Choosing What To Do And Who To Be

Most of us struggle with the question “Why am I here?” or “What’s my purpose in life?” We find ourselves allowing life to act on us instead of directing how our lives go. We feel helpless and downtrodden due to the results of what we have long believed was the way life was meant to be. Everything happens for a reason some people say. And I agree. Things happen usually because of the choices we have made.

The beauty of being human is we have free will. Free Will is the ability to consciously choose what we will do and who we will be.

In other words, if you don’t like the way your life is, you have the ability to change it.

I have been trying to figure out my purpose for quite a while. When I was a teenager, I focused on nothing but playing professional football. I’m not sure if my obsession with football had to do more with my love of the Incredible Hulk or my desire for the love and admiration that so many professional players receive. Smashing stuff and yelling feels good but so does being loved… I digress. I started to notice the physical deformities and long term injuries my coaches had due to playing football. I decided I wanted to be able to walk when I was in my 50s, so I traded in my cleats for dress shoes.

I moved on to being a wealthy businessperson. I wanted to have the freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I chose to go into selling technology as I head read about people making millions of dollars doing that. I’ve spent the past 18 years of my life chasing that outcome only to find I have zero fulfillment doing that. Don’t get me wrong, making 6 figures or more is nice, but it doesn’t do a thing for me spiritually

There have been 3 events over the past two years that have transformed my perspective on my life and purpose, which include:

1. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
2. The Men Who Stare at Goats Movie (Yes, you read that right)
3. Tony Robbins

It wasn’t until I read “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” that my perspective on life and my purpose started to change. Stephen Covey highlights principles I have been taught my entire life. I had strayed from my own truths over the years because my values and my actions were not aligned. Identifying what was important in my life (my priorities) and looking at how much time I spent (or did not spend) growing and developing those areas was a major reality check. I realized I had placed an importance on money/wealth and my job, when my true priorities were family, mind/body/spirit health, caring for myself and others and service. I had ZERO focus on service; meaning serving my community and others.

Service to our fellow man seems like such an overlooked aspect in most people’s lives. It’s hard enough trying to manage our own lives. How are we supposed to make time for helping others?

Do you ever find yourself saying you should spend more time with your family? Or with your friends? How many of your neighbors do you know? How often do you volunteer in your community? These are usually good measuring sticks to determine if you are being reactive to all of the demands in your life. Taking back that time and refocusing on the what’s important to you is so empowering.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a significant other in my life who has worked with me in studying and implementing the 7 Habits principles. We set up a “book club” between the two of us to read through each habit, discuss it, implement it in our lives and discuss it. We have read through the book twice and are currently working on round three. I’ll cover the highlights of 7 Habits teachings later in this article.

It seems hit or miss on who has seen The Men Who Stare at Goats. It wasn’t a big theater hit but has an all star cast: Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Evan McGregor. You can read my review of it here: [insert link to blog article]

The Men Who Stare at Goats is based on a true story – after Vietnam, the US military felt like it had lost its soul. The US Military wanted to avoid a Vietnam conflict/outcome at all costs and commissioned an Army Colonel (Jim Channon) to find alternative methods to combat (aka Peace). Channon proposed the US Military create a squad of warrior monks. These warrior monks would be tasked with creating peace, however, they would be also be lethal martial artists. Channon’s squad would be called the “First Earth Battalion.”

First Earth is the reason I began practicing Yoga and Tai Chi. Both have helped me immensely in my spiritual development.

The beauty, I see, with the First Earth concept is it was created to help everyone reach their true human potential (in practical ways) by caring for themselves, others and the planet. The other amazing thing to me is there is no structure or ownership to the First Earth. The manual tells the reader to start whatever aspect of the First Earth curriculum and start working with others. Build your community and start creating a positive change.

I spent a year asking myself, “How can I promote the First Earth concepts without turning people off?” First Earth also focuses on Psychic development, which is not a mainstream perspective. Why do you think they called the movie “The Men Who Stare at Goats”?

A few months ago, a friend of mine, who I respect greatly, told me about Tony Robbins. I didn’t know much about Tony Robbins other than his infomercials in the 90’s and his cameo in Shallow Hal. My friend was a big fan of Tony Robbins and raved about him. I trusted my friend and decided to look up Tony Robbins on YouTube. The first video I saw shocked me. Everything I heard Tony talk about was First Earth related concepts. I couldn’t believe it. Tony was promoting a good portion of the concepts I was wanting to cover. He just wasn’t calling it First Earth. He’s made a decent living promoting the concepts, too. That’s just a little sarcasm. He has been selling out sports stadiums for several decades to share this information with people.

So my significant other and I decided to go to one of Tony’s events (Unleash the Power Within). It was an amazing experience. If you have the means, I highly recommend you give it a try. You can read the review here: [insert link to article]

My belief is there is a divine creator. That creator is made of energy and is in everything around us. We can choose to connect with it and walk the path we are meant to walk or we can deny it.

Key Elements of Spirit Health

1. Insightful and nurturing relationship with self and others.
   Strong, positive and loving relationships with others start with ourselves. Most of us have not been taught how to love ourselves. But there are resources to help understand how to do that, which I outline in the How to Develop Spirit Health section below.
   “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love yourself?” RuPaul
2. Strong personal value system.
   Take time to figure out what things are truly important to you. A good way to do that is to list out some of the areas of importance and prioritize them.
3. You can start to rank these values in categories like “Category 1” are the ones you hold really important, “Category 2” is somewhat important and “Category 3” are not important to you.
4. Then take your Category 1 values and rank those in order of importance as 1 being the most important and 25 being the least. These are the things that will bring you the most fulfillment in your life.
5. Cultivation and fulfillment in purpose and life.
   Once you have identified 5 – 10 of your top values, then look at how you spend your week. Are you spending time on things that support and develop these values? If not, then you are out of alignment.
   This was a hard one for me. I realized I was choosing to look over my values in exchange for other results. Once I aligned my actions to my true values, I could feel life opening up to me like a current of a river.
6. You can sense some kind of universe energy.
   Take time out of your day to relax and breathe. You will be amazed at what thoughts come to you regarding questions you have or things you need to accomplish.
7. You are aware of the many ways your prayers or pre-visualized thoughts come true.
   There is tremendous power in the thoughts and pictures we focus on. If we focus on things we don’t want to happen, the universe will think you want that to happen. However, if we focus on what we want to happen, the universe will see that and work to make that happen.
   Have you heard of “karma”? The universe has a way of sending back to you the energy you send back. The tv show “My name is Earl” does a great job of highlighting this concept

***Be careful of the thoughts and energy you send out! The universe is listening!

How Do You Develop Spirit Health?

1. Seek your own path to God – I would typically say find models/mentors, which this is, but it is important you develop your own sense of spirituality. Seek out coaches, pastors and religious leaders who are non judgmental and true teachers. Read books, including the Bible, the Gita, Book of Urantia, etc. Find spiritual groups to engage in thought provoking discussions and hear other points of view.
2. Practice some kind of meditation until you can sense some kind of universe energy. Yoga is also beneficial.
3. Are you living your values? Write out your values/priorities and determine how much time and effort you give each.
4. Be open to the spiritual. Spiritual experiences often come in unexpected forms and packages. They surprise us. Foster a nonjudgmental attitude so you’re open to the spiritual dimension in any life event – from hoeing the garden, to witnessing an accident, from watching a swim meet to reading the morning paper.
5. Be inquisitive and curious. An attitude of active searching increases your options and your potential for spiritual centering. Don’t shut doors before you check out what is behind them. For example, the laying on of hands may be a powerful centering experience. A silent retreat might renew your enthusiasm. Meditation or yoga may very well allow you to experience tranquility and peace.
6. Be receptive to pain and grief. Pain helps us focus on the widest questions of our being. It’s a deepener. A life without pain leads to a sparse, shallow existence. Allow yourself to feel your pain fully, then ask, “What is it trying to teach me?”
7. Be playful. Play is a pleasurable, freeing experience. It breeds spontaneous enthusiasm and celebration. When you make music, dance, laugh, sing – however you play – listen for sounds of the spirit.
8. Practice – include your spiritual practice as part of your daily routine.

Is Spiritual the Same as Religious? There is overlap between the two concepts, but the primary delineation is as follows:

Being religious means belonging to an established religious order. It has a direct set of ideals in terms of what it means to worship and have a relationship with their specific God or deity. This includes Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Spirituality means is our harmonious connection to ourselves, others and the universe. It is the search for meaning and purpose in human existence that leads one to strive for a state of harmony with him/herself and with others while working to balance inner needs with the rest of the world.

What is Faith?

Faith is a strong, unyielding belief in the unseen. If you believe a universal energy flows through everything, as I do, then you have faith in that energy’s existence since you cannot see it.

One of my favorite movie quotes illustrating this concept is from the movie “The Santa Clause”.

There is a scene where the therapist step dad is trying to help his step son realize Santa Claus is not real. The following plays out:

Spirit Health allows us to define who we are and where we are going in life. Many of us have yet to determine our purpose and take what life gives us. Many times what we are given is not what we want. The beauty of this is that we have ability to ownership of our lives by connecting into the universal energy and choosing what we want our lives to be.

If you are serious about finding your life purpose and improving your Spirit Health, I encourage you to look into some of the books referenced below and take a look at some of spiritual videos here: [insert video link]

Recommended Reading:

1. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey
2. The Secret – Rhonda Byrne
3. First Earth Battalion Operations Manual
4. Unleash the Power Within – Tony Robbins
5. The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron