Everything Boils Down To Love

On July 20th the 45-day challenge started at Boundlessliving.com (see previous post for more details).
The challenge I chose was to improve my interaction with my son Pedro.
Although we do have an excellent relationship, we had started talking bad to eachother and I was yelling at him with certain frequency.
So, the challenge I put to myself was to change that interaction and go back to the peaceful mode we had had for the first 5 years of our relationship.

When I decided on the challenge, I thought it was going to be super tough.
The difficulty I felt was based on the fact that the interaction I've learned with my own parents and the rest of the family has been one of shouting and yelling and bad talking.

However, I surprised myself when the whole interaction changed in... 24 HOURS!
And it's 100% honest: 24 hours took me to turn that around and transform the aspects of the interaction that I noticed had changed and were not positive.

Now, you'll probably think: that is only 9 days ago. Yes, it's only 9 days ago but I know that I've already found the tools to do things the right way and 8 days are a reasonable period to claim victory :)

My love for Pedro was never in doubt. I adore my son. However, in order to change that interaction -which had gone down the road of lack of respect- what I had to do was to put love before everything else. As simple as that. And it worked.

If you are reading this and you have come up to here reading, I guess there is something in this post that calls your attention. If what calls your attention is that you may have a relationship with aspects to improve, here is my advice, based on my very recent experience:

1. List the aspect(s) that you want to improve.
2. Make a commitment with yourself that you'll improve it.
3. Think (and list) ways to improve it and
4. Put them into practice. You may try some unsuccessful, but I bet you'll hit the nail on the head with others.

Here is what I discovered about myself during these 9 days of the challenge:

a. I thought that the bad-approach family inheritance conditioned me much more than it really does.

b. I realized that I didn't have my priorities clear when it came to my relationship with Pedro: I gave the same importance to his happiness and his teeth brushing, for example.

c. I realized that putting the limits was a conflict to me. Sometimes because I wasn't sure those limits were reasonable. Other times because I knew that putting the limits would bring consequences that I didn't want to face. As I was not "at ease" with the limits I was putting, the result was argument and discussion. Once I cleared that up, everything changed into something amazingly smooth and peaceful.

d. Whenever I felt the discomfort which comes before losing my temper, to call it somehow, I could stop and take a closer look at that discomfort. What was the real cause? And the cause was always about me, not about Pedro. Seeing that helped me approach Pedro in a loving way. The only right way to address a son.

I really hope that if you have any relationship you want to improve, you find in this post the spark to take action. I'm sure this experience that has been so valuable to me, may not apply to other situations. However, I'm also sure that

1. Stating the situation clearly

2. Deciding on which action to take and

3. Taking action

will work for you too!


Cheers!
Patricia

Nature Amazes Me

No words needed.

Living Now. Enjoying Now.

The picture above was taken by me at one sunrise, when a new day was starting, at 6:56 AM on January 24th, 2007. I left the date and time on purpose.
The picture transpires the new-day feeling, full of new possibilities. A day that is going to unfold in unexpected ways in some hours but that is happening right now too.

I've been reading and reading about things people want to improve in their lives. Approaches change a little, from the claiming and whining mode to the positive cheering mode, but they (we) all have one thing in common: we are looking forwards something different. We have intents, goals, expectations of what we want to achieve.

At the same time we all know that the key factor to achieve those goals is to feel good.

Wanting more is all very well. It's how we improve and grow in many senses!

However, I believe it's super important to enjoy what we have today, as what we have today was in most of the cases yesterday's dreams and desires. Attracted by us, for sure.

Let me give you the example of my present state of affairs and how this is exactly what I wanted at certain points in the past.

1. When my son Pedro was 1 year old I wanted very much to have a secure job with a fix income.
2. When Pedro was 2 I wanted him to grow up enough to go to the bathroom alone.

Today I'm living both realities! I do have a secure job and he doesn't wear diapers anymore, of course.

But do I feel grateful about that? Well, about the job, sometimes. About no-more-diapers, I completely forgot I once wanted and needed that!!!

What I notice is that once we have something, we just take it for granted and we rush to want new things, sometimes things opposed to what we wanted in the first place. Again, it's great to want other things, but we run the risk of missing to enjoy what we have already achieved that we wanted in the past!

Think about your life today: are you living a reality now that at some point in the past was just an intent, a goal, a desire?
Remember how you felt at that time and enjoy having achieved it!
The rewarding and fulfilling feelings that you'll feel will certainly vibrate at the frequency of achievements, of gratefulness, of joy and will have nothing to do with distress or limiting beliefs. On the contrary!

Of course you'll jump to intend a new thing from this new set-point, and that's ok. But don't forget to first enjoy what you have!

For example, at present it is my goal to become a professional drummer. Fantastic goal, fantastic intent. That's all looking forwards and it's great because that future image I'm picturing in my brain today is going to materialize tomorrow.

Yet, today I am super grateful and joyful because one year ago I was wishing I had a hobby, something that would cause passion in me. And I didn't have any at that time and I wasn't even thinking about retaking something I had almost forgotten in the 18 years I had not played. You see what I mean? The gap between the two situations is huge and I've achieved my desire and probably surpassed it too, in a way.

Right now my playing needs improving in a million of ways and of course I intend to improve my playing enormously. That is looking forwards, towards the future.
While, if I look at today, there is a sidereal (*) number of enjoyable aspects of the present situation: I'm having lots of fun, I'm learning permanently, I'm discovering my musical taste on the drums, I'm finding new postures of my body while playing, and last but not least: I have all these expectations of what the future will bring regarding my playing! The music Universe is my catalogue right now. That is something precious. An awesome feeling that will obviously disappear once I'm playing with my famous band.

So, do you want to find love? Do you want to earn more money? Do you want to start a new business? Do you want to move to a new sunny flat? ;) Go visualize your goal and do what you know is needed to materialize that. But also stop and see what you have today and how great that is too.

(*) Aaron: I had previously invented this word's spelling *shame*.
Sidereal: "Of or calculated by the stars. Sidereal measurements of time are based on the sidereal day, equal to 23 hours 56 minutes 4.09 seconds.
Fig. meaning: "huge".

Let's Share The Good Stuff

:)




How often have you been called by friends to tell you about a big problem they have?
How often during any conversation a friend has told you how he would like things to be different? About the things he doesn't like about his life or circumstances? And that comes combined with some feelings of frustration, distress, worriness, etc.
How often have you started a casual conversation in a public place and gotten engaged into critics of politicians, listings of how polluted the world is and other low-vibrating feeds.

As a listener, you react in different ways during the interaction, sometimes cheering up, sometimes with empathy and sometimes talking about your own frustration.

How do you feel when you go away?

..., yeah :(

What happens when you meet someone who has just arrived from a wonderful trip and tells you all the exciting experiences he had, the wonderful people they met, the new places they knew and the awesome stuff they bought? How do you feel when you go away from that meeting?
Or when a friend tells you how he has just been unexpectedly promoted?
Or met the love of his life around the corner?

..., yeah!:)

Now, what experience do you have more often? The first or the second?

OK, and what kind of stuff do YOU share with your friends and people you find in your daily life? The good or the bad stuff?

A person I love told me not long ago: "People are quite selfish about sharing their happiness but quite democratic in the distribution of their miserableness".

Well this post is an invitation to those of you who can realise the difference in the effect you cause to turn that equation around and make a change in our listeners' moods, vibrations and therefore lives. I'm inviting you (and myself) to be generous and cause a good effect. This alone could change the world! (Nope, I know what you're thinking... I don't have plans to become Miss Universe, though my beauty of course would enable me to get there!).

Communication is something that happens between Person A and Person B. Something said by Person A is received by Person B who reacts, and so on. The generosity I'm talking about will without any doubt, in this model, have an influence in yourself too! Because that's how it works in interaction.

So: Be generous and be selfish. Combine the two and go talk about the good stuff!

P.S. I want to send a special thanks to generous people I know, who always share their good stuff. Thanks Jordan. Thanks Gary. Thanks Aaron. Thanks Thea. Thanks Carolina. Thanks Pedro. Thanks mum. You are a source of inspiration. Thank you for that and for giving me the possibility to enjoy your happiness with you.

45-day challenge at Boundless Living Dot Com

An exciting project!

Just in case you haven't received the information from some other source, I invite you to participate in a 45-day challenge that Bob Doyle (who you probably remember from the film "The Secret") is launching. Everything is FREE with absolutely NO COST.
The challenge starts on July 20th and the whole concept behind this is to have accountability partners who will support you to be successful at your challenge.

My experience with accountability partners has been great, so I bet that having thousands of potential accountability partners looks at least very promising.

Though you can join the challenge at any time, it will finish 45 days after July 20th and there's some learning to do before you embark in the real thing: like learning to handle the site a little bit, look for information, listen to the teleconference he gave yesterday and inviting and accepting friends in the community. Also making up your page, with some information about you and your challenge. Therefore, if you would like to join, it would be wise to do it asap.

If you do, let me know! So I can add you as my Friend in my page.

The site to go for general information AND FOR REGISTRATION (Bob says this every two seconds) is ONLY the following: http://www.boundlessliving.com/

Wishing you much success with your challenge,

xo

A Magical Place: Piriápolis

Piriápolis is one of the places I consider home. People say it is energetically high. I loved the place long before I heard about energy at all. It has that wonderful combination of hills and blue sea. People live in slow motion. Sunsets are always colourful and marvellous. And you can breathe super clean air.



Pedro and me have gone to the Hotel Argentino once a year for the past 3 years. The hotel is beautiful. It has the good quality of age. This is a nice shot I took of the stairs:



These pictures were taken in September 2006, when Pedro was about to turn 7. Today I found this video from that trip too, which shows my sweet "baby" (he hates me when I call him that way). I'm afraid some of you won't understand a word but I know you get his sweetness all the same.

http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=6627489441357768513


This past week we had the chance to go there again for a few days. The weather behaved amazingly well with us! It looked like spring, though it was mid winter.

I had two new experiences that I seriously recommend to people who like meditating or playing the drums -or both.

I practised (single stroke, double stroke, paradiddles, flams, etc.) on a blanket placed on a chair, with me facing the ocean. Wow. Well... yes, if you are a drummer too, you get the picture of how much my wrists hurt the following day... ;) but apart from that, the experience of "playing" looking at the ocean was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I imagine how much creativity you can get if you have a real drumset facing the real ocean!

And the second thing I experimented and loved was to meditate with the sounds of the real ocean as the background music. It is completely different to be in real contact with nature while meditating than being inside a room in the city listening to waves recorded by someone else, somewhere else, at some other time.

How To Choose The Right Teacher

I just come from the very best moment in my week: my drums lesson. It's undoubtedly the highest point of my week.

What makes it so?

Well, what I value most is having met that fantastic human being that is my teacher.

He is indeed an outstanding musician, one of the best drummers in Uruguay, and most probably in the world. But does that make him the best teacher for me? No, absolutely not.

What makes him such a good teacher for me, then?

* First and most important: he is pro at motivation! He is always focusing on what I do well, on the improvement I make, no matter how small, on noticing subtle positive differences and making them big to my eyes.

* He is super respectful, polite and warm.

* He makes you feel that you will make it. What he transmits is his conviction that you will get to the place you want to get. And of course, as he is convinced, your own conviction gets steadier.

* He is calm. There is no hurry but the pace is kept and you advance.

* He challenges me, suggesting steps that sometimes look too high at first sight, but later prove to be just what I needed to keep the interest.

* And to my ultimate delight and infinite amazement, today he said THE SENTENCE which generates my total respect for a teacher: he said that we should head in the direction when I can continue studying on my own and he wants to give me the tools to do so, by teaching me how to study some methods.

Now, what does all this have to do with you?

If you are the kind of person who likes learning, you'll probably be many times in the situation where you'll be looking for a teacher: a teacher of a second language, an html teacher, a gardening teacher, a personal trainer or any other person who knows more than you about anything you want to learn and is willing to instruct you.

The purposes for this post are basically two:

1. To show my gratitude to both the Universe and my teacher for this fantastic experience.
2. To help you find the right teacher for yourself or your children.

My recommendation is that you look for:

- A motivation pro.
- A person who shows respect, politeness, warmth and care for the student.
- A person who is calm but goes forward.
- A challenger.
- A person who believes the learning process will never end and he's responsible to give his students the tools to keep on learning by themselves, forever. This last point implies that the person in question has to be truly GENEROUS.

Don't let fame or a name blind you. The best teacher is not necessarily the best performer or the best professional. Teaching is a completely different story. It requires knowledge of the subject to be taught, of course, but if the above qualities are not present, your learning will suffer it.

Are you learning anything right now with a teacher?
Does he or she have the characteristics above?

If not, do ponder changing your teacher!

It is such a magnificent feeling when you find the right teacher, that it is certainly worth taking the time and making the effort to find the right one.

Here is to learning and to those generous people who are excellent teachers!

A Video Not To Miss: "The Story of Stuff"

with Annie Leonard

My friend Lourdes sent it to me some days ago and I thought: "Aw, 20 minutes is too long..." and I left it aside waiting for the right moment, when I could use 20 minutes of my precious time to watch a video about "stuff".

Today my son made a comment on my having 81 messages to be read in my in-box and I decided to clean it a little bit. And again, that e-mail with the 20-minute video appeared before me.

"Well, what the..., I'll waste those 20 minutes watching this... but I'll see... if it's boring, I'll drop it off and that's it".

Do you think I would post it here if it wasn't worth watching it from scratch to end?

Nope.

OK, go and watch it yourself. I swear you won't repent. And I'm pretty sure you'll resend it to your contacts too. Hopefully US people. Though I must admit in Uruguay we have the same sympthoms.

Do click:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/

And you know what? After watching it, I discovered why 20 minutes of my time is something so difficult to find... :) -though I must say I don't watch TV... but I guess internet surfing is just more of the same.

The Secret con subtítulos en español

Gracias a Priscilla Mcintire

Priscilla Mcintire de http://priscillamcintire.com publicó hoy un link donde se puede ver la película The Secret completa, gratis y ¡con subtítulos en español!

Es gracioso, porque para ella los subtítulos son una inconveniencia, y para muchos lectores de este blog van a ser una bendición. :)

Que lo disfruten! Esta película es una joyita. Recomiendo verla más de una vez.

http://priscillamcintire.com/2008/07/01/watch-the-secret-free-here-on-this-site