Do You Remember What It Was To Be a Kid?

As you take a look at your daily planner, do you see a day full of meetings, presentations, conference calls, lunch dates, and getting your oil changed? Play time is no where to be seen, where did all the fun go?

Do you remember the days of never ending games of hide and go seek? The whole day was basically play time. We also had the luxury of being fully present in whatever we were doing. We where little people who where free from society’s expectations. We were not lost in the past or imagining the future, just deeply immersed in the now.

If you really take a look at kids playing in a park you will see that they are moving with divine energy. They will run and jump endlessly after a butterfly just for the sheer joy of it.

“Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.” Tom Wargo

How To Be A Kid Again

Children don’t try to control or suppress their energy; they simply let it express itself in the most natural way in the moment. They don’t think, “hey look at the beautiful butterfly, I wonder where it’s going? Should I chase after it? Will I look stupid?” No, they just feel the energy bubble up inside and spontaneously allow it to happen, no thinking just feeling. By not suppressing their energies and allowing it to flow, they are constantly tapping into that inner source of infinite energy. Once they stop moving they let their energies settle and gradually go into a state of peaceful sleep. The reason they sleep so peacefully and naturally is that they don’t suppress anything so things don’t carryover into their sleep.

Take the time to think about the last time you really let loose and played like a child. A time when you let all your physical movements dance with joy. Not worrying about how your actions would be perceived by others. A body free of tension and stiff mechanical movements. When you allow your body to be completely loose and fluid you will begin to notice your subtle energy body. You will walk gracefully and feel weightlessness inside you.

When you carry unnecessary tension, anxiousness, and stress within you, you feel heavy and stiff. Your energies are constricted and not allowed to flow.

Activities To Let Loose

Below are just a few suggestions that you can plug into your daily planner. When participating in these activities try to move your focus to less thinking and more feeling. Really put your attention on how the experience is making you feel, don’t verbalize it.

How to be a kid again is all about learning to feel, as we get older we become mainly mind oriented, you just need to learn to bring your awareness back to your body.

1. Salsa Dancing (dancing in general): This is a great stlye of dance because it’s very fluid and the music is very lively. Learn to feel the music, let it dictate how your body moves. Take lessons to learn the basics but just really try and move to how the music is making you feel.
2. Soccer, basketball, baseball, etc.
3. Music festivals: Get out there, meet some new people and just let loose.
4. Painting: Tap into the way your feeling and put it down on a canvas.
5. Playing with your kids as if you are one of them.
6. Plan a field day.
7. Water balloon or water gun fights.
8. Climb a tree or rock. Be safe of course
9. Take acting lessons.
10. Pick up an instrument. Who cares if you suck have fun and you just might get good.
11. Sing a song, go to a karaoke bar.
12. Let yourself laugh with out censoring it.
13. Practice some Yoga.
14. Go to an amusement park: Forget everything and just enjoy all the feelings you experience.

Becoming More Childlike: Quick Tips On How To Be Kid Again

1. Suspend your beliefs and feel the experience.
2. Don’t hesitate: If you feel like doing something just do it and stop once you are no longer getting enjoyment from it. If you get the urge to ride your bike, what’s stopping you?
3. Be Open: Kids step out into the world and declare “Here I am world, show me what you got”.
4. Be direct: When kids are discussing what to do, they simply say “wouldn’t it be fun if we….” and then proceed to do it.
5. Put your ego aside: Before you were conditioned by your parents and society, you where in constant bliss by always exploring the unknown without thinking of  how it might affect your ego.
6. Reclaim your child like creativity. If you learn how to be a kid again, your creativity will naturally explode.

Hope you enjoyed this article on remember how to be a kid again, this life is a game so get out there and have some fun. If you find my site valuable please pass it along to your friends and family. I really appreciate you helping me in my personal mission to empower as many people as I can.

(editors note: originally posted on 09/16/2009)

The post I Don’t Wanna Grow Up: How To Play Like a Big Kid appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.

How To Make Your Dreams a Reality

There is no better feeling than knowing you want to do something and knowing that it is possible. Being in the space of possibility we are filled with immense energy and clarity.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where we are constantly told that many of things we want to pursue are simply not possible. We have fallen victim to constant propaganda that has limited our potential to express our individuality.

Many people as time goes on get comfortable with an idea that goes along the lines of….”I am doing whatever I can…this is all I can do…with my background this is the best I can do.”

The problem is we look to our past and strictly use it to measure our capability in the present. All this does is distort and limit your growth. The past is dead, but we keep reviving it by giving it our attention, by becoming identified to it. We take certain comfort in it because we know it, but life’s possibilities only exist in the unknown, in the new. You need to learn to let go of the past and welcome the new. Problem is people want things to change, but they themselves stay the same. This is obviously impossible.

You need to decide clearly…are you interested in being powerful? And I’m not talking in the sense of having power over someone. We all possess immense energy and our own unique innate intelligence that we can harness to tackle life’s constant challenges.

You Can Do It!

Never use the words “I cannot” or “I am powerless”. In most cases you just don’t have the right knowledge or are not really interested. Which is it?

If you are clear that you’re interested then you know you don’t have the knowledge.

Define very clearly what you want, where you are,  and know very well you can do whatever it is that you want to do. If you are genuinely interested you just need to acquire the right knowledge. You are not powerless.

Many times opportunity comes knocking at your door, but if it comes to you too easily you think there is something wrong. You start thinking maybe I am over qualified and don’t look into its further possibilities.

When you know what you need to achieve, where you are, and that it is possible…this is the space where your responsibility grows…deep inside you know, “I am doing it!..I’ll do it!”

You need to realize that seeing an idea as impossible takes away your responsibility. When you think it is impossible you give up on yourself. You never take the responsibility for it. All the great innovations throughout history that we currently enjoy were brought to life by people who did what everyone at one point said was impossible.

You only need to take the responsibility of making things possible in your life. Know continuously that things are possible. The more responsible you become, the more powerful, the more free you will be. This is the paradox, people usually associate irresponsibility with freedom.

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

When I first arrived in Korea and I heard the language being spoken around me, first thought in my head was…”oh man, I am never going to be fluent in Korean……I am not talented at languages…It is impossible. That one idea kept me for many months from making any attempt at tackling the language.

Once I became really interested in learning the language, I knew I lacked the knowledge, the right approach…I began to see that it was indeed possible. Once I accepted the idea that it was possible, I took responsibility, and now I take daily specific actions and slowly but surely I am well on my way to fluency. I get so much pleasure In being able to communicate with a native speaker. If I had remained attached to my past I would have not pushed myself to expand my learning abilities. Only a few years back I would have said it was impossible based on my false ideas regarding my language learning abilities.

If I would have never challenged some of the ideas I thought as impossible, I would have never gotten my real estate licence at the same time as taking a full college course load. I would have never moved to another country all on my own. I would have not started up a clothing company with my friends. I would have never written a book because I wasn’t a “writer”. I would have never learned to salsa dance, and that also would have meant not meeting my lovely wife. All of the things I consider meaningful in my life started from a point of initially looking impossible, or people told me I couldn’t do it.

I am sure everyone of you can look back on your past and remember a time when you took genuine responsibility for something and you made it happen, you worked for it.

Any feeling of powerlessness that you carry within you, you created it, you wanted it, you took responsibility for it whether you were conscious of it or not. This can be very painful to see. The important thing to realize is that you are the cause to everything in your world. Just as you can create the feeling of powerlessness, you know you can create its opposite. Not that bad events or situations don’t happen, they do, but you have the power to decide how you will respond to them. Blaming and complaining will get you nowhere.

If you don’t like where you currently find yourself, you need to change the standards you set for yourself, your root patterns, and learn to do them consciously. Check out my post on systematically increasing your self-awareness.

Doing your actions with full awareness will not bind you to your past. Doing things unconsciously you sow the seeds for future karma (reactions), all that is needed is similar circumstances for your behaviors to repeat themselves.

Our root patterns can be seen in our attitudes. An attitude is simply a pattern of thoughts that has been thought over and over until it crystallizes and actually becomes imprinted in your brain. The problem is that attitudes are harder to observe within ones self as opposed to just noticing your thoughts. Your attitudes simply react to your environment and you’re largely unaware of the whole process taking place.

Living an Empowered Life

The confidence you carry when you are feeling empowered can be drastically increased when you change your root patterns, your unconscious tendencies.

Check out my post on healing your deep rooted patterns: How To Heal Your Past by Cleansing Your Consciousness

Many of our root patterns where instilled in us by our environment before we even had a chance to discern the consequences of accepting such global social beliefs. Take a look at the list below, do any of these suggestions resonate with you? Do any of your attitudes reflect them? Have you accepted them on some level? Is their any inherent truth to them? How do you subconsciously sabotage yourself because of them?

All of my past failures stem from root patterns that were instilled in me since a child.

Society’s Negative Suggestions:

• You can’t.
• You’ll never amount to anything.
• You mustn’t.
• You’ll fail.
• You don’t have a chance.
• It’s no use.
• It’s not what you know, but who you know.
• Whats the use nobody cares.
• There is no point in trying so hard.
• You’re too old.
• You’re too young.
• It’s unrealistic.
• Things are getting worse and worse.
• Life is an endless grind.
• You can’t trust anyone now a day’s.

If you study closely many of the meanings of the messages society and our family conditioned us with is nothing more than a form of propaganda. Its concealed purpose was – and is – to control you by instilling fear in you.

You will find many of the suggestions people make, whether they know it or not, are aimed at making you think, feel, and act as they want you to, in ways that are to their advantage, even if they are destructive to you.

You need to take responsibility for all the unconscious responsibilities you took. Many times if we feel powerless, we take solace in thinking..poor little me…I am innocent…I am harmless.

We also always think that powerful people are harmful. We simply need to turn on our TV’s to support this view. So we start thinking to be harmless you need to be powerless, to be humble you need to be poor. All these wrong associations we carry is the reason we carry unconscious responsibilities. If you want to be humble you take responsibility for being poor.

You can be powerful and harmless, rich and humble, famous but polite.

First you have to wake up, move your body, move your mind, do something, declare positivity, possibility, you can’t afford to continue accepting erroneous beliefs that were imposed on you. Everyday you have the possibility of creating a brighter future for yourself.

Start altering the way you think. Constantly work with your sticking points, your root patterns of boredom, of laziness. To think in a new way you will need new ideas.

As soon as you start thinking in a new way, you will change. When you change the world will also change. The world will look different when you are different.

The image of your self, of others, and the world was built irresponsibly. You need to take responsibility for everything.

Don’t shy away from life, from yourself, because life wont happen to you.

Continuously keep in your minds eye what you want, keep it in your inner space and know that it is possible, you only need the right knowledge. You are already powerful, you need to realize that. Just because you don’t have knowledge don’t think you are powerless. When you decide you are powerless the possibility for growth is destroyed.

The moment you think possibility is over, life is over.

The right knowledge makes anything possible when it is aligned with responsibility.

The moment you think you can, the moment you think you understand, and if you take responsibility the easiest path will open up before you. This has been my experience.

Main points:

• Know anything is possible for you if you have enough interest.
• Know very clearly that what you want to become and what you are now.
• Take responsibility to be what you want to be.
• You only need knowledge, not power, because you are never powerless, you are always powerful, your power is just used in wrong directions. Your power is used to make you feel powerless.

Thank for reading my post, I hope it inspires you to make some miracles happen in your life. I know you can do it. It is possible. So be it!

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The post Impossible is Nothing: How To Make Your Dreams Possible appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.

“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” – Anthony Bourdain

(editors note: guest post by KC Owens)

Experiences for College Students: Tips on World Travels

We all know that people like Hemmingway who traveled the globe when they were young, why not be one of those people? Today, college students experience high levels of stress as we strive to succeed at both work and school. During breaks, I like to spend as much time as possible traveling, and I do it by keeping my expenses at a minimum. In the process, I’ve also learned a little about the best ways to explore new lands and cultures.

How to Finance an International Trip

Of course, college students don’t typically have much cash on hand so working is a great way to earn a little extra spending money. I always hold a regular job while school is in session. While this doesn’t leave me a lot of spare time, it helps me fund my travels. During my time abroad, I sometimes do a little work to bring in a bit of extra spending cash. Rather than waste time and effort acquiring a work visa, I do odd jobs for individuals and small companies like bartending or washing dishes. It’s never an exciting job, but it helps ease the pain in my wallet and I get to meet new people from all over the world. In addition to working, I also bring a student credit card along on my journeys abroad. Most students will be able to find a decent credit card, and young people in particular can use this as a way to build good credit. I charge most of my travel expenses, including lodging and food, on the card and pay it back once I’m home and working more steadily. Often, this makes my monthly payments much easier. You won’t want to put small expenses on the card because that’s just a waste. Therefore, you will need some cash to cover purchases at such places as outdoor markets and some pubs. Overall, a credit card is more convenient than cash, and you will be able to easily report and replace a missing credit card. Missing cash, on the other hand, cannot be traced or recovered and most pickpockets will only want cash or a camera.

How to Pack for World Travel

Backpacking all over the world is best done with just a backpack. Leave the other luggage at home. Your backpack should be lightweight and small enough to fit in train and airplane compartments. It should also fit easily into lockers at hostels. Obviously, in order to fit everything into this backpack, you’ll be packing light. For clothing, bring only moisture-wicking travel gear. You’ll want to include a good-looking shirt or travel-friendly dress for getting into certain clubs, and don’t forget a pair of dress shoes for those occasions as well. Besides clothing, you’ll want a couple of locks to accommodate lockers at hostels where you will keep your belongings when you sleep. Don’t forget a power converter so you can keep your phone and camera charged. Bring toilet paper for emergencies as well as a chamois for drying off after a shower. This works much better than bringing a full-sized towel because they never dry well in your pack and they can be very heavy.

Where to Stay

Hostels are a college traveler’s best friend. I use a free app called Hostelworld on my phone to locate hostels wherever I will be traveling. This app helps me find affordable accommodations that have what I need. Specifically, I look for places that offer student discounts as well as hostels with available 24-hour check-in. You need to be sure that arriving late won’t result in spending a night on the street. Also, make sure your accommodations offer lockers for the safe keeping of your belongings. I generally prefer a hostel with available Wi-Fi so I can send emails and pictures. Although this isn’t entirely necessary, it is nice to be able to check in online now and then.

(Editors note: KC Owens has written and submitted this article. KC is a college student who loves traveling, college life, fitness and a good survival kit. He enjoys studying different cultures, meeting new people and leaving his footprint somewhere most people only read about.)

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In the photo below is one my dear friends that I met on my way up the mountain. Let this be a gentle reminder to spend a little time today by getting acquainted with the inner peace that is available to you each moment. You simply need to stop and make a 180 degree turn. Peace.

The post Photo of The Day: Meditating With Buddha appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.

“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.” - Jim Rohn

Recently I wrote an article on an experimental way of learning a new language faster using tDCS (trans-cranial direct current stimulation).

It was my intent that by reading that post, the reader would realize that the most important and significant part was about learning to divide your attention. But after getting some feedback it was my feeling that most people just passed over it or didn’t even read the post, because they thought it only dealt with learning languages. So I would like to re-post that section of the article.

Learning to divide your attention in the manner I speak of here is of tremendous significance if you can intuit it, if you can catch it. It is the key that unlocks and makes many other things possible in the journey of self-development.

The Wandering Mind: Our Biggest Enemy

As this Ted Talk video highlights, the modern man’s dilemma is that he can’t focus, we engage in mind-wandering all day. Most of us don’t notice this and don’t make the connection of what that means to the larger picture of our lives. A mind that constantly wanders leads us to live in a world that is predominantly the creation of our imaginations. Our unconscious imagination becomes the source of our unhappiness. We are constantly in a state where we are mesmerized with the contents of our mind. Our attention fluctuates with a kind of sea-saw action. How this affects us is that our attention is not steady, is not controlled, so when we are learning we are not able to be fully cognizant of the experience in a more complete way. We then create very superficial and weak memories.

Dividing Your Attention To Become More Present

To me controlling attention is the most powerful skill one can possess. Attention is life. Learning to divide our attention will strengthen our memories and make us more self aware. What do I mean by dividing our attention? This is how I visually represent it to myself.

Typically our attention is like the arrow in the figure below, it is one pointed. When we observe an object whether it is an external like the chicken or an inner object such as a thought, our attention becomes focused on the object along with our simple sense of existing in the moment, and we are quite unconscious of it. What I mean is we forget who or what is actually observing or cognizant of the experience. This means that any object has the power to take our attention. Hence our mind wanders. An external force is always causing us to react.

Now when you learn to divide your attention, you learn to become more self aware. As you observe an object you try and keep half of your attention on the object (b) and half on the subject (a), that is you don’t forget the knower. In doing this you create a new point of observation (c) that we typically are not aware of. This creates a more stable point of observation that is coming from a more inwardly grounded place. This grounds you in your “witnessing” self. From this place you are able to observe the contents of your mind or an external object in a more objective way. You create the inner space to freely observe. This means you are less identified, you are more free from external stimulus, and your mechanical thoughts have less power in dictating your behavior. You become less reactionary and have the ability to respond in a more intelligent way. When you place attention on yourself you can begin my sensing your body, as it is always in the present.

This may not seem so significant to you now, but if you start to practice this in your day to day life you will see why. You will realize the majority of your day is spent inattentively and that you don’t remember yourself. You will also see that the reason this can make you more aware, more conscious, is because it requires a lot of conscious effort. When you first try you may only catch a few glimpses, you will not have enough psychic energy to divide your attention for long stretches of time. But the more you practice the more you will begin to see how your mind wanders less and less. In the beginning you may feel like your actually thinking more thoughts, but in reality it’s not that your thinking more, it’s that you are just now beginning to really notice the movement of your mind. Your attempting to break its spell. It is an arduous journey. Meditation compliments this practice.

Next time your on the subway or in a public place, observe someone in this way. If you are alert, you may subtlety sense that this is a completely different way of observing the world, it may seem familiar yet very novel. If you can catch it, this sensation is just the one of simply being “here” in this very instant—being very present. You may even feel an intimate connection with the person. This is a tiny glimpse of awakening. This is because this exercise in attention grounds you, it gives you a more stable point of observation. This experience happens occasionally on its own, but we have no psychological orientation, no idea of what actual phenomena is taking place that we simply brush it off and don’t make much of it, although we felt that it left a sense of wonderment within us. Try this with someone you know, and they may even start to look like a stranger to you, you will realize it has actually been a long time that you really took a good look at the person. This is because we carry a mental of picture of them, so we feel we already know them and no longer really pay close attention.

How does this relate to language learning (learning in general)? Well, the more self aware you become the better you are able to recall information. When you are truly aware, when you are dividing your attention, you are able to recall everything that surrounds the moment. Since your attention doesn’t get lost in objects as much it is more available to take in a greater amount of “impressions” through all your senses. This causes you to see the world in a new way. Colors seem brighter, everything seems vibrant, HD like. This is key in developing strong memories. If I am observing a person on the subway, and she uses a phrase, I can see in what context she uses it, be observant of her body language, the tone in her voice, etc. So when I later recall the event all that information is available to me. Usually our memories are so poor that we only know that something took place, but lack the details surrounding an event. Yet it is in the details that truly make the difference.

Like I mention in my you-tube video, what happens is you start creating a stronger different type of memory. The more you learn to divide your attention the more you will learn to “objectively” observe yourself, while simultaneously remembering yourself in the moment. This is radically different way of observation. This is what creates the vivid memories. It’s kind of like developing spider-mans “spidey” sense.

Learning to divide your attention is the beginning of real self-observation. Through proper self-observation you will come to know Thyself. Start today, remember to practice this constantly. You will start, then forget. Keep coming back to it. The more you do the more you will “remember” your SELF. You will begin to break the minds spell. It is a long journey, but it is well worth the effort once you realize what it means to your life. I wish you the best on your journey.

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The post How To Really “Pay” Attention: Learning To Divide Your Attention appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.

Today I have the great pleasure of interviewing my online friend Henri Junttila from Wake Up Cloud. Henri Is one of the few people I follow online because I sense that he genuinely likes to help people. Henri helps people discover their passion and to be able to build a living around the things that bring them joy. He helps people break their self-imposed limitations, and I am excited to have him on my site. Now let’s move onto our interview.

1. Henri, could please tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what you do?

I make a full-time living through my online business, and have done so since 2009.

Before that, I was a professional poker player for about five years. I eventually discovered that I wanted to do something more. I wanted to contribute and help people. In short, I wanted to do something that truly made my heart sing.

Today I mostly help people create the lifestyle of their dreams, and live a passionate life.

2. Was there a tipping point for you, a moment where you decided to completely change what you where doing and how you where living ? What helped you get through this transitioning phase?

I don’t know if there was one defining moment, but I do remember waking up one day and being sick of making excuses. I’d been holding myself back from following my passion because I was afraid.

There were people out there that seemed to know more than me, so why would anyone listen to me? What would I have to offer? All of these fears and worries whirled inside my head, until I said no more.

After that, something shifted inside and I started moving toward what I wanted. I still have plenty of worries, but I try to stay in the present moment. I take life one day at a time, because that’s all I can do.

3. In the last few years you have had the great opportunity of making a living by helping others. What are a few of the most valuable things you have learned on your journey of being an entrepreneur ?

To find something that excites you, and follow that. Follow your heart, because it is your internal GPS.

This is probably not something you’d hear from many entrepreneurs, but I’ve found that if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, it’s going to make you miserable. There has to be some kind of enjoyment, excitement, or passion there.

But being excited is not enough. You also have to take action. Action is taken one step at a time, one day at a time. It’s easy to try to get things perfect, but the bottom line is that you have to start before you’re ready.

You can’t figure life out. You can only take one step at a time. So start today. Start now.

4. One of the things that you point out is that because of our current technology, we have the opportunity to turn many of our passions into ethical online businesses. Do you think this is a sustainable trend considering the great economic uncertainty we are living in? How do you see all this affecting the online world?

I think the economic uncertainty today is because of old structures collapsing, and new ones emerging. It’s akin to doing some spring cleaning. When you’re in the middle of taking out the carpets, vacuuming, and scrubbing, everything looks like a mess. But when you’re done, everything feels fresh, smells good, and looks good.

That’s what I think is happening now. We’re in a period of chaos, because things are changing. And part of that change is because of the internet. In the next few years, I believe we’ll only see more people coming online, and the online world growing bigger.

We have to remember that the internet is still fairly young, and it’s still developing.

5. With the flexibility of your business, you have had the opportunity to pursue many of your hobbies. Could you share with us what they are and what have you learned by actively participating in them?

Something I’m particularly interested in right now is cartooning. For most of my life, I’ve avoided drawing anything, because I didn’t believe I could draw. In 2012 that changed, because I decided to join a cartooning course by Sean D’Souza.

And I’ve been drawing almost every day since then. My skills have improved tremendously, and above all, I’ve let go of the belief that I can’t draw. I’ve realized that I can draw. This has not only improved my drawing skills, but also rippled out into other parts of my life. Because if one negative belief was wrong, what else do I believe that holds me back?

Something else I’ve started doing again is playing electric guitar. I loved playing when I was younger, but I quit because I wasn’t getting the results I wanted fast enough. Now I’m back at it with a focus of just doing something every day and keeping it fun.

Last, but not least, I became a father in 2011, and that has completely changed my life. My business allows me to spend hours upon hours with my son and see him grow. And that’s incredibly important to me.

These are just a few things my business has allowed me to do. There’s a lot more, but these are the main things that came to mind when I read your question.

6. What books have had the biggest influence on your life? What would you recommend for anyone looking to start a business or find their creative passion?

There is only one book that comes to mind, and that is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. This book completely changed my life when I first picked it up in Thailand around 7 years ago. It helped me realize that happiness comes from within, and that we create our own unhappiness through the way we relate to our circumstances. It is not life that makes us unhappy, but the way we relate to life.

I’ve picked up most of my online business knowledge by experimenting and working with people who know what they’re doing, which is why no business books come to mind right now. There are many good ones out there, but nothing I feel would be relevant here.

7. I was always interested in esoteric subjects, and during my time in Prague as a result of my Spiritual journey I happened to have many intense mystical experiences that caused me to question everything. I realized that all worldly success could be taken away at any time, so at that point I quit pursuing my worldly ambitions and decided to dedicate my time to really understanding the transformations I was going through. I realized that without inner freedom no matter what success I could achieve in the worldly sense, would never really fulfill me or my purpose for being on this planet. Now, at this point of my life I am ready to focus on my external freedom. This is where I try to learn from people like you who have set up businesses that are in alignment with their vision. To me inner freedom along with external freedom is ultimate freedom, because without inner freedom you eventually will take whatever worldly success you attain for granted. Since my site is all about discovering and creating both inner and outer freedom, could you please share with us what “freedom” means to you?

Freedom is a state of mind, and a feeling.

If you think about having external freedom, what is it that you really want? It’s the feeling it will give you.

So freedom to me means experiencing that feeling of freedom. It doesn’t mean that your life has to be perfect before you get there, because your life will never be perfect. There will always be new challenges.

It means that you have access to that feeling of freedom right now. Imagine how you would feel if you already had everything you wanted, then live from that place. Take action while you feel that feeling.

8. Last question, you have already accomplished many amazing projects, what do you have in store for the near future?

I’ve just launched the Lifestyle Liberation Academy, which provides training and support for people who want to craft the lifestyle of their dreams.

As for what’s coming next, I can’t really say. I have a few ideas in mind, but more often than not, my plans don’t work out the way I think they will.

I don’t plan a lot. I have a direction, but I let life come to me. It’s much easier that way.

If you want to stay up to date with what I’m doing, feel free to visit my blog, WakeUpCloud.com 

Once again, thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences with us Henri. I look forward to possibly collaborating with you in the future. Peace.

The post Turning Your Passion into a Business: Interview with Henri of Wake Up Cloud appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.

Finding Your True Self

“Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.” – Albert Einstein

Today I would like to talk about our inner struggle, a struggle that is between the identity we privately feel as being ourselves and the identity we present to the world. This can be a daily tug of war for many of us.

When you are more inwardly integrated, when you understand yourself at a deep level, you live your life more through intuition. Which is to say, you feel life out, as life unfolds you respond to it in the best way you can, as opposed to constantly calculating your actions through compulsive thinking. This type of thinking is always based on fear and greed. What is in it “for me” thinking. It is not really thinking, but a mechanical reaction to all our mental associations. Fear and greed control us. As many of us know this is no way to live life.

From the eastern perspective, when someone lives through intuition it means that their third-eye has awakened and is functioning. The third eye, correlates with the pituitary and pineal glands in the brain. This is our connection to our higher-self. This is how we by-pass the neo cortex, which is always calculating each moment. Yoga is the science of awakening and managing our inner energies that awaken our brains to be able to rise above our unconscious tendencies to operate with an alert and heightened sense of self-awareness.

The pituitary gland is called the “seat of the mind” with the frontal lobe regulating emotional thoughts such as poetry and music, and the anterior lobe regulating concrete thought and intellectual concepts. On the other hand, the pineal gland is known as the “seat of illumination, intuition and cosmic consciousness”.

If your inner identity and outer identity are aligned and in harmony with each other it means your third-eye is active. When it’s active a high energy flows through you, your brain feels much more alert and active. You may even feel tingly or itching sensations on the brow of your eyes. You possess insight. In-sight, meaning you no longer only use your body’s physical senses to perceive the world, but are developing your inward psychic senses. You go beyond mere appearances. Life’s mysteries are always hidden in the subtle realms, and insight is the way to discover them.

When your inner and outer identities are in conflict, your third-eye closes up and doesn’t function. Science shows us that for most of us the pineal gland becomes calcified with age.

Ok, so why do our identities come in conflict, and what does that mean to our day to day lives?

Look deeply and sincerely within yourself and let me know if this statement is true. Inside, in your inner world you always project yourself “lower” than what you think you are, and outside what you present to the world you always project your self “higher” than what you actually inwardly feel yourself as.

This mismatch between our identities causes all our failures, it is the source of all the different ways we sabotage and rationalize with ourselves. This was the source for all my failed business attempts and romantic relationships. Outside I projected myself as a business savvy person, but inwardly I felt I had no idea what I was doing. The truth was somewhere more in the middle. Not having an accurate view of myself I didn’t act from a natural place.

If we truly want to achieve our dreams we must get our identities in alignment. This is when things really get accomplished in our lives and gain deep fulfillment.

We need to use this constant inner friction for our own good. Through this inner friction once we see how it operates we can transform and use that same energy to integrate ourselves, and dissolve what doesn’t serve us.

 Being Your True Self

When you live through your ego, your self-image, you’re always thinking of how each moment you need to be projecting yourself. This is incredibly draining. It is like being a Politician and being on the campaign trail everyday of your life.When you align what you feel inside as being you with the identity you present to the outside world, you will no longer need to constantly “remember” what you need to project to the world. You are no longer cunning and calculating. This is living authentically in the moment. You unload a huge weight off your shoulders. Being comfortable in your own skin you live an easy going life wherever you go.

In order to align your identity you need to deeply understand both aspects. You need to understand how they are connected or lack thereof.

How you align and bridge the disparity between your two identities as we are speaking of them here, is that you just need to decide and commit to not live in the “dramas” that arise from the battle between the inner and outer. This is something I am working on as I try to transition into being a fulltime blogger.

This also does not mean that we need to only show what we feel inside as ourselves, because what we feel as us on the inside is mixed with many illusions. Many times people advise us to “just be yourself,” well, which self are you talking about? We don’t have an accurate picture and understanding of ourselves. We are muddled. Because we are not every alert, very conscious, these two identities mix into each other and we can’t distinguish what qualities really belong to us anymore.

So how do we consolidate and align both? We need to remove the illusions from both. Don’t try to make your outer identity just like your inner identity and vice versa.

Positive thinking is common advice, but usually doesn’t amount to much without the right understanding of our psyche. For example, let’s say your external identity displays great courage, so you say inwardly I will also be courageous (usually not going to work). In my college years of reading self-improvement material, this was basically their advice. Sounds good in theory, but it is not looking at the cause of the dysfunction. It is only a band-aid and on the surface looks like it did the job. But if you look deeply within yourself, you will see that you can’t fool yourself. It doesn’t quite feel right.

We need to align what you feel as truly you inside and outside….how do you know?…The reality is, is that certain qualities that we display to the world and that we feel within us do genuinely belong to us, and vice versa there are things that we display outwardly and feel inwardly that are not true, but for various reasons due to life experiences, societal pressure, we try to force it into our sense of self.

Positive thinking is simply trying to force the external identities lies – what we deep down know doesn’t intrinsically belong to us – onto the inner identity, our inner world.

Many times the lies from the outside identity, which was rejected by your inner identity, you think that those are the very things that should be infused into your inner identity. You try to force yourself to change.

“‘Know thyself?’ If I knew myself, I’d run away.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Whatever your inner identity rejects you need to let go of. Whatever your outer identity rejects from your inner identity let it go, they are both lies that keep you from being authentically you.

Also, be careful, because you may also think and feel tempted that whatever you feel as you and telling others about it is being authentic. This may not be true, because whatever you “think” as “you” is not really you. We hurt other people and rationalize by saying, “I was just being honest…I was just being myself.”

To know how you can reconcile both identities you need to understand why it’s not happening in the first place. And you can’t make it happen by pushing the outer into the inner, and the inner into the outer with positive thinking. When we understand something we not only know it in our heads, but feel it in our hearts simultaneously.

When you get a more accurate glimpse of who you really are, you need to commit that you will not express any words, or thoughts, that empower the lies from both of these identities. You need to learn to act with an absolute consciousness.

Exercise To Awaken Your True Self

As an exercise for five minutes write an essay of your inner identity, what you feel as you. Don’t show anyone, this is only for your own eyes. Be completely honest. Try to be an impartial observer. Whatever you feel as your outer identity will then immediately see many things it wants’ to reject. Describe all the qualities of your outer identity on one side, and the same for the inner on the other side. Then have a fight between the two, eliminating what each side doesn’t want. Find the qualities that both want in each other. When you align, “identity” in the sense that you knew will disappear. Now just live those few qualities with complete conviction and self-awareness.

Dissolving this battle leads to ‘no’ identity. Drop any complaints that both identities have of each other.

Living and expressing these few qualities through your being, you will have an easy going life, because you won’t feel the usual inner struggle as you live your day to day life.

If fear, anxiety, worry, is not there, then “who” is left there?

“Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature; it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something.” – Carl G. Jung

Much of your identity was derived from the very things that made your life miserable. This is a hard thing to see and admit, we think that money and power rule the world, but it is actually negative energy. Most people are not willing to give up their suffering because they will be lost without it, it has become their identity. My mother worries constantly, if one day all of a sudden all her worries dropped, she would feel like a new person.

Will power is needed to align your identities. This “will” power will come as a result of gaining a deep insight into your true nature. Not so-so “will” power that is one sided and incomplete. Real “will” power will come from transforming the energy that was wasted from the constant battle between the inner and outer identities. This alignment will transform into increased self-knowledge, consciousness, and clarity. Living through your intuition your heart is free to feel, it is free to be itself. Follow your heart my friend. Peace.

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The post Why You Are Stuck In Life and Why Positive Thinking Won’t Help appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.

Life Is But a Dream

“I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man” – Zhuangzi

For anyone that knows me, you know how much I love dreaming, especially lucid dreaming, and recently I had one of my most freaky yet insightful dreams to date.

As of late I have been on a string of weird dreams, many of them going back to old places and people in my life. My dreams are usually very intense and vivid. The dream I am sharing today takes place in my childhood home in Denver, Colorado.

I used to have a room in my parents finished basement, the basement was basically my own little world. My room was very comfortable, it had everything I needed. One of the cool things was my closet that had two huge sliding mirror doors that took up the whole wall.

I spent a lot of time in front of those mirrors, taking a good 5 minutes everyday to look my best for the middle school ladies.

Now that you have a little background let’s move onto the dream. This dream starts off by me waking up and finding myself back in my old bed. I feel that it’s time to get ready for school, so I push aside my bed covers and hop out of bed. Then as I glance over at my mirror as I usually did, what I saw terrified me. And no it was not because I was a short, skinny, little teenager with pimples. What I saw through my dream eyes and reflected in the mirror was not me at all, but a very short, old, black guy.

I had to do a double take. I began to feel extremely scared, I was like…who are you? Wait… Isn’t this supposed to be me? Where did Ivan go? Where am I ? Who am I? Who is this new guy?

In my dream I tried to understand what was going on. I thought to myself….how do you know your Ivan?..well..because I am the thinker thinking these thoughts… and if you really are Ivan why do you look like a short black guy? In what seemed like just a flash of dream time, I questioned every concept I had of my identity.

Finding My True Self

Then It dawned on me, that this was just one more gentle reminder of a deeper truth I have experienced in my life. This truth is that while living In this reality, I am in my body, but ultimately who I really am is beyond the body. That my true nature is the formless nameless entity that see’s through my eyes, my body is just a shell.

This is not a logical understanding of the mind, if you have had this transcendent experience you know what I am talking about. When you really know something, it’s not just an intellectual thing, but something you understand with your whole being.

I can’t really tell you who I am, none of us can, it’s beyond language, but I can tell you what I am not. I am not my thoughts, my mind, my personality, my name, or my body. These are all just certain aspects of my real essence, consciousness itself. The problem is that when we become identified to the instrument (body), we live a life of bondage, we struggle with life, we seek to always satisfy our bodies sensual desires and our minds never ending wants. This is a game we can’t win.

This realization while in my dream had a very calming effect on me, then as my awareness became more intense and focused in the head region, I realized this was all just a dream, very shortly after that I woke up. Fortunately this time I was back in my usual body.

When you know who you really are, restful awareness becomes your way of life. Anything done with awareness is creative. It’s time we wake up from not only our nightly dreams, but our day dreams as well. It’s time for all of us to lead creative lives, the world needs it.

If you have any personal insights you would like to add, please join the conversation below and leave your comments.

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(editors note: originally published on feb. 8th 2011)

The post How I Became Another Person For a Night and The Realization I Had appeared first on Freedom From The Known: Extraordinary Insights for Life, Work and Travel.