3 Actions That Can Change Your Life: Lessons from Nature

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Getting into a rut is easy! All you have to do is to keep going in the same direction, using the same path you've always taken and voila, you're in a rut! Even the smallest changes in thinking can manifest the greatest of rewards!

For example, why not take a hike in the woods of your mind. Look into the dark, dank areas where the mushrooms grow. You know, the place where you've discarded all those impossible dreams. With a new and different perspective you may be surprised to find a spore or two that will grow into a mushroom like the one in the photo, quickly, beautifully and hardly noticed.

Who says new thoughts can't come from old ideas? They can come from anywhere, but you've got to be willing to look everywhere in order to discover what others are unwilling to search for. The mushroom in the photo was missed by thousands though visible along side a well traveled trail. My photographer wife who has an eye for great beauty, even in the overlooked, saw it because she sees greatness everywhere, even where mushrooms grow! Think a new thought today, even if you have to walk a different way on the same old path or dig through a pile of crap to find it! Trust me, it's there!

“Sometimes in your life you have to leave some precious things not because you don't deserve it but because you deserve something better than that and it's just like creating space for some bigger and much better things waiting for you in your life ahead.”
― Shubhanshu Tiwari

Unlike our spidery friends the webs we weave don't always serve to feed or protect us. More often they weigh us down, hold us back and prevent us from moving on to be what we want most to be and to do. I'm no psychologist, but I do have a personal story to share that I hope will offer enough encouragement to those who are almost ready let go of the unwanted luggage chained to their hearts!

My Aunt Anna just celebrated her 90th birthday. (Happy Birthday Aunt Anna) I had not seen my aunt or her two brothers in 39 years. It's a long story and at this point unimportant. I also had not spoken to my oldest brother for 27 years. There were some very deep wounds suffered by all parties. The content of those wounds don't matter now either. My cousin, Carol, had arranged to have a party to celebrate my aunts birth and invited all my relatives, many of whom I had never met. I subsequently flew to Philly for the party, open to what I would encounter and hoping to return home having genuinely shared a warm and memorable day with my long lost family.

All I can say is that I didn't want to leave. My heart, overflowing with emotional healing, jettisoned almost 40 years of guilt, shame, anger, and a host of other seemingly innocuous, but very damaging feelings and thoughts that had built up over the years. I could never hope to convey the freedom of the weightlessness I experienced the evening I let go of all the baggage I had been carrying since my father and mother passed away oh so many years ago. It was one of the top 5 events of my life and I am forever grateful for it!

So, remember that the web we weave for ourselves is exactly that...a web, and it's a web of deception and lies we choose. The lie and the deception is we think we are bound to carry the pain for ever when, in reality, we are free to discard it any time we choose! We can then be free to begin anew and oh, what a feeling that is! It may not happen all at once, but work on it little by little and I promise you that each thread you loosen releases you to experience an almost overwhelming sense of joy!

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

My wife, Sophia, has a genuine fascination with bees. Particularly the honey bee, because that's what her real name (Deborah) means in Hebrew. (By the way, my name, Bruce is translated into Hebrew as Baruch, which means blessed or happy! Yahooooo) Okay, so I digressed!

Bees have some really focused characteristics that help them and us maintain life. Bees 1) Guard the Queen, 2) Carry Pollen from flower to flower and 3) they produce honey! Hmmmmmm!

So what's the point here? Well, bees don't bark like dogs. Bees don't give milk like cows and bees don't give a rats rear end if the world wants them to or not, they are going to do what all bees do! If humanity would grasp hold of that concept, oh boy, would we be doin' somethin'?

First, we are conditioned by a whole barrage of someone else's thoughts, ways and desires before we're old enough to speak or walk. Then we have a world full of distractions keeping us pre-occupied while trying to rekindle a relationship with our creator and finally, even if we get through all that unscathed we are introduced to our ego and all hell breaks loose. By the end of all of that we are farther away from who we really are than we've ever been before. This conceptual viewpoint of our growth gives credence to the phrase "in order to find out who we are we have to find out who we are not."

I can assure you, again from personal experience, the closer you get to being who you know you are, deep down inside, the happier and more fulfilled you will become. If you don't know who you are, ask the universe to help you out. If you aren't sure that will work and you want to seek something a little closer to home, the library or the internet is filled with ideas to help you get going in the right direction. But make no mistake, you must want to know the answer and be willing to accept what you are shown. (You don't have to do this on your own either. You can invite a friend to take the journey with you, for accountability, adventure and fun. You will have to warn them first that they may get caught up in discovering who they are and you will be reminding them that this trip is all about you! You can help them later! LOL)

The fun will start when you look into the mirror one day and say, So and so, meet So and so, we're here to get to know each other! Then sit back and watch the fireworks.

I have absolutely enjoyed our time here together and I hope that what I have shared with you has sprung a well of goodness within that will carry over into every other day of your life. It has for me and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to share a moment with you!

One last thing: “In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” -Warren Buffett

May peace be with you!!!