Open-Secrets

Category: Observations

  • Geneen Roth Next to Laura Bush

    Geneen Roth Winds Up Next to Former First Lady Laura Bush

    I’m working my way through Women, Food & God by Geneen Roth. Geneen has written a best-seller in my opinion. Her knowledge, experience and wisdom of what drives us to eat is exceptional. Her insights and stories are humorous and challenging.

    Women Food God Geneen RothAs I was walking thorough the Detroit airport the other day, I saw this book stand facing the concourse. I loved the fact that Geneen’s book is sitting right next to Laura Bush’s. Geneen  deserves a best-seller, not only because what she has to offer is so valuable and needed by so many, but she is also on the rebound from being victimized by the Bernie Madoff scam.

    A day after returning to California, I was in Borders Books in San Ramon and there, too, Women, Food, & God is sitting next to Laura Bush. I guess it may be part of the marketing plan. I notice that these two books are also at eye-level – giving them even greater exposure to passing eyes.

    Being the number one recommend book in Oprah’s newsletter a couple of months ago, probably helped to propel Women, Food and God into the stratosphere as well.

    I am on a wellness journey myself and have started a blog AgeLESSing – Anti-Aging to serve as my accountability partner. So far, I’m down 12 pounds and three belt notches. Instead of dieting, I am changing my lifestyle – focusing more on health & wellness.

    Satisfy Your Hunger for Knowledge

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  • Integrity & Impeccability

    Integrity & Impeccability –
    Doing versus Being

    integrityI had a great conversation with my sister the other day around integrity. She has a couple of integrity issues and questions up with other people in her life. Integrity is important to her and she does not want someone’s lack of integrity to reflect on hers.

    I had sent her one of my favorite books on integrity – Integrity by Dr. Henry Cloud – a couple of months ago. She is still working her way through it and I think this was also part of what prompted the conversation. Henry Cloud talks a lot about character when he talks about integrity. He defines character as: the ability to meet the demand of reality. It’s not the talk, it’s the walk. How you live reveals your integrity.

    6 Aspects of Character

    1. The ability to connect authentically (which leads to trust)
    2. The ability to be oriented toward the truth which leads to finding and operating in reality)
    3. The ability to work in a way that gets results and finishes well (which leads to reaching goals, profits, or the mission)
    4. The ability to embrace, engage, and deal with the negative (which leads to ending problems, resolving them, or transforming them)
    5. The ability to be oriented toward growth (which leads to increase)
    6. The ability to be transcendent (which leads to enlargement of the bigger picture and oneself)

    Last night, I was in a conversation with a good friend and the topics of integrity and impeccability also came up. One thing I realized is that most people associate integrity and impeccability with a self-image or an ego ideal – we have our ideas about how to live with integrity and impeccability and these ideas are related to how we see ourselves or how we wish to be seen by others.

    Integrity comes from the Latin root integr which refers to “entire” or “whole.”

    From the perspective of true nature or soul or wholeness, having integrity would mean being whole, not divided. Integrity would not involve trying to live up to a self-image, ego ideal or expectation. Integrity would be the natural expression of the “whole” person. integrity and impeccability would be natural expressions of  “whole” person’s life – no doing needed. The walk and the talk would be integrated.

    Integrity & Impeccability

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  • Time-Blocking in Timelessness

    Is Time-Blocking Recommended for Beings of Timelessness?

    Essential Time Management TimelessnessI woke up with the title of this post in my mind. I have no idea where it came from – perhaps timelessness. I recall it being in one of my dreams, but there it was in my mind as I re-entered my time-space consciousness. I let it roll around in my brain for a while to see what it would generate.

    The first generation of thought was around a friend of mine, Janel, that teaches a course every now and then  on “Essential Time Management.” The course is directed toward people on spiritual paths who incorporate a daily spiritual practice into their lives and are trying to integrate the affairs of this world into a life that is more oriented toward living in the NOW – Timelessness – than remaining stuck in the conditioning and confines of the space-time continuum.

    These days if one is attempting to Be In the World, but Not of IT, essential time-blocking may support one’s effort in the direction of living in Presence, the NOW and Timelessness – a boundless dimension of experience that challenges the belief in oneself as a separate entity.

    The next impression to arise in my mind was of people with beeping watches. You know the type – they have their watches set to beep on the hour or half hour to remind themselves of some goal – perhaps being mindful – who knows. I can’t swear to it, but it seems that the majority of them tune out the hourly beep after all – it fading into the background with all the other white noise of life.

    But then that led to a thought of setting the beep to occur in ever smaller and smaller increments of time until one’s realm of experience was reduced to the NOW or Timelessness.

    It was at this point that I rolled out of bed, went to meditate, then onto my morning stretches and finally into my day that was overloaded with projects and “to dos” – a list that never ends. Thus, in spite of my attempts to remain mindful and concentrate on the most important things needing attention – the day ended as countless others before it – in desperate need of a consciousness receptive to time-blocking in a universe only a stone’s throw from timelessness.

    Curiosity for the Cat

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  • Forget Struggle, Go Zen

    Is Life Meant to Be a Struggle?

    multi_tasking_om

    Life was never meant to be a struggle. Just a gentle progression from one point

    to another, much like walking through a valley on a sunny day. – Stuart Wilde

    I think this quote by Stuart Wilde bears some reflection. I don’t think it is the nature of life to be a walk in the park. If we observe the natural order of life, survival requires a great deal of effort on the part of most living things.

    I think much of the emotional and psychological struggle we human beings engage in can be lessened a great deal, but we’re still going to have to put forth effort to bring home the bacon or tofurkey.

    Zen is a school of Mah?y?na  Buddhism, translated from the Chinese word Chán to Japanese. This word is in turn derived from the Sanskrit  dhy?na, which means “meditation” (Wikipedia).

    Zen emphasizes experiential prajñ?, particularly as realized in the form of meditation, in the attainment of enlightenment. As such, it de-emphasizes theoretical knowledge in favor of direct, experiential realization through meditation and dharma practice.

    I enjoy hearing “zen” reified.” What is a “zen-like” life? Is it tranquil, unruffled and void of upsetting influences? Is 8 hours at a day spa with candles, hot rocks, wine and the works a moment of zen?

    Curiosity Quenchers

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  • Free Spirit Strength

    Undefeatable Strength – Are You A Free Spirit?

    strength free spirit

    To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in
    the presence of fate, is strength undefeatable. – Helen Keller

    I’ve started a Facebook Fan Page for the Unfolding Now. Here’s today’s quote:

    Without heart, we are not really human. And the possibility of having an authentic and deeply satisfying human life is only a pipe dream when our love is not directed to what truly fulfills the heart. To find true fulfillment, many of us at some point in life turn to the spiritual search. But what is it in spirituality that gives this fulfillment? Where does this deep satisfaction come from?

    Curiosity Quenchers

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  • Peace – Inner – Outer – and Everything In Between

    Peace – Embrace Conflict

    peace_window_buddha

    Peace is the ability to accept and embrace conflict and not be threatened by it and thereby to use it in the interests of life. – David Spangler

    I’ve always been fascinated by violent people waging war for peace. The human psyche is filled with much more rage and hatred that most of us are willing to see – thank God for the unconscious mind!

    Curiosity Quenchers

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