Personal Development Inspiration and Uplifting Mus Discover in-depth articles on awareness, manifestation, productivity, relationships and more. Each one is accompanied by thought-provoking quotes and free, streaming, original music. Enjoy soothing instrumentals as you read plus songs with poignant lyrics related to each article. Jump-start your creativity and feel good. Celebrate life by taking control of your expanding consciousness - your way! Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 60 2859

Articles from Personal Development Inspiration and Uplifting Mus

Spiritually Thriving or Just Surviving 2007-08-10 08:00:13 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. Do you feel like you’re thriving - or merely surviving? Are your days full of excitement and anticipation, or are your days just something to get through? Basic survival skills are not very well known these days. Especially in the West, most people are accustomed to a lifestyle that makes it unnecessary to know these things. As long as the machines and systems of modern life continue to function, no problem. We should never need primitive survival skills. I choose to believe this is not a false complacency. Still, I’m grateful I learned some basic survival skills in the wilderness of Alaska. I lived there for many years with a subsistence lifestyle, and I don’t regret a moment of it. If for no other reason, those frontier experiences are good for the sake of contrast. When you have a clear picture of what you don’t want, it’s much easier to focus your attention on what you do want. ...

Action and Satisfaction 2007-08-03 08:00:44 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. We live in an action-oriented era. Our lives are structured around whatever we’re doing. Take a look at some of these everyday phrases and realize the prominence of “do” . . . How do you do? How are you doing? What are you going to do? Don’t just sit there, do something. The escalation of doing is a worldwide phenomenon. Not just in the West, but the Europeans and the Orientals also seem to be absorbed in the race to do more, do it better, do it cheaper, do it quicker . . . and get it done. Sure, it’s important to do – everyone has things that need to be done – things we want to do and things we never get around to doing. Time slips by as we are consumed by our doing until one day, even our time is done. “Eighty thousand seconds in a day, you can’t borrow what you can’t repay. When your time is spent, you might wonder where it went, And wonder why you spent it ...

Don’t Take it Personally 2007-07-27 08:00:26 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. Don’t take it personally. Whatever “it” is, it’s not about you. Even if it’s directed right at you, it’s still not about you. It’s about whoever is doing the directing. We are all the directors and producers of our own little drama called, “the story of my life.” We’re also the star. There are lots of supporting actors and actresses in our story. They all have their own opinions, preferences, and foibles. Just like me. And just like you. “It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.” - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Whenever one of the other actors expresses an opinion about you, don’t take it personally. Why not? Because, it’s really not about you. It’s about them. Their comment, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, is a reflection of their story, their drama, and the w ...

Take Time for You 2007-07-20 08:00:25 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. Do you feel that taking time for yourself is a rare luxury? Do you continuously come to the rescue of everybody else, while time for yourself gets bumped to the bottom of the priority list? It’s vitally important to allow some time for yourself. Take time for whatever is truly important to you. And take time to rejuvenate and recharge your energy. If you don’t, you can run yourself down so low, you don’t even realize you are drained, until it’s too late. Then, you don’t have anything left to give others, even if you try. This is a difficult situation for many people. Does this sound familiar? “I’m just too busy to take any time for myself. I work long hours and my family needs me. Besides, there are so many things that I need to do. It would feel selfish to take any time for myself.” Your Life, in a Moment Remember that you are the one who controls and appropriates ...

Facing Fear with Deliberate Awareness 2007-07-13 08:00:37 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. Fear is over-rated. We do it to ourselves. Fear has no reality other than our attention to it. Redirect your attention and the fear dissipates. Where did it come from, and where did it go? Most importantly, why do we do that to ourselves? In centuries past (and millennia past), fear was an important tool for survival. Faced with a hungry wild animal, our fear kicked in, and our imagination provided us with graphic images of what was about to happen. Lunch! This powerful motivator triggered a surge of adrenaline, which triggered our fight-or-flight reflex. Hopefully, the result of this chain of events would be our survival to feel fear another day. These days, our opportunities have significantly diminished to provide lunch for wild animals. But, our fear reflex still kicks in, just the same. “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.” - André Gide (1869-1951) Since we are so ...

Work– Just a Job or Visible Love? 2007-07-06 08:00:26 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. “What do you do for a living?” That’s an odd phrase when you think about it. “How do you make a living?” That’s another one. For those of us interested in personal development, a better question may be, “What do you do to make a life?” Or, more specifically, ” How do you continually recreate your best possible life? How do you manifest the life you were born to live?” Is there a particular profession, business or service you were born to fulfill? Are there different niches that fit you perfectly, at different times of your life? These are questions to be answered one person at a time, in the privacy of your own mind, heart and soul. If you never get around to asking the questions, then FOR YOU, the answer is likely, “no.” “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.” - Henry Ford ( ...

Gratitude for Home and Family 2007-06-29 08:00:39 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. It’s easy to take it for granted. Our home is the center of our universe, but how often do you think of it as being that important? The same thing goes for our family. For most of us, family is our primary support team . . . a hand-full of familiar souls in a world full of billions of strangers. Isn’t it ironic to see people treat their own family members with less kindness and respect they give to a perfect stranger? It’s easy to forget the importance of your own personal support team. “If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning “Good morning” at total strangers.” - Maya Angelou (b. 1928) Appreciation for Home Have you ever been without a home? If so, you had a crash-course in home appreciation. There’s nothing quite so effective in learning appreciation than taking ...

How to Keep Your Word 2007-06-22 08:00:08 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. How to keep your word: In a word . . . impeccably. Be impeccable about keeping your word. The word impeccable comes from the Latin root word, pecatus which means sin. The prefix im means without, so impeccable means without sin. Impeccability can be thought of as an attribute of God. It would be unthinkable for God to sin since that would be against his own nature. Considering the idea that we are all made in God’s image, or deep inside each of us is a spark of God, to behave impeccably means to do nothing against our own nature. “Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.” - Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) Communication – A Rare Priviledge Our word is our bond to one another. It is the way we interact and communicate. It is how we share our inner reality with others. It is the bridge between our subjective, inner world of being - and ...

Meaningful Spiritual Relationships – Namaste Matters 2007-06-15 08:00:34 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. What is a “spiritual” relationship? When I think of a spiritual relationship, I’m not thinking of someone who simply goes to the same church. I’m not thinking of someone who simply shares some of the same ideas. To me, a spiritual relationship exists between any two people who recognize and acknowledge that deep inside, we are the same. Behind the faces, beyond the reach of social conditioning, deeper than individual egos, we are identical. We are presence, consciousness, pure knowingness - the awareness of “I am.” We are life itself. The fact that we have the ability to recognize who we are as the singular “I am” makes us unique among all other life forms . . . as far as we know. “I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) We are sentient beings, which means we have sensory organs that allow us t ...

Belief Systems vs. Knowing 2007-06-08 08:00:42 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. There’s a lot of pressure to believe. Social pressure makes a strong case to believe this way or that way or the other way. Why is it so important to so many people that you believe exactly like they do? “They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.” - Louise Erdrich Perhaps that particular trait of humanity is based on insecurity. Without a strong personal sense of knowing, some people need belief to fill the gap. For many, belief is a place-holder until personal knowing can take over. Some people never know and are content to forever believe instead. Others lean on blind faith, a kind of desperate hopefulness, to fill the empty space inside when knowing remains elusive. “Men are four: He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool – shun him; He who knows not and k ...

Being Present Through Sensuality 2007-06-01 08:00:55 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. It’s easy to take our five senses for granted. We’ve been seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching since the day we were born. (Actually, since before the day we were born!) Everything we know about the physical world has been filtered through our senses and then reconstructed in our minds to provide us with a mental representation of living in the physical world. The stimuli from our senses are ongoing and incessant. When we are awake, our brains receive signals generated by the senses at every moment. Even when we are asleep, our dream experiences include visions and sounds as well as occasional tastes, smells and touch sensations. Sensuality in the East In the Eastern philosophies, the physical world, as experienced through the five senses, is maya – illusion. The true reality of life lies deep inside us all in the realm of being. Through the ages, monks, nuns and mystics have devoted the ...

Communication – Friend or Foe 2007-05-25 08:00:02 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. I was 21 and living in the bush of Alaska. Home was a rustic log cabin at Mile 50 on the Seward Highway, leased from the Forest Service for $40 per year. That winter, money was scarce, so I decided to go to town for a couple of months to remedy the situation. I found a simple, little house for rent and made arrangements to meet the landlord. He asked the usual questions to determine whether or not I was good for the rent. I had no job, no prospects, and no apparent means of support. I had nothing to prove and nothing to lose, so I told him how it was with no embellishments. I had an old guitar and played him a song or two. I told him it was only a matter of time until I figured out how my music would provide a living. We shot the breeze for quite awhile until he finally told me I could rent the house. Before he left the key with me, he looked right at me with a peculiar twinkle in his eye and said . . . “C ...

The Six Mistakes of Man 2007-05-18 08:00:53 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. In the early 90’s, while doing research for a book, I spent a couple of months reading every book of quotes I could find. I went to several used bookstores and bought every quote book they had. I ended up with about 30 or 40. Before sitting down to read them, I decided I wanted the right music in the background. I figured if I was going to be spending my time with some of the best things anyone has ever said, it would be perfect if the sound track was a collection of some of the best music ever written. So I turned to the classics and bought collections of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Debussy, and many more. The combination of great quotes and great music made for an inspiring era. Some of my favorite quotes are sprinkled throughout these articles on this website. “It’s a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” - Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Listening to all that classical ...

Reverence For Life Through Nature 2007-05-11 08:00:46 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. A few years ago, Janey and I were walking along a deserted beach on the Pacific side of Mexico. A lone figure approached us, and as we converged, we struck up an easy conversation. She felt like an old friend. It wasn’t long before we had made plans for a campfire beach dinner of local fish, rice and fruit. It was her birthday, so we offered to provide an impromptu concert after dinner to help celebrate. It was a wonderful evening. We were accompanied by Chis, a marvelous harmonica player and percussionist from New Zealand, and Jake, an accomplished guitarist and didgeridoo player from the U.K. The music was magical. As the evening progressed, we learned more about our fascinating birthday girl. She was a multi-faceted jewel shining bright with a rare depth and beauty, so we weren’t all that surprised to learn she’s a shaman from the Creek tribe of the Native North Americans. Her name is Spirit ...

The Subtle Side of Manifestation - part 4 of 4 2007-05-04 10:00:03 For instrumental music while reading, choose: hi-fi (broadband) or low-fi. For the Good of the Whole In order to work harmoniously with the Life Force, your dreams and goals must be good for the whole of life. Remember that it needs you as much as you need it. You need it to help you accomplish whatever you choose. It needs you for the experience of ever expanding life. You are the channel between the visible and invisible side of nature. You are right between the visible realm of matter and the invisible Life Force, with one foot in each world. Create your goals in such a way that they will benefit everyone and all of life when you materialize them. In this way, all of life is on your side, working with you. Once again, the best way to help others is to be the most and best of yourself. Seek to be happy and content within yourself first. If you don’t, you have nothing of real value to offer anyone else. So make it a priority to maximize your potential, forever growing into the very ...