Expectations should be expected!

By Jeremy Brackett Namaste

As you may suppose, I am writing about expectations today because recently I set myself up with some great expectations and was left, of course, very disappointed. I had been looking forward to a nice 3 day mini-vacation for my birthday for quite a while, and in doing so failed to realize that by "looking forward" to some date in the future  I was immensely devaluing the present moment in which I was living. Because of the oversight of my hypocritical behavior, I believe the universe, or the creator of (me), was trying to communicate to me in a language that I might hear a little better, or that would get through, which was in the language of total disappointment. You see, as the date was nearing I "looked forward" to it more and more, and as I did it seemed to get even better. "Coincidentally", as if by magic, it was now materializing into an almost free trip to the exact place we were planning to go but hadn't found accommodations for yet! My brother offered, with only the best intentions, a free, massive house with all the amenities one could think of right on the lake. Wow, once that was confirmed, every time I "looked forward" to that trip I was basically absent from the present moment. And every time I am absent in the present moment it silently breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because in those moments of absence I robbed every person and circumstance of their value and significance and love from me. I also robbed myself many feelings of gratitude for the people and situations missed due to my absence, not to mention the most valuable of all things missed were any lessons that were there for me to learn, especially this one. The house was double booked, and then, the day before my birthday I got a sinus cold. We still had some fun, but felt very let down after picturing ourselves having a blast in Lake Tahoe.

With all that said, i now realize that attempting to live life without expectations is a huge challenge. Expectations are embedded into everything that is important. Important to who? Everyone. If it is important to you then you most definitely have some sort of expectations hovering around it somewhere. In fact, our brain is actually programmed to expect. When we turn the door knob we expect the door to open, so our brain programs that all we have to do is turn whichever type handle on the door and it will open. When I type the letter "w" i expect the screen to show me the letter "w", if it did not then I would be very disappointed.

Holidays, or Holy Days are very important to most people. And guess what? We have certain expectations for those days too. We absolutely look forward to those days, more and more so as they near. And our environment supports us in this. Think of all the holidays we are taught to look forward to as children.  Not sure why it is not a more well known topic, but what we learn as kids sticks with us and grows like a seed into a tree unless we uproot the mis-planted seed. And the problem arises when we are so looking forward to the future that our happiness depends on its arrival, and we are completely devaluing each present day, at that point, we are in need of some serious lessons. Lessons we never learned as children (not through the fault of our parents/guardians, but the fault of our entire world and our perception of it, including ourselves).

Don't get me wrong, holidays and special occasions are fantastic and it is great to know that they are coming and often times even fun when planning, but be careful with the planning and never get attached to an exact outcome. For example, when we are having a great time planning, that is a good thing, it means we are enjoying the present moment. If we are stressed out because we can't find a certain item or something we think is necessary for this plan for whatever event is coming up, we are not enjoying the moments up to the event, and in most cases cannot enjoy fully the event when it is happening in the moment. In order to fully enjoy the present moment we MUST BE PRESENT IN THAT MOMENT, not wondering if we planned well enough or if we should have done this or could have done that. THIS IS IT! The time is now, enjoy it to its fullest or be a critic, your choice.

Be thankful for the opportunities to feel more gratitude in the future, but stop there. Plan and prepare, but have gratitude for having something to plan and prepare for and enjoy that very moment of planning. In doing this we will almost certainly not be disappointed if something doesn't go the way we thought it would.Why? Because nothing was sacrificed. We weren't waiting to become happy, we were happy in those present moments of planning and preparation. We were happy and grateful for the possibility to feel more happiness and gratitude in the future, and we will remain happy if we learn to stay in and enjoy the present moment.

If we need a vacation or to get away from our routine in order to feel good, that is the same as taking a pill to remedy the pain of an injury or disease. But what happens when the medicine wears off? The pain comes back. Happiness is not a destination, it is a way of life. So if you feel like you NEED a vacation from your life, that is just the universe speaking to you through you, telling you that what you really NEED is to change your perspective, change your thoughts and beliefs, CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

How do we change our lives? With Questions. Question your thoughts and beliefs. Question when and where you got them and if they are still relevant. Do they provide more or less possibilities for happiness. Question your rules. Your rules for yourself and especially rules you have for how you feel others are supposed to think and act. Question everything about yourself. Until then you will never know who you are, what truly makes you happy and why. The answers will come to you from within, nobody else can answer these questions. Keep asking, keep learning. The more rules and beliefs we have that have not been examined for personal truth will only limit our possibilities for fulfillment and happiness.

Who Do You Think You Are????

By Jeremy Brackett

Who you think you are may not be who you really are…..

                

             Most people don’t know that they can change everything about themselves at any moment of their life. We have been taught that we are the way we are because of our genetics, abilities, upbringing, environments, etc., and that no matter how much we want it, we can never change who we are. I am here to tell you from personal experience that that is all B.S. (Belief Systems). When we are born our awareness of the world around us could be likened to the amount of light an unblocked, un-shaded powerful light bulb would emit, enough to light up the whole room. Yet when we are taught things that separate us from everything else in the world, like our name, our race, nationality, religion, social security, birthdate, we are building walls around that luminescent light until we become who we think we are and our bright light bulb turns into limited beam that only is aware of what falls within those walls of belief and opinion like a flashlight.

The moment you came out of your mother’s womb who were you? Most likely your parents had a name already picked out for you, which was then written down on a piece of paper with the date and another mysterious number. This piece of paper turns out to be one of the most important documents of your life, its purpose is to tell you who you are and where and when you came into this world. But more importantly it is the first physical piece of evidence that proves that you are separate from everyone and everything else on the planet. This certificate of birth which proves that you exist is who most people first associate with when they think of who they are. Is that really who we are? It cannot be. All those things; your name, social security number, birthdate, place of birth, etc. took years for us to associate with as our “identity”, and the two most important ones, our name and SSN were given to us, so you could say that those are actually only possessions. 

Most of us were not mindful enough at the time to realize any of this so we just went with the flow and trusted that those who were teaching us about this new life we just entered into knew best so why question it. Once we are able to learn who we are through our environmental influences is when our subconscious mind is born. When we accept information as absolute truth it gets immediately programmed into our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is there to streamline mental processes so that we don’t have to think about every single thing that is happening inside and outside us at every moment. When we learn to walk and everyone around starts cheering and clapping we then say to ourselves, “Alright, that is how I’m supposed to walk”, and we record those muscle movements into our subconscious mind so that later on we won’t have to go through the whole struggle of thinking about how to balance and which muscles to move at which time. The same goes for information. As children we learn who we are through our environment. Our families are the ones who make the first layer of foundation. For the most part in our younger years of about 7 and under we are tiny versions of our parents and/or guardians, although we have no idea why. Scientists have discovered how this happens through the use of a part of our brain called mirror neurons. When put under a pet scan we can see activity in a certain part of the brain when any action is taken,  for example;  a person eating a banana, when a child sees the other person eating a banana the same part of the child’s brain becomes active as if they were eating a banana as well.

As children we assume that everything we observe our closest influences do is what we are supposed to do, so we do our best to mimic the behavior. It is not until we see the consequences of these learned behaviors later in life that we begin to question or doubt what we have learned. It is then we can decide to change who we [think we] are or not.

The same way one would build a house, we build our identities. Our foundations are built by our belief systems. We lay down all the things we believe to be the truth and build up from there. We base our thoughts and emotions on those beliefs like floorboards and walk back and forth on that floor, sometimes for the rest of our lives. So if one has a very limited, closed minded belief system, they are then building a very small house to live the rest of their lives in. What if they want more out of life, but can’t seem to do anything about it? One cannot grow unless they open themselves up to new possibilities. The floor plan cannot be changed unless we rip through the floor of thought and emotion and go underneath to adjust the foundation; our lives will not change until we can change our thoughts and emotions and our thoughts and emotions cannot and will not change unless we first change what we believe. 

Blinded by your perceptions

I've written a lot about awareness and beliefs in the past posts, but it can't be expressed enough. Basically whatever it is that you put your attention on is what you see, hear, taste, smell and feel. For example, if you are chewing an apple but are putting no attention on the taste and instead focusing your attention on the movie you are watching, in that moment you are not tasting the apple. If you have a headache and something or someone makes you laugh hysterically, in the moment of laughter you actually won't feel your headache. Beliefs and awareness tie into this concept perfectly. Your beliefs are like a sort of long term attention and everything within your awareness is what your senses can sense. When I say that beliefs are like long term attention I mean that when you choose to believe something you are telling your brain and mind, "yes this is what I believe so always pay attention to this". This is how the brain is designed, for efficiency. It wants to be on auto-pilot as much as possible. But what happens when what we believe is limiting all that we can sense? Sometimes we even have the desire to sense different, better things and be in different and better circumstances, but we get frustrated and defeated and fail only because we couldn't change our beliefs. We couldn't change our perception.

If you want something and it just doesn't seem to be happening, it is not because it is impossible, it is because you don't believe it is possible. Somewhere deep in your mind there is a belief that is causing the inability to see more possibilities. Some peoples perceptions harm their finances, in that they don't believe they have what it takes to make more money. They don't believe in their capabilities. Some people's perceptions affect their relationships. A lot of people believe that people never change and in turn have a hard time with forgiveness and trust. A change in a person may have already begun, but it is not seen by those who don't believe it will ever happen.  There are many times in our lives when we actually have something we really wanted and asked for and we can't see it because of our blocked perception. You may even feel like you are a fairly open minded person, but still fail to see things in the moment. In my case it was my belief that I must always be growing and can get everything I want. I set my standards high and don't settle for anything less. But what happened was that I started to focus too much on how things can get better and lost focus of all the great things that were sitting right in front of me. Having gratitude for what we have is one of the best routes to completely open awareness and seeing the world and your life through new eyes, new perception.

What does it mean to be "realistic"?

Whenever someone says, or we say to ourselves that we need to be "realistic", it usually means that we are thinking too "outside the box", and they/we are trying to reel us back in. And sadly most times we think or speak of doing whatever it is that we have always dreamed of doing, a voice pops up either in our head or into our ears and says that's "unrealistic".

How can I even be writing these words on a "laptop computer" where it will be published somewhere on the "internet" through an invisible "wifi" connection? At some point in time not too long ago doing such a thing would be extremely "unrealistic".

In fact. none of the things that we have grown so accustomed to, which we now view as "realistic", would not even exist unless someone was having "unrealistic" thoughts and acting on them. Nothing would ever change. Even if the idea seemed plausible, the act of getting it done is often seen as "unrealistic".

Any successful person will agree that they only got that way by focusing on their goals and ignoring the noise of all the "realistic" thinkers and thoughts around them. Independent of the opinion of others.

This becomes most difficult when we don't realize the fact that those other opinions are often spoken to us when no one else is around. Any thought which arises in our own minds that intends to limit our very own potential are not our own thoughts, they belong to other people. We have unknowingly been borrowing--better yet, been infected with--these thoughts from each other since we were born. If you want have a different outcome or different life from those around you, then you MUST have different thoughts in your head. The only difference between the janitor and the CEO is the thoughts they think.

How do we change our thoughts? Easy, you don't. Everyone has both organic, evolutionary, positive, out for the greater good type thoughts (the ones which we call "unrealistic"), and the limiting, distorted, infectious, negative, I can't do it which means no one else can thoughts (which we refer to as "realistic").

The difference between the happy and the depressed, the successful and the failures, the healthy and the ill is which thoughts are paid the most attention, given the most emotion, and most believed. Successful people have thoughts of failure, healthy have thoughts of disease, and happy have thoughts of sadness, but they don't pay them any attention, they give them no emotion or energy, and they definitely have no belief in these thoughts; and vice versa.

The thoughts which are given the biggest portion of your attention, emotion, and belief are going to materialize and form who you are and how you live your life. After a while the thoughts you no longer pay attention to will become as quiet as a soft breeze, and their presence will only remind you of the amazing life you've created just by ignoring them. And vice versa, your positive, organic, inspired ideas will be drowned out by the overflow of negative, depressing, limiting thoughts and beliefs, and you will be left with a numb, stress filled, diseased existence. YOUR CHOICE!

What does it mean to be "unrealistic"?

It means you have a Successful State of Mind!

Limiting Ourselves...From Light Bulbs to Flashlights

The awareness we are all born with could be likened to the amount of light which a light bulb would emit in a dark room. As we grow older that bright, broad awareness is cordoned off by the boundaries which we put up on our own with the influence of our immediate environment, to the point where we have developed a walled off identity; our unbounded, radiant light from our original light bulb becomes restricted to that of a flashlight which only illuminates that which we put our attention on. In most cases our flashlight stays pointed in only one direction leaving the rest of the possibilities at bay.

How do we turn our flashlights back into light bulbs? How can we consciously open up our consciousness, illuminate our inner light and really understand how life should be lived?

The way we would physically open up the radiance of the flashlight is the same way we can enlighten our awareness, by simply peeling away the outer layers. The only way to peel away the layers of the identity which we have built our lives around is to begin to question everything about them and how they got there.

Most of the thoughts we think while going through the motions of our daily routine are not organic, original thoughts, they are borrowed. A more accurate statement would be that we are actually infected with these ever-flowing thoughts. It is only when we reach a place of inner peace and quiet where our own true thoughts make it to the surface. The saddest thing about this is that most people never reach that point in their lives. Most people go on vacation to get away from their hectic schedules, only to reach their destination with an itinerary of all the things they must do in order to be able to say they enjoyed themselves on their vacation to all their friends and co-workers. Instead of enjoying the feeling of the warm sun on their skin, they are only thinking of the jealous faces of those who wish they could "relax in the sun" on their own vacation.

In most cases people do momentarily have epiphanies with their own true thoughts and desires, but those other infectious thoughts end up rejecting anything and everything in opposition. For example, if I have the desire to become a successful writer, singer, actor, athlete, etc., and desire to become the best in the business, almost instantaneously an opposing thought will pop up and tell me, "that's probably not likely so don't try it, in fact don't even waste any more time thinking about it. Forget about it. It will never happen." These opposing thoughts are so strong in most of us they will keep us from having our own organic, evolutionary insights. The reason they become so dominant is because they are exercised more, we are exposed to much more negativity than positivity in our everyday lives.

Many psychologists have studied these thought patterns which infect all of us at one point or another and have even come up with the names The Sub-Conscious Mind, Memes, or Virus of The Mind. All three have basically the same definition: thoughts and thought patterns which pass from mind to mind and control the behavior and lifestyle choices of those who are exposed. They can be positive or negative, though most seem to fall in the latter category. Through their research they have found much information on how they form and affect us, but not much on how to combat, control, or uproot and change them. 

Eastern cultures have found a pretty fool proof way to rid themselves of these mind viruses or unwanted thought patterns. They very simply remove themselves from anyone or anything which might be infectious. Buddhist monks live in monasteries, Indian sages and gurus similarly exclude themselves from society and even family ( the most influential carriers of the virus), and hide out in caves for years on end.

When trying to figure out how to uproot and erase some of my negative "memes" I felt that hiding out in caves and monasteries to be a bit extreme, and also it makes me feel like by doing so I would be giving too much power to these memes. My question was, why can't we enjoy some of the luxuries and conveniences of modern life and still have power over our own minds, thoughts, actions, feelings, lives? And the answer, for me, was/is the combination of meditation, questioning everything, and learning as much as possible about those questions and answers everyday for the rest of my life.

Meditation

I think that meditation is the most important thing one can do to change their life, thoughts, feelings, and actions for the better. For me meditation allows me to step away from my self, my thoughts, my life and look back and examine whether who I am is who I want to be. I can see where I am making mistakes, which thoughts and behaviors are limiting me from becoming who I want to be. I can see exactly what it is that I am doing that is keeping me from the abundant, successful, happy, healthy life which I desire. There is so much more that meditation can do for us in our lives and actual scientific studies that prove it. The key to success in real estate is location, location, location and the key to a healthy, happy, successful life is MEDITATE, MEDITATE, MEDITATE!!

Question everything about yourself and your life. EVERYTHING!

Curiosity and meditation automatically go hand in hand. I think in order to even think of starting a meditation practice in your life, some questioning must have taken place before hand. And once the practice has begun your curiosity will begin to overtake you. In my case, the questioning began due to the fact that I was unhappy and unsatisfied not so much with my life, but with the thoughts in my head and the inability to control them. Luckily I was able to start my questioning before any drastic results had appeared in my physical world due to my negative thoughts. But in general, I think that is the way it works. In order to begin questioning one's own life, thoughts, actions, etc., one must be unhappy or disappointed with the results of such, and desire a new and different outcome. The trick is that these viruses will prompt us question the outside influences rather than inside at our own selves. In order to change our lives on the outside we MUST know that it is all coming from inside of us. No exceptions!  It is a meme or thought pattern which makes us look outward to blame. Once you begin this process of questioning and meditation you will begin to unravel and peel away the thick layers of the thoughts, beliefs and ideas which brought you to exactly where you are now. Your light will begin to brighten and illuminate more possibilities that never even existed to you in the past.

NEVER STOP LEARNING!
We are either growing or dying, and learning is the foundation of growth.

The final step is to learn as many new things as possible concerning the questions which came up in meditation and in the analysis of who you are and who you want to be. By doing so you will begin to train your mind to think different thoughts and introduce positive and evolutionary thought patterns. Just as movement is inherent in the wind, thought is inherent in consciousness. We will always think thoughts, even in meditation. Some think that meditation is supposed to stop us from thinking, at least that is what I thought. What I have found is that meditation is almost like a filter which cleans up the distortion of unhealthy mind viruses. Meditation lets us access those beautiful, loving, productive, pure awareness thoughts which are absolutely necessary for us to have in order to reach our full potential in our lives. So it is only natural that learning as much new information as possible about all the possibilities which are available to everyone will lead us closer to the lives which we would love to be living. Like I said, we cannot simply stop thinking negative, unhealthy thoughts, in order to change our lives we must change our thoughts, because thought is the precursor to EVERYTHING!!!

ILLUMINATE YOUR LIFE......MEDITATE.....QUESTION EVERYTHING......NEVER STOP LEARNING!!!!!!!!!!

Who are we?

Are you a mother, father, husband, wife, sister, brother, friend, boss, employee, teacher, student, doctor, patient, leader, follower, etc.?

These are just a few of the roles which each of us play on a daily basis. And most of us are actually completely different people in each of these roles. We have all created different characters to fit into each of these separate realities in which we live. It is hard to believe that even though it is seemingly one single existence, we can be so many different people throughout the course of a single day.

Why do we do this?

I think the best explanation could be so that we can please others. Most people feel the need to be polite and to not say or do anything which might make someone else feel uncomfortable, even if it means you can't be "yourself". We also act certain ways to make others like us. This happens with most job interviews and first dates. Instead of being ourselves, we pretend to be the person that we think our potential new boss or significant other wants us to be.

This is all to the good when we create a role which we strive to be like. If I want to be more intelligent, articulate, and more professional in my life and I pretend that those are my only qualities, say at work, eventually I will start to become that way the more I act that way. Our personalities build the same way our muscles do, through repetition they grow stronger and more prominent. But what happens when one of my roles leads me to behave in ways which I do not care for and I know is not causing me to grow as a person?

This is where playing different roles becomes an issue. What happens is that after a period of time we begin to actually become these different characters whenever we are in the circumstances in which they were created. That is where the problem begins. When we become one of our characters in those situations it limits our personal growth in life. The reason we fall victim to this process is because of the way our brain is designed. Our brains are designed to streamline all responses to all situations, constantly looking for similarities and patterns when anything takes place so that if/when it takes place again it can respond accordingly with an automatic response without exerting as much energy . It is the way we learn everything, after a while of having to consciously think about doing whatever it is we are learning we no longer have to spend so much energy and attention to do it; like swimming or driving. But what happens when that automatic response is negative and propels us in the opposite direction of our pronounced personal development? We get stuck.


There are a few ways out of getting stuck in old patterns due to conditioned responses of roles we played in the past. First we can simply stop putting ourselves in the circumstances in which we play that role. This is the most simple remedy but also the most difficult, because it forces us to abandon possibly important relationships with our long time friends and family. But it is the route which Buddhist monks and Buddha himself took; they left everything that might remind them of their old life and personalities so that they could completely transform themselves body, mind, and spirit.


Another approach to get unstuck is to just be "yourself" no matter what. Don't be afraid to make others uncomfortable, because in reality it is them who are making themselves uncomfortable due to their own ideas and beliefs. Not that you should argue or force your way of being on others, but just be who you think is your true self in all situations. This is a dangerous strategy due to the fact that you may burn your bridges with people who feel they should be important to you. 


In my life I have found that the best method for me is to attempt to remain as the observer. This process takes a lot of practice. Meditation is the best way get to this point. In order to remain as the observer we must be able to meditate during everyday life. We must watch our every thought and action and make sure they are in line with who we want to be. When we enter a familiar situation with people who may not understand the changes which we want for ourselves we must not either force our new ways of thinking on them or sink back into and become that old role with its former patterns of thinking/being. Another problem I have come across is that when we start to change and become more aware or enlightened in our lives, we naturally want the same for our loved ones. We want them to change with us and understand our new awareness of life and how it should be lived. So we then start to tell them that their way of living is not in their best interest with the intention of making them happy. This never works.  I always want to make sure everyone I come into contact with is as happy as possible. The challenge with this is that we are all on different levels of awareness. Sometimes I really would like to just shake people out of their sleepwalk, but in most cases, that is rarely effective. Everyone needs to learn their lessons on their own, in their own way. Once we can accept this it will be much easier to just be compassionate and supportive instead of trying to prove our point of view. So to be able to remain as the observer, knowing who you really are and what you want, you will be able to just sit back and BE.

Obstacles and Challenges are Life's Greatest Teachers

"Why is this happening? What did I do to deserve this? How can I get out of this? Why me?"

These are our first reactions to life's challenging situations. We make ourselves a part of the situation, and in most cases, the victim. Nothing can make us a victim. Just like everything else in our lives, we choose to be victimized or not. When we are unable to step away from situations in our lives and look at it from an outside perspective, unconsciously we will always choose the role of the victim. 

Being able to step away from our "selves" is the best, and I think the only, way to fully grasp the real meaning of any given situation. It allows us to make better decisions in the moment so that less and less of the bad situations arise. I'm sure you've heard the saying "hindsight is 20/20", well why wait till the hindsight kicks in if we can be 20/20 with our decisions NOW?

Once we can step out side of ourselves, the questions which arise in those same situations will change to: "What decision did I make to bring this about?" and, "What can I learn from this situation so that I can grow and make different decisions to create a happier, healthier life?"

As long as we continue to point outward and blame others for everything negative which comes up in our lives, we will continue to create more and more of those "bad" circumstances. We will never grow and prosper if we act like we are not responsible for every one of our thoughts and actions. And what happens when things stop growing? They start to wither and die. So the choice is either blame the world around you and wither or take responsibility for your life and everything in it and grow into a better version of yourself.

"When we succeed we celebrate, when we fail we ponder."