Andy Dooley loves to have fun! But, he is completely serious when he talks about life being a celebration!
I met Andy recently when he gave his patented Vibration Activation workshop in Dallas. If you haven’t seen his presentation, RUN to his website http://andydooley.com for all his cool stuff. Andy is an author, artist, poet, professional speaker extraordinaire and spiritual comedian. He’s the younger half of the Dooley brothers–in 1989 he and brother Mike, along with their mother, started TUT.com, Totally Unique Thoughts.
I don’t want to steal Andy’s thunder here–by the way, he gave me permission to tell you all about my fantastic experience at Vibration Activation–but I do want to focus on his belief that life is a celebration.
Today’s the perfect day for Andy’s wisdom.
Why? Because today is my BIRTHDAY and I ALWAYS can’t wait to celebrate my birthday! It’s like I get infected by the fun bug once the calendar flips from March 31. (As an aside, we began an April Fools’ Day contest here at B Here Today that is fun-cubed throughout the month of April. Click here for more info. http://bheretoday.com/2012/04/how-to-not-b-foolish-on-april-fools-day/
Because it’s my birthday AND Mindful Monday, I’d like to share some take-aways with you. These are also the seven reason why Andy is FABULOUS! There is no way to really feel his event until you’re in Andy’s presence (Presents? Did someone say presents?) but I hope you’ll get a snapshot from this reading.
Takeaway #1: Vibration Activation is a critical thought process that has specific action steps to take you from releasing a negative thought to creating a new story for yourself and deliberately attracting good to you.
Takeaway #2: The first action step in the Vibration Activation process is to clear out the negative with these words: STOP, CANCEL, CLEAR. GET THE FEAR OUT OF HERE! (another F-word is optional and often desirable).
Takeaway #3: We spend too much time and energy focusing our feelings on the problems of our lives, so that becomes the vibration that the Universe gives back to us. When we visualize positive feelings–not expectations of outcomes–a new vibration gets attracted to us.
Takeaway #4: When we’re doing this work, it’s important to insert a Transition Story into the gap between STOP, CANCEL, CLEAR, GET THE FEAR OUT OF HERE and channeling the Beach Boys by picking up good vibrations. The Transition Story is about working with a second person to relay back and forth for no less than 68 seconds (a mysterious quantum and relative amount of time) statements that begin with a combination of I am beginning to, I am becoming and I am allowing. Do those rapid fire. I am beginning to live my dream. I am allowing positive thoughts into my life. I am becoming more focused on my good.
Takeaway #5: There is an optional pre-step to the Transition Story process. If those three affirmative statements are uncomfortable, it’s completely okay to precede them with the words THAT’S RIGHT. That’s Right, I am beginning to live my dream. That’s Right, I am allowing positive thoughts into my life. That’s Right, I am becoming more focused on my good.
Takeaway #6: Andy plays this game called Zip, Zap, Zop. It was crazily fun, mostly because there was no point. No winner. In fact, the game is simply five or six people standing in a circle pointing their clapped hands at each other saying as fast as they can: (Clap) Zip. (Clap) Zap. (Clap) Zop. When someone messes up, everybody says YAY!! and claps more! Wouldn’t life be a great adventure if we all played Zip, Zap, Zop?
Takeaway #7: The brain is not designed to figure out the details of how something will be done. Andy says, “Let go of the how, stay focused on the WOW. Surrender to the outcome of the thing, live in the feeling and let the universe deliver the how.” FOCUS ON THE FEELING, baby!
Simple. Easy. Fun. It’s my birthday, so let’s eat cake! Class dismissed!
B Well & FUN!
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Let me be direct. You have to read this book.
If you have any inclination at all toward learning how to be more mindful or to change your life through any sort of meditative practice, you must read this book.
The Mindful Addict: A Memoir of the Awakening of a Spirit.
Good news: You don’t have to be an addict to enjoy the book.
There is a man named Tom who, more than 40 years ago, lived a dream-like existence. He lived and surfed in 1960s Hawaii when free love and drugs flowed in equal abundance.
Tom excelled at being a surfer and a drug user, so much so that his world eventually became controlled by drugs and he crossed that invisible line many of us know so well. The line between user and addict.
Many of you know that I too am a person in recovery; you may also know that while I never want to forget the person I was and the things I did when active in my addiction, my preference is to focus on recovery and the present moment.
Tom and I have that in common. He wrote The Mindful Addict: A Memoir of the Awakening of a Spirit as a means of sharing his journey. Tom’s gift helps me keep this thought uppermost in mind (taken from his preface), “We just have to be present and constantly give of ourselves as we walk through our lives. That’s how we truly discover that our serenity is only and always a breath away.”
I read his book months ago, although I can’t recall how I came across the title. I’m a book pursuer of the hopeless variety (just as Tom says he is an addict of the hopeless variety) so there is no telling how the book came to me.
I’m pretty sure it was a spiritual gift.
I was intrigued the moment I began to read. There are many differences in Tom’s path and mine (in terms of how we reached the point of sobriety) but from the beginning, he hooked me.
While it’s true that Tom writes beautifully from breath-taking locales (which makes my writer knees grow weak with appreciation), he also speaks in the language that is so familiar to another recovering person. We call it the language of the heart, one drunk or addict to another.
But that’s not why I finished reading the book. It’s also not why I’m recommending the book to all my non-recovering friends.
The reason I ask you to head to Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or even Target is because, “I define sanity as living in a place of love, living in the present moment.”
Those are Tom’s words and could be written for any one of us.
Living in the present moment is the basis of B Here Today.
Being present to each moment, each mindful moment, is a spiritual practice that Tom chronicles beautifully.
One message is clear: it makes no difference your age, race or any of your social preferences, if you desire a mindful way of life, it is yours for the taking.
To my way of thinking, is there a better gift we can give ourselves?
Which takes me back to the spiritual gift of The Mindful Addict coming to me.
Some time after I finished the book, a work colleague asked our staff to keep an eye out for any recovery-related books for possible inclusion in an upcoming podcast series. I immediately zipped off an email recommending The Mindful Addict.
Our folks contacted the publisher, who located Tom, and I was asked to work with him in shaping the podcast. We’ve begun a Facebook friendship and my life is enriched.
I wish the same for you. Buy one for yourself and for your mindful friends; maybe even your not-so-mindful friends. And please let me know what you think. I’ll pass the word on to Tom.
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Forgive me; I’m feeling frisky this morning and couldn’t resist the title.
I think I’m just so damned relieved that the “decade since 9/11″ thing is over. I absolutely mean no disrespect–and anyone who knows me knows that’s true–but can we please move on?
I think we’re all ready.
I woke this morning thinking that there are many things I strive to be, do and have. I also realized at a cellular level that I put a ton of energy into contradicting those things.
Poo on me.
There I go, having to be responsible for my life again. Just when I think I have managed to shirk those duties, there is is, eyeball-to-eyeball staring me in the face.
My life.
I am mindful on this Mindful Monday that while I believe there’s a possibility I’ll get to live another life in some way or form when this one is done, I don’t know that for sure. Besides, who’s to say my next life won’t be as a turtle or a nun. It’s doubtful I’ll simply get to carry on with this present incarnation. Don’t know that for sure either, I’m just saying that is probably the case.
I’d better focus on this life.
So, I’ve made a decision prompted by my friend Mastin Kipp who writes The Daily Love (I say he’s my friend although we’ve never met–yet).
Mastin posted this quote on today’s TDL:
“Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something special in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.”
Christian D. Larsen, the guy who said these astounding words, was a New Thought leader and teacher. Although I consider myself a student of New Thought (Don’t you love that phrase? It implies that certain ways of thinking have become new and improved), I’ve never heard of Mr. Larsen.
But this morning, this New Thought dead guy has helped make my thinking become new and improved.
You’re probably wondering when I’m going to get to the 5 Tools to B U.
Christian Larsen’s words are Tool #2.
Tool #1 to B U is The Daily Love. Like I said, I haven’t met Mastin Kipp yet but he’s a 28-year-old love machine and I can’t wait. His daily dose of tell-it-like-it-is rarely fails to help me look at how I want SO MUCH to be me.
Tool #3 is something else I read today–one of those links within a link within a link. See if you can follow this:
My friend Mary Jaksch (another person I’ve never met, but we have at least communicated electronically and she knows my name) is a blogger extraordinaire, an intuitive entrepreneur and an all-around tremendous woman of substance. Gosh, I hope she reads this post! Even if she doesn’t, Mary’s work, including the new, A-List Blog Marketing, co-written with Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom and endorsed by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, are all Honorary Tools today–and I mean “tools” in the best of ways!
Anyway, in today’s A-List Blog Marketing post, Mary refers to Sonia Simone who, in her Complete Flakes Guide to Getting Things Done, writes:
“If you need to turn yourself around in a major way, this is how you can do it.
Step 1. Get nice and clear about what you want.
Step 2. Get completely, impeccably, bullshit-free clear about where you are now, with respect to that.
Please note that there is not a follow-up step called “beat yourself to a bloody stump about not being where you want to be.”
So, that’s Tool #3 to B U.
Tool #4 is Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go. Melody’s work has been a part of my life for decades. I know that in order for me to be me, I need to let you B U. Enough said about that.
And finally, Tool #5 to B U is this nifty little Apple tool called WriteRoom. Leo (one of my Honorary Tools) turned me on to this distraction-free word processing software that is completely RAD (that’s a Mastin phrase!). I’m actually composing this post in WriteRoom on my iPad (with the equally RAD Tablet Keyboard for iPad). This tool makes today’s list because it’s fun, it’s hip and it’s simple–all three things I want to be today.
And since this entire post is about how to be me today (and how you can B U), there you have it.
Five tools instead of five quotes on Mindful Monday.
Let me know your tools to B U. I have many more, by the way, and I may just share later.
Make it a Magically Mag Mindful Monday!
B Well & Present,
Beth
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Today feels like a good day for sharing the wise words and ideas that have crossed my mental tableau. It seems as if everything I’m reading in the personal development field is truly that: personal. If it feels personal for me, I’m guessing it might strike a personal chord in you as well.
Unity Magazine
The first wise piece comes from the July/August issue and is called “Affirmations: Connecting Us to Truth.” In the article, author Laurie A. Gray writes about how her nine-year-old daughter’s nightly affirmation: ”I am grateful. I am kind. I create what’s on my mind. Perfect health . . . Prosperity . . . My world reflects the change in me.” Laurie’s little girl has been repeating the affirmative poem since she was six! See http://unity.org/publications/unityMagazine/index.html for more information.
I now have this simple prayer in my journal where I write my morning pages, in my bathroom and above my desk. There is something about this simple poem that soothes me right now, now when I have need of soothing.
Is there something in your life that brings you need for soothing?
Let me know if you use this affirmative poem and how it feels for you.
The Daily Love
The second piece of personal development information that feels personal to me comes from Arielle Ford in her guest post on Mastin Kipp’s The Daily Love. (http://thedailylove.com/the-beauty-of-love’s-imperfections/) Arielle writes about the world of Wabi Sabi, an ancient Japanese understanding that something is made beautiful through its imperfections.
Think about that in terms of all the cracks and flaws in an individual’s personality, both the ones perceived by the individual and the ones judged by others. What if all those entry points into a person’s wholeness that are seen as fissures are actually thought of as a golden bridge spanning the alleged imperfection?
Can you picture the energy flowing back and forth across that bridge creating an inviting, peaceful place of simple beauty? Now, can you picture the incredible beauty in your own perceived flaws?
Daily Focus
The third piece resonating with me is Rev. Ed Townley’s Daily Focus from August 2 that references the epistle of First John. Rev. Ed quotes,
| “God is love,” he (the writer of First John) writes, “and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them.” |
The reverend then adds, “this is a simple, clear guide to living a life of harmony, a life filled with health, abundance, growth, new awareness and all good things.”
I don’t know about you, but I sure want what the guy from the epistle has.
The Dallas Morning News
Finally, I love that personal development and technology are spreading to a most important area, our military. There was an AP news story printed in the local paper on Sunday about mobile phone applications designed to help with post traumatic stress and brain injuries. The article, “Apps heal invisible wounds,” described several news apps.
One in particular is called PTSD Coach and was developed jointly by the Pentagon and Veteran Affairs. It is a self-assessment tool that addresses “symptoms, gives step-by-step instructions in muscle relaxation and breathing, helps users create a phone list of people to call when they need support” and helps vets make contact with emergency organizations.
While this last piece doesn’t address me personally because I’m not a vet, it affects all of us collectively because our military veterans are a part of how we abide in God as a nation and as a people.
Personal development is everywhere we turn these days. I have a million more examples. I’d like to hear your examples or about which of these resonate with you. Please connect with me with your impressions, thoughts and stories.
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In July of 2009, I had an epiphany. For about a month prior, I was emotionally distraught, increasingly depressed and having serious thoughts of drinking again (after 18 years of sobriety).
I struggled to wrap my arms around what could possibly be wrong with me. I had all the trappings of a good life, one others would love to emulate--great job, dream house, traveling for a living, a life mate . . . the list goes on. 
