Hey it's Cyrus and this is my obnoxious bookshelf to prove to you that I read sometimes and here's three life-changing books that I'm gonna read three mind-blowing excerpts from in hopes that it will inspire you and change your life.
The first one is from the book Letting Go the Pathway of Surrender by David R Hawkins and it starts on page 19,
The Mechanism of Letting Go.
Letting Go involves being aware of a feeling,
Letting it come up,
Staying with it and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it.
It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it.
The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it,
Venting it,
Fearing it,
Condemning it or moralizing about it.
It means to drop judgment and see that it is just a feeling.
The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way.
Let go of wanting to resist the feeling.
It is resistance that keeps the feeling going.
When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation.
A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.
As you begin the process you will notice that you have fear and guilt over having feelings.
There will be resistance to feelings in general.
To let feelings come up it is easier to let go the reaction to having the feelings in the first place.
A fear of fear itself is a prime example of this.
Let go of the fear or guilt that you have about the feeling first and then get into the feeling itself.
When letting go ignore all thoughts.
Focus on the feeling itself not on the thoughts.
Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing and they only breed more thoughts.
Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling.
The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure behind the feeling that's forcing it to come up in the moment.
The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind.
So people often read this book and everyone says it changes their life but they finish the book and they go I forget where the letting go technique actually was and this is where it is.
It's the practical kernel.
It's basically fueling your emotions letting them come up focusing on the sensations not the thoughts and that's where people get stuck when it comes to fueling their emotions which is honestly the number one life skill you could possibly have.
Where do people get stuck?
It's in feeling their feelings.
It's the feelings that drive us to do all sorts of crazy things to get distracted to get stuck in our heads and if we can learn that skill which is what he describes here the practical application of it then we can be free we can get lighter and lighter and not be bogged down by these feelings and the accompanying thoughts but the key that he describes is focusing on the sensations in the body not the thoughts.
When people go to fuel their feelings they get caught in the thoughts that come up and they go I can't stop thinking about this it's just making me feel worse and so they give up.
So you have to actually practice this technique starting small with something manageable to feel that it's safe and to see that you actually don't get stuck in the emotions that they actually pass through in the way he describes and that you actually feel more spacious and light.
Alright second one's from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth it's on page 190 Abundance.
Who you think you are is intimately connected with how you see yourself treated by others.
Many people complain that others don't treat them well enough.
I don't get any respect,
Recognition,
Acknowledgement they say.
I'm being taken for granted.
When people are kind they suspect hidden motives.
Others want to manipulate me,
Take advantage of me,
Nobody loves me.
Who they think they are is this.
I'm a needy little me whose needs are not being met.
This basic misperception of who they are creates dysfunction in all their relationships.
They believe they have nothing to give and that the world or other people are withholding from them what they need.
Their entire reality is based on an illusory sense of who they are.
It sabotages situations,
Mars all relationships.
If the thought of lack,
Whether it be money,
Recognition,
Or love has become part of who you think you are you will always experience lack.
Rather than acknowledge the good that's already in your life all you see is lack.
Acknowledging the good that's already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
The fact is whatever you think the world is withholding from you you are withholding it from the world.
You're withholding it because deep down you think you're small and that you have nothing to give.
Try this for a couple of weeks and see how it changes things.
Whatever you think people are withholding from you,
Praise,
Appreciation,
Assistance,
Loving care,
And so on,
Give it to them.
You don't have it just act as if you had it and it will come.
Then soon after you start giving you will start receiving.
You cannot receive what you don't give.
Outflow determines inflow.
Whatever you think the world is withholding from you you already have but unless you allow it to flow out you won't even know that you have it.
This includes abundance.
The law that outflow determines inflow is expressed by Jesus in this powerful image.
Give and it will be given to you.
Good measure,
Pressed down,
Shaken together,
Running over,
Will be put into your lap.
The source of abundance is not outside you.
It is part of who you are.
But start by acknowledging and recognizing abundance outside.
See the fullness of life all around you.
The warmth of the Sun on your skin,
The display of magnificent flowers outside a florist shop,
Biting into a succulent fruit,
Or getting soaked in an abundance of water falling from the sky,
The fullness of life is there at every step.
The acknowledgement of that abundance that is all around you awakens the dormant abundance within.
Then let it flow out.
When you smile at a stranger there's already a minute outflow of energy.
You become a giver.
Ask yourself often what can I give here?
How can I be of service to this person,
This situation?
You don't need to own anything to feel abundant.
Although if you feel abundant consistently things will almost certainly come to you.
Abundance comes only to those who already have it.
It sounds almost unfair but of course it isn't.
It's a universal law.
Both abundance and scarcity are interstates that manifest as your reality.
So this is a radically different take on abundance because not only does it stem from that foundation of gratitude,
From actually looking at what's in your life and letting that feeling fill your cup so it's overflowing,
But it asks you to look at what you can give.
Because when you wake up in the morning maybe you feel like you've got an empty tank some days.
So if you gave you'd be even more depleted.
But counterintuitively it's the opposite.
When you look at situations as a habit,
As an intention through the lens of what can I give,
You start getting access to things you didn't even know you had.
Intangible resources and energy and love and good vibes that you give and then it starts flowing back to you.
You create something out of nothing and then it becomes a virtuous cycle.
Finally let's look at Susan Cain's Bitter Sweet.
We're gonna start on page 60 then hop to page 235 for two connected sentiments on longing.
Longing is different from craving he explains.
It's the craving of the soul.
You want to go home.
In our culture it's confused with depression and it's not.
There's a saying in Sufism,
Sufism was at first heartache.
Only later it became something to write about.
His answer confirms what I'd gleaned from his lectures and writings.
In one of my favorite written passages he describes longing not as an unhealthy craving,
But as a feminine expression of love.
Like everything that is created,
Love has a dual nature,
Positive and negative,
Masculine and feminine.
The masculine side of love is I love you.
Love's feminine quality is I am waiting for you,
I am longing for you.
For the mystic it is the feminine side of love,
The longing,
The cup waiting to be filled that takes us back to God because our culture has for so long rejected the feminine we have lost touch with the potency of longing.
Many people feel this pain of the heart and do not know its value.
They do not know that it is their innermost connection to love.
Let's skip to page 235 to connect this together.
She says,
I fell into a relationship with a handsome musician named Raoul.
He was an expansive lit-up kind of person who composed lyrics by day and stood around a piano singing with friends at night.
He wasn't fully available but we had an electric connection and my feelings for him turned into an obsession the likes of which thankfully I've never experienced before or since.
This was the era before smartphones and I spent my days dodging into internet cafes to see if there was an email from him.
I can still call up the dopamine rush of excitement at the sight of his name bolded in dark blue letters in my Yahoo inbox.
Between dates he sent me music recommendations.
I lived alone now in a nondescript Manhattan neighborhood in a small rental without much furniture just a fluffy white rug where I lay looking up at the ceiling and listening to the music Raoul had sent.
Across the street was a 19th century church and garden tiny and miraculous.
Sandwiched between the skyscrapers I sat for hours in its pews breathing in its air of hushed mystery.
Sometimes I would meet my friend Naomi for coffee and tell her all the fascinating things that Raoul had said during her last visit.
It must have been trying for her listening to all those stories on constant repeat.
One day she said with loving exasperation,
If you're this obsessed it's because he represents something you long for.
Naomi has a enormous piercing blue eyes and she fixed them on me.
What are you longing for she asked me with sudden intensity.
And the answer came just like that.
Raoul was the writing life I'd longed for since I was four.
He was an emissary from the perfect and beautiful world.
That's what the Greenwich Village townhouse had been to,
A signpost to that other place.
All those years at the law firm I'd misinterpreted the direction that sign was pointing.
I thought it was about real estate but it was really about home.
And just like that the obsession fell away.
I still loved Raoul but in the way you love a favorite cousin.
There was no more eroticism and it no more urgency.
I still loved those Greenwich Village townhouses but I didn't need to own one.
I started writing for real.
So what if you ask the same question?
What are you longing for?
You may not have asked yourself this question before.
You may not have identified the important symbols in your life story.
You may not have examined what they mean.
You've likely asked other questions.
What are my career goals?
Do I want marriage and children?
Is so-and-so the right partner?
How can I be a good and moral person?
What work should I do?
To what extent should my work define me?
When should I retire?
But have you asked yourself these questions in the deepest terms?
Have you asked what is the thing you long for most?
Your unique imprint?
Singular mission?
Wordless calling?
Have you asked where on earth is your closest approximation of home?
Literally if you sat down and wrote home at the top of a piece of paper and waited a while,
What would you write next?
And if you have a bittersweet temperament or you've come to live it via life experience,
Have you asked how to hold on to the melancholy within you?
Have you realized that you're part of a long and storied tradition that can help you transform your pain into beauty,
Your longing into belonging?
Have you asked who is the artist or musician or athlete or entrepreneur or scientist or spiritual leader you love?
And why do you love them?
What do they represent to you?
And have you asked what is the ache you can't get rid of?
Could you make it your creative offering?
Could you find a way to help and heal others who suffer a similar trouble?
Could your ache be,
As Leonard Cohen said,
The way you embrace the sun and the moon?
So you can interpret this any number of ways but she's distinguishing longing from wanting.
Wanting being that I can't get no satisfaction,
Endless loop of craving and desire for worldly things versus longing which is like a spiritual desire for wholeness.
It's still that intense longing feeling but it's about communion and oneness and love and asking yourself what in your life,
Who and what are you projecting that longing on to?
And reclaiming that so you can aim that energy in the direction that maybe it's meant to go.
She gives the example from her own life of being in her 20s in New York and longing for this guy Raul and being a lawyer and wanting this Greenwich Village brownstone and then really reclaiming that and realizing it was about a deeper partnership and about writing as a vocation,
Her soul's calling.
So really asking yourself those deeper questions as opposed to getting preoccupied in the superficial questions that we often find ourselves obsessing over.
So check out those books.
I'm not selling them.
I just recommend them.
I recommend getting a paperback so you can read them and internalize them at your own pace and let me know what you're reading.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Have a great day.
