.

 

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THE GIRL WHO WAS INNOCENTLY NEGOTIATING FOR A RUG IN THE MARKETS OF MOROCCO, WITH A GROWING NUMBER OF TALL MEN SURROUNDING HER, who BARELY ESCAPED BEING SOLD INTO WHITE SLAVERY, WOULD BE SAFE, BECOMING AN INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEUR.

 

At the height of a highly successful international business launch you would have found me weeping, wishing my success would go away, as crazy as it sounds that success turned into an overwhelming nightmare. Success is not always happiness.

Are you up to listening to the whispering of my secrets to liberation? Do you want to discover  how to find the core of your pain, own it, feel it, heal it, and face it? Are you up to connecting with yourself and celebrate your passion and power, feeling less alone? Sometimes this journey has lots of lonely and our only friends are our favorite addictions, how about “shop til you drop?”

If I can drop my walls and share my stories, find my passion and LIVE FREE, “THERE IS HOPE” for you. Do you want to listen to your silent voice that says: “you are a super star” while your old hopeless world passes you by, whispering, YOU ARE FREE?

I’m probably sipping the darkest cocoa bean hot chocolate with visions of ways I can inspire more people. No matter what your background reveals, your status in the world, your age, or anything else, you can find and embrace your passion, be authentic, and BE FREE.

I AM A WANDERER.

I SEEK MY TRUE PATH,

MY JOURNEY, OVER AND OVER.

I AM WINNING AND FINDING

MY POWER, AND PROMISE,

TO EMBRACE

OVER AND OVER.

MY ROAD HOME.

IT OPENS MY PURE VISION.

GO To: http://shatterthereality.com/begin-adventure/

Your MY journey meditation is a new adventure every time. There is “Power in Persistence.” Find and embrace your passion OVER AND OVER, to Feel It, Heal It, and Face It, by embracing your next, and your next, and your next journey through your meditations.

 

 

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Give up these 7 toxic habits to be successful in business

When it comes to our wealth and success, we tend to fixate on the things we need to acquire in the future to make those visions come alive. However there are also certain ingrained habits that might be dragging you down right now.

In order to take flight and become mega-successful, you need to carefully assess your extra baggage. The good news is that your toxic routines and mindsets can be kicked to the curb, starting today.

So take a huge leap towards success and wealth by giving up these 10 things:

1. Doubt

“I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.” –Warren Buffett

You are unconsciously sabotaging your progress when you indulge in negativity. Your journey to success starts the moment you condition your brain to believe this is where you want to go. If you continue to believe otherwise, then you shouldn’t expect success to follow through.

Rather than being your own worst enemy, get yourself in a good mood through cultivating positive thoughts that will inspire you to continue reaching for your goals.

2. Impulsive emotional decisions

In my many years in finance, I’ve seen people throw decades of financial planning out the window because of their feelings. And it’s easy to do that in a stressful workplace too.

When successful people find themselves in situations where they’re extremely angry, sad or frustrated, they let themselves ride out those emotions without acting on them. The simple act of waiting to make a decision until you’ve returned to a levelheaded state can play a huge role in the success you achieve.

3. Reliance on praise

“Self-confidence must come from within. Outside reinforcement and strokes can help, but you have to build your own confidence.” –Steve Jobs

No one can advocate for you or make it happen like you can. You have to be your own best cheerleader. You must believe in your own success, and this means that, if the right opportunity doesn’t present itself, you should create your own opportunity.

4. Being a control freak

Our attention spans and willpower are finite. So, if you attempt to micromanage every single aspect of your life, which plenty of motivated people do, you’ll end up limiting the attention you can pay to the important stuff.

This isn’t an excuse to do sloppy work, but you must only direct your efforts towards things you can control. For instance, if you’re leaving your comfort zone and learning a new skill, accept that there will be some slip-ups. Being flexible amidst adversities is a virtue you must practice to create difference in your life.

5. People-pleasing

It is a jungle out there. Everyone is clamoring to be noticed, to be ahead, to become game-changers. Hence, people will not baby-talk you all the way. You have to prove yourself through hard work without expecting that everyone will believe in and compliment you.

As Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, once said, “Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.”

Quit doing things for the sake of others’ appreciation — do them because they are needed to fulfill your vision.

6. The blame game

“If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.” –Bill Gates

If you don’t get it right this time, don’t complain and don’t play the blame game – it will just take your time in exchange for nothing but negativity.

Have the courage to take responsibility for the results of your work and decision. It will teach you humility and give you priceless experiences that you can take with you as you move closer to your goals.

7. Multitasking

A study out of the University of California, Berkeley, found that, on average, office workers go only 11 minutes between interruptions, while it can take up to 25 minutes to get into a state of productivity called flow.

That’s why giving up multitasking, and focusing all your energy on the important things, is vital for wealth creation. Valuing your time by thinking of it as money will motivate you to work diligently for what you are aiming for.

8. Bad company

Oprah Winfrey once said, “Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher.”

You probably heard this advice when you were a teenager and studies show that your parents were right: The company you keep influences the success you create.

Of course, the challenge is that we cannot always choose the people we interact with daily. But having the ability to recognize Negative Nancies — and to ignore their bad energy — is instrumental for establishing a positive mindset.

Why the secret to your success is who you marry.

https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/august/supportive-spouses-brooke-feeny.html

9. Giving up

JK Rowling, who became a billionaire after brushing off hundreds of publisher rejections, once said, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.”

Ultra-successful people don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Instead, they find new ways to turn rejections into milestones. Do not be afraid to go for it!

Keep in mind that failure is a breeding ground for success and don’t give up. Be persistent and resilient enough to bounce back and try again. Each time you brush the dirt off your shoulders and try again, you’ll benefit from more experience.

10. Frivolous spending

A study conducted among consumers who make over $100,000 a year reveals that, surprisingly, majority of them do not own luxury cars, and they shop at mainstream stores like Target and Walmart.

The reason being is that they recognize the value that long-term investing can have over frivolous spending. The one thing that virtually every millionaire and billionaire has in common is that they set aside wealth for an investment account.

If you’re struggling to give up overspending, consider the 20-30-50 Plan: spend 20 percent of your paycheck on investing (or paying off debt), 30 percent on fun and the other half on necessities (like rent).

The bottom line: By shedding the dead weight and giving up unnecessary things in you life, you exponentially increase your likelihood of success.

ESTElle Kaplan

www.empowerslavetonone.com

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True love: what it is and what it isn’t. Do you know? I can picture the day. Rice flying, a limo pulling up to take him and me to the airport, white clusters of flowers on the pews, tears in my mother’s eyes, my bridesmaids in lavender chiffon….

All the details of my wedding day are worked out in my head. All of them, that is, except for the groom. Oops. That’s an important part, huh? Love. It’s a commonly thrown around four-letter word. “I love macaroni and cheese.” “I love their music.” Sometimes, we even say, “I love him” or “I love her.”

WHAT IS REAL LOVE?

Is it the heart-pounding adrenaline rush you feel when you see…? You know the person I’m talking about. That hot guy playing basketball at the gym… the cute girl who makes eye contact as she passes by… the friend of a friend of a friend… maybe a best friend. It’s that person we keep track of when he or she is in the same room, whose comments and actions we analyze to no end. But is that love, or the beginning of it? There are a few things love isn’t. Love isn’t a feeling. Although real love is often accompanied by strong feelings, love does not equate with the sense of floating on clouds. Unlike the type of love that movies, television, and songs portray, people in love don’t always feel ooey gooey around each other.

Knowing about the person’s personality and character are so important.

A relationship wouldn’t last long on emotions. In fact, knowledge is the basis of a healthy relationship.

Knowing about the other person is key. I used to and sometimes still do “fall in love” with guys that I have never had a conversation with, whether it be a movie star in the latest romantic drama or the guy sitting behind me in a calculus class. I would know his name and his face, and that was the extent of my knowledge of him. If I were to start a relationship with him, who knows where that would lead us!? Knowing about the person’s personality and character are so important. One good test is to list the qualities that attract us to that guy or girl. If the list is long, we know a lot about them and like those things. If the list is short, we either don’t know a lot about them or we know a lot but aren’t attracted to his or her personality.

Another important factor in a love relationship is common life goals. If the relationship is going to be long term, we need to be going in the same general direction as the other person. If his dream is to travel as an international businessman and she wants to be a realtor in a single location, conflict could arise. If she wants to live in the countryside with nature and he likes the hustle and bustle of a big city, there are potentially serious problems with the direction of the couple’s lives.

Love isn’t sex. That statement alone goes against a lot of what the entertainment industry feeds us. Whenever two people hook up in pop culture, they have sex. Without showing some of the unpleasant realities of premarital and extramarital sex, it is drawn up to be a wonderful, fun recreational activity.

Sex is created for marriage — a long-lasting commitment between a couple. Outside of marriage, sex can have harsh consequences. Pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, guilt, insecurity, and shame can follow. A relationship based on lust can only last as long as the two are physically close and find each other sexually attractive.

LOVE IS A CHOICE. IT’S A COMMITMENT.

Although feelings will accompany love, and although sex will be a part of marriage, a lasting, healthy relationship cannot be based on these things. The firm foundation of any love relationship is the choice to be in love every day, no matter what we are feeling. It is a choice to put the other’s interests above our own, and to work beyond the inevitable hurts and disagreements that will happen when two personalities become intimate. It is worth preserving and nurturing as you face the world together, hand in hand.

The Bible says that God is love. That as our designer and creator, he made us with needs for love. Do you ever wonder why we constantly seek love from others but never feel completely satisfied? It’s because God designed us to need unconditional love, and we, as people, are flawed.

People, whether friends, family, or your significant other, will invariably let you down at some point. God wants us to find our need for unconditionally love and acceptance primarily in him. One person cannot meet all our needs, even if he’s funny or she’s thoughtful. To learn more about experiencing the unconditional love of God.

TRUE LOVE 101: IS IT LOVE OR SIMPLY INFATUATION?

Find out if you’ve got the real deal. Try out our short course on “True Love 101.” It’s like the love litmus test for your relationship.

Infatuation can be so tempting. But the question is, do I want a lasting, satisfying relationship? If so, infatuation isn’t the answer. Look at your relationships through the grid below. Infatuation isn’t a bad thing, as long as we don’t base a relationship on it.

INFATUATION

• Sees the other person as perfect
• Wants to get own needs met — selfish
• Spends all time with the other person
• Quickly “falls” for the other person
• Other relationships and friendships deteriorate
• Dependence on the other person causes jealousy frequently
• Lasts for a short period of time
• Distance strains and often puts an end to the relationship
• Quarrels are serious and common
• Quarrels can seriously damage the relationship

LOVE

• Sees the other person’s flaws and still loves them
• Wants to serve the other person — selfless
• Still spends time with others
• Takes time to build the relationship
• Other relationships and friendships grow stronger
• Trust and understanding results in less severe and less frequent jealousy
• Encompasses a long-term commitment
• Survives and sometimes is strengthened because of distance
• Quarrels are less serious and less often
• Quarrels can strengthen the relationship

Harriet Sun

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We all know that one person who is well-liked by everyone, and it’s hard not to try and pinpoint what it is about them that makes them mesh so well with each person they meet. To try and better understand their charm, we can look at the common traits and habits of well-liked people, and perhaps we can even start applying them to ourselves. Likable people are cognizant of how they come off, and they maintain certain behaviors that attract people to them no matter who they’re interacting with.

“It comes down to them having good emotional intelligence,” says psychotherapist and relationship coach Toni Coleman, LCSW, CMC over email. “By this I mean that they have strong self-awareness, and a good awareness of what others are feeling, especially in response to them. They can calibrate what they say and how they say it in order to improve their interactions and relationships with others.

1. They Speak Honestly

“Honest people have a much wider ‘likability’ reach than those who aren’t honest,” says relationship expert April Masini over email. “In other words people respect and like honest people way more than they like and respect those who seem shady. People feel that they don’t have to second guess or doubt honest people.”

2. They Give

“People love those who give of themselves,” says Masini. “It may be time, money, opinions — or material things. Generous people see the bigger picture and they understand that being selfish or grubby doesn’t serve anyone in the long run.”

3. They Laugh

“Well-liked people have a sense of humor that shows they have perspective,” says Masini. “They know how not to sweat the small stuff because they see how silly it is when someone makes a bad call, and they’re able to show their ability to understand perspective, with humor.”

4. They Listen

Well-liked people people listen more and speak less. “They don’t monopolize conversations or talk over or interrupt others,” says Coleman. “Their strong listening demonstrates to others that they want to hear and care about what they have to say.”

5. They Prioritize

“People who are admired have their priorities in place,” says Masini. “You may not see their process, but you will see the outcome. They get done what is important, and this is a great quality for all of us to adopt and emulate. You may see that they delegate time for intensive chores like shopping or cleaning — or they just let the dishes go in order to have the career or the relationship that you admire them for.”

6. They’re Responsible

“if you don’t pay your rent on time, or celebrate your mom on Mother’s Day, you’ve dropped the ‘character’ ball,” says Masini. “People who are responsible and take care of business are admirable and have qualities we should all strive for. They usually have their calendars well oiled and communication mechanisms with their family, work, and friends, in tact. This allows them to remember birthdays, make sure bills and taxes are paid, and that they make time for the relationships in their lives.”

7. They Keep Up To Date On Current Events

“It’s always a treat to be in the company of someone who’s up to date on current events, news, arts and literature,” says Masini. “Someone who can listen with interest and contribute to conversations on a wide variety of subjects is a lot more fun to be around than someone who’s a complete blank on the state of the world. Spend some time reading, listening and asking questions — or take classes and expand your social circle to expand your own realm of knowledge and ability to be part of more conversations.”

8. They Keep Eye Contact

“People who maintain good eye contact while engaged with others send a message of interest and respect,” says Coleman. “They help them to feel valued and as though what they have to contribute is worthwhile.”

9. They Use Non-Verbal Communication

Likable people communicate using not just their words but their body language as well. “They know how to use their eyes, facial expressions, and posture to express themselves and engage more comfortably with others,” says Coleman. “They offer a firm handshake, keep a respectable and comfortable distance when speaking with someone, and they appropriately include others in a group setting, so that no one feels slighted or left out.”

10. They Show Self-Confidence

A little bit of confidence goes a long way. “They do this through how they carry themselves, how they encourage others to be the center of attention or be right — or at least acknowledged — in conversation.”

Carina Wolff

GO To: http://shatterthereality.com/core-fusion/ to find your mental fitness workout.

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The Power Path

We all live in a dualistic virtual reality environment taking place on this home planet we call Earth. From the time we are born to the day we die we deal with experiences that range from bitter to sweet and there is no escape from this phenomena except in our minds. No matter how hard we try there is no way to avoid the fact that people and pets that we love die, become ill, or leave us in various ways. Sometimes when we take a bite of something we think will be good we discover that it is spoiled, under, or overcooked. Sometimes people treat us poorly for no reason we can understand or perhaps because they are so unhappy or have a need to project something on us. Sometimes we are punished for something we did not do or are rejected because we are not what someone is looking for in an employee, in a friend, or in a lover. These are what we could call bitter events because they feel loveless or are painful emotionally.

Likewise there are the experiences that we could call sweet like listening to some great music, seeing some fabulous art, listening to a stimulating and interesting talk, or having a tasty meal or dessert. There is nothing quite like a tall glass of springwater after a hot, sweaty, dusty hike or great sex with someone you are really attracted to and who reciprocates the feeling. Perhaps for you, petting your favorite cat or dog is a sweet event and causes you to smile and chuckle in the pure pleasure of their purrs and groans.

We go from one to another experience, bitter then sweet, sweet then bitter and this characterizes our lives. Some people have lives that are almost all bitter. They may live in poverty and violence from the day they are born and for them the sweet moments are fleeting and brief. There are others amongst us who experience life as mostly sweet, in the rose garden with golden goblets to drink out of, with the bitter moments few and far between. On average over the lifetimes our lives are a good balance of the two. That is what it is to be human, and yet, bitterness and sweetness is also largely self-defined. For one person petting a dog is a bitter experience because it only reminds them of the loss of their own dog that was hit by a car. For another person eating a tasty meal only upsets them as they think about so many poor people with nothing to eat. I remember being this person at times in my younger days. On the other hand there are those who experience hardship but somehow manage to feel cheerful or inspired no matter what. The bitterness of the experience barely touches them because the sweetness is in their attitude or perception. I recall being this person at times as well.

Because of the law of attraction the bitterness tends to attract more bitterness and sweetness tends to attract more sweetness. This has way more to do with what you are feeling than how someone else would define the event. It is not a bitter event if you experience it from a sweet place and it is not a sweet event if you experience it in a bitter way. An ability to experience sweetness is not denial or an example of insane idealism when faced with real danger. That may be dysfunctional and is often just a temporary coping mechanism or a cover up job. It does not work the same way as a real ability to reframe something. I have also seen examples of cynics who appeared to downgrade everything but underneath had a real ability to experience the sweetness of life. All is not as it seems and sometimes we have to look a little deeper and see the bigger picture of someone’s experience.

In general bitterness is an experience of the false personality and leads us to an experience or sense of separation. Bitterness is an energy leak of major proportions because rather than energize us it depresses us or leads us to resentment, anger, vengeance and ultimately misery. Sweetness is an experience of essence because it unites, makes us one with, connects us, and opens our hearts to love. Does this make bitterness bad and sweetness good? Not necessarily because one of the purposes of the physical plane is to experience dichotomy, a dualistic experience. By knowing the bitterness of something we can even more appreciate the sweetness of something. By knowing cold we can appreciate hot even more and vice versa. By knowing the illusion of separation we can even more appreciate the experience of love and connection. By letting go of something we can often have it even more like letting go of attachment to a person resulting in more connection with them in the long run.

Whatever your experience be it bitter or sweet there is always something valuable to learn and grow from.  In our foolishness we often wish that life were eternally sweet but that might just lead to taking life for granted and no longer valuing just how good we have it. Perhaps that is what is happening to the Untied States at the moment. Perhaps we have taken for granted our liberties and standard of living and many other advantages that have come with being Americans. Now many feel the bitterness of an ironically dark swamp takeover leading to a loss of environmental protections, a free web, public lands, public safety nets like pensions, access to medical care, balance of powers, a fair justice system, and a host of other support systems long considered basic rights of citizens. What better way to realize their value than to have them threatened with loss? I realize that this is not necessarily what we want but perhaps in our higher wisdom it is what we temporarily need to wake up and smell the fumes of destruction before it completely overtakes and kills us. This is a time when bitterness seems to be in takeover mode.

Will we go meekly like martyred lambs to the slaughter or will we wake up and do whatever it takes to make sure that what we value survives the tests of greed, destruction, and arrogance? Do we acquiesce to bitter or sweet?

The polarizing theme that has taken hold is not an accident but one that has been very much predicted by the Mayan prophesies and others. Not only has it taken hold but it is still building and will continue to do so for another six years or so before plateauing for another eight or so years to complete this twenty year cycle of polarization that started in 2012.  This increase in tensions could lead to violent confrontations and extreme behavior including revenge and out of proportion reactions to any resistance or different points of view. We already currently see attempts to destroy any opposition or resistance to tyranny, dictatorship, and narcissistic ego displays.

Is the best response to ignore, fiercely resist, attack, be in humor, subvert, sabotage, or what? The problem is the age-old rule that what you resist you become. That is what has derailed many a promising revolution. The correct response requires a balancing act of a number of tools in the proverbial survival toolbox. Of course it never hurts to start with a bit of humor realizing that one should never trust appearances and this is all a passion play put on by ourselves to create a very interesting set of life lessons. Access to neutrality is quite helpful in the long run. In the short run anger is not always a negative reaction and sometimes is a good motivator to move to action.  A little subversion here and a little sabotage there can be useful. Ignoring has its place when faced with a blowhard but is not a good overall strategy for the bigger picture, for example like ignoring a broken bone, a serious cut, or cancer; not a good idea.

One must choose their battles at the best time and place and sometimes this requires holding the line and resisting fiercely. At other times a temporary feint at retreating or accepting defeat can be a good maneuver because it throws the other side off guard and makes them vulnerable as is evident in martial arts.

Some battles cannot be won in the short term and should not distract from the overall cause. If anything has defeated otherwise mature people is their tendency to fragment into idealistic factions that then feed into the divide and conquer strategy of the so-called forces of corruption. Some want attention to the environment, animal rights, LGBTQ rights, attention to plight of Blacks, Native Americans, women, right to choose, immigration, Latino rights, and on and on. These are not opposing issues but when they are seen as competing they become an area of weakness for the forces of corruption to take advantage of. When one issue finds a voice and pulls in money and attention and begins to make progress some others feel passed over and want immediate gains as well. This is not practical and good results will not come about this way.  They each require all forces to pull for them when the time is right. Impatience is a losing strategy.

Overall the best strategy is slowly and inexorably building overall strength until the force of change is overwhelming. The other side may win battles but this more gradual strategy masters the outcome of the overall contest. The fuel for building this strength comes from the absolute trust, knowledge, and perception about what is aligned with Spirit and what is not. This is called keeping an eye on the ball and on the door at the other side of the temple of ten thousand demons.

In the end it helps that each person engaged in this revolution or paradigm shift realizes that what appears to be an external war of values is nothing more than a personal confrontation with ones own ego. The opposite hemispheres of the brain must be joined in marriage, the masculine with the feminine at a higher level of perception. Those abhorrent self serving ideas, prejudices, ways of being are nothing more than ourselves over the last thousands of years and we don’t like it any more.

Both the irresponsible, destructive, violent, narcissistic masculine and the manipulative, irresponsible, and equally destructive and narcissistic feminine need upgrading to a higher level of consciousness within us. We need to do it here, inside ourselves first, and then we will see the changes all around us. Bitter or sweet or both?

José Stevens

GO To: http://shatterthereality.com/core-fusion/ NEW FOUND FREEDOM and sign up for CORE FUSION BALANCE mental fitness workout!

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The Soul Hole. I’d like to call you the Soul Hole. It’s perhaps the most profound phrase by which you can describe yourself. I invite you to give me a mind that’s open and a heart that’s ready. I would like to end your quest for spiritual food and your pursuit of spiritual drink. I want to dig deep down into your soul. Some of this digging may either be a superficial unraveling, or a deep enough digging to uncover the secrets you have kept hidden in your heart.

Have you noticed that what you see or hear is not necessarily the case? In fact, what you conclude from what you see and hear may not be the case at all. Some time ago, a German scientist dug down fifty meters to find some metal below the earth. The German Institute of Science and Technology promptly concluded that ancient Germans, 5,000 years ago, had a telephone network. The Russians were not impressed by this conclusion, so they asked their own scientists to dig down one hundred meters. They found some glass there, and the Russian Institute of Science and Technology decided that ancient Russians, 10,000 years ago, had a fiber-optic network. The Americans were not easily taken by this new finding either. They too had their scientists dig down two hundred meters and found . . . nothing. They promptly concluded that ancient Americans, 20,000 years ago, had a cellular mobile phone network!

The assumption I’m going to make is this: you’d like to dig deep down, examine your life and arrive at the appropriate conclusions, whether impressive or not. Is that a safe assumption on my part about you? If you honestly examine your life, you’ll realize that there is a spiritual hunger and a thirst inside, that you’d like to see filled and quenched. The complexity of the problem points to a hole in your soul that keeps on leaking.

Secret Features

First, let me address some features of your soul hole. Are you silently, even secretly hungering and thirsting after things that cannot satisfy?

• You hunger and thirst for peace—internal peace—and you cannot find it. There are too many anxieties and fears in your life: fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of defeat, fear of failure, fear of bankruptcy, fear of a downward-spiraling working situation or fear of a broken relationship. There is also; fear of tomorrow, the fear of today, even the fear of yesterday and finally the fear of judgment. You wish you could possess a peace that the world cannot give. If this is your soul secret, keep reading or register on this Web site, and I’ll give you a free and permanent solution.

• You may carry a thirst for meaning—the meaning of life. You are not sure what life is about. This morning did you get up, and wonder why you exist? What you are doing here? Where you are going? Where did you come from? You go through the same motions and emotions, and one day you will die. You wonder what the next life looks like. If you wish you could find the meaning of life and perhaps even the key to the next life, you have a soul hole.

• You are hungering and thirsting for love. “Unconditional love.” Love that has no strings attached, similar to the love you experienced during your first romance or early years of your marriage. Remember when love made your heart skip—not skip beats but actually skip steps? You wish that original love could be awakened. This would be marvelous. Instead you’ve turned into a crusty, selfish, hard person. That’s because you have tried to stifle your hole in the soul and have the need to pursue love again.

• You may be hungering and thirsting for forgiveness when the guilt lingers. Things that you have done in the past, or are choosing to do in the present haunt your conscience. You have managed to keep others from finding out about your secret life, but your heart bothers you and your mind condemns you. You have succeeded in suppressing guilt well inside your soul, but you wish you could start again or feel clean again. This is due to the hole in your soul.

• You are hungry and thirsty for hope since life seems hopeless. The lights have gone out. The questions, the demands, and the needs of life seem confusing, and the options are making you wonder if hope is true and possible at all. This is one of the main questions all human beings ask: is there hope? What can I look forward to? These type of questions reveal a secret in your system—a soul hole that needs to be fixed and filled.

The hole in your soul is a stubborn secret which refuses to budge. The strategies you pursue are not going to really help you. Some time ago in Hong Kong, a tourist bought a hand-fan for relief from heat and humidity. She paid five U.S. dollars instead of the five Hong Kong dollars, which is about seven or eight times what local people paid. When she waved the fan in front of her face, it broke immediately. The woman immediately went back into the shop to exchange her broken fan. The shopkeeper said, “No, we cannot take goods that have already been sold.” She was able to convince him to sell her a second fan for three dollars. Apparently he showed much reluctance in selling it for a much lower price. The tourist again began to wave the fan, and within minutes the second fan broke too. With anger, she marched back into the store and created an ugly tourist scene, and demanded another fan for free. The storekeeper asked, “Madam, how do you use your fan?” She demonstrated her cooling strategy. He then replied, “Ha-ha, that’s not how we do it in Hong Kong. We hold the fan upright, straight in front of our face and wave our face at the fan.” The soul hole shows up the stubborn secret reality of every strategy you try to fill it as deficient. You end up fooling yourself. At times, you wonder if you have been attempting the wrong strategies. As you shake your head in dismay, you realize you are sweating further as you lose more of life. Would you like your soul-hole fixed?

Strategic Failures

My wife and I were in Montego Bay, Jamaica in the Caribbean where I was offered an expensive Swiss watch look-alike for $45. Upon examining the watch, I told the vendor that I could get the same watch in Lagos, Nigeria for $8. He immediately replied, “Sir, the watch you get in Lagos, Nigeria for $8 is a fake-fake. The one I am selling is a genuine-fake because it has the words ‘Swiss Made’ written on it. That watch is a fake-fake; this watch is a genuine-fake.” The only difference between the two kinds of “fakes” is one being more expensive than the other!

If you type the phrase “the soul hole” on the search engine of your heart, you’ll find dozens of pages and hundreds of entries talking about the failed strategies you have pursued in order to fill your soul hole. Let me expand on a couple of these fake-fake and genuine-fake strategies for you and examine them very briefly.

Fake-fake Strategy: One

One fake-fake strategy is the pursuit of stuff—possessions and things. Stuff to drive with, stuff to live inside, old stuff or new stuff. The only thing that bothers you is that others would like to help themselves to your stuff while you’re sleeping. Unfortunately, there’s no security system that’ll keep you from being stuffed into a coffin or a crematorium some day. Then all of your stuff will be sold off in estate sales, garage sales and antique markets where other people can buy your stuff to add to their stuff. Wealth and possessions and things are fake-fake strategies to fill the soul hole.

Fake-fake Strategy: Two

Another fake-fake strategy is pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure consumes many, many people. We find pleasure from many sources—both good and bad, sanctioned and unsanctioned, or right and wrong sources. The right sources for pleasure could be any object in God-made creation or man-made creativity. Wrong sources for pleasure are every where to be found. Filth that comes across the pages of your mind and the computer are tempting you to engage and indulge. The problem with the pleasure philosophy is that it provides the benefits right away but extracts a cost over the long term. In fact if you pursue pleasure as the guiding principle of your life, you need to be able to distinguish between price and cost. The price of pleasure is far less than the cost of pleasure, especially if you pick it up from the wrong sources. Pleasure is a fake-fake strategy in attempting to fill the soul hole.

Some time ago, two thieves planned, connived and executed a flawless robbery. They broke into a hotel in Oslo, Norway where the fine masterpieces of Edward Munch, the Father of Expressionism, were on display. Or so they thought. Seemingly a first-class robbery, the two made off with . . . worthless photocopies. An Oslo museum which once featured Edward Munch had been victimized earlier by thieves with the originals stolen and eventually destroyed. Upon hearing of that robbery, the hotel manager had replaced all his originals with worthless photocopies! Clearly, lost photocopies are worthless when the original is preserved. Your pursuits may resemble the activities of the hotel thieves as seen in your acquisition, your grabbing, and yes, your stealing. You plan, connive and execute so well, but your best work evaporates into vacuous, worthless nothings.

Genuine-Fake Strategy: One

What about genuine-fake strategies? They are a little bit more sophisticated, expensive and intensive. Using knowledge as your means to fill the hole in your heart is a genuine fake strategy. There are all kinds of knowledge: general knowledge, philosophical knowledge, scientific knowledge, religious knowledge, technical knowledge and mystical knowledge. If you have a problem with knowledge, I have a problem with you. Someone once said, “The only people who have a problem with knowledge are college students. If you think the problem of knowledge is too expensive for you, try the cost of ignorance.” However, knowledge is not good for results. It is necessary for process, but not sufficient to fill the hole in your soul. Philosophical knowledge, for instance, will give you the ability to ask the right questions, but it will not give you the right answers. Religious knowledge is like putting water into your car when you need petrol or gasoline. Scientific knowledge is good for experiments that are repeatable in controlled environments in empirically observable situations, but your soul hole defies science. What about mystical knowledge? In essence mysticism says you cannot recommend one solution to another person because every thing is so private and ends up being of no help to the rest of us. The limitations of knowledge is that it is good for process, but not adequate for result. What you want is necessary knowledge that can be sufficiently available to all, acceptable to all, applicable to all without cost, simply given and received. Knowledge, by itself, is a genuine-fake strategy for the hole in your soul.

Genuine-Fake Strategy: Two

Morality is a genuine-fake strategy. Morality could be both positive—doing good works; and negative—refraining from doing bad things. I like positive morality. We need and want good works in order to address the many needs of the world. You should pursue good works because you can help your neighbor down the road, down the street, across the world and across the seas. However, good works are not good as an approach to fill the hole in your soul. Why? We don’t know how many good works are needed to fix and fill the hole in the soul. Good works cannot secure the heart hole.

An Australian professor set a single condition to pass his course: His students had to make a perfect one-hundred on the final test, to merely pass. He distributed the dreaded exam and waited for the students to finish. A clever student turned in his paper along with one hundred dollars with a scribble, “One dollar per point.” The professor returned the graded test the following week with the mark of 36 and $64 change. You see, a genuine-fake strategy may earn you a 99, but it’s still not 100. A fake-fake strategy may earn you 36, but both 36 and 99 are failures. The question is rather clear: Is there a solution, a genuinely true solution that can be offered to you to simply receive? Is there an answer key I can recommend to you that is uncomplicated and true, straightforward and right? With much delight, I can and I will.

Ramesh Richard

Secret features of your SOUL HOLE

Internal peace
Meaning of life
Unconditional love
Forgiveness over guilt

GO To: http://shatterthereality.com/core-fusion/ NEW FOUND FREEDOM

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Honesty is going to take you places in life that you never could have dreamed and it’s the easiest thing you can practice in order to be happy, successful and fulfilled. Honesty is part of the foundation of my core values and principles. Honesty cuts through deception and knifes its way through deceit and lies. Honesty leads to a fulfilling, free life.

Honesty is not just about telling the truth. It’s about being real with yourself and others about who you are, what you want and what you need to live your most authentic life. Honesty promotes openness, empowers us and enables us to develop consistency in how we present the facts. Honesty sharpens our perception and allows us to observe everything around us with clarity.

The Tangled Web We Weave

The opposite of honesty is deception — or lying. Lying is equally bad whether you are deceiving others or yourself. When you lie, you delude yourself into believing what you’re saying. You start digging a hypothetical ditch, even if with an infant-sized spoon, that will keep getting bigger over time. You confuse yourself, confuse others, lose credibility and put yourself in harm.

The worst type of lying we practice, in order to deceive, is when we lie to ourselves. We start messing around with our concept of morality, right and wrong, as well as our dreams and desires. Times that I lied in order to do something that I knew was wrong, I could feel it. My inner core warred and rebelled against what I was mentally committing to doing because it was in contrast to who I really am.

When I look back on it, every time I lied (that I can recall) I was trying to excuse or misrepresent my own shortcomings or to compensate for something. I was trying to pursue a sinful desire that would only, at best, produce temporary pleasure. Lies I told were often due to a lack of effort, positive morals or thoughts.

Other times, I was convincing myself I wasn’t good enough or able to do something my heart was really set on. Lying or presuming I knew something I didn’t really know was the easy path. This discouraging thought manifested itself in ways that I couldn’t possibly perceive at the time. It set me back by delaying the pursuit of my dreams. It took away my ability to take chances that my heart was willing to take but my mind was blocking me from taking.

Despite its temptation, ease of use and false promises, lying gets us nowhere in the end. We stay right in our own tracks or much worse, go backwards.

Better Health

Honesty and seeking the truth is always the way to go. Honesty engenders confidence, faith, empowers our willpower and represents us in the best way for others to see and witness our example. Honesty improves our vitality. In an honesty experiment conducted by two University of Notre Dame professors, results showed that telling the truth is good for our health:

Telling the truth when tempted to lie can significantly improve a person’s mental and physical health, according to a “Science of Honesty” study.

The above results were presented at the American Psychological Association’s Annual Convention four years ago.

Respectable, admired behavior is always carried out with honesty. Telling the truth and backing it up with actions show respect for what’s right and an esteem for ethical and moral integrity. Honesty is one of the key components to character and one of the most admired traits of any successful, responsible person.

Success, for me, is not quantified in terms of dollars, sales or number of Facebook followers. Particularly not the latter! I value success in terms of character, self-awareness, honesty, emotional intelligence and hard work. How we treat ourselves, others and how we use our talents to improve the lives of others.

An emotionally intelligent person is a person of impeccable integrity and honesty; someone who can perceive and recognize the quality of honesty in another. Business transactions and the everyday transactions of human relations must be carried out with a code of trust and honesty or else everything will break down.

Christopher D. Connors

GO To: http://shatterthereality.com/core-fusion/ for a mental fitness exercise.

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1. Be daring.
True living is more than just keeping your heart beating and a roof over your head. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that is “just how life goes.” There are way more possibilities, and, yes, IT IS WORTH GOING AFTER.

2. Be confident.
We get so upset when others blow off our ideas and desires, but we have no problem doing it to ourselves. Take your ideas, feelings, wants, wishes, yearns & urges seriously: those are your only true guide. Other people have no idea what’s best for you, so stop seeking their validation.

3. Be inquisitive.
Stop doing everything by the book: it’s time to start drafting your own revised edition. Rules don’t always exist in the name of the greatest good; more often than not, they exist because someone wants to establish or maintain power. And that’s just not a good enough reason.

4. Be deliberate.
Life is a series of choices. You choose every single direction that your life takes. Use that to your advantage. –

5. Be brave.
There will be people out there who won’t support what you’re doing. Who cares?

6. Be introspective.
Figure out what you value, and make the necessary changes to align your life with those values. If you value time more than money, stop working 60 hour work weeks. The only way you’ll get more time, is by doing less. (MATH.)

7. Be prudent.
Speaking of money, IT ISN’T AS IMPORTANT AS WE’RE TAUGHT TO THINK IT IS. Money comes, and money goes, and it provides little value itself until you actually exchange it for something that is valuable to you. So, ask yourself that question. What do you value? That’s where the majority of the money you spend should be going.

8. Be zealous.
No one ever won any awards for having good intentions.

9. Be panoramic.
If you’re proven wrong about something, it doesn’t really matter. Relax, and enjoy the ride. Will this matter in 100 years?

10. Be lighthearted.
The world is not judging you as much as you think they are. Most people are too wrapped up in themselves to even notice what you’re doing.

11. Be stimulated.
Perhaps one of the greatest goals we can seek for ourselves is exhilaration. Are you enthralled by your life? –

12. Be thoughtful.
Thinking about canceling on an invitation to a friend’s baby shower or birthday party because you have too much work to do?  Don’t. Your friend is more important; work can always be done later. Nothing is that urgent. Relationships, however, are your foundation.

13. Be relentless.
You don’t just need to love yourself; you need to respect yourself, too. And the way you garner that respect is by doing the things you’ve set out to do.

14. Be courageous.
Being content with your life and being proud to call it yours are two different things.

Ash Ambirge

LOOK for our LIVEALIVE launch!

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“This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays. ”

— RALPH WALDO EMERSON

When I was twenty-one, after graduating college I found a studio apartment and intended to find a job, but soon became increasingly frightened of looking for work. I doubted myself and was afraid to make a move. One day while bleakly constructing troubled poetry from letters I had cut out of magazines (ransom note style), I realized I was pretty far gone. The me that was not busy decoupaging an homage to my depression could see I was in trouble. My apartment was on the first floor and, at that moment, I looked out the window at the nearby shrubbery and saw a flower in full bloom. It struck me what a short distance I was from such a beautiful, thriving thing.

This observation interrupted my sinking thoughts and I started to bargain with myself. All I had to do was go and get a newspaper from the machine in front of the apartment building. That’s it – then I could come right back. This seemed manageable. Upon returning I couldn’t resist opening to the jobs section and saw that a daycare was looking for help. I called, went for an interview, walked into a large room filled with children all interested in stories and play – interested in everything really, and I was engaged, soon employed, and ultimately freed.  

I left my paralysis behind. But it was my mind that had moved before my body was able. Everything that had seemed hard, complicated, painful, and unmovable one moment no longer seemed that way the next. My belief in what was wrongwith me lost its sway. I let it go, not forever, but for the moment, and when I did, in came new thought and hope. If I could bottle what moved me that day, I’d have it stockpiled in my garage. But the truth is, that’s unnecessary because the movement came from me. I took my eyes off my sorrow, and they naturally found a flower. Then I gave meaning to the flower: wonderful life blooming just inches away – out there, close enough to touch. And that equaled hope. 

When we write, it can take a determined decision to let go of our resistance and sit with an article, dissertation, story, or book about which we feel blocked. That’s the time when the creative process is quiet and dark, when there are no immediate rewards or discoveries. That’s the time when our intention becomes our headlamp, and all focus must be on our guiding instinct, without rushing, taking stock, or caring what anyone might think. In that moment, hope is to be found in letting go of notions of winning and losing and any story about ourselves that says we’re not up to the task. That is a true super power: our ability to let go of the thought of failure. Failure can scare us off doing things and can damn us for having tried. It stands first in the line of thoughts to let go of in reclaiming our meaning and hope.

“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.”

— ALBERT CAMUS

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl’s memoir of his time in Nazi concentration camps, he writes that meaning is something our lives ask each of us to define, not something we should be asking of our lives. And that self-defined meaning, that bigger mission, connects us to hope. Rather than the standard, “What is the meaning of life?”, we ask, “What is the meaning I see, believe in, and wish to convey?” The act of bringing meaning is empowering; it places us at the center of our experience, with a sense of both purpose and influence. 

This is why when we write we not only tell a story, we create its meaning. We decide on the angle and its purpose – on the intentional arc. The intentional arc is our reason for telling the story. And just like our writing, our lives can have a strong intentional arc, a strong sense of meaning, or not. We either bring it or we don’t, in the moment. What is the meaning we want to highlight? Life has beauty. How do we want to express it?  What in that field of our beating hearts do we want to circle, emphasize, write about, draw about, share?

Hope is really just a stance of openness, willingness, and interest chosen over fear. Fundamentally it is a willingness we can coax from ourselves when determined enough. Sometimes we think we don’t have it – that we’re locked out of what we want. But it’s not true. There is always new life blooming just inches away.

Jennifer Parol

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