Getting To What We Want From Where We Are Pt 2

Alrighty, picking up from where we left off yesterday, the first step at progress is changing our perspective, our point of view and our outlook as encompassed by our mindset. How we see what's before us makes all the difference in the world. If for example you think something doesn't have value that may in fact be helpful you've just eliminated a source of inspiration at the least or what could have been your breakthrough path. If you're reading this thinking, "Ok Faith how do I change my mindset?". Well let me share this with you: we must RENEW our minds.

Romans 12: 1-2

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. The Message

I decided to use the Peterson verse translation as I think it's the most plainly spoken i.e. less "religious". One can insert whatever your own individual practice into this to what works for you. I am trying to offer this as an assist, not something that will trip others up in incorporating. This is also for those of us who've been burned by the fake religiosity of others which is something I'm personally working through. I've come to realize you can't throw out the baby with the bathwater so to speak which brings me to the next step.

2. We must access spiritual power

If we think of this in exercise terms it's building your abdominal muscles to sustain you. It's strengthening your core. Believe me as I'm writing this there's a part of me that's surprised if only because it's something I've fought against. People have used and misused various religious tenets to control and harm people since the beginning of time. For many of us it has a particularly misogynistic bent as well that's being used to subjugate women. We also have to figure out how to place into proper context sacred texts and how it applies as well as knowing there has to be boundaries and consequences for going against our best interests. That could be an entire post in and of itself! Perhaps it will be, but for NOW this is in relation to finding our path in life and staying the course.

We all have our own paths in life. Since no two people are alike our experiences will be different. I'm reading Oprah's September message in What I Know For Sure (it's the last page of each O, the Oprah magazine) where she states: "When you know for sure that you're on course and doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing, fulfilling your soul's intention, your heart's desire, or whatever you chose to call it [they're all the same thing]. When your life is on course with its purpose, you are your most powerful. And you may stumble, but you will not fail."

How do we access spiritual power? I think we have to ask for it first and foremost. There can be no assumptions. Just like doing inverse crunches will strengthen your body we must find a set of spiritual "moves" that will yield results. Having a trainer to guide us can certainly help but in the end the work is solo and the efforts must be our own. We have to push through the discomfort and be consistent. We have to exercise AND change our eating habits to things that sustain us. We may have to limit our intake of certain people/thoughts/circumstances that are of no benefit to us. We have to be willing to change and be vulnerable.

We all have an inner voice, an intuition that guides us if we listen to it. What ways do you know for certain you can make changes in your own life?

Repost: The Latest Rumblings of War and Social Upheaval Are a Lesson in Dominance That We Should Learn Something From

*** I think this post deserves a second look since it got lost in the Holiday schedule ***

With news of India and Pakistan shoring up their borders after the violence in Mumbai last month as well as the bombings between Hamas and Israel, there will be plenty of commentary, bluster and hand-wringing. About how it's each government's right to defend themselves. About how unfair it is that innocent people die because of war mongering. There are even questions about WHY THESE CONFLICTS continue? Why are the US (and other countries) still in Iraq and what happened to all the oil? 

Personally all the fighting and conflicts make me ill, but I've come to realize that our lives are being impacted whether we choose to engage or not so we'd better pull our heads out of the sand. This isn't just about military actions in foreign countries. It's about home-grown "terrorism" when government declares war on its citizens. How certain groups jockey for power and some of us wonder how those people got to where they are while we're left in the dust. And blamed for being dusty. 

We need to understand all the players and figure out as much of their end game as possible. We need to know who their allies are and where they're getting their financial/political help and who their personal relationships are with. We need to know what the public press release states and accurately guess what the private agendas are. 

We need to know what we want for ourselves, our community and our country and then work on several courses of action. Then we need to decide whether who's going to work within the constructs of the systems in place and who will work outside of them. We need to make sure our plans have some chance of success as well and decide just how far we're willing to go to meet our goal(s). We need our own mentors and allies as well and to find out if we can find common goals. We need to recognize the cog in the wheel and how to grease it or put a wrench in it if necessary.

I don't think being critical of a government's action makes one unpatriotic or against a social/political/ethnic/religious group. It is the act of manipulation and subterfuge to deflect scrutiny to suggest otherwise. It is also a nice strategy at avoiding outside accountability. One thing I have realized this year is that most of us do not know how to think outside the box, think critically at all or are operating out of some level of naivete. I'm including myself in that evaluation. We need to do a lot of catching up but I sense the dumbing down of society greatly benefits those people who are deploying campaigns for world domination.

That domination includes land, natural resources, meme setting, family structure, religion, control of industries, media images, finance, food distribution and everything else under the sun. Those that want control want a permanent underclass of poor workers and higher earners who will fight with their peers over what they see as bread and butter issues that are in fact tools of spreading dissent. Fractured movements can't gain traction.

I'm not exactly sure what the specific solutions are because I think there are many. It depends on the situation and those impacted. I think we have to continue to question things and look for a new way of handling conflicts. We need to gird our loins physically, mentally, emotionally, financially and every other way. We don't need to be perfect, though. Some plans are just meant to be thwarted and subverted. As soon as we figure out what track we're on and how to run that particular race we can decide how best to infiltrate from within and lay waste to it. 

In 2009 we can continue to study how nations rose to power and how they eventually fell, but how certain people within the borders managed to survive while others did not. We can study how social movements gained traction within governments where there was opposition but it was negotiated around. We can also look to see where people won a great victory, had a plan but didn't think beyond that immediate moment in time. Like with Civil Rights where a lot of people are doing worse today than 40 years ago. 

That's why I will pull the theme of the original Matrix film about how humans are being controlled and most people accept the 'program' without question. Those few that don't have to reach out to the resistance, take a pill (which is symbolic for the decision to be free), get out and retrain their bodies and minds for 'war'. Everyone that is still in the Matrix can be used to thwart their efforts and are to be considered their enemies. This is about simultaneously dismantling the system of oppression and looking to free more people. Even after being freed some people will want to go back to mediocrity and ignorance. So being ever diligent and constantly vetting allies for shared goals is always necessary.