 Years ago, in my early days of taking classes at my spiritual center in Oakland, California, my teacher made this odd statement: “I can tell you what you believe just by visiting your house and looking around.” I call it odd because at the time, I thought, how in the world could she know what I believe just by looking around my home? Yet, the more I considered her statement, the more I realized how wise she was. Think about your own home for a minute. If someone walked in and took a look around, what would they intuit about you? Do you keep your place clean and organized, or are there places of untidiness? What kinds of books or reading materials do you keep in your shelves? What kinds of food do you have in your refrigerator and your cupboards? What do you have on your walls, if anything? The spiritual lesson she was teaching in class that day was that your environment mirrors your thoughts and beliefs. If you valued living a healthier lifestyle, your kitchen most likely would reflect healthier kinds of foods. If you had a strong belief in relationships, your home might be adorned with photos of family members and loved ones. If you loved travel and adventure, you could have mementos of your travels speckled throughout your home. If you followed a religious or spiritual tradition, you might find an altar, a crucifix or a book reflecting this. Now, you might be asking yourself, how is this a spiritual lesson, that your environment mirrors your thoughts and beliefs? Well, it starts to make more sense spiritually when you extend the idea that it’s not just your home that mirrors your thoughts and beliefs. Your entire life is a reflection of what you truly believe. In my life coaching work, I meet a number of people who feel unfulfilled with (and sometimes loathing) the work they do. When I ask what’s stopping them from finding work that’s more fulfilling and meaningful, the usual response is, “I can’t leave my job. How will I pay my bills?” The underlying belief is that this particular job is the only source of income to sustain them, and that they wouldn’t be able to find something else that supports them in this way. This belief stops many from even looking at the possibility of other kinds of work. Inner beliefs have a direct correlation to a person’s real life experiences. In other words, your outer world is a mirror of your inner world. Whether in your work, your home, your finances, your relationships, your health or in other areas of your life, what you experience and how you experience it reflect your own beliefs. For example, if you spend time cultivating inner peace by meditating and reading uplifting books, most likely your life would reflect your ability to experience more peace in your daily life. On the other hand, if your inner world feels chaotic and ungrounded, more than likely your outer life would reflect some level of turbulence. That being said, if you’re not happy with what you are experiencing in your outer world, then the logical step would be to shift or change what’s happening in your inner world. Change your beliefs, change your life. I know it sounds simple, and possibly trite…a slogan that you can put on a bumper sticker. Yet, some spiritual truths are really that simple. And I get that it’s not always easy. One of the first steps to changing your beliefs is to see what beliefs might be there in the first place. Now, you might be wondering, “Well, how am I supposed to change if I don’t know what I believe?” If you’re pondering this question, here’s an exercise for you. Pick an aspect of your life that isn’t really working for you. It doesn’t have to be anything huge. Some examples could be that you’re finding yourself so busy that you don’t have time to exercise, or you’re having problems with that one person in your office. It could be anything. Then, spend some time asking the question, “What might be my beliefs about this situation?” With the example of finding yourself too busy to exercise, one person might respond, “Well, I’m so busy because I have to work. That’s why I don’t have time to exercise. And work comes first because I have to pay the bills. But if I hear myself saying work comes first, then I guess I’m saying that my health comes second. Hmm…I didn’t realize that’s what I’m really believing but that’s how it’s showing up.” No matter what comes up, see if you can have some compassion and non-judgment about the situation. Sometimes what arises might not be what you want to hear, but it’s still important to see emerges. Then, you get to see whether those beliefs serve you or don’t serve you, and whether you want to keep those beliefs around or not. When you consciously choose to let go of beliefs that no longer serve you, you can then choose to cultivate a new belief that better aligns with what you want to experience. Here’s the spiritual truth: whatever you truly believe, the Universe says yes. That’s because you and the Universe are not separate. All the Power, Love, Joy, Good and Possibility that is the nature of this Universe is your very nature as well. Infinite and abundant good is always available to you. Always. Yet, there's a caveat. This good is available to you at the level that you believe that you can accept it and receive it. This good is available to you at the level that you believe you are equal to it. Your home reflects your beliefs. Your life reflects your beliefs. Imagine if you elevated your consciousness and you in your inner world truly believed that Power, Love, Joy, Good and Possibility are your inherent birthright. Your outer world could do nothing but match the same high level of vibration of your inner world. Then watch your home, and your life, shift to align to that greater good. What a sight that would be to behold. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. A little about me... My unique ability is helping people figure out what’s really holding them back and to fully support them in a safe and sacred space, with the result of people feeling excited about life and believing they can claim the driver’s seat of their lives. I've been called the "Aha Whisperer." If you’re feeling the need for support in creating a life filled with more spaciousness, purpose and joy, I offer a complimentary life coaching consultation that may provide you with the insight and resources you need in this moment. To learn more about this, click here.  Have you ever set your intention to experience something, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, it happens? And you’re caught by surprise? During one of my recent coaching sessions, one of my clients set the intention that she wanted to be a public speaker. She felt this urgent calling to share her message and her ideas with the world. Soon enough, a podcast host reached out to her to ask her to speak on her show…and my client didn’t even tell the host that she was looking to do more public speaking. Another client shared with me his desire to find new work that felt more impactful and aligned with where his heart was calling him to serve. Out of the blue, an offer to apply to a job showed up, one that fit the parameters of exactly what he was looking for and that also felt exciting to him. For some reason, surprising experiences like these are common both with my individual coaching clients and with the students who participate in my workshops and classes (especially my Vision Board workshop!). A couple years ago, during my Re-Write Your Money Story program, all of the participants had delightful surprises show up. One client had most of his trip’s expenses to Bali covered, while another person was offered a free hot tub for his backyard! I remember saying to myself at the time, “I don’t know why these surprises keep on showing up for my clients, but something must be working.” And I didn’t know why, until recently. In the book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One, Dr. Joe Dispenza writes about these kinds of surprises. Dispenza notes that these surprises are actually signs of your growth and the expansion of your consciousness. He makes this point: Say you want to experience something in your life and you know exactly how it’s going to happen, and it ends up happening just the way you planned it. When this happens, Dispenza argues that you’re not really growing as much as you could. You see, when things unfold in this pre-determined way, you most likely came up with the plans based on how you’ve experienced something similarly in the past, or based on pre-conceived notions of how things were supposed to happen. On the other hand, when you’re surprised by an outcome, it’s most likely an indication that you didn’t know what was going to happen or you didn’t believe it was going to happen. The surprise is a sign that you expanded your understanding of what’s possible. Your surprise creates new neural pathways in your brain that help you open to possibilities. The surprise gets you out of a routine or a rut, and invites you to think about your life differently. One affirmation I experimented with many years ago was this: “I am open to delightful surprises today.” (At first my affirmation was “I am open to surprises today,” but I realized that I only wanted delightful surprises!) Each morning, I would say my affirmation and set the intention to be surprised at some point in my day. Sometimes I would purposefully look out for the surprises, saying to myself, “Okay, where are you now, my delightful surprise? I haven’t experienced you yet!” Other times I would forget that I came up with that affirmation. Inevitably, though, something delightful would happen that day, and I would be reminded about my affirmation. Here’s the thing, too. The surprise and delight don’t have to be ground-breaking or huge. They could be something seemingly small in the scheme of things. I’ll give you an example of what happened to me this morning. As I walked to my co-working space this morning, I made a mental note to speak to the support staff to see if they could buy oat milk to have available for our coffee, in addition to the half-and-half, soy and almond milk we already have. (FYI, oat milk isn’t very common in the United States right now. I first tasted oat milk in Europe last year and have been looking for it ever since I came back. Then I discovered that Target started selling it recently, so now I’m a happy camper!) After I made my mental note to make this request, I walked over to get my cup of coffee and, lo and behold, there was a carton of oat milk sitting right there in the refrigerator! Surprise and delight! Here’s the spiritual truth: The Universe wants you to experience more good in your life, because that is its nature. Life is abundantly good, and it is always seeking to express more of that good through you! What stops you from experiencing more good in your life are your own limits to what you think you deserve. And here’s the secret formula: Your job is to get clear on “what” you want and to up-level your consciousness so that you believe you are “equal” to “what” you want. It’s then up to the Universe to take care of the details for “how” it shows up. Sometimes the Universal “how” shows up as inspirational ideas for you to take action. Other times it shows up as actual people “out of the blue” offering you new opportunities or insights. When you plant the seed of your intention into the field of infinite possibilities and when you believe you are equal to those possibilities, you open to the myriad ways that good can show up, many of which are probably ways you might not have ever imagined. For your assignment this week, play around with the idea of being willing to be surprised, and being equal to the great surprises in store for you. That’s it. And watch as delightful surprises begin showing up right before your eyes. Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. A little about me... My unique ability is helping people figure out what’s really holding them back and to fully support them in a safe and sacred space, with the result of people feeling excited about life and believing they can claim the driver’s seat of their lives. I've been called the "Aha Whisperer." If you’re feeling the need for support in creating a life filled with more spaciousness, purpose and joy, I offer a complimentary life coaching consultation that may provide you with the insight and resources you need in this moment. To learn more about this, click here.  One of the key lessons I shared in my recent “Living Life Unapologetically” Signature Talk is that there’s a cost to you not living life on your own terms. I see this “cost” so often when I meet with people who are interested in my spiritual life coaching services. A couple years ago, someone named Jesse came to see me after meeting me at a social event. When we sat down, she unloaded a whole torrent of pain and anguish. “I don’t know how I got here,” she told me. “I took this job years ago as a stepping stone to doing what I really wanted to do, but somewhere along the way, ten years just flew by. TEN YEARS!!!!” “I hate my job. It sucks the life out of me,” Jesse grumbled. “I’m stressed out all the time, I’m fighting with my partner, and now my doctor tells me that I might have an ulcer. I can’t take this anymore, but I don’t know what to do. I’ve invested so much time and energy in this company. If I really did what I wanted to do, I’d be starting all over again from scratch. I can’t do that either!” What became clear as I continued in my conversation with Jesse is that she had this idea of how she was going to live her life, but somewhere along the way she veered off her path. And now, she was paying the price. The “cost” to not living your life on your own terms can show up in different ways. The cost could be to your health, where you get sick, you get stressed out, you get dead tired and feel no energy to do anything except watch tv when you get home. Some people try to numb the deadening feeling by turning to things that help them forget, like drinking, or drugs, or food, or porn, or gambling. The cost could be to your relationships, where you find yourself having more fights with those that are near and dear to you, or you find that you don’t have any time for any meaningful relationships. The cost could be to your finances, where you turn to shopping therapy to buy happiness through things. The cost could be to your career, where you do work that doesn’t feed you, and so the world is left waiting for you to share your true gifts and talents. And sometimes the cost could be actual harm and violence, to yourself or to other people. Just turn on the news and see this playing out in communities and places all over the world. As you can see, there really is a cost to merely existing, not really living life fully. Yet, despite all this, the cost is not a life sentence, meaning you are not doomed to stay this way for the rest of your life if you don’t want to. There is a way out. And the way out is to press the STOP button, and hit RESET. Pressing the STOP button means making a choice and a commitment to stop living life on auto-pilot. It means stopping the habits, the activities and the relationships that drain you and leave you feeling numb and lifeless. It also means stopping any excuses that you don’t have a choice in the matter, because you do. Once you STOP, then you can press the RESET button. RESET means getting your life back in alignment with the truth of who you are. Pressing the RESET button is about getting clear on and committing to nurture the habits, activities and relationships that give you energy, vibrancy and life. It also means embracing your own power and your ability to make your own choices, especially in the face of others who try to steer you off your path. Jesse ended up signing on as a life coaching client. We got her clear on the kind of work she really wanted to do, as well as defining what her other areas of life could look like if she was living it just the way she wanted. Recently, she shared with me that her life feels completely different from how it was before we worked together. In some strange way, she felt that she was now a “grown up.” “I feel like I’m an adult now,” she stated to me with an unassuming confidence. “I’m more empowered in my decisions, and my life is on track.” What was possible for Jesse is possible for you, and for me, and for every one of us. If you feel like you are living life fully and unapologetically, a huge congratulations and a high-five to you! But if you’re not living life on your terms, and you’re experiencing the negative and unsustainable costs, I encourage you to explore the idea that you can choose another path. You can always reach out to me if you need help getting started. My dream is that we all support each other to live life on our own terms, unapologetically. Imagine if we all lived our lives fully and expansively as our true selves. How awesome of a world that would be! This world of vibrancy and vitality is possible. Are you willing to play your part to bring this world into being? Abundant Blessings and Namaste. ** I'd love to hear your thoughts about today's article. Please feel free to leave a comment below. And...If you know of anyone in the Los Angeles area who can use some support in living life on their own terms, I'll be holding my 3-hour Living Life Unapologetically Signature Workshop in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, July 27, 2019. Click here to learn more about it: https://living-life-unapologetically-workshop.eventbrite.com |
About JoselitoJoselito is a spiritual life coach helping people create a purposeful, spiritual path to career and financial freedom. Popular Blog Articles Beware (Be Aware of) these 5 Unhelpful Money Stories How my body told me to quit my job How I was offered an all-expenses paid cruise after making my Vision Board Today I choose to live my GREATNESS You are not your stories. You are the story-teller. Your job is not your Source. Archives
September 2019
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