Be A Teacher

 Be a Teacher.  Pass on what you know. In other words, allow others to learn from you. Being a teacher does not necessarily mean you must sit people down and lecture to them about your opinions or beliefs.  That is not really teaching.  It is a different thing if you are a seminar speaker, or doing actual formal classes.  When I speak of being a teacher, teach by example. Answer questions rather than offering unsolicited advice.  Let them come to you. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Trying to teach anyone who is not ready is a waste of time and energy on both parts. 

Do not under any circumstances try to fake teaching something you do not know.  I know a lot of people who try to guide others and don't have a clue what they are saying. The blind leading the blind as it were. If someone comes to you seeking answers, sometimes the correct answer is "I'm sorry, I don't know".  You don't have to be a Guru.  No one will think less of you if you don't know. If you fake it, then you are just a snake oil salesman. 

Put ego aside, and allow people to learn from you. If I ask you, "What is the meaning of life? Maybe will you say "It is simple. You just be good to people and you will be happy..." That, of course is YOUR meaning (of life).  When I am asked a question like that, I may answer, "What does it mean to you?"  Ninety Percent of questions people ask they already know the answers to. They just have to be reminded that they already know it. 

Part of being a teacher to to always be a student. No one has all the answers. Wisdom comes from a conglomeration of different inputs. 

Zen Masters learn from many teachers. ZEN is not a religion. It is a series of understandings that lead to inner peace and understanding of all that which is around you. Always learn, Do not judge, do not let your ego lead you to thinking that you know everything. We have the knowledge inside us, but until we awaken the knowledge, we do not have it consciously. 

The same goes for being spiritual vs religious. I am not going to cheer for one side or the other.  Religious people believe one way, one truth. Spiritual people may have several beliefs based on several religions. They are, really two sides of the same coin.  Jesus, Buddah, Mohammed, (Obi Wan Kenobi) were all amazing teachers. When it comes down to it, we all want to treated by others the way we would treat them. TEACH goodness by example. Everything else will fall into place.

Please order and read my book: The Self Help Book for People Who Hate Self Help Books.

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God Bless and Pass on what you know.

If It Is Renting Too Much Space In Your Brain...Evict It!

 I had a coworker say to me, after a particularly frustrating day in car sales, "Don't let those people rent space in your brain for one more minute." 

I've held on to that over the years and have used that analogy many times. Whether it's coworkers, customers, relatives, or even things posted on Facebook or Twitter. If you take stuff on board and let it rent space in your brain that could be used for other things, you need to evict it!

The media, for all the cool stuff that's out there, is a perfect example of a vehicle that plants things in our mind and then keeps it in front of us. Even if we don't want to obsess over something, the media forces us to by keeping it in front of our face all the time. Whether it's politics, health, covid-19, vaccinations, how horrible things are in general, whatever it may be. We're in a society where forced obsession is the way of things, and it can be very scary. It's very hard to just let all of that go... but it can be done. 

If you can meditate or get inside yourself and center your being to where you can shut out all of the negative influences coming into your mind, you will find it much easier to let go of these things that you obsess about.

One thing you can do, is not watch the news or surf the internet... Facebook, Twitter, all those things where these negative influences come into your brain right before bed.

 The mind has a way, as you know if you've ever suffered from insomnia, of having everything in the world cave in on your brain all at once in the middle of the night. For some reason, that is the ultimate time to worry about shit. I have literally woken up in the middle of the night and thought about stuff to worry about that I would never think about during daylight hours. It's amazing the stuff that your mind can come up with. I try to tell it to stop thinking about it, and of course I start thinking about the fact that I'm not thinking about the thing I don't want to think about. It is, a vicious cycle.

There are many good meditations websites out there. But really all you need to do is find a good piece of meditation music on your music player, start it, close your eyes for 20 minutes and just concentrate on the music or the sounds of nature that are playing. If you find your mind wavering just bring it back to your main thought of "I am meditating nothing else is coming into my brain other than the music or the sounds of nature." There are a lot of guided meditations out there. I use the ones by Deepak Chopra a lot. 

I've heard it said many times that the brain cannot think two thoughts at the same time. If you're anything like me, your brain tries very hard to disprove that theory. Again meditation, zeroing in on one thought, one color in your mind, one sound of nature, will help you to get rid of all of those thoughts that are hammering into your consciousness. 

I heard a speaker in AA once referred to the thoughts in your brain as the committee. The committee will always try to convince you one way or another. Think of it as a bunch of old guys in white powdered wigs sitting across from each other and arguing why something is good and why it is not good. The committee will be the first to tell you why you should do something that's bad for you, and why you shouldn't do something that's good for you. I talk about the committee a lot in my book The self-help book for people who hate self-help books. 

Don't get these confused with voices in your head because that is a clinical diagnosis for a much deeper problem. Every human being has thoughts racing around that we seemingly have no control over. The only thing we can do is try to override those thoughts with other, hopefully better thoughts. 

Again you're not going to achieve this on the first day of rushing into doing a meditation. It will gradually, over several days or weeks, first become a habit, and become easier as you go along because you learn how to focus on the now. Remember that living in the now is the key to serenity and keeping yourself from obsessing over things that are beyond your control.

Please follow these links to my book The Self-Help book for people who hate self-help books. It's available on Amazon and also through nook, iBooks, and several other e-readers by clicking the link below. Have a wonderful day.

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