What's Holding You Back?

A few days ago I attended an event with my friend David (that's him, in blue, with one of the teachers, John Assaraf). It was "Quantum Quest - an evening with teachers from The Secret". A few weeks before that, there was meeting Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. These types of events can be very powerful if you are in a state where you can allow yourself to open up and expand. That's the whole point. To learn from the best in order to grow yourself. To have those who have done it give you a boost.

So did I get my boost? You bet. I even told my buddy after Jack Canfield's talk that there would be "no more foolin' around" and again reinforced that statement after Quantum Quest.

The truth is that no matter how much we think we can do something on our own, we all need to surround ourselves with positive people and influences as much as possible. We can all benefit from meeting others who can help us expand our awareness of what we believe we can achieve. Either by reading their books, watching their dvd's, listening to their cd's, taking their courses, meeting them at seminars and events, ect. Even choosing more positive, encouraging and mind-expanding people to hang out with has a HUGE influence on the type of thinking that you will get into the habit of doing and the type of person you are.

On the flip side, and I don't want to sound like a jerk saying this but, to be the best that you can be, you must eliminate or at least greatly reduce the amount of contact you have with anyone who holds you back, pulls you down, discourages you and is otherwise negative, whiny or complaining. If it's someone in your familly or at work (and the rest of the people at work are great) then just see or talk to them only if you absolutely have to. If you don't have to see them, don't.

Don't be an ass about it either! You can still be cordial and polite with them, silently wishing them all the best in their journey. It just won't be with you, at least not as things are now.

Anyway, surround yourself with books and dvd's and people and things that help you to believe in your dreams and help you to achieve them. That was the message of all the speakers of these events:

We can all achieve anything we can imagine... when we remove our own self-imposed limitations.

Each had their own way of removing the obstacles in our path, the things that are stopping us from being who we most desire to be. It could be our actions, our thoughts, our beliefs, our subconscious programming, our hierarchy of values, our fear... The energy is always there, most of us just have our foot on the brakes.

What's holding you back?

CHB

Copyright © Charles Begin

The Real Fountain of Life - Part 2

*To read part 1 of this series, see below.

As I said last week, to change your life, you must change your vibrational frequency/consciousness so that your state of being now matches the reality that you desire. Meaning that to be rich you must find a way to feel rich right now. Or to have a strong and healthy body you must find a way to feel strong and healthy right now. When you feel it, you are in that state. And as you spend more time in that state, your reality shifts to match.

I also mentionned that there are two general points from which to start:

From an exterior-based practice that moves deeper. Or starting deep inside and allowing the inner transformation to permeate every part of your "external" reality. The fastest way to change would be to do both internal and external "work" on yourself, and that's what many do, but for our purposes here I'm going to stick to the two categories.

Last week I spoke about physical exercice being the real Fountain of Life as far as "external" practices are concerned. This week, it's meditation.

When you hear the word "meditation", what comes to mind?

The Dalai Lama? Buddhism? Monks chanting sacred mantras? An old man with a long white beard sitting alone on a mountaintop?

I know many people do. I do too, although these things form only a small part of everything that can now be included in the term. The truth is that the foundation of all forms of meditation (and there are as many as there are types of dances, music, or belief systems), is a quieting of thoughts. It is finding the stillness and silence that is our true being. The only difference is in the technique used to silence the mind. Some focus on the breath, a mantra, a visualisation, or an activity of some sort (like tai chi, yoga or walking), but the end result sought is the same. Inner peace and clarity.

And as the mind rests, allowing worries and stress to dissipate, the body relaxes. Which makes meditation one of the greatest practices for healing and rejuvenating one's health. And the REAL Fountain of Life as "internal" practices go.

Integrate some form of physical exercise and some form of meditation into your daily or weekly routine now and as the years go by people will marvel that you seem to age very little or not at all. You will smile or laugh, remembering how this journey all began... being grateful that you went with it and never really stopped. And now that people notice, it is your turn to guide those who ask.

CHB

Copyright © Charles Begin

The Real Fountain of Life - Part 1

Last year, a very powerful (and some say, confusing) movie came out. It's called "The Fountain". The film is directed by Darren Aronofsky and the main characters are played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. What is it about? It's about a man searching for the Fountain/Tree of Life to save his love, and this happens during three different time periods (and, one could say, levels of consciousness) that eventually merge in infinity.

The reason I bring it up is that the search for a cure to aging, disease and death - the Fountain of Eternal Life - seems to be eternally elusive.

And yet... we do have everything we ever needed to remain young and vibrant, even to reverse aging, for the entire span of our existence... right in front of us. It is a common phenomenon, to not see what is right in front of our noses, that some have appropriately named "the elusive obvious".

Allow me to explain it for you as best as I can.

The Universe, the whole of reality, is energy moving back and forth from a formless state to varying degrees of form. These forms are characterized by varying degrees of vibrational frequency/consciousness. This means that to transform one thing into something else, the vibrational frequency/consciousness of that form must change.

Kind of like changing the temperature of water.

If you remove heat and the temperature drops below zero celcius, the water molecules slow down (slower vibrational frequency) and the water freezes into ice, a different physical form of water. If you add heat to the ice, that means that the water molecules start to move faster and faster, until the ice melts into water and eventually into steam at 100 celcius, when the water molecules move so quickly that they expand . That's another physical form that water can take.

The good news is that we, and everything else in the universe, work the same way.

Our life and our bodies are pure energy that has taken specific physical forms. To change our bodies, we must change our vibrational frequency/consciousness.

There are two general approaches here:

1. Starting from inside and working your way out.
2. Starting from outside and working your way in.

An example of inside-out vibrational transformation would be meditation.
An example of outside-in vibrational transformation would be physical exercise.

Today I read about a new study done by the Buck Institute for Age Research titled: Resistance Exercise Reverses Aging in Human Skeletal Muscle. It explains how resistance exercises - that build muscle - reverse aging in muscle cells. Yes, reverses. That means that with resistance exercise, your body and YOU... become younger. And the study was conducted over a six month period with subjects 65 and older, proving that we can become physically younger at any age.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the less muscle you have, the more fat your body will gain over time, even if you eat less.

The reason why this happens is that muscle is a metabolic tissue, it's active, it's alive, it burns calories. The less muscle you have, the less you are able to burn calories, and the more fat you put on over time. It's fine to be thin (if it's healthy), but if you're thin and you have no muscle on your body, you will put on fat... and you will not feel very alive. In fact, you'll look and feel old.

To reverse aging and look and feel young for the rest of your life, train your body to build muscle. And if you train your muscles intensely enough, your heart and lungs will get strong too.

Starting from the outside-in, physical exercise is the REAL Fountain of Life!

So find some kind of resistance exercise you enjoy (yoga, pilates, running, weight training, sports, martial arts, ect.) and start now. In six months time, with more muscle and less fat on your body, you'll look and feel younger and more alive than you have in years.

*Next week, I'll address the topic of more inside-out training for the Fountain of Life.

CHB

Copyright © Charles Begin