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The Vulnerability Of Dependence

by DW Green — May 6, 2020

Make yourself invulnerable to your dependency…

We’re all addicts in one way or another. We’re addicted to our routines, to our coffee, to our comfort, to someone else’s approval. These dependencies mean we’re not in control of our own lives—the dependency is.The subjects of our affection can be removed from us at a moment’s notice. Our routines can be disrupted, the doctor can forbid us from drinking coffee, we can be thrust into uncomfortable solutions.This is why we must strengthen ourselves by testing these dependencies before they become too great. Can you try going without this or that for a day? Can you put yourself on a diet for a month? Can you resist the urge to pick up the phone to make the call? Have you ever taken a cold shower? It’s not so bad after the first couple of times. Have you ever driven a friend’s car while the nicer one you own was in the shop? Was it really that bad? Make yourself invulnerable to your dependency on comfort and convenience, or one day your vulnerability might bring you to your knees.

Read More – Multitasking Failure

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Flexibility of the Will

by DW Green — April 29, 2020

It’s not weak to change and adapt.

When you set your mind to a task, do you always follow through? It’s an impressive feat if you do. But don’t let yourself become a prisoner of that kind of determination. That asset might become a liability someday.Conditions change. New facts come in. Circumstances arise. If you can’t adapt to them—if you simply proceed onward, unable to adjust according to this additional information—you are no better than a robot. The point is not to have an iron will, but an adaptable will—a will that makes full use of reason to clarify perception, impulse, and judgment to act effectively for the right purpose.It’s not weak to change and adapt. Flexibility is its own kind of strength. In fact, this flexibility combined with strength is what will make us resilient and unstoppable.

Read More – You gotta keep ’em

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Life Unfolds As It Will

by DW Green — April 22, 2020

Yet haste is by its very nature vastly more stressful than serene fortitude.

I read this article last week, written by Madisyn Taylor. Initially I thought it may offer some insight regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. But on second thought, it doesn’t, not directly anyway. It’s about pace, haste, evolution, patience and present moment awareness. While we can plan and prepare for all things future, all we really have is the gift of life NOW.“Our lives are guided by natural rhythms that are particular to each of us and cannot be altered by force of will alone. Life itself is a journey made up of processes and events that manifest before us only to be swept away when time marches on. Whether we envision ourselves creating a career, building a family, or developing the self, we instinctively know when the time has come for us to realize our dreams because all that is involved comes together harmoniously. When the time is right, the passage of destiny cannot be blocked. Yet as desperate as we are to touch these beautiful futures we have imagined, we cannot grow if we are not fully present in the evolutionary experience. The present can be challenging, uncomfortable, and tedious, but life unfolds as it will, and the universe will wait patiently as ...
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Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

by DW Green — April 15, 2020

Panic was in the air, banks were failing, and people were scared.

In the early days of what would become known as the Great Depression, a new President named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in and gave his first inaugural address. As the last president to hold office before the Twentieth Amendment was ratified, FDR wasn’t able to take office until March—meaning that the country had been without strong leadership for months. Panic was in the air, banks were failing, and people were scared.You probably heard the “nothing to fear but fear itself” sound bite that FDR gave in that famous speech, but the full line is worth reading because it applies to many difficult things we face in life:
“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Fear has to be feared because of the miseries it creates. The things we fear pale in comparison to the damage we do to ourselves and others when we unthinkingly scramble to avoid them. An economic depression is bad; a deadly virus is bad; a panic is worse. A tough situation isn’t helped by terror—it only makes things harder. And t...
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Accurate Self-Assessment

by DW Green — April 8, 2020

We underestimate our capabilities just as much and just as dangerously as we overestimate other abilities.

Most people resist the idea of a true self-estimate, probably because they fear it might mean downgrading some of their beliefs about who they are and what they’re capable of. As Goethe’s maxim goes, it is a great failing “to see yourself as more than you are.”  How could you really be considered self-aware if you refuse to consider your weaknesses?Don’t fear self-assessment because you’re worried you might have to admit some things about yourself. The second half of Goethe’s maxim is important too. He states that it is equally damaging to “value yourself at less than your true worth.” Is it not equally common to be surprised at how well we’re able to handle a previously feared scenario? The way that we’re able to put aside grief for a loved one and care for others—though we always thought we’d be wrecked if something were to happen to our parents or a sibling. The way we’re able to rise to the occasion in a stressful situation or a life-changing opportunity.We underestimate our capabilities just as much and just as dangerously as we overestimate other abilities. Cultivate the ability to judge yourself acc...
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How Can You Know if You’ve Never Been Tested?

by DW Green — April 1, 2020

Passing a trial by fire is empowering.

Most people who have gone through difficult periods in their life come to later wear those experiences as badges of honor. “Those were the days,” they might say, even though they live in much better circumstances. “To be young and hungry again,” another might say wistfully. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” or “I wouldn’t change a thing about it.” As tough as those periods were, they were ultimately formative experiences. They made those people who they are. And it’s happening to us all right now, with COVID-19.There’s another benefit of so-called misfortune. Having experienced and survived it, we walk away with a better understanding of own capacity and inner strength. Passing a trial by fire is empowering because you know that in the future you can survive similar adversity. “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” Nietzsche said. Which is literary true today.If things look like they might take a bad turn or your luck might change, why worry? This might be one of those formative experiences you will be grateful for later.

Read More – The Leader

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Become Aware of Yourself

by DW Green — March 25, 2020

Only if you don’t know yourself, fear arises.

Eckhart Tolle is one of my favorite writers. He is a spiritual teacher. A German-born resident of Canada best known as the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. In 2008, The New York Times called Tolle “the most popular spiritual author in the United States”. High praise!I read the following the other day, written by Eckhart Tolle. It seems most appropriate now, given our shared experience with COVID-19.“You will inevitably encounter adversity in life, whether it’s on a personal level or – as we’re experiencing now – on a collective level. If you haven’t gone deep enough, if you haven’t found anything beyond the conceptual thinking mind, then the adversity, whatever it may be (in this case we know what it is), will devastate you. And even if you do not fall ill or contract the virus, the fear will consume you, as it’s consuming millions of humans at the present time. If you would know who/what you are, you would realize that there is nothing to fear. Only if you don’t know yourself, fear arises. Become aware of yourself, not the conceptual self, not your personal history, but become aware of yourself as the conscious presence.Thinking does not h...
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1 Billion Trillion

by DW Green — March 18, 2020

Life Is what it Is, and what it Is, Is its meaning.

Wondering about wonder.Imagine:
  • There are 1 Billion Trillion Stars in the observable universe.
  • There are 1 Billion stars in the observable Milky Way Galaxy.
  • Our Sun, the center of our solar system, is One of those Billion stars in the Milky Way!
  • Our beautiful, life supporting planet Earth, revolves around the Sun at 67,000 mph!
  • Modern Human Beings have been evolving on the planet for about 200,000 years!
  • The current world population is 7.8 billion
  • The population of the United States is 331 million
  • Just think of the countless number of brilliant, incredibly talented individuals who have collectively created the quality of life we all enjoy today.
It is with deep love, compassion, humility, equanimity and Presence that I accept and honor the perfection of Life’s unfolding. Life Is what it Is and what it Is, Is its meaning. I stand for Being with and noticing Life, without judgment in its immeasurable glory!

Read More – You Gotta Get Creative

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The Real Source of Harm

by DW Green — March 11, 2020

Our reaction is what actually decides whether harm has occurred.

There really is no such thing as an objectively good or bad occurrence. When a billionaire loses $1 million in market fluctuation, it’s not the same as when you and I lose a million dollars. Criticism from your worst enemy is received differently than negative words from a spouse. If someone sends you an angry email but you never see it, did it actually happen? In other words, these situations require our participation, context, and categorization in order to be “bad.”Our reaction is what actually decides whether harm has occurred. If we feel that we’ve been wronged and get angry, of course that’s how it will seem. If we raise our voice because we feel we’re being confronted, naturally a confrontation will ensue.But if we retain control of ourselves, we decide whether to label something good or bad. In fact, if that same event happened to us at different points in our lifetime, we might have very different reactions. So why not choose now to not apply these labels? Why not choose not to react?

Read More – He loses an arm

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Only Bad Dreams

by DW Green — March 5, 2020

Many of the things that upset us are a product of the imagination, not reality.

The author Raymond Chandler* was describing most of us when he wrote in a letter to his publisher, “I never looked back, although I had many uneasy periods looking forward.” Thomas Jefferson once joked in a letter to John Adams, “How much pain have cost us the evils which never happened!” And Seneca would put it best: “There is nothing so certain in our fears that’s not yet more certain in the fact that most of what we dreamed comes to nothing.”Many of the things that upset us are a product of the imagination, not reality. Unfortunately, and sadly, this is very true. Like dreams, they are vivid and realistic at the time but preposterous once we come out of it. In a dream, we never stop to think and say: “Does this make any sense?” No, we go along with it. The same goes with our flights of anger or fear or other extreme emotions.Getting upset is like continuing the dream while you’re awake. The thing that provoked you wasn’t real—but your reaction was. And so from the fake comes real consequences. Which is why you need to wake up right now instead of creating a nightmare.*Raymond Chandler was an American-British novelist and ...
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