Why Is It So Easy?

Life can be extremely difficult. Life can also be magical and wondrous. When your eyes are opened to the deeper meaning of events unfolding around you in this physical world you begin to experience more of the latter. This great Universe is an interactive web of energy that has a way of giving you exactly what you need at the precise moment you need it. As a practicer of meditation and yoga for nearly twenty years I've learned a few things but most importantly I've realized I have much more to learn. A couple things I HAVE learned are:

1. None of us are given preference when it comes to these receiving these gifts of guidance and windows of opportunity. Certain people are just more aware of what's going on and recognize them when they occur; and

2. We are awesomely powerful beings and the quality of our thoughts dictate the quality of our life experience. Our thoughts, consciously or subconsciously, draw to us certain events and circumstances.

The great problem is most people (myself included) don't always remember they have the power to change their lives through something as simple as changing their mindset. This is so simple that, at first, seems like nonsense. Most times our lives have been like a rudderless ship drifting aimlessly in the current for so long that we're used to not being able to steer. We've become accustomed to reacting to life events instead of being proactive and taking control of them. Even after opening yourself up to the idea that this could be possible and then seeing it work first-hand it's still so easy to forget that we can do it.

Luckily, we have many tools to help us in our journey to begin to actively steer our lives towards our destinies. One awesomely powerful tool is the gift of affirmation. I was recently reminded of this from a massage therapist that my wife and I met. She explained that an affirmation is so much more powerful if it's framed into the form of a question. Questions have a way of focusing the energy of our minds like a laser beam and gets much better results than mere statements.

You can use these affirmations for anything you want to change or attain in your life. For example:

"Why is it so easy for me to be successful?"

"Why is it so easy for me to be happy?"

"Why is it so easy for me to be healthy?"

"Why is it so easy for me to make friends?"

These are just general examples but the beauty of these affirmations are their simplicity and flexibility. You can adapt this tool to pretty much any situation. Go ahead, give it a try! Really, what do you have to lose? I don't know about you but I could use a little more "easy" in my life.

~Eric Vance Walton~

Eric Vance Walton invites you to follow his unfolding story by “liking” his Facebook author page at https://www.facebook.com/EricVanceWaltonAuthor for updates and promotions on his current and upcoming projects.

Download a free preview of Eric’s new book One Word At A Time: Finding Your Way as an Indie Author, here: http://www.authorspublish.com/press/sample/

Inspired

I was pretty much resigned to the fact that the world was being completely engulfed by consumerism. Yesterday, something happened. My faith was renewed at the Saint Paul Art Crawl. It was so inspiring to be surrounded with that much creativity, intelligence and interconnectedness.

For thousands of years, this is what humans did best, we made things either for survival or fun that allowed us to express our awesome power of creativity. Unfortunately, the modern world doesn't encourage the average person to use creative expression. Really, who has the time?  In the last hundred years the powers that be have tried their best to mold us into one thing, consumers of corporately produced goods. This has largely succeeded and as a result we are more disconnected and often confused as a species. An important part of who we are has been forgotten and it's created a huge void that try to fill with countless other things.

I was reminded yesterday that there is a great and growing underground community of artists and musicians out there trying to change this. Although you'd never know this by tuning into the media.  These individuals are attempting to regain a bit of what has been lost and integrate it back into our lives again. For this, I commend them.

To hold something born of someone's mind and made of their two hands helps us to reconnect with the awesome power we have lost. As a species, we have such depth, talent, so much intelligence within us.  We are so much more than we are lead to believe, the power is just waiting to be awakened.

I liken being a creative person today to being a circus juggler. Often times we have keep two lives in constant motion, one to pay the bills, the other to practice our chosen craft.  It's exhausting and both lives suffer for it. The luckiest among us have found a way to successfully merge the two but most of us only dream of doing so.  It is the hope of one day joining these two aspects of ourselves that keeps us going.

I saw a prayer hanging by the door of an artist's studio, beautifully stamped into a square of  tarnished copper, "Artist's Prayer - Lord, please allow me to live the kind of life that they think I do".  This says it all.