Living Life as a Metaphor: Interpreting Your Life as if it were a Dream

Below is a picture of my youngest grandchild being on a surfboard for the first time in her life.    She was so ready to stand and ride a wave that after only about the third wave she stood right up and felt  hugely exhilarated.   After several more successful waves, she was beaming with confidence. In …

Dealing with Worry Part 2: How to Not Allow Worry to Take You Over the Edge to the Dark Side

In part one of dealing with worry I was trying to show that when you are confident with your internal gifts and act out of them, then positive things begin to show up all around.   What happens when worry gets the better of you?   Human beings have two aspects to themselves, an ego, which is …

Healing or Development: Finding Out What Stage You are in Makes a Huge Difference on How to Act

Healing or Development Change is always basically the same process of changing negative energy to positive energy, but where you start from to do the change process depends upon how dysfunctional you are in your overall life.   You will have to find where you are coming in last place, where you are kicked out of …

The 5 Secrets of Dealing with Dark Energy

Secret #1:   Everyone of us has darkness, that is, we all have weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities that make us do things that are not so positive.   You cannot expect perfection from others, because it does not exist.  As obvious as this is most of us get angry at others when they act badly.   You …

5 Keys to Having an Amazing Inner Life

Have you ever noticed how many books in the self-help sections of book stores and how many articles in magazines start with a number.   Who knows really how many keys there are to having an amazing inner life?  There are probably at least a billion and that would just be a start.    I am going …

The Challenge of Being an Introvert in an Extroverted Culture

When I grew up in America in the 1950s-60s, it was pretty obvious to me when I entered school that the really strong part of me that was introverted was not valued or encouraged in any way.   Really I remember being really comfortable with myself before entering school and then suddenly being overwhelmed with needing …

Why the American Dream is a Big Fat Lie: Making it Little

The title of this post may sound like it is a rant.   It is not intended to be one.   When I was thinking about it,  I started doing some statistical work, mainly on the number of people who start out with a dream and then the actual number who get to it.  In the U.S. …

Finally Getting Out of Blame and Into Responsibility

The big difficulty with getting out of blame and taking responsibility for moving your life forward is that there are a lot of people out there that are truly worthy of an immense amount of blame.   When you have been a victim of injustice, the condition that most of the world lives in,  then it …

Dreamwork in the Body

Every year when I go to Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, my son-in-laws and I do some kind of boys day out where we hike or mountain bike.   This year we climbed the Chief in Squamish which is just north of Vancouver.  Shane runs a company called Dare to Evolve  He asked me if I …

Dream Work 5: Making Your Enemies into Friends

“Let them at all times concern themselves with doing a kindly thing for one of their fellows, offering to someone love, consideration, thoughtful help. Let them see no one as their enemy, or as wishing them ill, but think of all humankind as their friends; regarding the alien as an intimate, the stranger as a …

The Horror of Boston

In the 1970s when I first began to run consistently on the roads of the Midwest in America,  the Boston Marathon was the Eden of the running world.   In those days 1000 people in a race was a huge number.    Today the unthinkable happened.   I have been emotional all day often with tears when I …

Dreamwork 3: When Your Metaphor Hits Resistance

Today I received this dream after the post from yesterday. This morning I had a dream I as swimming along a beach trying to get to a distant goal along the beach. About 100 yards out from the beach was a huge wall. I was trying to swim towards the shore, but I got pushed …

Dreamwork 2: Life is a Metaphor

O MY SERVANT! Thou art even as a finely tempered sword concealed in the darkness of its sheath and its value hidden from the artificer’s knowledge. Wherefore come forth from the sheath of self and desire that thy worth may be made resplendent and manifest unto all the world.  Baha’u’llah The thing that differentiates the …

Day 19: Why the Future World is So Unrecognizable to Us

O Thou our Provider! Send down Thine aid, that each one gathered here may become a lighted candle, each one a centre of attraction, each one a summoner to Thy heavenly realms, till at last we make this nether world the mirror image of Thy Paradise.        Abdu’l Baha The future world is very difficult for …

Day 18: Out of Contentious Relationships and Into Intimacy and Play

Observe, how thou art asleep in a dwelling, and its doors are barred; on a sudden thou findest thyself in a far-off city, which thou enterest without moving thy feet or wearying thy body; without using thine eyes, thou seest; without taxing thine ears, thou hearest; without a tongue, thou speakest. And perchance when ten …

Day 14: The Best Asset is a Positive Memory

Thus is it incumbent upon us, when we direct our gaze toward other people, to see where they excel, not where they fail.  Abdu’l Baha You have just come out of a really bad meeting with your supervisor who has managed to tell you what an awful job you are doing at work.   It is …

Day 13: Day of Reflection/Meditation

The light of a good character surpasseth the light of the sun and the radiance thereof. Whoso attaineth unto it is accounted as a jewel among men.  Baha’u’llah After having done a day of maximum effort, it is often very valuable to do a day where the focus is reflection.    In today’s material world especially …

Day 12: Challenging Yourself for a Day

Make thou an effort that thou mayest take thy place under the sun and receive an abundant share of its dazzling light.     (Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 56) The reality of any kind of transformation plan is that it requires a great deal of effort.   You cannot become fit by sitting …

Day 10: Projecting Yourself into the Future with the New Virtue

“Consider not the present condition, but rather foresee the future and the end. A seed in the beginning is very small, but in the end a great tree. One should not consider the seed, but the tree and its abundance of blossoms, leaves and fruits.”     (Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i World Faith – Abdu’l-Baha Section, p. 410) …

Day 8: The Mother of All Fears

“Ye were created to show love one to another and not perversity and rancour. Take pride not in love for yourselves but in love for your fellow-creatures. Glory not in love for your country, but in love for all mankind.”  Baha’u’llah Sometimes good ideas like having 19 consecutive days of doing this transformation plan run …

Day 6: Identity and Ego/True Self States

Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form When within thee the universe is folded?   Ali quoted in Seven Valleys The word identity in a transformational context means that you so experience and  act on the energy of a particular virtue that you and others start referring to you as a person with that quality …

Day 5: Dealing with the Ego

“Let them at all times concern themselves with doing a kindly thing for one of their fellows, offering to someone love, consideration, thoughtful help. Let them see no one as their enemy, or as wishing them ill, but think of all humankind as their friends; regarding the alien as an intimate, the stranger as a …

Day 4: Listening to the Spirit Within

“So far as ye are able, ignite a candle of love in every meeting, and with tenderness rejoice and cheer ye every heart.”    Abdu’l Baha One of the first keys to any transformation experience is the ability to have a positive experience and then remember it.    Because of the way the world is often …

Day 3: Connecting to Positive Energy

“And be ye not like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget their own selves.”  Baha’u’llah For most people in the Western world and other places God is an angry man in the sky shooting out lightning bolts when people do bad things.   I am really not sure how God …

Day 2: How the Virtue Will Change Your Entire Life

O SON OF BEING! With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. Be thou content with it and seek naught else, for My work is perfect and My command is binding. Question it not, nor …

Day 1: Choosing the Focus of Change

 Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday.  Baha’u’llah Most people, when setting goals for change have the idea that is widely spread throughout the world, that if you want to accomplish something that you need to have a specific target so that you will see it all …

Falling in Love with Death Dream

I had a dream I fell in love with the grim reaper (death). I was not scared of him and never felt threatened by his presence but we fell in love with each other! This maybe one of the most extraordinary dreams I have ever read.   You might have a tendency to think that it …

Gifts that Come Naturally v. Gifts that Require Great Efforts

In my other job besides doing dream work I work in the area of physical education with young children between the ages of 5-7.    The other day I was reminded of the principle in the title after meeting with the parents of one of my six year olds.   The student received great evaluations in all …

If You Want to Develop Something New, You Have to Let Go of Something Old

The old skin has to be shed for the new one to come.  Joseph Campbell Last night we had a gathering in our place which we have each month to explore various topics.   We always have a dinner because the Baha’i Writings state that the spiritual and material worlds should be like a mirror to …

Dreams and Exoricism

Last week someone sent me a dream about exorcising some demonic things from inside of them.   When I work with dreams,  I use two qualities from within myself to help me in the process.  One is the quality of self-discipline and the other is playfulness.    Self-discipline forces me to treat things in a metaphoric manner …