Self Care Making Time For You

Making an ally and friend of yourself unlocks a state of well-being.

If you have an ally, that is someone on your side. Ally comes from the Latin word alligare, meaning "to bind to," — an act of coming together, a protection of one.

Rene Böhmer Photo

Yet, as a Life Coach, I find there are those who rather than being an ally to themselves,  are instead their own worst enemy. Most of the time they are unconscious of doing it to themselves until they have come undone. Often it is unconscious, the shadow side of themselves and acting without knowledge of what one really wants to accomplish. I am reminded of the quote: “The most reliable friend you have is your shadow.” – Matshona Dhliwayo

It comes later, as a revelation to them, to discover that self-awareness must be a key component for well-being and therefore success. To have success is to have communication with yourself. In other words, you are always in a relationship with yourself, the question is what kind is it?  Not to sound weird, but this relationship with yourself should be arguably one of the most important relationships that you have.

This Self-relationship is a foundation for everything else. Having said that, this self-relationship is not to be confused with negative compulsions of narcissism, nor on the other hand with overwhelming blame and shame about ourselves, rather it should identify traits that focus our being in a good place, to organize our self so that things happen in effective ways that allow for good interpersonal skills, and as a byproduct, produces success according to the individual’s own definition of success.

In other words, for you to focus on yourself in such a way to produce crucial development for a healthy sense of self. It is about gaining knowledge and having an understanding of how you operate and liking what you see in that process.

This establishes a baseline for you from which to work that can extend beyond yourself to others in ways that are altruistic and advantageous to all.

 This is going to take being a good friend to yourself first, by  developing and sustaining your relationship with the self.

One way to start, is by checking out how you speak to yourself. Remember everything you say you hear as well. No matter if talking to a room full of people or by yourself. This would include not only the words you say out loud but also the words you think. Words have an emotional imprint. Check yourself to see if you tend to speak harshly to yourself (either in your spoken voice or in your thinking voice).

If you catch yourself negatively impacting yourself with your self-talk, find a way to stop and observe. Try and see the emotional atmosphere you find yourself in — is there anger or agitation, is your heart rate up, are the words criticizing? Take a breath, slow it down and consciously reappraise the situation, in an effort to be gentler with yourself before continuing with any more outward action.

reappraise the situation,  in an effort to be gentler with yourself before continuing with any more outward action.  

Some life coaching clients find it helpful to practice conversations out loud with themselves— under the right conditions, doing so can be very useful. By consciously  using  the thoughts you’ve assembled  you have the capacity to unearth feelings buried within the words  to make possible clear differences in your discourse of what is advantageous and that which does not promote or contribute to personal or social well-being.

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That said, know that it takes time to develop a new habit. It will require your desire and your motivation to build this skill.

Journaling is another good practice to capture, record reactions, and keep track of your progress with self-talk. It is a place to start getting to know more about you. Journaling as a habit becomes an invaluable way to acquaint oneself with and to change personal experiences for the better.

Journaling seems easier to accomplish if you will begin by setting small manageable goals, such as writing for just 15 minutes a day. Once in the routine, beginners will gain a new slant or perspective on their behaviors, while for seasoned chroniclers these insights provide motivation to continue.

You are in essence creating a new habit, one that by sticking to it keeps you conscious of and befriending yourself.

 In the beginning, as I mention, it may require some effort. Fortunately, if you keep at it and can eventually practice it daily, the process will become easier for you and eventually become an automatic part of your daily routine

Calvin’s Learning Circle’s

 More on Journaling in upcoming articles. For my readers asking for deeper work, may I suggest a small group or one on one session that can be arranged with me? In addition, The Prosperos School of Ontology offers two seminars that are extremely useful: Translation and Releasing the Hidden Splendor. The classes offer tools for reaching change, a change in consciousness, not a change in “things.” You can contact me at my email address for more information about these classes, small group activities, or one on one mentoring services by going to the Contact Page.

Let me conclude with these words:

 “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Thanks for reading

Calvin

Expanding Your Limits

HOW TO GENTLY EXPAND YOUR LIMITS

submission by ROBERT MCEWEN, H.W., M.

Robert McEwen I am happy to introduce to SOC blogs pages. He is a longtime friend, fellow Prosperos Mentor, and a nationally known Astrologer.

“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn
to relax and wait for the answer.” –William S. Burroughs

All of us have an “inner limit”, a point where we stop our advancement and say “that’s as far as I can go.” Our minds cannot realistically imagine certain things being possible, and so they are relegated to the realm of fantasy. Sometimes it’s things we never thought of as possible, such as becoming a multi-millionaire, and sometimes it’s things we once thought would be easy that have become a chronic struggle, such as a rewarding career or good physical health.This inner limit is partly our comfort zone, and partly our pain zone. It is our comfort zone because it’s within the realm of what feels safe and familiar. It is our pain zone when the thing we hold back from is something we deeply want and suffer in its absence.

The inner limit comes from beliefs about who we are and what we can do. Such beliefs can be viewed as navigation tools, the same way our proprioceptors signal where we are in a room in relation to other objects. The beliefs that compose our inner limit give us a base sense of self to refer to as we encounter the world and we need them in order to orient to our environment.

Because these beliefs are so essential to our identity, trying to change them can feel very threatening to our survival mechanism. If you try to talk over your beliefs, such as by saying affirmations, you will find yourself pushing against an impenetrable inner wall and encounter anxiety as your unconscious perceives it as a life or death struggle.

There is, however, a very simple way to avoid this exhausting fight and to help your beliefs evolve without struggling.

Ask questions. Your brain is a vast power source at your disposal. It will do whatever you direct it to do, but only when it feels safe. The way to preserve the feeling of safety while reaching beyond your limits is to ask questions. Questions employ the mind and give it a job, statements confront the mind and fight whatever constructs are already in place.

It’s the difference between asking, “How can it be easy?” and stating “It’s easy” when addressing a challenge. One is a conversation that proactively engages the situation, the other is an argument that ignores contrary evidence.

Useful questions are a gateway that opens the mind to new perceptions and beliefs on their own. You give your mind a job and send it on a quest to find an answer. You might not immediately know the answer, but just asking a question implies that one exists and it is merely a case of solving a puzzle to figure it out. You are now giving your brain a job that engages its creativity and intellect, areas that induce the feeling of fun.

Depending on the situation it’s often better not to try to find the answer when you ask the question, but to use it as a prod to move your mind in a different direction. Simply asking how it can be easy will tune your mind to find ease in the situation, without you having to try and think of an answer which might not have obvious solutions. For example, I asked this question often when house hunting in a difficult market and ended up effortlessly getting my dream house. I could not have planned how things came together, only prepared for them by aligning myself with the sense that it could be easy despite all rational evidence.

“How can it be easy?” is one of my favorite questions to use when addressing a difficult situation. Other excellent questions are:

How can it be fun?
What is the most useful thought I can have right now?
What is the most useful thought I can have about this difficult situation? (e.g., my relationship status, my job, my kids, etc)
What am I not seeing?

I also like “what if” questions for situations where there is no additional action to take. Asking, What if it’s easy? What if it’s fun? can help center the mind in a different direction when preparing for a job interview or other anxiety-inducing task.

When you notice your mind start to spin about something in your life or the world, say, “thank you”, and ask a question from the above list. This way you acknowledge the worry and redirect your mind, as one redirects a toddler having a tantrum by introducing a game.

You don’t have to believe something will work to ask if it can, yet asking the question will lead your mind to convince itself it’s possible. This way you work with it as a friend and ally toward your dreams.

Does Time Exist

Why our gut feelings are no match for physics
Discourse by James Gleick, author and science historian.

Article reported on by MIKE ZONTA for the BathtubBulletin.com

Physics often makes a fool of our gut feelings. James Gleick, author of Time Travel: A History makes this point using the most elemental example. You, sitting or standing to read this now, your gut feeling and experience tells you that you’re sitting or standing on a flat plane, on an immobile surface. Science has some news for you though, in Gleick’s words: “You’re actually on the surface of a giant sphere that’s spinning at high speed and hurtling through space, and by the way there’s no difference between up and down except an illusion that’s created by the force of gravity.”

Radical readjustments of accepted perception is central to the nature of physics – even if something isn’t proven, our mind has to stay open to the possibility that maybe, things aren’t as we see, feel or intuit them to be. This is particularly relevant to the debate surrounding time. Does time exist, or doesn’t it? Is time only inside our minds, or is it a force acting upon us? It might seem ridiculous to question the existence of something that radically shapes our lives – our days, hours, minutes, our life span, our grandparents, our grandchildren.

Einstein’s teacher and contemporary Hermann Minkowski offered his vision of space-time as a single thing, a four-dimensional block in which the past and the future are just like spatial dimensions, with a north and a south. Some physicists say there is no distinction between the past and the future, and that time is a dimension just like space.

This seems at odds with what we feel, which is that the past has happened and the future is not yet determined. The future and the past are different to us, but in physics they’re the same. Gleick’s realization in the face of the multiple hypotheses on time is that just as our feeling about the stability of the surface we walk on is not so simple, our perception of time may also be radically more complex than we think. At this point, every expert’s ideas in this debate are provisional, but we have an obligation to take these ideas seriously.

The Reluctant Reader

Book Pick Summer Read 2016

Bob Biddle's favorite summer read was: “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Bob said "What I found interesting was my altitude about the book before I read it.  'Just another freaking inspirational self-help books', he’d complain. Voted on by some of those women from  the book club." Why in fact he said he almost did not go to the group, if he had to read it. But he relented and did read it. He was surprised how fast he got through it, and what was worse, he had to admit, thou he hated to, that he enjoyed the writers style and he as a budding writer got tips on the creative writing process especially the point that 'if you don’t use it you lose it.'

Bob reported that if you ever had an idea only to have it come to fruition through someone else?  Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, “Big Magic”, explains why that might have happened to you.

Gilbert, the author discusses the attitudes, approaches and habits needed in order to live the creative life.  Bob went on to say "I found inspiration in 'Big Magic' as it felt she was writing the book specifically for me and my quest to become a better writer.   However, whether writing a book or creating art, she demonstrates how the creative process is symbiotic as the thought or idea completely depends on its host to give it substance." 

In Gilbert’s writing style, Bob enjoyed her use of personal and professional experiences to shed light on our reluctance and fears to uncover the “hidden jewels” within each of us.  As she says, “The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you.”

There is more than one kind of happy

By Calvin Harris H.W., M.

With all the rants and ravings about the political election, I needed a break. I found myself a serene space to be in and even humming along to Pharrell Williams song “Happy” on the sound system. My thoughts turn to how in some circles did August get proclaimed the month to be Happy. So the thoughts swirl in my head about being Happy, then the question comes around to what kind of Happy are we talking about?  What is that concept Happy about? Is there more than one kind of happy.  Buddha’s words popped into my head (yeah the real one, wise guy) He said “Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are; it solely relies on what you think.”

Happiness is a good thing yeah; but the word happy does not seem to cover all that it means to people, it’s not just only one thing, and that is where it gets complicated. Scientists and Philosophers have explored that fascinating “WHAT” is happiness for about two and a half millennia, starting with Greek philosopher Aristotle.

He at the time, with a bunch of his Greek philosopher buddies were trying to define precisely what constituted the perfect state of conscious beingness called Happy, but even then the answer seemed to diverge into segmented groups.  I wanted to go with those philosophers that contended that happiness sprang from hedonism, the pursuit of sensual pleasure. Try as I could to stay with that conclusion, I just couldn’t leave it there. My life experience and coaching work with others has proven that wellbeing cannot be found in the pursuit of purely the hedonistic.  That pursuit produces only a transitory happiness.

Now there was this other segment of philosophers, who would argue that Happiness happened by working through the misperceptions of pain and tragedy, and that the work would lead us to our final destination of a worthwhile life and happiness.

Aristotle proposed a third option for Happiness. In his Nicomachean Ethics, he described the idea of eudaemonic happiness, which said, essentially, that happiness was not merely a feeling, or a golden promise, but a practice.  I pondered the link between a worthwhile life and its connection to happiness, as something you do.

So to focus my query to a more definitive answer I went to the on-line version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary and found the word Eudaemonism. It is defined as:  a theory that the highest ethical goal is happiness and personal well-being. Eudaemonist ideas seem to still be with us today, if we look around, you might see or hear some of the more simplistic or dumb down versions of it, such as playing ‘Pokemon GO,’ or the Narcissus Instagram photos, (put photo here) or that idea that only money itself will make us happy, then again for others it is just the notion of sit back and wait on heaven to come (some maybe shocked when God hands them the shovel and says get to work.)

Helen Morales, Faculty Chair of the Classics Department at University Santa Barbara, is reported as saying: “It’s living in a way that fulfills our purpose, … Aristotle was saying, ‘Stop hoping for happiness tomorrow. Happiness is being engaged in the process now.”   Personally I think that Aristotle may have been onto something.

In 2007, Steve Cole, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, among others, identified a link between loneliness and how our bodies genes express themselves. In a small study, since repeated in larger trials, they compared blood samples from six people who felt socially isolated with samples from eight who didn’t. Among the lonely participants, the function of the genome had changed in such a way that the risk of inflammatory diseases increased and antiviral response diminished. It appeared that the brains of these subjects were wired to equate loneliness with danger, and to switch the body into a defensive state of stress. In effect, according to Cole, the stress reaction requires “mortgaging our long-term health in favor of our short-term survival.” Our bodies, he concluded, are “programmed to turn misery into death.”

In early 2010, Cole spoke on his work at a conference, now in the audience was Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Cole’s talk got Fredrickson to thinking: “If stressful states, including loneliness, caused the genome to respond in a damaging way, might sustained positive experiences have the opposite result? Eudaemonist and hedonic aspects of well-being had previously been linked to longevity, so the possibility of finding beneficial effects seemed plausible,” Fredrickson and Cole joined together a team for a collaborative project to determine if there was a linking of happiness and biology.

Since that first trial test, in 2013, according to Cole, the kind of effect being found indicate that lacking eudaemonia can be as damaging as smoking or obesity. They also suggest that, although people high in eudaemonic happiness could often experience some type of hedonic byproduct too, the associated health benefits tend to surface only in those who lead what Aristotle might have called a good life.

What, precisely, is this symbolic good life? What is meant when we talk about eudaemonia? For Aristotle, it required a combination of rationality and arête— Arête for me, means, a unique kind of Love, called it unconditional love (and lordly I am not talking about the twisted moralized kind either.)  Arête, a Love that contains in its essence a pure awareness of wholeness, a formless completeness that entails a goodness that is called by many names but is in the pursuit of excellence.  You can see an example of this in great athletics. Due to their love of their sport you will watch them put forth great effort in training for their sport, knowing that the training is seldom pleasurable still they will do it, because it fulfills their greater purpose to be a great athlete and in so doing brings happiness.

Psychologist Fredrickson has gone on record in suggesting that a key facet of eudaemonia is connection. “It refers to those aspects of well-being that transcend immediate self-gratification and connect people to something larger.”.  Now to me this would suggest, an example like the Olympic games. It is an event, yet it is a symbol too, that goes beyond the act of the Olympian athlete’s winning a medal, showing his/her individual personal achievement, there is a larger symbolism. Each Olympiad is unique, but they all have a common purpose: to froster traditions that create cooperation, teamwork, as well as individual athleticism. bringing nations closer together in the spirit of peace among all nations.

I would concur from my own merger experience at producing happiness (eudaemonic well-being.) To the degree that I am successful, it has consisted of at least two qualities: 1) It must be meaningful in some way to do it, and 2) there is a consciousness to produce a difference in my world.

Going back to Aristotle saying, the idea of happiness is not merely a feeling, or a golden promise, but a practice. “It’s living in a way that fulfills our purpose, ‘Stop hoping for happiness tomorrow. Happiness is being engaged in the process now.”

I think that Aristotle may have been onto something. When you engage in a core project. Clarifying your purpose as you go along. You find the project and the purpose becomes malleable to your consciousness, as you bring it into manifestation.  Thus increasing the possibilities for social connection, based on an individual’s perspective and needs. A monk on the mountain top, won’t require the same kind of social connections as a Real-estate agent from Seattle.
Mental flexibility, or call it malleability, is the needed Aristotle’s eludes to in eudaemonia, because it makes finding happiness a real possibility. Even the most temperamentally introverted or miserable among us has the capacity to find a meaningful project that suits who they are. Locating it won’t just bring pleasure; it might also bring a few more years of life in which to get the project done. It’s not about taking our self to seriously but more about how we can be fully engaged in the discovery of life.

Another component I would like you to consider is Laughter, I don’t remember her words exactly, but Marlo Thomas was talking about Laughter, and what I came away with from what she said was – “Not only because it is an expression of our happiness, but it also has actual health benefits. And that's because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others.”

So please this August think about being Happy, and if you can’t find anything to laugh about come over to me and I’ll have a laugh.

Blessings

F R E E D O M

F R E E D O M  by Calvin Harris, H.W.,M.

It is summer, and for many adults that is the season that recalls memories, the freedom of childhood, such as being outside in the woods, or on the river or seashore, free to feel the warmth of the sun on their naked body parts as they laugh and play. Summer is a symbol for many adults, who, let’s face it are really closet kids at heart, yearning even today for that sense of freedom to course through their lives in their efforts to live fully.

I have selected some definitions of the word freedom from the Merriam-Webster dictionary to share with you

1:  the quality or state of being free: as

a :  the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action

b :  liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another :  independence

c :  the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous<freedom from care>

d :  ease, facility <spoke the language with freedom>

e :  the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom>

f :  improper familiarity

g :  boldness of conception or execution

h :  unrestricted use <gave him the freedom of their home>

 2 :      a political right

b:  franchise, privilege.

We all have ideas about “FREEDOM”, and how it should play out. For right now I would like for you to consider “Freedom” as something personal to you. Something in your control as far as it plays out in your life.  I have selected some of my favorite quotes for your deliberation and consideration for your summer of Living FREEDOM.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.” ― Jim Morrison

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." ― Gloria Steinem

 "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream…"

― Ronald Reagan

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."
― Nelson Mandela

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
― Samuel Adams

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."― Benjamin Franklin

"Freedom lies in being bold." ― Robert Frost

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”            ― Coco Chanel.

It is considered that one of the tenets of Freedom is Happiness occurs.  So I leave you with this thought from Mahatma Gandhi: Happiness is when you think, and what you do are in harmony.”

Aloha

Calvin

7 Signs that may Indicate a Life Course Shift

1.    You have an urge to explore your potential and in the course of doing so you find yourself reviewing your past. A past you desire to detach yourself from, in order to create and explore new possibilities of your own making.

2.    You want to spend more time alone away from negativity and drama, but not isolated and lonely.

3.    You crave change in your current environment be it the sense of home and/or employment, for something that is uniquely yours and that accommodates your true purpose.

4.    You find yourself feeling acute emotions when looking at past or current situations while trying to move pass them into a more philosophical or spiritual way of Being.

5.    You have the desire to give up on harmful habits that no longer serve you, be it toxic interaction with people or substances, that drain strength, inner-peace and the sense of wellbeing.

6.    Your current world view no longer makes sense to you. Things, objects, desires, goals you once placed great value in, no longer holds importance to you, and perhaps feels harmful to the new sense of identity or purpose you are moving towards.

7.    You gain an awareness, of a conscious synchronicity of words and actions that repeat in your life, that come together as if as a signpost to direct you into right action and towards revealing your naked truth and your mission in life.

My Experience of Discovery with Jean-Paul Basquiat's Notebooks

By Michael Kelly

"In my opinion, an individual without any love of the arts cannot be considered completely civilized. At the same time, it is extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible, to interest people in works of art unless they can see them and know something about them."

—J. Paul Getty, 1965

In a continuing discourse on Art and where to begin finding yours. I would like to present a post by my friend Michael Kelly who, among other things, is a technical business & educational systems creator. -Calvin

On my first visit to the High Museum’s exhibit of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Unknown Notebooks” here in Atlanta, I was disappointed. Close to a hundred pages from the notebooks were displayed in the usual waist-high display cases in two large galleries; it was a very mixed bag: some were interesting, but most seemed to be the product of someone playing with one or two words, or a few lines. Here’s an example:

colors with numbers on the back
brooming into mezzo /aspuria-

You have to picture a page with just these two lines on the top the rest blank. Insight, anyone? It’s true that this is the kind of private noodling that art-history scholars love to sift through, but why was it trumpeted as providing insight into Jean-Michel’s art for the rest of us?

Before saying more about my visits, you should know that this is a traveling exhibit that may come to a Museum near you. It came to the High from the Brooklyn Museum, where it was first organized, and where an important Basquiat show was mounted in 2005. I wanted to see Basquiat’s notebooks because of seeing and enjoying other artists’ notebooks, and because his art is baffling to me. While some of his pieces have a very strong visceral impact, I draw a blank when I try to understand why; many of his pieces hardly register as art, which of course is hardly unique to Basquiat. Although I’ve spent a good number of years in New York’s many museums and galleries enjoying and learning about all kinds of art, especially modern art, I find it difficult to sort out what is going on in any given Basquiat painting—and if you are familiar with his work, you know that there’s typically a lot going on. He put an enormous amount of energy into his work, which attracted me and affected me, but it was also clear that I had very little resonance with what was actually being depicted in the paintings.

Although I left the exhibit disappointed, I was actually still processing a lecture by Franklin Sirmans on Basquiat and his notebooks which I’d attended earlier in the evening. Basquiat was born in New York City on December 22, 1960 and died there in 1988. He emerged as an artist in the 80s, and some of the key points of reference in Mr. Sirmans’ talk were the cultural transformations that Jean-Michel was immersed in during this period: rap music and other kinds of street art, most notably for Jean-Michel graffiti. Where he emerged was in Manhattan’s famous downtown gallery scene, which was scruffy, energetic and Punk.

Discovering that the Notebooks show was closing in a matter of days, I decided to give it one more try. The second time I could feel the pieces start to come together. I realized that I was reading the words on the page in a literal way, as if they were orphans from a story or that he started describing something and kept getting interrupted. In other words, I was reading like I would read my notebook, not like the words of a graffiti artist! And not words from a street-art, rap-inflected view of the world. These neatly printed words were like bits of poems: creating visual imagery in the mind’s eye; testing out how they looked on the page; and experimenting with how they sounded. Once I made that shift, the notebooks came alive for me. I still don’t know what “colors with numbers on the back” means, but as poetry it comes alive: maybe a colored ticket or artist’s paints? And “brooming into Mezzo”—I get that he’s playing with word-sounds: booming into…, brrrroooming into…. I began to peer down at each page, trying to free-associate with each one. It was an intense kind of fun, and had the side-effect of creating a backed up line of museum visitors.

My discovery was to see the notebook pages more like a street-smart graffiti artist with an attitude and a lyrical gift with words as images. It takes time to see something in a new way because we don’t have any indication that we are seeing in a way at all and don’t have a conscious way to change it even if we want to. But despite our habitual ways of seeing, that ones we don’t know are ways, with lots of inputs and a willing attitude our brains are able to process things differently. So be on the lookout for possible visual shifts, and then pay attention when what you obviously see is raw fish—try to get your brain to show you sushi!

Michael Kelly can be contacted thorough his blog Explorations.