Why We Suffer

Ethics are the foundation of a blissful life. Have you ever read a children’s book or watched a kid’s show? Although they seem to be very basic, most are pure at their core. They contain fundamental values such as respect, honesty, and love. This is because to some extent, our society understands the principles that must be ingrained into the future citizens of the world if we want to live in harmony. Of course, as many of us grow older, our ethics become muddled. Our integrity becomes weak because we want to justify our behavior without remorse, and slowly we lose the foundation of our character and find ourselves dealing with anxiety, mental issues, and the incapability of finding peace inside our very own mind.

Ignoring the ethics of our Being leads to suffering.

Think about it. If we were persistently reacting with integrity, our minds wouldn’t have any uncomfortable memories to project at us. If we were honest people, we wouldn’t think about the lies we’ve told and the shame that they carry with them. If we spoke well of our friends behind their backs, we wouldn’t feel guilty about our words or about putting up a facade. If we weren’t thinking with jealousy & resentment, we would be at peace with our relationships and most importantly, with ourselves.

It is a fact that if we were ethical people, we’d have fewer internal conflicts. But how, then, is it that we continuously fail to align our thoughts and actions with our core values?

Throughout the years, we have accustomed ourselves to live in a constant state of disturbance. We think it’s normal to be at war with ourselves and we’ve accepted that our mind simply isn’t capable of providing us with tranquility. We fail to remember our true state of bliss because we lack comprehension. And we’ll keep suffering until we change our internal dialogue and the way we act.

Essentially, we want to be people who think and behave in congruence with our Soul. We want to be kind to others because we understand the pain that we can generate with our actions. But it doesn’t stop in the physical plane. We want to go even deeper into the energy we emit into this world. If we think it is harmless to create poisonous thoughts because they won’t affect anyone physically, we are mistaken. Our thoughts have power, and thinking with anger, resentment, envy, etc, is equally as harmful to our psyche (and to others) even if we did not move our body a slight inch.

Close your eyes. Observe the chatter. What is your mind saying to you? Why does it keep replaying that uncomfortable scene? Have you broken any behavioral cycle? Are you still acting and thinking in a low vibration? Or are you embodying Divinity in your mind, body, and heart? Only we know the answers to these questions and we cannot lie to ourselves. Our suffering will keep screaming at us until we acknowledge who we are. Truly, not any material possession or person can bring us the stillness we seek if we do not change our core. And peace will only come when we incarnate who we are destined to be.


Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul

Who are you? Who is that entity controlling you when you’re angry and thinking those terrible things about another person? Who is it that feels jealousy and has the need to gossip to make yourself feel better? Who is it that wants you to hold resentment and grudges to retaliate whoever caused you pain? Who is running your mind all day?

Starve the ego, feed the soul.

We think we understand the meaning of this cliche quote. It’s all over the spiritual community, but if we truly comprehend it, then why haven’t we stopped feeding the ego?

Have you ever taken the time to analyze your mind for a whole day? It’s wild inside there. Most of the time, the mind is wanting something. It wants that attractive person who just passed by and those nice clothes we saw online. It wants to eat that delicious burger that was advertised in that commercial and to lash out at the person who cut us off on the road… It wants and wants continuously without cessation.

And have you ever taken the time to analyze how many times you’ve acted upon the thoughts created by your mind? We think we are in charge of our lives, but truly, we are just the puppets of an uncontrolled mind that is run by the different egos that live inside our psyche.

How many times do you stop your revengeful thoughts and instead choose compassion? How often do you look at people with the lust of a wild animal and stop to think about the fact that they are divine beings and not just toys for you to satisfy yourself with? It all sounds “prude” and “extreme” because our society has degenerated and immorality normalized. But this isn’t normal.

We are just infested with ego.

At our very core, we are pure. Our natural state is seen clearly in young children who have yet to develop their egos. Revenge doesn’t filter their mind. They don’t feel the need to gossip because they’re happy with themselves. They’re not in constant competition with others because they’re too busy living in the moment. They allow their emotions to come and go.

How did we drift so far away from that purity? It’s no surprise that most people suffer from mental illnesses these days. Even cancer is at an all-time high. We are rejecting the very nature of our Being with our thoughts and actions alone. And we are manifesting sickness.

We think we are ethical beings because we don’t steal or kill people, but we don’t realize that we are energy vampires who steal other’s energy. Our hurtful words are daggers to the heart, and our selfish desires ignore the suffering of those around us.

“The devil lives in the details”, they say.

Our life is an accumulation of the small actions that we perform daily. And if we truly take a look at ourselves, we can see that we’ve been feeding the wrong beast for a long time; otherwise, why do we suffer when we are alone?

Life becomes suffering when we become apathetic towards humanity and we choose to act selfishly rather than with true love. It is only when we understand that we can never satisfy an ego by feeding it that we’ll finally terminate its binge.

Starve the ego. But truly. Stop feeding the animal desires. Stop living in an unconscious state of mind. Stop letting society dictate your path. And mostly, start living with intention and be led by your heart. It all starts with the honesty that lies inside the core of our Being. Analyze and be truthful to yourself. If we’ve been feeding our Soul this whole time, why are we still not free?


Technology and Mental Health

Our phones these days have become an extension of ourselves. Don’t agree? Well, tell me truthfully, when was the last time you spent a whole day without your phone? It may have been a while, if ever. But you’re not the only one. As a society, we are addicted to our phones. Most of us wake up and go directly on social media. We go out with a friend and spend more time looking at our phones than at their faces. We walk in the streets looking down at our screen afraid to make eye contact with other strangers. 

Times have changed, and technology has modified the way we carry on with our day to day ordeals. We can not deny that these advancements have tremendously eased our lives. We can learn whatever we want, wherever we are, communicate with our loved ones in an instant, and even shop from the comfort of our homes. And while all these commodities have simplified many areas of our lives, it seems like our condition is more complicated than ever. Depression is at an all time high. We have more ways of communication yet people have never felt more alone. We compromise our morals for attention, and our life has become a public show for attention. 

The dual nature of technology makes it difficult for us to find balance, which is why it is necessary to intervene before it’s too late. Here are a few ways in which you can use technology to your advantage and not drown your mental health in your daily commute on the net. 

1. Become aware of where you’re spending your time 

How many hours a day do you spend on social media alone? Phones these days tell us exactly the number of minutes or hours that we spend on certain apps. Take a look at your social media time. Are you happy with that number? 

If your work isn’t social media based and you’re spending hours on Instagram or any of the rest, I will bluntly tell you that you’re wasting your time. Be honest, aren’t there other beneficial ways in which you could be spending your time? If we don’t look into our days and pay attention to where our time is going, we won’t understand just how much of it we are wasting. 

I recommend that you journal your hour to hour activities for at least one week so you can see your time with more clarity. Is technology consuming your days? If we are aware of a problem, we can fix it. But we must become accountable of our lives first. 

2. Follow pages that will help you grow

If you’re using social media, how many times do you find yourself looking at other people’s lives? It’s not normal to be looking at anyone else’s life but yours. It causes us to unnecessarily involve ourselves in their existence and it can even awaken feelings of inadequacy and jealousy. 

Try following pages that will help you become a better person instead. Do you have any hobbies? Follow a person who can teach you how to improve at your craft! Or find pages that will motivate you and help you with a change of mindset. We are what we constantly do, and if social media is a big part of your day, be mindful of what you’re ingesting.

3. Use the internet to learn

The internet is pretty much the biggest library in the world. You can literally find information on anything that catches your interest. If you want to make better use of technology, use the internet as a learning tool.

There are many professors out there that will even teach you how to do anything for free, so take advantage. Yes, entertainment is fun, but it cannot take up the majority of our day. When we learn, we feel fulfilled because we are using our time wisely while acquiring wisdom!  

4. Set timers on your phone 

Certain phones allow you to set up a time limit that will pop up when you have exceeded your usage for an app. This is a great tool to use because it’s easy to lose track of life when we are surfing the net. 

If your phone doesn’t have the option, then simply set up a timer for whatever time you are allowing yourself to use your phone. This can save you lots of time which you can use on more advantageous activities. 

The internet has revolutionized our existence. We cannot deny that we depend on many of its attributions, but we also have to use it mindfully. If we use technology to our advantage, imagine how much we can grow! However, this double-edged knife comes with a condition: to be conscious of how we use it. 


Achieve your New Year's Resolutions

We are entering a new decade. What a great reason to celebrate! The new year always brings with it an air of change and we are all eager to jump on the bandwagon of opportunities. With every passing year, we make promises of improvement. We all have visions, ideals, and new habits that we want to incorporate into our lives. And of course, with every coming of January we are certain that THIS year will be different.

“We’ll start going to the gym every day! And eating the healthiest we ever have…goodbye junk food! Oh, and don’t forget, this is the year we’ll be rich! We’ll create a business and save money. We’ll also improve our mental health, and maybe we’ll start meditating.” We say we’ll do this, and we’ll do that, and before you know it, the year is gone… it’s December again. Where did time go? Did you accomplish your goals?

Most people tend to feel excited when they start anything new. The gyms are full of commited health-seekers the first couple months of the year, but slowly, they start emptying out as the New Year’s momentum dies off.

The truth is that we cannot rely on excitement. This is why most of us have a difficult time keeping up with our long-term resolutions. If excitement is our only drive, we’ll find it hard to accomplish anything in life. We need something more concrete than that, we need an action plan that will last us all year. So how can we stay in line with our goals, accomplish what we want this year and actually change our lives?

We’ll share with you a few tips which will help you create a new narrative for yourself and stick to your strategy.

1. Start a journal

A journal is one of the most powerful tools for goal achievement. How so? Think about your day today. Can you remember what you did this morning? What about yesterday? Or last week? Chances are, you probably cannot remember much in detail. In reality, most of us can’t either because we aren’t truly conscious, we are on an autopilot state of mind.

A journal makes us aware of ourselves. When we have to remember our day and evaluate how we acted, we’ll think twice about being mindless. We want to be our best selves because we now have something that physically measures our progress. And trust me, you truly don’t want to write down that you’ve been slacking! If we are not taken accountable for our habits, we likely won’t care too much about them. By watching ourselves, we can understand how we feel, what influences us, how much time we spend on activities that aren’t benefiting us, and what is working to our advantage.

We have a journal for the purpose of self-developing, which we think can benefit you greatly! (We’ll leave the link right here)  But you can also self-evaluate yourself and start your own journal. It’s all about how much effort you give to your growth!

2. Harness will-power through mental exercises

Will-power is necessary if we wish to achieve anything in life, but many of us have a weak determination because we lack self-control. Observe your mind. How many thoughts are running through it right now?

An untamed mind can drive us to many places, and it usually seeks immediate gratification before the outcome of our long-term goals. This is why controlling the mind is essential to achieve will-power, and will-power is essential to achieve our objectives.

To have will-power basically means that we are able to direct our attention and act in the way we want to, not in the way our mind wants us to act. And the only way to direct our attention is by harnessing concentration. Concentration can be achieved through focused attention, which is essentially what the exercise of meditation teaches us how to do.

Meditation is the most powerful exercise that we have for controlling our minds and harnessing willpower. We have a blog teaching you how to start meditating here, but we’ll share with you an easy practice that you can start doing right now:

Focus on an anchor- this can be any of your senses, your breath, your pulse, or whatever you prefer. Simply focus on what you chose and if you get distracted, keep coming back to the anchor. That’s it! You can literally practice for only 5 minutes a day and you’ll start regaining focused attention. Of course, consistency is key, but if you want to strengthen your will-power, we cannot recommend anything more effective than this practice.

3. Set up Reminders

We know that on top of your New Year’s goals, you also have a whole life that you must tend to on your plate. Life can get busy, so having little reminders that can help us remember our goals and habits is a powerful tool.

We recommend that you set up a few reminders on your phone throughout the day. For example, a reminder to “workout” can motivate you to accomplish your exercise routine and you’ll feel fulfilled after marking the task as “done”. It’s all a psychological game that you’re playing with yourself, but the mind loves to accomplish things. Don’t underestimate how boosting these can be!

The new year certainly brings with it encouragement and a drive to change, but in order to upgrade our lives, we cannot rely on a day or a month. We must rely on ourselves. We become what we consistently think and what we do, so give yourself the chance to make this year one of attainment! Hopefully, you can come back in a year and see great progress. Are you ready to take over your life?


How to Build Your Self-Confidence

What do you imagine when you think of the word “confidence”?

You may be thinking of an extroverted person who’s very outgoing, comfortable speaking to others, and carries themselves with great pride.

The truth is that confidence has absolutely nothing to do with the description above, and, in reality, is the opposite quality of pride. Confidence isn’t about a certain look or about carrying ourselves a certain way. Confidence is about the way we perceive ourselves.

True confidence is about accepting who we are and loving ourselves regardless of our appearance, our social status or the way others perceive us. It is an extension of self-love.

It is necessary to understand that although pride may seem like confidence and can even sound more appealing, it does not feel as such. Pride feels the need for external validation, confidence is content because it knows it is complete. Pride is a persona we create to mask our true Being. Confidence is vulnerable, it has nothing to hide, and it is free.

When we say we want to be more confident, it is important to comprehend these differences; otherwise, we’ll likely focus on building our pride which will leave us feeling empty and insecure. Yes, the media is skilled at making it seem like pride masked as confidence is great- you’ll attract more people around you and you’ll definitely stand out of the crowd. But this is only an ego, and an ego is nothing more than a facade. We want to feel true confidence because we want to feel good with our Selves every single moment. We want to stop desiring to live a life that isn’t ours.

So how do we focus on building our confidence?

It all starts with getting to know ourselves.

Self-knowledge is the key to self-love and self-confidence. Most of us think we know who we are, but if we analyze our personalities and our likes, we can see how we usually copy whatever our society is telling us to do.

Are you following your heart or are you just following the crowd?

When we follow the crowd, we cannot possibly acquire self-confidence because we aren’t being ourselves. How can we love someone we don’t know?

Building a relationship with our Being is necessary. The more we understand ourselves, the more comfortable we become in our skin. It’s like if you had to do a presentation in front of a hundred people. Would you feel confident if you didn’t study or knew the details of what you were going to say? Probably not. This is the same with our Being. How can we feel confident being someone we don’t even know or understand? We simply cannot.

In Latin, the word confidence means to have full trust. Do you fully trust yourself? Can you truly say that you are a man/woman of your word? Are you a person of integrity? Do you act and think according to your own moral compass?

These are the questions that you need to ask yourself and that matter. If you don’t trust yourself, it is impossible for you to ever feel confident. Pride may make you feel as if you’re on top of the world, but the moment you’re alone with yourself, self-doubt will start creeping in because our Higher Self knows when we aren’t achieving our potential.

We will always advocate for self-development because this is the only way we can truly be happy. The more we tune into ourselves, the more we will be able to cultivate all the virtuous qualities that give us peace.

Meditate. Journal. Become curious about your likes, dislikes, and about the “whys” behind your thoughts and actions. Pretend you’re on a first date with yourself. You may want to skip over these steps, but confidence cannot be attained without them. Give yourself the opportunity to expand. You have unlimited powers within you. All you need to do is get to know who you are and all else will fall in place.


How to Forgive Yourself

Forgiving ourselves tends to be a bit more challenging than forgiving others. This is because we have mastered the skill of replaying the same guilt-triggering thoughts in our heads countless times, making us feel as if we are reliving certain situations over and over again. Guilt and shame are unnecessary emotions. Ruminating on them is like inflicting self-harm because no matter how much we think about the past, we cannot go back and change it.

Our life is what is happening right now.

We do not have the ability of time traveling and changing situations, but we do have the gift of becoming better people today. If in our hearts we are truly sorry for our actions and fully comprehend that we must leave our old ways behind, we can start anew right this moment.

We’re all carrying our own baggage, and although some of us have accumulated a heavier load than others, we all have the opportunity to make better decisions and start fresh. When we become aware of our detrimental ways, we must strive for change. Self-forgiveness is meaningless if we stay the same.

Let’s look at a few ways in which we can start practicing self-forgiveness in our lives and become free of the burdens of the past.

 

1.  Redeem yourself by becoming a better person

The best way to rid ourselves of a negative past is by creating a positive present. We are not bound to our mistakes from yesterday. We are given a new opportunity every single moment to act better. Redemption happens when we start letting go of our old destructive habits and replace them with new, altruistic ones. Becoming a morally correct person can assure us that we won’t commit the same mistakes again, and doing the right thing is always rewarded by the Universe.

As we become better at our core, we dissociate from the person we once were. As we act and think better, we evolve and understand that our past-self acted according to the consciousness we had. And that is okay because we truly didn’t have the understanding to act in a different manner.

 

2.  Give yourself love

If we are holding resentment towards ourselves, our lens of the world becomes polluted with this energy. Filters of anger, resentment, and guilt can give us a dangerous perception. We must counteract any negative emotions we are holding towards ourselves with positive ones. We must practice self-love. Self-love is an act of reverence towards our being (we have a blog dedicated to this right here). It is treating ourselves with dignity, patience, and respect.

How many times have you forgiven others for wronging you? Don’t you think you deserve an opportunity at redemption too? You are worthy of your forgiveness because you are worthy of your love.

 

3.  Learn from your mistakes

One of the best ways of coping with our past mistakes is to try and learn from them. If we don’t meditate on the reason why we are feeling negatively towards the situation that’s causing us to resent ourselves, we are just going to recycle the same reaction in different scenarios.

Life is a school of learning, and taking advantage of our good times and the bad is essential to our growth. If we see our mistakes as lessons for our present self, we can even become grateful for their occurrence. This understanding can only come through retrospection and meditation, but we can avoid returning to old patterns if we consciously observe our faults.

 

4.  Focus on staying in the present

Unless we are trying to learn from a situation, ruminating on the past is a toxic habit. We have to stay in the present moment and immerse ourselves in the life we are being given.

An abandoned mind is like an untamed animal, and it will constantly try to take us anywhere but in the “now”. This is why practicing meditation and harnessing some level of concentration is important if we wish to become more grounded in the present.

We also recommend practicing a grounding exercise if you feel like your mind is out of control and taking you on a guilt trip. Whenever you’re overwhelmed, try using your senses to come back to the moment. What do you see? Hear? Smell? Touch? Thinking about the environment you’re in will take you away from the negative thoughts and bring you back to reality.

Work on yourself constantly, you don’t want to be a slave to your mind!

 

5.  Forgiveness Exercise

We are strong believers in journaling, so we thought we’d make the 5th point a self-forgiveness journaling exercise to help you on your journey towards healing.

If you do this exercise with an open heart and a sincere intention, it will help you greatly. We will leave the link down below:

Self-Forgiveness Letter

 

Self-forgiveness is a process that needs time, patience, and love. We are on this journey of purification together because we are all sinners in different ways. Even if our past is dark, true redemption happens for those who are willing to change for the better. Don’t forget that you are worthy of a second chance. Your past actions do not define you. It is what you do today and at this very moment that matters most.


Self-Forgiveness Letter

Self-Forgiveness Letter

This is the letter of forgiveness that you’ve been waiting for to move on.

If you do this exercise with an open heart and a sincere intention, it will help you greatly.

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November 2019 Calendar

November 2019

Download & print your November 2019 calendar to keep your habits aligned with your vision!

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5 Ways to Practice Self-Love

From the moment we are born, we’ve been given milestones that we must achieve. We must learn how to talk, walk, go to kindergarten, high school, college, get a master’s degree, find the perfect job, get a spouse, make money, have kids, then grandkids, retire, and die. And with each milestone, comes the brief ecstasy of reaching our goal followed by the disappointing realization that our lives didn’t actually change. So we think “happiness” must be in the next goal we achieve, and we go on and on but happiness never comes.

We are always looking for something more.

We constantly thirst for the next vacation, for Friday, for whatever objects we want to buy, for new clothes, for the future. Yet whenever we get these things, they stop being so desirable. They become “normal”. We get used to them. And this insatiable thirst keeps growing because there’s always something new to chase, there’s always something “better”.

Life passes and we remain unfulfilled.

We are miserable with ourselves and we think that someday, one miraculous thing will finally fill the void we’ve felt our entire lives. But nothing ever does. Why?

Humans are complex creatures. We have a physical body that we use to experience the third dimension. But we also dream at night and spend most of our days inside our heads. We have emotions, feelings, desires, and afflictions. And yet, we foolishly pretend that we must only tend to our physical body as if all the other aspects of ourselves didn’t exist!

This is why we suffer so much, because most of us have been taught to bathe, wash our hair, dress nicely, and look great while completely forgetting that we are more than our bodies. Society tells us that we’ll be happy if we follow the trends and that without money and popularity we are nothing. The problem is that we have come to believe this lie. We have been programmed to think that only physical riches will make us happy. We have forgotten to truly love ourselves.

“Love yourself” has been one of the most popular mottos of the recent years, but how do we really harness self-love? Let’s quickly look at a few ways in which we can practice self-love and improve our level of happiness.

1.  Get to know yourself

Self-love starts with getting to know who we are. When we know who we truly are behind our egos and our masks, we can begin to honor our Being by answering to its needs.

How do we get to know ourselves?

Do you remember how you’ve gotten to know every other person in your life? You’ve probably spent time with them and asked them questions about themselves. To know yourself, you must do the same. Spend time alone. Meditate on your life. Remember what you were drawn to as a child. Analyze your motives, your actions, and your thoughts. Get to know who you truly are at the core of your being.

 

2.  Respect yourself

Think about a person you have high admiration and love for. How do you act towards them? That’s the same way you want to act with yourself.

You wouldn’t talk to them in a disrespectful manner, would you? You wouldn’t be criticizing them or being mean to them and you certainly wouldn’t think that they’re not enough. You’d address them with dignity.

You can also imagine that you are taking care of a child. Would you be poisoning that child with damaging substances? Or letting that child sleep around? What kind of people would you want that child to be surrounded with? Deep inside, you are that child. You just have a better understanding of the world and have aged a bit, but remember that you deserve the same loving treatment as any child in the world does.

 

3.  Incorporate habits into your life that promote self-love

We become the things that we repeatedly do, so being aware of our habits is of utmost importance if we wish to honor ourselves.

When we speak of habits that promote self-love, it isn’t always about doing the things that give us temporary bliss. We want to create a foundation that will benefit us for this entire lifetime.

What kind of habits are these? Ones that align with who we truly are. We have a few essentials that we’ll briefly share with you:

 

  • It is important that we have a habit of self-knowledge such as meditation to remind us of our essence (if you don’t know how to meditate, check out this post).
  • We also recommend journaling, which we’ll address in a second.
  • Incorporating exercise into our routine is necessary because we only have one vehicle and we must take care of it!
  • Having habits that help us reach our goals always feels fulfilling. Time invested in our talents or activities that we truly love to do is never wasted.
  • Last, but certainly not least, we must pay attention to our toxic habits and delete them from our schedule.

 

4.  Affirmations

Affirmations are powerful statements that we’ve told ourselves our entire lives, but some have been damaging our self-esteem for years. It is important that we tell ourselves positive affirmations that empower us and flip the negative self-talk we have inside our minds. Accepting ourselves as we are isn’t always easy, but affirmations can help us ingrain a new, loving script that will reprogram the way we see ourselves. Practice positive affirmations that align with the ideal version of you. We have a few great ones that you can use here!

 

5.  Journal

As we mentioned earlier, journaling is a habit that can immensely help our self-love journey.

Journaling is more than just writing down our day to day activities, it is a place where we can introspect our lives and magnify the root of our negative beliefs. There are many ways to journal, but for this topic, we think that you’ll benefit from a few questions that may guide you. Reflecting about the right questions can trigger our inner being to give us the answers we are looking for. We have attached a link to a powerful self-love journaling exercise. Hopefully, you can take advantage of it!

Self-Love Journaling Exercises 

Self-love is an odyssey of its own. It takes courage to like ourselves as we are in a society that constantly tells us that we have to be a certain way to be happy. But we are set free the moment we accept ourselves and understand that we are perfectly made and that the masks are no longer necessary.

All it takes is a little investigating, but as we delve into the waters of self-discovery, we understand that we are so much more than what we have or how we look. We didn’t just come into this world to follow the status quo and die. We have a bigger purpose. We are pure magic. We are Divine Beings. And every single one of us is oh, so worthy of absolute love.


Self-Love Journaling Exercises

Self-Love Journal Exercises

What’s preventing you from loving yourself fully?

Let these questions guide you inside your subconscious beliefs so you can rewrite your internal script.

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