Dance Into The Light
"Come dance with me
Come on and dance into the light
Everybody dance into the light
There'll be no more hiding in shadows of fear
There'll be no more chains to hold you
The future is yours - you hold the key
And there are no walls with freedom"
At time of writing as the Covid lockdown restrictions are gradually easing many of us are feeling anxious.
Adopting a mindful approach is
helpful in dealing with these uncertainties.
I can say from personal experience that the mindful approach to life is
an effective way of becoming aware of our habitual thought patterns and
emotional states and weakening their hold on us to the point that we no
longer self identify with these thoughts and states.
As the
mindfulness teachers and leading practitioners will tell you, making
peace with the present moment, as the Buddha put it “the suchness” of
life, and accepting what is, is the gateways to allowing this awareness to develop.
Creating Hell On Earth
However
I have to also say that in my experience I have found that all too
often we are too unconscious and too self-identified with these unconscious states to be
able to make much if any progress. As Eckhart Tolle says:
This happens when we are too
subsumed within our underlying and deeply embedded negative energetic
states.
Living in Samsara
We live in an energetic universe and, contrary to what we are brought up to believe, it is not just our actions that generate the results we experience in life it is also our energetic states.
Many
of us are from a western influenced background and so are culturally
conditioned to an action orientation, and thus we automatically place a
great value on activity.
The effect of social media
A
current example of this is how we are influenced by social media which
tricks you into thinking that unless you are running three businesses,
attending celebrity functions, have learned a new language and a
thousand fun hobbies that you are not doing well enough...
Given
that so many of our actions are based on underlying energetic - or
dominant emotional - states of fear, doubt, worry or other ego based
states of greed, pride and other forms of self-centredness, it is hardly
surprising that we do not experience the joy, fulfilment and inner
peace that we mistakenly believe these things will deliver.
We go unconscious...
To counter our dissatisfactions and misery we initially go unconscious and over-indulge in all the usual distractions...
...then the me-time focus
Then
we resurface and embark on yet more activity but this time with a
me-time focus such as various forms of relaxation, health driven
pursuits and of course the ubiquitous personal development.
We
recharge our batteries and get back on track only to revert to type with
our usual activities of miss-creation driven by underlying negative
energetic states.
The result of all this is that we end up
repeating the cycle and "chasing our tails" to make up for the impacts
of the unintentional miss-creations of our negative energy.
Buddhists refer to this state as samsara, that is to say, the endless cycle of suffering and dissatisfaction.
A mindfulness based approach will, over time, enable us to break this cycle of chasing our tails.
Our higher self,
the "God part" of us, the higher power - call it whatever you want - I
call it The Energy Of Life - has the power to unleash a transformation
that can not only stop us chasing our tails but that can change us in
ways that we can barely imagine.
I am talking about a spiritual
rebirth, a new life and sense of purpose, and an identity that retains
the best of us and drops the dross and that enables us to stay aligned
to The Energy Of Life.
But in order for this to happen we have to ask for it!
This
article, this website and every personal expression of spiritual
experience that I offer whilst not specifically Christian nor Buddhist
nor from any other faith tradition nevertheless draws heavily on these
expressions wherever I have found them to point to a universal truth.
In
this context, the hymn and popular song "Amazing Grace" is a powerful
message and metaphor of spiritual healing, forgiveness and the change
and transformation that is possible regardless of the depths of the
personal hell in which we have sunk and in which we are stuck.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
We have already come.
T'was grace that brought us safe thus far
And grace will lead us home.
This
is a Christian song about a Christian expression of spiritual
awakening, regeneration and transformation. The grace that is referred
to is the grace of God or as we refer to it in this series of articles
The Energy Of Life.
I
want to suggest to you that the most powerful and direct route to
changing your dominant energetic state is by becoming humble, and
reaching out to your higher power/higher self/God/The Energy Of Life and
asking for spiritual help.
Let's Call This A Prayer
Don't get hung up on the 'God dilemma'. Don't put a label on it. As Aldous Huxley put it: "The finding of God is a coming to one’s self."
Drop
your ego, stop thinking, sit down somewhere quiet, better still kneel
down and say - and feel it - as you say it - and mean it:
"Please help me.
I can not control my thoughts and feelings I need your help.
Please fill me with your spirit of grace and the feeling of your peace.
Please help me to live a life filled with positive energy.
Please show me what to do and lead my in your path.
Thank you."
Further Reading:
The Energy Of Life
How To Live In A Participatory Universe
The Power Of Gratitude
The Loving Father
A Portrait Of A Person Connected To The Field Of Intention
I want to
close with a powerful and high energy song from Phil Collins and that I
feel is especially appropriate to the theme of this piece and the dark
times that we are all experiencing and will emerge from:
Next Article: Change Your Language To Change How You Feel Return: to: Walking The Talk Or to: What Is Spirituality?Dance Into The Light - Phil Collins
LATEST ARTICLES
Like A Prayer - Life Is A Mystery
It Isn't The Process Of Prayer That’s The Problem, It’s The Way It’s Framed. Regardless of what we feel about Madonna or her song the topic of prayer often arouses strong reactions. Usually, it is som…
How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws
Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…
Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?
How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…
What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?
How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…
Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind
Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…
The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared
Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…
Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do
The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…
The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement
Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…
4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change
Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…
How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?
We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…
The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!
Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…
Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent
This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call!
Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"…
The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness
How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…
How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now
So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…
Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks
Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…
How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips
The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…
Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes
Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…
Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life
Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…
Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line
In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…
The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!
To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…
The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin
Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…
The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win
The art of persuasion is based on the simple idea that you get what you want by enabling the other party to get what they want. Being a nice friendly person with good inter-personal skills may be a go…
Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed
It's not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change, the most persuasive, and the best communicators. We are living in an age of unprecedented ch…
The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent
What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important. The Eisenhower Box is a time management and decision-making model devised by President Dwight Eisenhower to help him prioriti…
Zen Enlightenment [Satori] - The Stink Of Zen
Lost In Our Delusions About Enlightenment. There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise – that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the huma…
5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life
The Wisdom Of A Person Who Masters In Any Art Is Reflected In Their Every Attitude. The state and quality of your mind has a very large bearing on the quality of your performance in any area of life t…
Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating - 6 Key Tips From A Clinical Psychologist
Toxicity Is The Price Tag Of Accessibility. In the early days of online dating, users were vetted and had to go through a registration process and agree to comply with a code of conduct designed to en…
Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival
How Not To Be Fooled By Randomness. Ergodicity is an ugly word from the world of mathematics. It is an umbrella term for two sets of conditions of probability and outcome. These two conditions form th…
Dealing With Imposter Syndrome - Ego Is The Enemy
How You Frame A Situation Has A Profound Impact On How You Respond To It Emotionally. Imposter syndrome is a psycho-emotional experience of a fear of being found out as incompetent despite ongoing evi…
The Challenges Of The Road Less Traveled
Issues You'll Face When Playing The Long Game. The challenges of the road less traveled is loosely based around the phrase popularised by M.Scott Peck with his book "The Road Less Traveled". This arti…