Categories
consciousness Fear Feeling Growth Negative Emotions Perspective

When Pride is Not A Good Thing

Extract from 18 Ways We Make Life Way Harder Than It Needs To Be by Carl Massy (WAY 16)

“Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.”

Thomas Jefferson (US President and primary Author of US Declaration of Independence)

I think most of us were taught that ‘pride’ is a good thing. To feel proud for who and what we are. To take pride in what we do. To take pride in what we have achieved – be it over the course of our lives or over the last few weeks working on a new project at work, which we totally nailed!

So yes, pride can be a good thing. But like many things, there can be another side to it, when taken to extreme. It is like all great virtues. They are great when they are applied in a conscious self-aware way. Too much bravery and someone can become reckless. Too much loyalty and someone can be taken advantage of or stuck in something for longer than is healthy. Too much single-mindedness and someone can meander down the wrong path. Too much flexibility and someone can be all over the place.

Categories
Choice consciousness Decision Making Feeling Life Lessons Perspective

Tough Decisions, Complexity, Better Questions and Cute Dogs

Yes; we will be discussing all of those topics.

As they weave together.

Regardless of whether you are a ‘dog person’ or not, I am sure you will get where I am coming from, and take something of value from this conversation.

Over the last bunch of weeks I have had some really tough decisions to make in relationship to dogs, which have not been easy.

Time to really practice what I teach.

All of which I have written about over this year and are in my latest book (18 Ways We Make Life Way Harder Than It Needs To Be) and YES, that is a ridiculously blatant plug for my new book, but I am okay with that as I know it will serve you well.

Now let’s jump straight into the life of Carl Massy story time…

Categories
Belief consciousness Growth Spirituality

A Practical Conversation on ‘Spirituality

You know I like to keep things practical.

I am about doing more of the stuff that uplifts us, makes us more powerful, capable, expansive and competent; and doing less of the stuff that holds us back, diminishes us, constricts us, and triggers our survival emotional states.

So I consider the topic of ‘spirituality’ and a ‘spiritual practice’ through that lens.

And here is how the conversation / riff went.

This conversation became a part of my resilience program on how to become a natural Superhuman (a combination of Leader, Warrior and Sage).

I am interested to hear what it brings up for you, and do send me any questions you might have.

You can watch the video – just click on the image below to watch it on YouTube below – or if prefer to listen to the audio version, click HERE.

Categories
Belief consciousness Emotional Feeling Negative Emotions

A Revealing Look at Genes

A CASE STUDY: GENES VERSUS ENVIRONMENT

Knowledge is powerful stuff.

I know you know.

The greater knowledge we have, the BETTER choices and decisions we can make.

So I am here, for your benefit, sharing some knowledge I discovered along the way.

My full time job is reading, researching and working with people to better understand what makes us do what we do.

And experience the outcomes we do.

A few years ago I had a fascinating experience with a client of mine.

Which supports my observation that the medical ‘healthcare’ system, really doesn’t understand the importance of the environment on our behaviour (and therefore results) and therefore treats ‘symptoms’ with the wrong stuff, which barely touches the root cause.

Let me share this case study of mine, and you can decide if it was primarily a ‘Gene’ thing or an ‘Environmental’ thing.

I will let you be the judge.

I will also leave this section with a quote from Paramahansa Yogananda – who was highly influential in bringing traditional yoga to the west.

He said: “The environment is stronger than the will.

Categories
Choice consciousness Fear Feeling Perspective Self Love Success

You Can’t Do This and Expect to be Happy

Do you want to be happy?

Or happier?

I am pretty sure – about 99.999% – that your response to those questions is a resounding “OF COURSE!”.

So today we are going to talk about one thing not to do if you want to have a happy life existence.

It’s a pretty simple concept (like most things I teach), but it has major ramifications.

The image that comes to mind when I think about this topic is a wheelbarrow I was using the other day, while hauling bricks.

The wheel was a little wobbly (out of alignment) and it was WAY HARD to keep things moving in the direction of the drop-off point.

At one point the wheelbarrow veered off to the side and I lost the load (and nearly tore a muscle or three); so I had to start again from scratch.

TOO much effort required.

So what was the solution?

Simple.

The wheelbarrow needed the nuts on the axle tightened, so the wheel would come back into alignment and perform the role it was designed for.

Moving smoothly, in a straight line.

When things are out of alignment, life gets tougher.

Categories
consciousness Emotional Growth Happiness Tips Rest

The Power of a ‘Getaway’ To(ward) Self

I am a HUGE fan of what I call “GETAWAYS“.

I just came back from one last week.

And I attribute them to being a major part of my mental health regime, my physical health regime, and from a business perspective they are creativity on steroids.

I reckon that my creativity, productivity and sheer volume of really powerful ideas for life and business are multiplied by a factor of at least 10!

A well organised and intentional GETAWAY is like a Quantum Leaping event.

They are raw POWER as opposed to sweaty and messy FORCE.

In your tool-bag of ‘Tips to help you flourish in life’, GETAWAYS are right up there.

Convinced yet?

I hope you are well on your way, BUT HERE IS THE THING…

The GETAWAYS I am talking about are not about sipping martini’s on the beach.

Those might be relaxing (until the dehydration sets in), but they have nothing on what I am talking about.

I am talking about a GETAWAY back to SELF.

Something else entirely.

(The martini’s on the beach are actually numbing yourself to feeling self; so they are very different).

The GETAWAYS I am talking about are evolutionary.

Now are you convinced?

Categories
Belief Choice consciousness Emotional Optimum Health Perspective

The ‘C’ Thing…a Big, but Relevant Topic

This conversation follows on from last week, where I spoke about emotional ‘Junk in the Trunk’.

And it ties in with my full-time health immersion, journey and obsession for the last couple of decades.

One of the things I have learned over time is it is very hard to separate the body, mind, emotions, and even the spiritual element of ourselves into little neat separate boxes.

They are all inter-related.

There is overlap.

You can’t have a toxic relationship for several months or years and not have health issues.

Be they mental or physical – which again are inter-related.

The mind and the body are part of the same whole.

So when it comes to working on symptoms expressed in the physical body, don’t imagine the mind doesn’t play a role in this, and predominant emotional states are not a factor.

Cancer is definitely not a fun subject to talk about.

And I did balk at my own thought to write this article.

But hey, I am here to offer support in any way I can, so let me share with you my perspective on the treatment and healing of cancer.

Categories
Choice consciousness Feeling Life Purpose Perspective

A Common Cause of LOW Energy (not What You Think)

Hands up if you have low energy a lot.

How about sometimes?

We all have times and days where our energy is low.

Which might relate to very practical things like hydration, nutrition, and sleep.

But if we have an on-going experience with low energy, the cause might not be what you think.

Here is what I have discovered through coaching over the last 15 years (and gazing at my belly button often.

Background

When a new client reaches out to work with me; I send them a couple of questionnaires.

One takes about 2hrs plus to complete and is a deep dive.

The other one takes about 5 mins, but is SOOO revealing.

I essentially ask people to rate their ‘Levels’, on a scale of 1-10, when it comes to 12 categories relevant to their lives.

One of them is their ENERGY Level.

Here is what I have witnessed

Categories
Choice consciousness Growth Perspective Problem Relationship

The 3 Essentials Parts to Setting ‘Effective’ Boundaries

Listen or Download – me reading this from Dropbox

Hands up if you are slightly crap, or totally crap, at setting boundaries.

Want to know a secret?

It might not be that you are bad at setting boundaries.

It might be that you are missing two other essential elements to get the best out of your BOUNDARY setting.

Or then again…

You might never have given enough thought, attention or energy to establishing what a boundary looks like for YOU.

In my experience there are 3 ESSENTIALS when it comes to getting the most out of boundaries.

When I say ‘getting the most’ I really mean…

More PEACE, harmony and space to be and express YOU.

Let’s dive straight into the 3 Essentials, which are presented in the order of their application.

Categories
Acceptance Belief Choice consciousness Feeling Perspective

A 6th Way We Make Life Harder than It Needs to be

Since so many people enjoyed last weeks article, where I spoke out 5 ways we make life harder than it needs to be, I thought I would add to the list, while answering this question…

“How do we unintentionally (or accidentally) make life harder than it needs to be?”

I am a big fan of words like ease and grace.

Also I like a high return on investment, for the lowest expenditure of energy, time and resources.

I am always looking at how to improve things or make them easier and more impactful.

Life is hard enough as it is, so it makes a LOT of sense to not make it harder than it needs to be.

And given my work coaching for the last 15 years, I have had plenty of time to see people doing it tough, when they really don’t need to.

Plus I have seen how they are the ones – knowingly or unknowingly – making their own life hard.

It is most often not something “out there” which is causing pain, discomfort or disturbance in their lives, it is often something they are doing, because they are not aware of it, or don’t know better.