Pick your life...

"Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place"
-Eckhart Tolle

Pandora radio is my new favorite toy.  I did a few weeks on the blues channel and spent the last several weeks on the heart meditations channel which helped inspired my last few blogs.  This week I'm flashing back to 1997.  I searched "Trance" and stumbled upon some cool electronic stuff. I forgot how much fun this music is.  The peaks are predictable, they pay off  every time. Oh, and the glow sticks! It reminds me of the first summer my friends and I had access to a car.  We use to blast Oakenfold and cruise around acting like we were the coolest cats in town. Although it was missing it's back bumper I thought my dad's Hyundai Sonata was pretty hot...although back then we would have used the slang "tight" to describe it. 

I didn't really know what I wanted to write about tonight, but a few ideas just popped out so I'll go with what I've got. The shift I've been going through continues, although I guess I'm settling back into a normal rhythm. I had a week or so where I was almost euphoric while listening to the audio book "The End of Your World" by the San Fransisco based spiritual teacher Adyashanti. It's an off the cuff western approach to Zen Buddhism. I found myself sitting around completely at ease, almost tapped into the vibration of life.  It was a pretty surreal feeling at first and then it just felt incredible for a few days. He warns however not to get "drunk on zen"...or get the idea that just because you realize you aren't your ego and there is no "self" per se you can't walk around completely blissed out and detached.  You still have to be in the world. Still I'm trying to make good use of the idea of "no self". I've wrapped it into a little package of ideas that remind me I'm not very important, my problems are merely challenges that often turn out to be tools for learning and the universe can easily function without me...or us for that matter. Humanity could just be a hypothesis being tested in an ever expansive divine experiment.

I sat around with great friends tonight chatting up an array of the world's issues.  We beat a few dead horses, covering just about everything in the political and sociological arena.  Making new friends this year has been very rewarding.  I think this is an area of my life that has been lacking since I moved across the country.  I've been in St. Louis three years and I'm just now figuring out the lay of the land.  Getting down into the city has been fun.  It's an experience I never got growing up in Louisiana as the downtown region in Baton Rouge was all but abandoned before I was born. I was a suburban kid, pretty sheltered really. I haven't made my social life a priority for some time.  So much of life these last few years has been about making up for lost time.  Trying to climb the latter at work and achieve the things society deems necessary. I felt a lot of guilt about my drinking and for what I saw as squandering opportunities accademically and professionally. It dawns on me today that life really isn't worth living if you don't have cool people to share it with. One thing that scares me about going back to school next semester is the time commitment. I've been having so much fun lately.  When you know what's important you don't really feel busy..at least I don't.  I just do what I want.  This includes going to work because I need a paycheck, but spending time with Katie, getting into exercise, playing around with my new veggie diet and making a lot of time for friends are all at the top of my list. And the list stays pretty short.  Aside from maybe raising a kid and spending a ton of time with people I love, I don't really see any higher purpose in life.  I guess that is the higher purpose!  I'm not out to be the next Bill Gates. That's not really my trip.

If there is anything that my new interest for Zen philosophy has taught me is that at the source of this thing there is a massive amount of energy that wants to move forward and expand.  That's the best way I can understand it.  The word "thrive" keeps coming to my mind.  Nietzsche called this the will to power.  He describes in "Beyond Good and Evil" how even a simple object like a vine will exert its will  by tangling itself around a tree, slowly growing up through its canopy to get to the sunlight.  All life wants not only to survive, but to grow as well.  I don't know if I agree with Nietzsche that we innately use this instinct to dominate. Tears for Fears sings that awesome song about how we all want to rule the world.  However I receive much more joy in letting go of the steering wheel. I found myself very discouraged a couple of time this weekend and simply had to accept that what was happening was the universe unfolding. People being people, life being life.

When you let go you attract an incredible amount of prosperity into your life.  I don't neccesraily mean in the form of money or material. The amount of love I have experienced in the last month has been awe inspiring. That's the big jackpot. You can feel it everywhere if you look for it.  People react to you in a totally diffirent light when you come from a place of love.  I think you have to choose how you want to see the world. Essentially you will manefest the world you reflect on.  If you're pissed you're going to see a shitty world as my weekend proved to me.

Will you see the world from the perspective of love?  Will you choose to attract friendship, smiles at the coffee shop, calmness from your coworkers and peace in your home? Give it a shot!

mellow

One organism...

"But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything..."
-Alan Watts


Today's blog is another quick one.  Had a great breakfast and coffee with Katie this morning. We got up early and dropped my truck off at the shop.  I think my clutch is going out.  I hope I  don't need a new transmission.  That would suck!  I'm really feeling the Zen message lately.  It's a relief to realize my life isn't that important.  It feels like I just dropped 20 years of baggage and can finally move around a bit. I stumbled onto this cool video and wanted to post it here. If you're on a mobile device and the video isn't popping up you can click here to view it through your mobile browser.

Enjoy ~
mellow

Love...

Got a chance to see two living legends last night. Phil Lesh and Bob Weir continue to run with the Grateful Dead torch in their new group Furthur. It was an incredible night with blissed out moments all over the place! Classic Jerry ballads like "So Many Roads" and "Stella Blue" sent little bits of tears trickling down my cheeks. Jerry is gone but never forgotten...

I can feel Love working in my life these last few days. It's in the people I meet, even total strangers. I've been blessed with great patients at the hospital and they have given me great opportunities to be of service.

Don't have much time to blog tonight as I'm on my quick lunch break. Grubbing down on some pineapple and a cup of yogurt. Mobile blogging from the iPhone makes it easy to throw some good vibes out though...

Lots and lots of Love!

mellow

Clarity...

“Whatever relationships you have attracted in your life at this moment, are precisely the ones you need in your life at this moment. There is a hidden meaning behind all events, and this hidden meaning is serving your own evolution.”
-Deepak Chorpa

A few times in my life I have gone through what I would describe as transitions or shifts. I may have had one when I was around twelve years old.  All of a sudden my grades got a lot better in school. That's all I remember about it. I went from having a lot of behavior issues to being  a pretty solid kid. I discovered booze and pot my sophomore year of high school and went through what was pretty much eight years of confusion, anxiety and depression.  Every decision I made was based in fear. I ran from everything life put in front of me. There was very little growth.  I did manage to meet Katie as well as several other important fixtures in my life today during this period. The big shift came when I got sober at twenty-four.  I was driving down the highway one night when I saw the insanity in my behavior.  Pain had been damming up for years and it reached a tipping point.  I'd just switched jobs for the fourth time in eight months, been diagnosed bipolar and had no where left to run. I knew in one very brief moment, as if I'd been injected with some sort of absolute truth, that I had what it took to change. Most of all I could feel that I would be alright, that life was worth living. That moment and the following six month period was a brief catalyst that pushed me in the direction of progress. There have still been some boulders to get around in the last few years. I think the blog actually started out as some sort of tribute to the rocky times I found myself in during the last year or so.  A place to bitch. I think it's something totally different now...

I find myself experiencing something really weird the last couple of weeks. No depression symptoms at all.  I have a good amount of energy, but my thoughts are a normal speed and I'm getting at least six hours of sleep nightly. My confidence seems better too, but not in an inflated sort of way. I find my friends being vulnerable and open with me and asking for advice where I use to be the one constantly bitching and fishing for compliments. I've started reading my Buddhism books and trying to meditate again.  Then last Sunday I decided to become a vegetarian again after eating meat for the last year. Something I heard on a lecture about being centered resonated with me enough that once again I saw the insanity in my behavior.  I made it to the forty pound mark in my weight loss journey this week and I'm ready for forty more!

On one hand I could have reason to be alarmed.  All of these situations could be early signs of hypomania.  Sleeping six hours instead of my usual nine, more energy, feeling like things are so "crystal clear" and then there's the general mystical nature of my life right now....rolling about drinking mega smoothies, listening to new age music and studying nondualist religions. Of course anyone with bipolar knows that when things are going good we all get the little voice in the back of our heads that says, "you don't need those meds..." Right now it's manifesting itself as the philosophy that if I drop another forty pounds, meditate and exercise, I'm never going to have another depressive episode. This probably isn't true. I know I'll hit hard times again at some point.

I will admit that on paper one might tread cautiously, but I'm a pretty responsible patient as my doctor tells it.  I have a lot of insight into my episodes. I gather that I feel better because I am on less meds.  I was on a serotonin reuptake inhibitor for almost half a decade. A new generation of psychiatrist believe the SSRI's cause rapid cycling in many patients. Thus there's this phenomenon where someone kills themselves a couple of weeks after they start a drug like Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft.  In actuality these drugs can make things worse. There was a point last year where I was so medicated I was stuttering and had a lot cognitive deficiencies. I never really thought much about it.  I always subscribed to the mantra around my doctors office: "Stay medicated, stay in therapy."

I'm not dogging psychiatry.  My doctor has been a Godsend in my life.  I guess I'm saying it's time for more change.  I'm not going to downplay the shift that's occurring in my life right now.  We are taught to write off everything that comes out of the "feeling good" part of this disorder. I know with all my heart that we were placed in this world in order to thrive.  Our spirits know where they want to go. In fact they are already heading there in spite of the distractions our egos are constructing!

Bottom line, my body is a temple and I've been treating it like trash for years! Spiritually, physically and mentally I've been burning the candle at both ends. My new experiemnt is going to be with real food, real exercise and some simple spiritual tools. I'm no longer buying into this idea that I'm some sort of victim or a damaged person.

Life's too short to not be whole...

mellow

The Shift

“As soon as the mind pulls out an agenda and decides what needs to change, that’s unreality. Life doesn’t need to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Life doesn’t need to know the “right” way to go because it’s going there anyway.” -Adyashanti

Three deep breaths and I'm ready to go tonight.

I had such a beautiful day today. The community college I will be attending in the spring started registration last week. I was a busy bee trying to get all of my paperwork processed so I can start attending classes and work towards my new career as a Respiratory Therapist. I had a lot to do today.  I didn't get much sleep, but managed to get up and get rolling with a bowl of oatmeal. I got to campus and searched for the classroom where I would take my new student assessment exam.  When I walked in and told the proctor which exam I intended to take she told me I had to take an additional exam.  I tried to explain that my adviser had placed me out of the reading proficiency exam but the woman would hear nothing of it.  I knew today was special because rather than struggling or being upset I calmly agreed to take the reading test. "Well, I can read. This isn't a problem".

She instructed me to sit outside in the waiting area until she called me.  I noticed at this point that I was unusually calm.  I've been working on my mediation skills and it amazing what a simple cycle of breaths can do to your awarenss.  It wasn't some drastic mystical thing, but it was as if  I was hearing the thoughts in my head and not labeling them as "good" or "bad".  The most incredible thing was this freedom from judgement. I wasn't judging myself at all which is usually how I torment myself.  At one point I found myself in awe with my mouth dropped open.  I felt like a spirit so lucky to be in this universe.  It was a peace I have not known for an extented duration. It must have lasted ten to fifteen minutes.

A girl sat down next to me.  She was talking, almost yelling, on her cell phone.  I wasn't annoyed as I usually would be.  A thought kept echoing in my head...

"There is so much joy in being-"

The proctor called me in and as I began my test I found myself getting a little shaken here and there.  I would question my answers.  At one point I began to get very flustered and felt like I wouldn't test out of the material I wanted.  The peace I had known only a half hour earlier vanished and I sat squirming in my chair certain that my whole semester wouldn't play out the way I wanted it. I forced myself to take three deep breaths and push through.  As I walked down the stairs to the advising office I agreed to accept whatever classes they placed me in.  I thought to myself, "Don't attracted this negativity into your life!"

As I sat in the crowded advising office I wondered if I could get the feeling of calm back.  I began my breathing again and within seconds I was centered. I met with my advisor Anita and got the classes I wanted after all. A few more detours to registration, admissions and campus life and I accomplished everything I needed to get done.  I'm enrolled in college. The thought came again!

"There is so much joy in being-"

Something is leading me, but it's as if I already know where to go.  It's awesome!

Love/Peace/Joy

mellow