Category: Spiritual

Why Am I Here?

This is a question we all ask at one time or another. The big mystery is why we are on this planet and what we were put here for. What was the grand plan from the creator?

When we look around, we can see that certain people have definite purposes and we always seem to be struggling with our purpose. Some people spend their whole life trying to discover their purpose while others understand it at a very young age. I don’t think it matters when you find your purpose. Sometimes the creator has put you here without you even knowing why, which is frustrating for the individual, but it is part of God’s plan.

Take for example someone who doesn’t understand their purpose yet is very positive and enthusiastic every day. As that person goes through their day, they are watched by others whether they know it or not. That modeling they’re doing of their positivity and enthusiasm is contagious and rubs off on others. That just may be the purpose of that person. Sometimes we think that our purpose must be huge, or it must be something that will change the world, which, when you think about it, what really changes the world? It could be one large thing but all too often it is small and could be just one thing.

What can change another person’s life? What activity or what action changes their life? Is it something large or something small? A small thing may be smiling at someone as you walk down the mall or down the street. It may be giving someone a dollar because that’s all they need and that’s all they want. But it’s something that can change both your lives because it’s not the act of giving a dollar, it’s the act of simply giving.

When you think about why you’re here, think about words such as caring, love, and gratitude. These are the words that resonate with people, but, as society keep exercising their material wants, use of these words seems to be forgotten. When a person’s life does not include these words or words such as “please”, “thank you”, or “I’m sorry”, they can be regarded as egotistical or self-serving. If a person makes these words and feelings part of who they are, people are more drawn to them, and respect becomes automatic. As a giver of the words, a person shows their true humanity. As a receiver, a sense of self-worth washes over the person and a bond is developed.

When you’re thinking about who you are and why you’re here, think about the people you interact with, pass, or see during the day. Are they paying attention only to themselves or are they interacting with others? Interacting means talking, looking in another’s eyes, smiling, caring, and loving. You can go almost anywhere and see such a lack of these qualities. They can be very disturbing because all these qualities are what breathes life into us and makes us who we are and encourages us to want to continue our journey in life no matter what it is. When you interact with these types of qualities you are turning people’s lives around. You are making them understand that someone does care about them, even if it’s only looking them in the eye with a smile on your face. That can be something that drives a person for the next minute, or next hour. Modeling these activities reflects the qualities that will confirm the reason of why you’re here.

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The Wisdom of Curiosity

From the moment we are born, we are constantly learning new ideas and concepts. Most of these are ones that our parents have directed us toward. Most of the time we take these and accept them at face value and move on.

As we grow, the parent’s role (although still very influential) is replaced by peers, formal education, and media. We have these other influencers who are shaping our belief systems and molding our thoughts and actions. There is nothing wrong with this unless the influence is negative or takes us away from who we want to be.

The process of determining who we want to be involves all the above influencers plus an intrinsic knowledge, feeling or drive of who we are and what we are meant to do. This sense of being is not what you’re taught or shaped by others, but what you were born with in your spirit. The influencers can separate you from your spirit, but it never goes away.

Your spirit manifests itself constantly throughout your life and is regularly trying to show you the path to meaning, purpose and happiness. Even when we go off track, our spirit is there trying to bring you back to the path. These attempts are mysterious yet consistent and may reveal themselves in many ways. Have you ever had a “Deja vu” (the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before) moment? Have you ever had a strong feeling to turn a particular way when on a bike ride or driving in the car?

Being mindful of every situation causes regular revelations from your spirit and means that a course correction is needed or warranted. As we maneuver through our daily lives, mindfulness of that ”voice on our shoulder” is one to pay attention to. Will our reaction to each voice be positive? Evidence shows that our free will allows us to choose how, or if, we respond to each message. Our response will not always be right but the habit of listening to the spirit is being formed.

Curiosity is a wonderful trait to have.  Its means ”a strong desire to know or learn something.” This trait, when utilized, is asking the spirit to explain the ”why” of a situation. Or, it is challenging commonly held beliefs that opened the door to more, and perhaps enhanced, wisdom of who you are and your purpose.

Curiosity in itself is a path that the spirit is using to help you determine your journey. Remember, your journey has already had some structure ingrained through the sources already divined. So, curiosity is asking you to take the norm that you have currently and challenge it.

These norms are evident in your daily habits, political views, religious beliefs, relationships, and many more. What are the keys to knowing if these norms are right and consistent with your belief system?

I ask simple questions of myself pertaining to norms:

  • Does it make sense?
  • Does it make me happy?
  • Will it not hurt anyone?
  • Will it allow me to continue to develop?
  • Will it allow my mind to stay open to all possibilities?

Being curious about every aspect of your life is fun and rewarding. It challenges you to continue to grow. If you are set in your ways, how can you be open to new ideas or information?

Wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise. In essence, the quality of wisdom that promotes these is curiosity. The more curious you are, the more wisdom you will acquire. Therefore, become more curious. Be mindful of everything that is going on around you and the messages that are being generated through your spirit. Be a person who is always striving for more wisdom by creating habits that make listening to those mysterious signals an active part of your day.

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The Hidden Needs of Others

There is a YouTube video, link attached, that illustrates the true ability of a person to see behind the obvious. It is a video that is very strong and very powerful in communicating what goes on behind our perceptions. It is also a video that talks about ourselves and how we are motivated or defined by our attitude and how our attitude can be worked up in such a manner that we fail to see things as they really are.  

We have this in our lives everyday where we allow external factors to affect the way we are perceiving things or allow our attitudes to be affected. For example, you are in a management position and you work with customers. On most days, the customers’ energy is what brings you satisfaction and happiness in your position because most people enjoy shopping and making purchases, but occasionally you have that customer who is negative, complaining and it seems you simply can’t do anything to please this person. The longer this negative interaction continues, the more your attitude is soured for that hour or day. Therefore, for the remainder of that period, your perceptions of what you see and hear are tainted, all because of that one negative customer. Some people can allow that to roll off their shoulders and are able to maintain their positive attitude, but negative people drain us of our positive energy.  

Spending our day interacting with people can affect how we continue to communicate with others and how we treat them, and, I would say, how we are treated in return, because what we give is what we receive. It takes practice to train ourselves to be consistent in our actions and to be willing to understand the treatment we are receiving from others. We need to look in the mirror and see our reflection. It only requires taking a five second pause from what we’re doing, standing back and asking, “what’s going on, where are you right now, and where do you want to be?” This is something we normally don’t do but should.  The reflection we see is our attitude going to work on our perceptions.  Sometimes we are worked up to the point of being close to pulling an emotional “trigger”.  Emotional triggers come in many different situations – a teacher demeaning a student’s homework, an athlete who hears boos from the crowd. What does that do to his or her performance going forward? These determine how we communicate and how our attitude can change because of external factors.  

The reason we are talking about this today is because of our perceptions of others and whether we are actually seeing them or not and understanding what is going on behind the action. The video I mentioned really brings this to light, as it shows a man going through a typical day. It also shows how perceptions work him up toward his response level. He is looking at people through a certain filter and not seeing the entire picture. It is paramount for us as we go through each day, to understand where the other person is coming from. Unless we do not want to deal with people at all, it is always going to be something that we need to look at. Some people are very good at it and some are not. I know many people, who, when I enter a conversation with them, it is a very one-sided conversation. People love to talk about themselves and talk about themselves constantly. When they are doing that, obviously there are some thoughts and perceptions that are going on with the person they are talking to. For example, a thought might be I wonder if they’re ever going to ask about me? I wonder if they are even concerned about anything I am going through? I wonder how this person can be so egotistical? Each one of those thoughts or feelings creates a perception of the speaker, but if you turn it around and look at that person and wonder why they are talking so much and why are they so self-involved, there are probably multiple answers. We may never know where that person is coming from.  

The video below reflects what one person sees and what happens when he does not take into consideration other people’s needs.  When we all look at ourselves in the mirror and take the time to understand others, it means better communication for both sides and probably more understanding about the needs of other people.  

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Reality Exposed

Whether it be in business or life, we always run into situations that call for a decision. Whether we know it or not, we’re always making this decision based upon our knowledge, our experience, or our awareness around us. That decision is whether to be in the real world or be in a made-up world.

This may sound a little funny but what this is referring to is how we may appear, communicate or interact depending upon the situation. In other words, are we going to be completely truthful in the situation, are we going to be our natural self when we are involved in some way with another individual. Everyday we’re making those decisions. Every conversation means we are taking stock of the situation and responding in some way. Let me give you an example – let’s say you are preparing to ask someone to go to dinner and you perceive the person as an extrovert and you are not quite an extrovert but not a true introvert. In your judgment of the situation means you need to be very gregarious, outgoing and enthusiastic about the asking. Therefore, you are going a bit outside your normal personality. Now this is a very simple situation, but it does reflect how we tweak our realities based upon the perceptions we have of the situation or issue.

In other words, we want to try to establish our own reality in that situation and sometimes it means we must alter our own initial reality to get where we want to go or to receive what we want to receive. If you think about your own situations, how do you think different issues correlate to this? It is something we all run into from time to time, but it’s daily, if not hourly, that this situation happens because when you think about it, each time someone enters your space, they are changing your reality to a certain degree and you are changing your reality to a certain degree to adjust to whatever the issue may be.

It is said you should be true to your nature, but we can’t always do that because staying true to your nature means no one impacts you, no one changes the way you see things, so the way you see things is the way it is at that time. Is every reaction you have exactly who you are? Not necessarily. People change us just as much as we change them. What we need to be aware of is how much someone is changing our reality or how much we’re changing our reality for them.

Another example is if you look at business relationships such as boss to employee.  An employee is always trying to be the perfect subordinate even when that is not necessarily their nature or their reality. I’m not saying they should be a bad employee, I’m just saying they are not being themselves. When they are not being themselves and just saying what the boss wants to hear they are creating a perception that may not be reality.  We have to be aware of ourselves and who we are, and, unless we are aware of the nature of the person we are talking to, we can’t help but change some realities.  We have to make the choice of who we are  going to be and the frustration for many comes when they look back and realize, “that was not who I am”.

If we want to be as consistent as possible, we must know who we are and what we want and need to have a philosophy of life that initiates a nature that is easy to project. What that means is, if you have a philosophy of life that says, “seek happiness in everything you do,” then your projection reflects that attitude.

Typically, what you give is what you will receive. If you are consistent in what you project, then what you receive is going to be will be in like manner.  If you are always smiling at people, I would be willing to bet that you are constantly receiving smiles in return.
The bottom line is, know who you are, know what you want, know how to give, know your philosophy of life and understand as much as you can the nature of other people. Joy is found in drawing people into the reality of happiness and contentment.

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Dreams to Reality

In the vast area we call imagination it is incredible to think of what goes on there and what triggers the thoughts we have about our life and about our future. It is a wondrous thing to know that we can imagine anything we want in life and the only restraint we have is our own parameters or borders we place on ourselves. In other words, the entire space around us is our oyster.

We can do anything we want in our imagination and it is intriguing to think that we can work with people who lack imagination, at least initially. It is when the doors open in their mind, in their attitude, in their view of things, that they can realize there is so much more that could be theirs or could be their future.

When this is all being put together and developed, how do you take that imagination, develop that into what is called dreams and then turn that into reality? I think that much like the imagination itself, creating a reality can be just as difficult because of the parameters or borders we put on ourselves. As a racehorse going down the track with blinders on, sometimes that is the way we view our life and we are not open to what could be. So again, how do we turn dreams into reality?

Everything having to do with our mind and our attitude begins in our head. It is what is between the ears that is creating the will or the ability to move from dream to reality and sometimes the defining factors that will or will not move that dream to reality is a simple thing called fear. What happens if my dream actually comes true? How will I handle it? We must be willing to go out on a ledge and acknowledge the fact that what we imagined is coming true and then celebrate it, be joyful for it, feel gratitude. These are all the components that not only help you realize dreams, but help you appreciate them and dream more.

I think one of the things that folks don’t do is that they don’t dream big enough. They look at their current situation and decide that it is about as good as it will get. They don’t realize that our capacity for more is huge. We need to take that fear and turn it around. We need to understand that fear is just one of the components that we are always going to be running into. To turn dreams into reality you must first have the self-talk that says, “I can do it” and secondly, that the self-talk is saying “It’s coming to me, it’s being provided for me.” You also must have the self-talk that says, “I want to do this.” This is critical. Many people think of things but there isn’t much want to.

It is a matter of “I’m comfortable the way I am, so why should I grab more even though it is a dream of mine?” Once we have overcome the fear, once we realize that we have the want to, we must have the action. Dreams remain only dreams until action is put to them. When action is put to dreams, you have reality, and just imagine the reality of achieving a dream. It is something that we all want in our lives. We start out in life with high hopes, aspirations, goals, and yes, big dreams, but throughout the course of each segment of our life, we lose a component of that dream. We lose a segment that may be critical to moving it into reality. There comes a point, and maybe the point is right here reading this article, that you remove the fear, that you convince yourself of the want to, and you take action.

That last one, taking action, doesn’t have to be as difficult as it sounds. Sometimes people wait until all the pieces are in place before action is taken and sometimes people interpret action as being a huge project. Sometimes the smallest steps are the beginning to realizing a dream, so I say to you, take some time, look in a mirror and ask yourself “What are my dreams?” Take those first steps.

If you need guidance, accountability or just a mentor, click on the link below.

www.craigfergusson.com – Mini Workshops: “Purpose” & “Goal”

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The Brilliance of Life

In 1966 I had a profound experience that has remained with me throughout my life. I was fourteen years old at the time and, to my knowledge, I was off to an adventure that would be something different than I had ever known. Different in the fact that I had never been away from home that much and even though this was probably less than thirty miles away, it was still away from home and I was on my own. It was at Camp Sambica (I still remember the name) that we talked about dedicating our life to Christ, and I remember that for a while the thoughts were in one ear and out the other, until we had a campfire and expressed our commitments. Something powerful happened and my reality changed. I don’t know how to explain it; it was just that I knew I was on the right path and I had something to believe in. Although I had been going to church my entire life, all fourteen years of it, it never really impacted me as it did on that particular night.

The reason I bring this up is because our reality is shaped in so many different ways and my commitment at that point took many hits over the years as far as temptations and straying, but the basis for following a carpenter from 2000 years ago has always struck me as being something that was rather odd and why it was that one man would have such an effect.

As the years passed, I realized that the teachings of two things, love and learning, were the core of why I believed and why I followed. I have tried to take those core beliefs and apply them to other religions and find the love and learning there. Doing this has helped me understand the goodness of each one, and in finding that goodness, came tolerance and acceptance. It is interesting to go back and see, in a moment’s flash, the effect of a change of reality and what it can have on an entire life. Many people ask questions about different aspects of faith or religion, “what happens if”, “how can you justify this to that”.  I do not believe that it is my place to justify. My place is to accept what I believe, be true to my reality and try to have a perspective that is open to all. I do try to rationalize the different comments and how they apply to different social constructs and the events that occur within our world that seem to make no sense.

In every area of life there are events or occurrences that make no sense depending upon what your belief structure is or how you view life. If you view life as a struggle and as something that you are put here to simply get through, it is difficult to see the brilliance of life; however, if you look at it as a wondrous thing, for the time we are here, it should be a joy. In every situation, depending upon your faith and beliefs, you have the ability to see the joy or the happy outcome of whatever that situation might be.

We can look at all the world’s events and try to make sense of what is going on, but in the end, it comes down to each individual’s belief and how that impacts the overall global reality. If you have an attitude of love and learning, everything you look at or try to make sense of, you see as a learning experience, and, as in a previous blog, you really see what is going on, what went on, and what precluded the events that are happening.

I know personally that, many times, I wish I could have more of an impact on some of the events that precluded the actual occurrence. For now, I believe it is a matter of understanding who we are, and I allude to this in my workshop, that our purpose boils down to what is important to us. What is important to us isn’t necessarily global such as world peace but maybe is as simple as helping to guide our child to the next level in life and find happiness.  Or, doing what we can to assist our parents in having an old age that is full of contentment. In other words, our purpose in this life can be glorious, global and extravagant, or it can be simple, yet rewarding, depending upon what is important to us.

My advice to all is to find your brilliance in life by seeking the small as well as the large, truly loving, seeing and having an impact.  Your happiness will result in the learning and joy in the experience.

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