This video is about mindfulness. It will help you understand why it is both so useful and important.
How Walking In Peace Will Save You And The Planet
“When we are able to take one step peacefully and happily, we are working for the cause of peace and happiness for the whole of humankind.” Thich Nhat Hahn
I want to invite you to join me and walk the Earth in peace.
I am sure you have noticed that the world seems uneasy. Each of us walking peacefully is needed.
You can start by bringing awareness to your body as it moves. Notice your feet touching the floor or ground, feel your spine in action, be aware of your senses sensing. See what happens when you slow down enough to pay attention this way.
You can become mindful of your steps as you walk on the planet, as you approach work, as you move to your computer or reach for your phone, as you shop in the grocery store, as you enter into the room where someone you care about is, as you visit places in your community, as you go from room to room, and as you make your way towards your bed at night.
Each step you take shapes your experience.
You can walk peacefully when:
How Having An Open Mind And Open Heart Can Change The World
You and I live in critical times that will shape the destiny of humanity and the planet. We were born to be part of this time because of our unique capacities. These capacities can only be realized if our minds and hearts are open.
Recently walking through a parking lot (I know this seems like an odd place but frankly any place is wonderful when the light goes on), I had a moment of great clarity. I welcome these moments of insight. They feel like a gift from a much wiser source of knowing than my ordinary mind.
The clarity was – The time is now for everyone to step forward with a total openness of mind and heart. This openness is essential for all of us to break from the old stuck ways that no longer work. Once liberated, together we can create new more expansive forms of expression.
New forms of expression are needed across our social structures, business models, economic systems, human services, planetary practices, and political and religious organizations. They could all work better for the good of all humanity and the planet.
You and I are here now to be powerful agents for positive change. The challenge is how to do this. How can we bring the endless flexibility and genius of our open minds and the infinite compassionate wisdom of our open hearts to work together for the greater good of all life on the planet? The task is monumental, the challenges never ending, and thankfully our possibilities and potential are awesomely incredible.
33 Instant Energizers For Life’s Stuck Moments
There are times when our energy gets stuck. You know you’re when your energy is low. This is when you need a big shot of something different. The good news is that you can shift almost instantly from what isn’t working to move into a mind, heart, body and soul states that will change things for the positive.
The other great benefit of changing your state is that you empower your power. You show yourself you can make things happen and that translates into more confidence and builds your positive sense of self.
Take these shifters for a drive around the block and appreciate the energy of feeling more fully alive:
- Deepen and/or slow your breath for a few minutes.
- Go for a walk, sense your body and encounter the beauty around you.
- Put a smile on your face and feel the energy of the smile spreading through you.
- Reach out to someone who is energizing and fun.
Shrinking Self-Doubt To A Whisper From The Past – Simple Solution # 3
5 Simple Ways To Chill Out That You Can Share With Everyone You Know
Is your life a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions? Maybe you have grown impatient with yourself and you wonder when you are going to get your act together?
Good luck doing that without taking a step out of the ordinary and leaving the habits and grooves of life behind. You are stuck in a muck of your own design.
Stop the poor me. Stop the noisy inner critic. Neither ever works for the better. Instead, raise your head up, look into a mirror and see the great possibility in those windows of your soul. You are in truth a soul in the midst of a human experience. Not the drama you find yourself caught up in.
21 Audacious and Mind Expanding Personal Development Ideas
If you realize you are not yet all you want to be, here are some very unique personal development tips that will change your view of yourself and how you see all of life.
- Choose a foot either will work, this foot will be you contact with both the Earth under you and your expansive nature. When you feel out of sorts, feel your foot, feel it making contact with the floor/Earth. Also when you want to move out of ordinary mind, sensing your foot will help bring you into the moment where wise mind is waiting.
The Inner Lightness Of Being
In this moment you can live in awe of the incredible peace, love, joy and freedom that is available to you. It is a simple choose, be present or not.
There is such wonderful peace when you are able to be fully present to yourself and the divine that powers your life force. In the worry and hurry world peace is left in the dust on the trail of the ego-mind. Peace is the still pond of mindfulness when you rise above the chatter of the ego-mind. Peace is the comfort with self when you are hanging out free of the judging mind, just being.
To Be Present
This moment is all that matters in life.
If you are fully present, you are a gift to the world.
Here and the now is the only place where things can happen.
If your mind resides in the now, true joy, love, peace and freedom are possible.
In this moment your thoughts determine your experience of life.
The past no longer exists; memories are thoughts in this moment.
You never arrive at the future because you never leave the now.
Fear, worry and anxiety can only come into your life when your thinking is trying to place you in the past or the future. The mind has the ability to take you out of being present but it can never remove you from the reality of the now.
If you spend too much time regretting the past and worrying about the future you may totally miss out in living the joy of the present moment.
Many people live with the mindset of once I finish school, or once I am in love, or once I have a family, or once I have a good job, or once I am a millionaire, I will be happy, but they will never find happiness except in the now.
All possibilities only exist in the now.
Practice: Now in this moment, only be aware of your breath, breathe in and feel you body fill with oxygen, pause, then breathe out and feel your body release, pause, and then breathe in again. Whenever you take a moment to follow this cycle of the breath, you bring yourself fully into the infinite possibilities of being fully present in your life.
My work with clients focuses on taming the mind. I help bring you into the most powerful and effective states of mind, emotions, heart, body and higher nature. Sign up today for my email and contact me (joseph@josephbernardphd.com) so we can move your life into the now, where what you want can be created.
12 Essential Attributes For An Extraordinary Life
My blog is in the midst of a major transformation. I thank you for your patience as this transformation unfolds. I am so excited about what I am working on and I have much to share as we go.
The following 12 essential skills/attributes you will need within and out in the world to live and have the most extraordinary life:
- Live Mindfully – this key ability is being aware of self, thought, feelings, and body; a sense of connection to self and how you relate to the world. There are many specific mindful practices that will enrich your life in many ways.
- Have Patience – in this fast paced times patience seems like a lost skill but it is even more important. Can you be patient enough to let things happen as they need to and still keep your focus? Step back when you feel yourself in a hurry and worry mode and patiently trust in things working out.
- Skilled at Self-Care – taking good care of yourself is essential for your well-being and for your effectiveness out in the world. How are you taking care of your heart, your mind, your feelings, your body, your health, your energy, your spirit and your social life? If you work intensely with people you need to focus even more on self-care.
- Are Accepting and Non-Judging – to excepting of yourself as you are and to stop the self-judging are very important if you want to believe in yourself and what you are doing. Once you are accepting of self and stop the judging you can go out into the world and be free of judging everyone or everything as “good” or “bad” and instead be accepting of things as they are.
- Courage for Action – the biggest step is often moving into action around ideas that matter you. It takes courage to set your own course, to live by the values that matter to you and to be boldly out in the world making a difference.
- Have Emotional Wellness – your feelings are critical to pay attention to because they are clearly telling you when you are on course or have lost your way. When it feels right and alive you are heading in the right direction. Please simply acknowledge all your feelings because they are all okay. Acknowledging and accepting all your feelings brings you emotional health.
- Have Wholeness Of Mind – an open mind is essential in today’s world. Many old ideas, strategies and solutions are not working so your mind has to be open to learn, grow and be flexible. A healthy mind is one that questions its own thoughts and knows how to quiet down the endless thoughts. No one has all the answers, if you are absolutely sure of your right, you most likely have a closed mind.
- Are Creative In Your Expression – to enhance you effectiveness it is very helpful to access your creativity. Your creativity can come in many forms including your leadership, the way you appreciate others, your writing, the way you parent, the unique viewpoints you come up with, the way you use humor in conversations etc. There never has been found a limit to human creativity.
- Live From the Heart – the most powerful tool in the world is your heart, your compassion, your ability to care and your loving kindness. Listening with compassion is the best gift ever for those you love. Love really has the power to transform you and humanity for the good of all beings and the planet.
- Have Appreciation and Gratitude – if you can live in appreciation and gratitude then the whole world seems like a gift. A daily practice of appreciation will enrich your life in many, many ways. Appreciate those you love, the beauty around you, the gift of the moment and everything else.
- Present Focused – the only place you can do anything is now. There is nothing you can do ever that will change the past. There is nothing you can do that will control the future. All you have is the here and now. If you can be present to life there are endless possibilities.
- Inner and Outer Connected – first you must find your connection to your inner wisdom, intuition and your purpose, then find your way to move into connection and unity with those around you. When connected you can be work with others in collaboration for the well-being of all of us.
These attributes are all ones you can acquire and get skilled at. My work going forward is to help you develop these personal skills so you can be a positive force for change in your life and in the world. The times call you and me and everyone to not settle for the ordinary but instead be extraordinary in all we think, feel, and do. You are awesome!
10 Ideas To Contribute To A Better World Today
The idea of people working together for a better world came to me as guidance from my higher nature. You may have had a similar inspiration. My higher nature is basically the same as yours. This more expanded knowing functions beyond our ordinary thought. If you and I realizing and expressing the potential in us we can encourage the full expression of those around us. Together we can create a better world.
I found myself wanting to encourage everyone who is interested in co-creating a better world together, so I put together 10 ways you can begin today to make a positive difference:
1. Be mindful of your thoughts and feelings and encourage those close to you to do the same. Mindfulness is being tuned inward and self-aware which allows you to be true to who you are and genuine in your interactions with others. Mindfulness is a powerful practice because it helps you be fully present where everything that is possible and everyone who matters awaits you. A good book to read and share with someone you care about and to encourage mindfulness is Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn a Zen monk who writes with great heart.
2. Explore and express your purpose because expressing your purpose will fill your life with meaning and inspire others. You have a purpose that will make the world a better place if you express this purpose. If you can’t figure out what your purpose is today then try spreading love because that is most likely a purpose we all share. One of the great teachers of our time – Dr. Jean Houston is offering a powerful seminar on purpose.
3. As I said in the previous paragraph love is a purpose we all share. If you want to have a big impact on the world all you have to do is explore ways to open your heart, be caring and have compassion for self and others. An open heart is such a positive and powerful force in the world. There is a wonderful meditation practice called, “loving-kindness” and you can learn more about this practice by studying with great teachers like Sharon Salzberg.
4. Make kindness a daily practice and your life will be more joyous. Imagine if your job was to be kind to everyone you interact with throughout your day. How would your kindness enhance other people’s lives? How would this practice enhance yours? Make a list of people who could use a dose of kindness, reach out to them and spread a little love with your acts of kindness. Check out this site about random acts of kindness.
5. Happiness is a choice, you can choose to be happy or not. If you choose happiness, you can bring your light out into the world and people will welcome it. Happiness comes easily when you focus on what you appreciate, when you are fully present, when you give to others, and when you connect with your higher nature. Check out the Happiness Project for inspiration.
6. Expand your consciousness, because with higher consciousness you bring greater light to everything you do. The more aware and awake you are the more expand is your capacity to make a positive difference in the world. If you take the time to tune inward you can access the highest collective consciousness of all intelligent life on the planet. Two excellent awakening books worth reading are: Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
7. Find your own truth because it will set you free and energize your life. Most of the beliefs and ideas you have came from others. Many of these beliefs and ideas need to be questioned because they are not true. The more you explore your own truth the more you live an authentic life. If you live in truth you can be at peace. No one can tell your what is true for you. It always helps to tune inward, listen and question. My own book – Awaken: 100 Questions To Expand Your Mind and Open Your Heart is an excellent resource for exploring your own truth.
8. Live in the now where everything is happening. Much of the time your mind can be worrying about the future or unable to let go of the past. Today in this moment is all there ever is. In the now is the only place where you make things happen. By living in the now you can connect deeply with yourself and those around you. Joy, love, peace, hope and freedom exist only in the now. The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle is a great resource for being in the now.
9. Express your creativity, creativity opens you up to your genius. Creativity is very powerful and it comes in many forms including: writing, painting, poetry, movement, healing, parenting, business, humor, organization, loving, design, architecture, peace making, social activism and many other forms of personal expression. When you express your creativity it enriches those around you. The Artist Way by Julia Cameron has inspired lots of creativity.
10. Join together with others and have meaningful conversations. Meaningful conversations make you feel alive because you are a social being. Meaningful conversations come about when your heart is open and your feel compassionate for others. An open mind is also helpful for meaningful conversations because then you have the ability to listen and not judge. After looking for good reference materials, I decided maybe it is time for a group of people to get together and create a meaningful conversations handbook.
There are many more ways to create a better world together than there are ways to create a better world by yourself. If you can find one other person to join you, your power to be effective multiplies. The world is waiting for you and I to step up and get involved. Are you ready to make a difference?
3.5 Simple Steps To Inner Peace In 2012
How is your year going so far? This is going to be an amazing year and challenges could arise that could make it hard to find your peace within. I have a free guide to inner peace here at this blog if you want to access it – look above in Free Stuff section. I also want to offer you a basic plan you can use every day to build a momentum of inner peace within you. Everyone one can use a little extra inner peace in reserve.
Here are my three steps for you to have more peace of mind in 2012:
1. Occupy your own mind by becoming mindful. With about 50-60,000 per day there is one heck of a lot of things going on upstairs. If there are old stuck ideas, negative inner dialogue, or a critical voice going on in your head then becoming mindful is essential to your well being. You cannot have any inner peace if you thought keep you feeling worried and depressed.
Take the time to become acquainted with the tone and content of your thoughts. Notice what is going on up there by listening inward. Most people believe their minds are doing just fine until they really listen to how they talk to themselves, how they beat themselves up, how they judge themselves so harshly or how they have such unrealistic expectations on who they should be. Albert Ellis, a famous cognitive therapist, says, “People need to quit ‘shoulding’ on themselves.” If your inner talk is unkind then it needs to change.
Being mindful is a way to be kind to your mind. If you get to know how you think and talk to yourself, you can better shape your experience of life. Mindfulness enriches your experience of yourself because it is about finding who you are and just being present in a supportive way. This makes inner peace much more available. In the future I am planning on doing a series of short video podcasts on mindful practices
Remember you are not your thoughts.
2. Be in touch with how you feel. Your mind is the source of most of what you feel. If you mind is off course your emotions may be very disruptive to any sense of peace within you. The place to begin with feelings is to note what you feel, acknowledge those feelings and then accept them as okay. Feelings naturally change on their own when they are acknowledged and accepted.
Feeling can be understood as signs of how you are doing or at least how you think you are doing. If you have feels of fear and worry then something is not going well for you and a change of direction or focus may be needed. If you feel at peace then your mind and your circumstances are most likely how you want them to be.
A peaceful heart is a key component of feeling at ease inside. Your heart when open and flowing with compassion and loving-kindness will bring peace to how you feel. If your heart is closed and guarded there will not be peace inside. If you want to feel at peace, open your heart and let it flow out into the world in ways that feel good to you.
Peace and hope can only happen in the now.
3. Exploring your silence is so important. Your days can be full of noise, your mind can be overflowing with words, your body uptight with tension, and your feelings like a rollercoaster. Sometimes you can get go so out of touch with yourself that you don’t feel at home in your own heart. Silence is the way back home.
Silence is golden because in the silence you access your higher and more peaceful nature. Your higher nature shows you how to live your life in ways that feel right and that allow the best in you to be expressed. This intuitive knowing you have is always waiting to guide you towards more peaceful and rewarding outcomes. Listening to your intuition reduces suffering.
In the silence is also the voice of your soul, this is your connection to the collective and infinite wisdom of humanity, the universe and the Divine. When you sit quietly with your soul, you know peace as it truly is. This peace is the pure freedom to be all that is possible within you. In the silence of your eternal nature there is a world of peace that extends forever.
The peace of silence is a wonderful oasis in trying times.
.5 Slowing down is part of finding the silence. You live in a hurry and worry world filled with impatience. Sometimes even to wait for a moment is a bother. Impatience can be off the chart. Slowing down is easily as taking a less direct path to enjoy the moment, to see the beauty, to tune in and just be with yourself. Try a day when you start slowly, go patiently and wind down before you ever wind up. Smell the roses, watch kids play, dance to a song, read something that lifts you up, write a poem. Slowing down feels so good.
*My new posting schedule is going to be Monday and Thursday*. Sometimes I may add other shorter posts during the week. I am really focusing on additional writing, new directions I am exploring, and ways to make more of a difference, so my posting will be less frequent. Let me know if there is any way I can be of assistance to you.
The Age Of Mindfulness
Listening to an interview of Jon Kabat-Zinn (at Sounds True), I experienced my thoughts expanding into what was possible in a world where mindfulness informed humanity. What would a world be like if wisdom was our guiding force, if peace of mind was how we experienced our self, if being fully present was what mattered, if loving-kindness was our way of interacting with self and others?
The idea of an age of mindfulness stirred in me: a sense of excitement about what is possible, a vision of a better world were we all cared about each other, and hope for new possibilities and solutions fueled by our deeper knowing and our compassionate heart. The future seems so much brighter when together we are intentionally seeking awareness and understanding beyond the ordinary thoughts, concepts and beliefs that too often limit our sense of self and the world.
A world guided by mindfulness might include people:
Living a heart-centered life
Less judgmental and more accepting
Balancing thought with awareness
Tuning inward for self-understanding
Finding inner peace through watching the mind
Compassion for self and others
Listening to each other with an open heart
Resolving conflicts together
No longer run by their fears
Rediscovering and more fully expressing their creativity
Acting with all the people and the planet in mind
Engaged in thoughtful and heart filled discussions
Seeking solutions instead of finding fault
Learning from the universe in moment-to-moment awareness
Stepping back from their reactivity and stepping forward more open to possibilities.
In my work and personal life, I have explored and taught mindfulness for many years. I have benefited greatly from the awareness and insight gained and my clients have repeatedly reported how much they value mindfulness.
*** My new book, Awaken:100 Questions That Will Expand Your Mind And Open Your Heart, will be available in January 2012. This book draws greatly upon the wisdom and the many gifts mindfulness has given me over the years. I am very excited about sharing this book with you.