Author Archives: SteveJones

Celebrate Your Life!

cakeEach year, our birthday’s roll around and it seems as we get older, the less and less we want to celebrate them. I’m not sure if this is a societal or a personal thing but I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t want to celebrate their birthdays. I am very guilty of this too. Since my oldest daughter was born on my 30th birthday, I’ve given up my day so that she would get most of the attention. Birthdays are a marker in our lives and a great time to assess and reevaluate where we are and where we want to be.

But we don’t need to wait for birthdays to celebrate our lives. It seems like we’ve gotten so busy in life, we’ve forgotten to pause and acknowledge our progress and our accomplishments. Why is it so hard to remember to celebrate the little things in life too? I think because we are not conditioned to do this, it simply never becomes a part of our daily lives.

This leads us to think about how we can raise our personal level of awareness of how we are living and how we can make changes. It takes 21 days to form a habit. That’s nothing in the scope of our lifetimes. When we choose to live consciously, we can add celebrations to our life very easily. Celebration and appreciation are closely linked because they both increase our energy levels quickly by making us feel good.

celebrateWhen you condition your mind to look for the things to celebrate in life, guess what happens? MORE great things! I truly admire the company, Mind Valley, because they live each day by searching for what is awesome and they celebrate joy with each other. It’s great to see such a great example of how you can celebrate and find joy in the workplace too. It’s a business model that needs to spread like wildfire.

The world definitely needs more joy and celebration in it…and it’s up to each and every one of us to find it and nurture it in our own lives. Because when we do, we’ll be sharing the joy and awesomeness that is an intrinsic part of who we really are! How can you celebrate your life today?

Get Your Groove Back

Untitled-300x252Have you ever had a time in your life when things just went exactly as you wanted them to? Like nothing could go wrong and everything was happening almost magically? And then who hasn’t had those times when things just didn’t come together and it seemed like there wasn’t anything that you could do right?

I know I’ve experienced both of these different scenarios several times in my life. And it’s only natural to want that first state when things were going your way. We use many expressions to describe that same state of being. For athletes, they call it “being in the zone”—you make that goal, dunk that winning basket, get that hole in one, or break a new world record. For spiritualists, it’s when you experience “being one with all” and is often described as a level of heightened consciousness. And with musicians, they get “into the groove”—they lose themselves in the experience of making their music. These all refer to a state called “in the flow”. Wikipedia defines flow as “the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”

stella-220x300Do you remember that movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Angela Bassett and Whoopi Goldberg? Stella’s life seemed perfect but inside she had lost herself and wasn’t happy. She goes to Jamaica and falls for a much younger man. The movie was about finding her way back. Now, I’m not suggesting we go out and get ourselves a young hot tottie as a way of finding ourselves—although that might work for some! But often times, we just need some sort of catalyst to get us out of the slump and back into action to moving forward.

We can learn so much from the rhythms of nature. Change is constant and therefore, we must embrace change as a good thing for us. It keeps us alive and ever present. The Asian cultures look at still water as stagnant and dying versus a river that is constantly flowing and moving. Humans as a species are amazing because we are so adaptable. We have the ability to take actions that will propel our lives forward and continually developing.

Our quest is to get our lives into that flow state of being: we need to find our groove and keep it! So how can you find that state of flow and stay there consistently?

There are two things that are important to keep in mind. The first is that you must be happy now. As humans, our natural state is one of joy and if you look at anyone’s life, what is the ultimate goal regardless of their individual paths? Happiness! We ALL want to be happy, whether we seek that through our work, our relationships, our families, our spiritual growth, or our own well being. The truth of the matter is that joy comes from within ourselves and that’s where we need to find it.
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The second thing we need to get into the flow is a clear vision. Our dreams give us hope. It’s what will drive us forward and keep us going through whatever obstacles arise. When you know where you want to be, it gives you clarity and the confidence to make the right decisions in your life. Like a compass, your visions or dreams are your true north and will guide you. When you can be happy now and have a visio of where you want to go, you are able to capture that state of flow and then things will begin to magically happen in your life.

What can you do NOW to go out and get your groove back in your life?

Karin-230x300Karin Volo is an expert in personal development and is known as a Dream Life Mentor. She is also the transformational author of the Bringing Joy series. Karin’s passion is helping people better their lives by inspiring and teaching others to thrive through tough times and create their dream lives. You can get inspired with Karin’s bi-weekly newsletter, Inspired Lives, by going to www.InspiringYourVeryBest.com. Or meet Joy and get a free e-book at www.BringingJoyToTheWorld.com

Love is the Glue That Holds Our World Together

handsGenuine love brings light and positive energy into any situation. All of our positive emotions (such as hope, joy, patience, courage, enthusiasm, appreciation, etc) are rooted in love and are connecting us to the Divine energy.

When we are going through any sort of tough time, it becomes harder to be in the higher range of emotions. It is possible to counteract the lower vibrating emotions with a higher emotion to consciously raise your feelings. If you are angry, you can work with forgiveness to free your own heart. If you are depressed, you can help others to realize that there is always someone who has a harder time than you. However, it is also important to allow yourself to feel whatever emotion you are having because it brings you into the present moment.

Loving yourself will give you patience and understanding to get through anything. Surrounding yourself with people (and even pets) who you can love and be loved by you will help tremendously. This will give you strength to make it through this day, and the next, and the next, no matter what is happening.

trees-300x240Just as we go through cycles of change in nature, know that change is constant. Whatever difficult times you might be facing now is only a phase and will pass. Growth is optional. You have a choice of how you will react to any situation. If you can understand that there must be some higher reason as to why you are going through certain challenges, then it will make it easier to get through. This is why I always say, look for the lesson. It can give you a clue to the purpose of the situation.
Be conscious of how you ar e feeling and look for the small things in life that you can enjoy. It will bring you into the moment. Our suffering is often based when we are thinking about the past or the future. Learn to live in the Now and you will thrive through each day. Love is the energy that connects us to our higher selves and to each other in the most positive way possible.

A wonderful book I can recommend is Love for No Reason by Marci Shimoff. There are many exercises on how you can bring your life into the flow of love continually. Our world is in desperate need of having this energy flowing freely.

Have compassion, forgive others so as to free your own heart, appreciate all that you have because it is a way of giving thanks to the Universe, and give to others which naturally makes you feel better. All of these actions consciously allow love to flow in your life.

Love is not an emotion. Love is a state of being.

All the positive emotions we can feel come from this energy of love, which is the Source energy that gives us life! No matter what tough transitions, challenges, or circumstances you may be experiencing, finding ways to allow love to flow will get you through those trying times and into a place you can begin to create the life of your dreams.
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Your dream life is waiting for you—it is up to you to claim it! It is my hope that these lessons can help you manage and improve your life. We all have the opportunity to create heaven on earth and live the lives of our dreams.

By reaching our highest potential, we inspire others to do the same. What action can you take today to bring more love and joy into your life?

What is Your Great Vision?

girlHaving a vision, a goal, and staying focused on it is one of the most powerful creation tools we can use when we want to proactive create our lives. Our minds are incredible.
Our imagination is a tool that we can use to create anything in our lives! Being able to visualize and actually see and feel yourself experiencing a better life will help you to bring it into reality. Our thoughts are charged with a frequency that we send out into the quantum field and that brings into our life that same experience. Anything is possible when you understand how to work with the spiritual laws of the Universe!

We are energy magnets creating our lives all the time. We have the power to choose our thoughts. That is the key to manifesting what you desire. Your vision is you placing an order with the Universe. And the more often you can see yourself there with the strong feelings of it being real, the more powerful your dream will become, and the sooner it will come into being. However, it is important to release any expectation of time and allow it to happen in the perfect time.

eyeThis is why visualization is such a powerful tool for us. Seeing things in our minds helps us to believe it is possible and it is proven that the brain cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality. Then we must take the next step and truly believe that it will come to pass (faith). After that, we must release it and trust that it will come to us in the right time (acceptance and allowing).

As soon as we put an expectation of time onto a desire, we can set ourselves up for disappointment or discouragement—that’s when we are lacking in patience and higher understanding. Know that everything will resolve itself one way or another. And believe in that immense power that we all have within.

Even in my biggest moments of doubt when I was separated from my family for so many years, I meditated and continued to see myself going home—the answer I kept getting was that I was going home.

I held onto that vision and believed in it with all of my heart. But I had to learn to let go of time and of any expectations. It had to happen in its own time. This was a hard lesson to learn. Acceptance of this certainly came in handy during that time and now is one of the ways I can manage my life now.

My question to you is: what is your great vision now? What dreams are waiting to become your reality?

What In The Heck Are You Asking?!

question-300x224The quality of your questions determines the quality of your life. Let me explain what I mean by that. I’ve come to see recently that we are all asking questions to ourselves all the time. Those questions are determined by the filters of our experiences and programs that we have lived our lives by. This explains why some people can be crushed by a situation and others rise above and thrive through the same circumstances. It all comes down to the questions we’re running in our minds.

situationI was put into a horrific situation where my life changed 180 degrees in a matter of seconds—from a dedicated mom of two beautiful young girls a nd a successful business woman with a concrete plan to expand her company internationally…to sitting in a 10×12 cell in a high security jail with total uncertainty and fear, completely isolated from her family while my daughters were growing up with me. This situation lasted almost FOUR years! I would never wish this on anyone!

In the first months, I often asked myself:

  • Why is this happening to me?
  • What have I done to deserve this?
  • When is this ever going to end?

In order to survive, I immersed myself in reading anything positive I could get my hands on. It became a personal development bootcamp in the highest regard for me and I began to see the world differently. As I searched for my inner strength and courage, I began asking different questions:

  • What is the higher purpose to this situation?
  • What can I learn from this challenge?
  • How can I serve others while I’m here?

My questions changed from a “victim mentality” to a “victor mentality” and I became strong. I was able to stay focused on my dream and my deep faith that it would come true: my charges would all be dropped, I’d walk out of the building I was in, and return home to my family where I belonged and that I would be there to raise my daughters. Although it took a long time…that was exactly what did end up happening.

Are you aware of the type of questions you are asking yourself? What would happen if you changed them to more empowering questions? How are you reacting to the situations that come up in your life?

Things just happen. But then we label them according to how we view the world. So a situation can be a big problem where you focus on what is going wrong…or it can be an opportunity where you focus on the solution.

Successful people always find the solutions that drive them through their challenges. They grow, develop, and become better people because of everything that they have experienced. Others who focus on what is wrong all the time can easily become angry, bitter, and stuck, which only perpetuates their situation for the worse.

light-bulb-300x223I was recently on a call with a powerful leadership mentor and she explained how it really is essential to bring in light into any situation and not focus on clearing out the negative stuff, because if you bring in enough positive energy and enthusiasm, the problems and negativity will dissipate naturally. It helped me to realize just how powerful we really are and that we have the ability to determine the quality of our lives by the choices we make and by questions we ask.

Here is a powerful exercise: practice saying everything you say in a positive way. Sounds easy at first, but it can also take some effort because unfortunately, our world often conditions us to see the worst! Stating things positively is a great place to start becoming aware of the questions you are running through your head and why.

My final question to you now is: are you paying attention to what the heck you’re asking yourself? And how can you change those questions so that they serve you in a positive way?