So, what it comes down to is this, choose to find reasons why a Higher Power exists or find reasons why it doesn’t. It’s a choice. Or if you do not want to believe in a Higher Power, Buddhism can be great for you because the result of such practice is the same… happiness, joy and peace. Again, it’s a choice. Do you want to do the work or not? There are many people, including me, who initially rebelled against a source of help only to later believe. If you want money, you go to work, whether you like it or not. If you want to be thin, you don’t eat Devil Dogs, whether you like it or not. If you want to be happy, joyous & free, you do the work, you believe in a God or practice yoga or Buddhism or whatever floats your boat, but you must do the work if you want the results. If you don’t care much about being happy, joyous & free, then you keep going as usual. If you want change you have to change. Simple, like it or not. You don’t have to like it or even believe in it 100%, you just need to try. Eventually, maybe after many years, you will most likely think and feel differently and like the results. I know many people who struggle with the concept of God but they keep at living the spiritual life because they don’t like the alternative. So, there are many options in which to choose. Which do you choose… the one that results in peace and happiness or the one that doesn’t? It is your choice.

Do you ever feel as if you can’t turn off your mind and thoughts? Does your mind race preventing you from falling asleep or staying focused on a particular task? Does your mind run on and on to the point where you can’t take it anymore and you wish it would just stop?

Many years ago, this was me. I am happy to say that without medication, through spiritual and psychological training and practice my mind is quite the opposite today. I reveal this information to offer hope to those who suffer from a racing mind. I am not a doctor so I will not offer medical advice and am not suggesting that you stop taking any medication that  was subscribed to you by your doctor. What I am sharing with you is my personal experience with such issues as well as the experiences of others whom I know, who have also experienced similar changes though similar practices.

This slowing down of the mind can happen gradually by changing how we live. Quite often our mind races with regretful thoughts of our wrongful actions. So, start living right and make better decisions resulting in better actions. All of the posts on this site are related to right living and self-improvement.

Many of our racing thoughts may be attributed to our fears. When we live in fear our mind can be consumed with such fears making it difficult to experience a peaceful mind. I have written many posts that discuss fear and its opposite, faith, such as “Let’s Talk About God” and “Letting Go” that may help you to alleviate your fears. To begin practicing this faith in a Higher Power, I would suggest praying when you get up in the morning and at night before you go to bed. If your faith is limited, pray anyway, even if you don’t think it will help. You do not have to believe that anyone is listening and if you do, that’s OK too. What is important in your morning prayers is to decide to put your life in God’s care or in other words, deciding to trust in the way your life will unfold on that day. Of course, you will need to do your best to behave accordingly as your actions can impact your day. You must do all of the footwork necessary on any given day then you need to let go of the results, as you do not have control over other people and what life has in store for you next, acknowledging that living right and doing the necessary footwork can impact life’s results. Besides, you have nothing to worry about because you made a decision in the morning to let your Higher Power run the show. Someone once told me that my life is none of my business. Are you beginning to understand just how much peace there is in trusting in a Higher Power? Not necessarily trusting that everything is going to be great, but trusting in The Way It Is. Please read all of my posts on fear and faith to gather more information that may aid you in your quest for faith and see the Helpful Links page for additional information. During your evening prayers, express gratitude for your blessings that day. These are very brief prayers that can have a dramatic affect on your peace of mind and overall spiritual well-being.

Before or after your evening prayers, I would suggest doing a brief inventory of yourself for that day acknowledging both your right and wrong actions. Continue to do what you did right that day, improving where you can and learning from what you did wrong and try not to repeat such wrong behaviors in the future. We want to learn from our inventories so that we can be better people, continuously improving our thoughts and actions. The more we do what is right, the more peace of mind we will have.

Meditation is another great method you can use to begin to slow and calm your mind. However, this is a vast topic so I will write separate posts about various types of meditation. Anyway, you will find meditation more difficult if you are not living Right. So in summary, you’ll need to live right, work on developing your faith in a Higher Power, pray and perform daily inventories of yourself. If you honestly practice these principles, I would suspect that your mind will begin to slow down and stop racing.

I wish you a peaceful mind.

Well, guess what I found on the carpet this morning? Yup, a BIG ugly spider! I was given the opportunity to practice what I preached by transporting the spider outdoors. FYI, I am not one of those people who pick up insects in their hands and think that they are fascinating, so saving the spider was not particularly pleasant for me

I’ve heard that Einstein was a fairly smart guy What do you think… is “coincidence God’s way of remaining anonymous”?

When we worry about the future we ruin the present moment. The fears of what tomorrow might bring are experienced in the here and now, so how can we be happy at a given moment if we are worrying about the future at that same moment? That’s not a trick question The answer is, that are happiness will be affected if we are simultaneously living in fear of the future.

If you think about it, it’s actually rather foolish to ruin the moment by worrying about what may never come to be, but we’ve all done it. Some of what we fear may come to fruition but worrying about it in the present moment doesn’t help. Most of what we worry about probably will never happen but that’s beside the point. The point is that all we have is this moment, nothing more and nothing less, just right now. The past is but a memory and the future is not here and may or may not come for us so let us be with the only time that we truly have which is this moment. When we truly live in the moment there can be no fear of tomorrow or regrets about the past because we are not thinking of them. Sure, you can learn from your past and plan for your future but that’s not what I am talking about here. And until you get good at living in the moment, do what you can to stay out of the past and future all together as you’ll most likely skew the boundaries between planning for your future and learning from your past with worry and regret. When we are worrying about tomorrow we are also missing out on whatever it is that we are experiencing at that moment. We are not fully appreciating life and I find that sad.

One way to eliminate your fears of the future is to have faith in a Higher Power, so I will suggest reading my posts titled Letting Go, Get Faith and Let’s Talk About God. Such faith is quite helpful to us as we try to stay in this moment. Trusting in the way things are and the way things will be can make living in the moment much easier for us. So, go get some faith

This business of living in the moment need not be complicated. On the contrary, it is extremely simple. We tend to complicate life by thinking too much. Living a life based on the principles set forth on this site requires work and effort on out part. What I’m suggesting here requires no effort. All you need to do is just be with this moment. It takes effort to keep our brain spinning about what the future holds for us and the resulting fears drain our present energy. All you need to do is be with this moment. Stop… look where you are and be aware of what you are doing at this moment. That’s it.

If you do this, you will eliminate your fears of the future. Don’t expect perfection here. Your mind will wander into the future again. When you notice that you’ve left this moment, don’t beat yourself up about it just come back to it. You’ll get better with practice. The more you are able to be with this moment, the less you will worry about the future and the more you will appreciate the here and now. What you’re doing here is actually a form of meditation which I’m sure I’ll discuss in posts to come. May you be happy and at peace.

This concludes part one. Part two of this post is titled “Don’t Think So Much“.

Have you ever been afraid to let go of a personal relationship, whether it be a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife or even a platonic friendship? Our fears of detaching may be deep rooted and not so easily remedied. Such clinging and obsessive behaviors may appear unseemly to others who do not understand our fears and apparent inability to let go. What can we do to free ourselves of this bondage so that we can be happy?

You may not like my following answer to the question. As I said your fears may be deep rooted and thus require years of psychotherapy to work through. Hopefully though, this time and effort will pay off resulting in a new and improved you, one who no longer hangs on to relationships too long and who can let go gracefully. There may not be a substitute for months or years of hard work with a qualified psychotherapist, that which I am not, so I can’t help you there. Perhaps you could ask your doctor or others whom you trust for a referral. I wouldn’t shop the yellow pages.

There may be another solution or at least an additional solution to your problem with which I can help you to let go of relationships with dignity and grace. If you are presently caught in the prison of obsession and fear then I’m guessing you won’t much want to hear this answer either Faith… you’re lacking faith in a Higher Power. Stay with me now. The reason we have fears is because we do not trust in God or in other words, the way things are. Even if you have deep rooted abandonment issues stemming from when you were a child you could combat them with faith.

Before you can trust in a Higher Power, you’ll need to establish a belief in one, if you haven’t already, and then you’ll need to learn to have faith in that Higher Power. Then, you will be able to let go of your wants, your will and your life and trust in what your Higher or Greater Power has planned for your life. You will be able to gracefully let go of a person or situation because you trust in the way it is, even if the way it is does not include that person with whom you were once involved.

I could go on here but I have written a few other posts about faith and letting go to which I have listed the corresponding links below. I hope you’ll find them helpful and I wish freedom from the bondage of self.

Letting Go
Let’s Talk About God
Get Faith

This is not that complicated. If grasping and a lack of acceptance of the way life is causes much of our suffering, then not grasping and accepting life as it is should relieve us of that suffering. Extremely simple, but simple and easy are not the same.

If we wish to be free from fear, we need to learn to let go of that which we covet. How do we do that? The first time I heard the phrase, let go, I asked myself, “let go of what and to whom”? I learned that I needed to let go of my will, my desires and my life to the care of a Higher Power. I first needed to have faith in a Higher Power before I could entrust my life to It, so this faith had to come first. I discuss finding faith in other posts and I have listed other sources that may help you with your faith on the Helpful Links page. You may also find assistance through various advertisers on this site.

Once you possess enough faith in a Higher Power or God if you like, you can begin to let go. You can let go in prayer and meditation and throughout the course of the day. Whenever you feel the desire to control someone or a situation that cannot realistically be controlled by you, let go and trust that everything will work out the way it is supposed to. When you feel afraid of losing someone you love or something that you possess, let go knowing there is a Greater Force in charge and that that Force is not you. Bringing such fear to our lives and the lives of others in not beneficial to anyone involved. Let go!

The more we learn to let go of our life and everything and everyone in it, the more peaceful and happy we become. Letting go doesn’t imply not caring or loving, on the contrary. The less fear we bring to a relationship with another person or to a situation, the more we can fully appreciate that person or situation as we are not influenced by fear. Our feelings and decisions will be healthy and pure. Our love and compassion for others will flourish and grow because we are not filled with self-centered fear. Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Doesn’t this sound like a great way to live?

The truth of the matter is that happiness is an inside job and need not much be affected by outside circumstances. Granted there will be times in our lives that it will be perfectly understandable and acceptable not to be happy and smiling such as when a loved one takes ill or dies. We are human after all and to be happy every minute of every day may not be realistic. There is a normal grieving process that takes place when we experience loss but we can certainly lessen that grief and expedite our process by being spiritually and mentally fit. We can even be sad and cry while still maintaining our inner peace and happiness. Having a happy and grateful heart doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to be laughing on the outside. When someone dies, it should prove better for us if we can learn to celebrate their life, relishing the memories, while being grateful for the time spent together with them. Death is an inevitable part of life and it can come at any time. If we can accept this fact, we should have an easier time handling death when it hits home. Having said all this, although I have experienced the death of loved ones, I have never lost a child or a spouse, and hope to God that I never do. So my experience with death is thankfully limited. I made my wife promise me that she wouldn’t die before me

Major tragedies aside, when do outside circumstances affect our mood? Simply put, our mood is affected when we don’t get our way, right? Since much of life doesn’t go our way, if we let outside circumstances affect our happiness, we will often be unhappy. True happiness is, for the most part, not affected by outside circumstances. True happiness stems from having a grateful heart and accepting life as it is.

We don’t control much in this life, such as weather, the economy and other people. So, why do we let these circumstances and other people have an impact on how we feel? Doesn’t it make more sense to accept them the way that they are? Your emotional state will rival that of a roller coaster if you let life’s everyday ups and downs affect you.

I have personally experienced the loss of homes, a business, jobs and all of my money! Yet through it all, I remained happy and grateful. Accept what you cannot change and be grateful for all of the blessings that you have in your life and you cannot help but be happier. May you be happy and at peace.

Ok, so how do we get this faith? I am sure many of you already have a faith of some sort in a Higher Power or God. From my experience, faith takes work. Maybe you need to put more effort into your religious or spiritual practice. I cannot tell you what to believe and no one can have faith for you. I have included some helpful links on this site that may aid you in your search for faith or help you to strengthen yours.

I believe that faith in God is a personal experience. Being told to believe in a specific God and follow a particular set of rules, without asking why, never worked for me. Discovering a Higher Power of my own understanding and later finding a religion that accepted my beliefs and inspired me to improve and grow spiritually… now that worked for me. My faith has changed through the years, and I allow it to change and progress. My belief in a Higher Power today is much different than it was ten years ago. I do not allow myself not to believe. If my belief system is no longer working, I need to find another one. I cannot afford not to have faith in God, for all of the above reasons.

I will offer one example of a type of belief in a Higher Power that I would imagine could work for many. Let’s say that you don’t believe in a God Almighty, Jesus or The Holy Trinity and you don’t know where else to turn. Surely you can agree that you are not God and that Something created, caused or is in some way responsible for all that is… this world, this solar system, this universe and so on. We’re here right, the earth and beyond? Let’s not waste time trying to figure out how everything was created but just know that it was and that there is some Force or Power that is the cause. I am not saying that this Force need be a God in your image or that It needs to hear your prayers or even that It cares what happens down here. I am just saying that there is some type of Universal Force that started everything and keeps everything going. Maybe it’s purely scientific. This is just one approach that may help some of you.

You may be thinking…so if I believe in this Universal Force example, what exactly am I having faith in? Who do I pray to? Who is going to answer my prayers? Well, in the example above I offered a different faith approach to that of the standard God Almighty. This method of faith varies in the sense that you would not be expecting to have your prayers answered in the traditional sense. You would be praying to relieve yourself of self, to let go of your wants and desires, to let go of the control, which you don’t actually have anyway. You would be having faith in what is, understanding that things just happen and they are out of your control, so why not accept? You need not be confused about what sort of God would allow all the bad in the world to occur because your faith is in the way things are, there wouldn’t be one God pulling the strings. You just need to know that there is something more powerful than you and you can trust that Force to do what It’s going to do, so why not just let go to It?

I’m not telling you that your belief in God or a Higher Power must be this way or that this form of faith is right and yours is wrong. I am simply offering it as an option, an alternative to aid those who are not content with their current faith in God or who are seeking another way, for whatever reason.

Perhaps you already have a strong faith in God, practice an organized religion and rely on that God for support. Or maybe you were raised Catholic, Protestant or Jewish but no longer connect to such a belief system and don’t see another way. Maybe you used to have a strong faith in God but for various reasons, lost that faith or are angry at God. Or maybe you never believed in a Higher Power at all. Whatever your belief is or isn’t, as long as you are not harming others, I do not pass judgment. There are those who do judge other’s beliefs and believe that their way is the only way and everyone else is dammed. Thank God this is my blog and I have sole comment moderation power so no one else here will need to read any judging

Let me explain why it is so important to have faith in a Higher Power or God. When there is ultimate faith, there can be no fear. Since we’re all human beings, we probably will never experience constant, unwavering faith so, there will be fears. We have fear, whether we recognize it or not. I’m guessing that most people are often afraid and don’t realize it. Many times fear presents itself subtly and shows itself through our shortcomings or character flaws. It shows itself in how we react, cope and handle life’s everyday situations. When I am not right with my faith, I do not roll with life’s everyday occurrences. I fight more and accept less. It could be something rather insignificant such as, I have to wait in line at the store or someone cuts me off on the road or the TV goes out…well, that’s not insignificant When I am right spiritually, I accept life as it comes much easier than when my spiritual condition is suffering.

As I mentioned, many of our shortcomings are fear based. So, the less faith we have, the more fear we have. The more fear we have, the more faults we have. The more faults we have, the more difficult it is to be in our own bodies and for others to be around us.

If we have faith in a Greater Power, we will trust what is and what will be. We will not fear the way life unfolds, even when life doesn’t go our way. We will have faith that everything is happening the way it is supposed to happen or we will simply be able to accept the way it is. This trust translates to acceptance and when we accept, there is peace. When there is peace, there is happiness. Make sense?

In regards to fear and shortcomings, the same principles apply. The more faith we have, the less fear we have. The less fear we have, the fewer faults we have. The fewer faults we have, the more peaceful we become. The more peaceful we are, the happier we are. Simple, right?

This will conclude Part I of this post. See Get Faith for the conclusion.