Mastering The Game of Life

One of my favorite authors and teachers, Dr. Darren R. Weissman, included in his first book, The Power of Infinite Love & Gratitude, what he has called the 9 Rules to Mastering the Game of Life. Following, I share these 9 Rules to Mastering the Game of Life along with a direct quote of Dr. Weissman’s from each. If you enjoy these and would like to learn more, please check out Dr. Weissman’s website and/or "like" his Facebook page where he has housed videos related to each of these 9 Rules.

Rule #1: The Universe Is Infinite

Here, Dr. Weissman writes, “This view is magnified infinitely by the core truth that you’re a spiritual being having a human-being experience. By be-ing, you experience the infinite essence and wonder of life."

Rule #2: You have free will; a choice with every experience.

“The act of 'being' is a choice to stay connected to the moment, no matter how difficult it may be. This is living in Present Time Consciousness. When you practice this, you awaken to the stream of consciousness and flow of thoughts that are always present within your mind.”

Rule #3: Everything is interconnected. For every choice that you make, there will be a consequence.

Dr. Weissman writes, “The LifeLine Law of Transformation and Creation states: ‘Emotions transform energy; energy creates movement; movement is change; and changes is the essence of life.’ As a result of change, you experience life.” He also writes, “It’s by taking responsibility for your choices that you experience the flow of life and the greatest opportunities for growth.”

Rule #4: Judgment is prohibited.

“Judgment is the lack of Present Time Consciousness (PTC). It’s a reaction based on preconceived notions about a person, race, religion, gender, nationality, and so forth. Living in PTC – embracing your intuition, feelings, and beliefs, facilitates your ability to transcend judgment and make the best choices.”

Rule #5: The greatest power is self-love.

“Unconditional acceptance, forgiveness, and letting go are essential to unleashing the infinite power of self-love.” “Self-love is the process of self-discovery – acknowledging, honoring, and releasing the parts of yourself that you’ve subconsciously internalized, denied, and disconnected from.”
“The greatest adversary to self-love is fear. Resisting change because you’re afraid of losing your identity keeps this emotion alive.”

Rule #6: You’ll experience pain, fear, and challenges.

“Throughout history, the greatest accomjplishments have been achieved through determination, persistence, blood, sweat, and tears. Everyone experiences pain, fear, and challenges. It’s the choices you make when faced with difficult situations that empower you to transform them into an opportunity for growth. Embracing this rule is vital to living a life without judgment.”

Rule #7: Embrace life with the attitude of gratitude.

“The attitude that you have toward any experience is a choice. You can always view the cup as being half full or half empty, but the most courageous way to move through life is by choosing to find the good in every instant. Rather than surrendering to emotions of negativity and despair, consciously and creatively embrace life with the attitude of gratitude.”

Rule #8: Take responsibility for your life.

“…symptoms or challenges are your life’s way of telling you to take responsibility.”
“Taking responsibility means that you’ll make the choice to maintain Present Time Consciousness, despite the circumstances. It signifies that you won’t judge the consequences of your choices, but rather learn from them. By opting to take responsibility for your life, you’ll be inclined to embrace your experiences with the attitude of gratitude.”

Rule #9: Life has meaning.

“Turn on the news and you’ll hear about war, genocide, political upheaval, scandals, poverty, starvation, racism, pollution…” “Can you imagine if life didn’t have meaning and all these crises were occurring just ‘because’? This is our wake-up call! Life is painful, yet there’s value in pain. Life is scary, yet there’s meaning in fear. Life is challenging, yet every challenge is an opportunity. We need to ask the question Why? and be willing to hear the answer.”

If you’ve enjoyed these brief excerpts of Dr. Weissman’s “Mastering The Game of Life,” I encourage you to fully read his books, “The Power of Infinite Love & Gratitude” and “Awakening to the Secret Code of Your Mind.”
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Copyright ©2010.  All rights reserved.

My OWN Talk Show

I'm requesting your help in getting me selected as a finalist for Oprah's "My OWN Talk Show" reality contest.  Click on the following link to see my video submission for my talk show idea and to vote for me:  My Video Submission / Vote. 

You can vote more than once.  I'm requesting that you vote at least once for me every day until the contest is over.  The contest ends on July 3rd.  Since I just submitted my video, I have little time to obtain votes.

I would sincerely appreciate you telling others about my request and asking them to vote for me as well.  You can also link to my voting page via Facebook by clicking on this link.  By clicking on the "Suggest To Friends" link under my picture, you can send this request to your friends on Facebook.  You can also click on the "Like It" link in order to link to the page on your wall.

Thank you for your help in making a dream of mine come true. 

Peace and Blessings.

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Copyright ©2010.  All rights reserved.

Evaluating our Actions Based on Goals

As you can see, I haven’t been very effective at keeping my blogs up-to-date in the last few months. But since I turned another year older today, I felt it a great reason to log on and blog. I am now celebrating my 40th year on this great planet of ours and I feel freer, healthier, and happier than I have ever been in my life. And I believe that each year will only get that much better for me.

Now I don’t normally make New Year’s Resolutions. I have nothing against them. They’re just not my personal style. I’m not saying that I never have nor ever will. But at this point in my life they just don’t do it for me. However, I am continuously re-evaluating my life and creating intentions for where I want to be in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years. I do this periodically as well as just checking in with myself from time-to-time to see what’s missing in my life, what I would like more of, what I would like less of…like that.

It’s a kind of, checking my course type of thing - in the same way that the captains of ships and pilots of planes need to periodically re-evaluate their headings to determine if they are still on course or if adjustments need to be made. If we wait too long to re-evaluate our direction, and we find that we have veered off course, the adjustments we have to make end up being bigger ones that are more time-consuming and require more effort. Smaller adjustments are easier and less invasive.

But regardless of when you have made resolutions, or set intentions or goals for your life, there is a really simple method we can use to re-evaluate where we are in life and to determine if we’re on course. This is a simple exercise that requires a pen or pencil and a piece of paper. But I promise you it will be worth the whole 3 minutes of time invested for you to do this exercise. My guarantee is that this exercise may be very eye-opening for you but only if you do it as designed. If you just read through the exercise and try to do it in your mind, I can positively guarantee that you will not get the same value out of the exercise. So, are you ready?

     1. Make a list of the things that consume the majority of your time.

     2. Next, make a list of the things which you are committed to pursuing (in the present) for your life.

     3. Finally, make a list of the things to which you really are committed. Consider that if being committed were a function of how we give of ourselves in time and money, to what things are your time &  money being given? These things, then, represent that to which you are really committed.

After completing the above exercise, look over your answers. Do the items in your 3rd list look the same as those in your 2nd list? Do the items in your 1st list prohibit you from working towards things listed in your 2nd list?

Are there things you listed in step 1 that you want to alter or altogether stop? Are there things you listed in step 3 that you want to alter or discontinue?

If there were a lot of variances for you (and many times there are), don’t make it an opportunity to get down on yourself. The opportunity here is to look at your relationship to commitment.
Do you esteem your commitments as worthy of pursuit? Do you seem to continuously experience difficulty following through on your commitments?

Now, look over the items you listed in step 3 again. Are there any things on there that have a particular hold on you? Maybe you want to not spend so much time or money in an area listed there but you find that you continue doing it over and over again.

If you were to consider the definition of addiction as “having the need for anything outside of yourself to make you feel whole or complete,” would you consider any of the items you listed on step 3 to be addictions? As humans, we’re very good at having addictions in all sorts of areas. Of course we hear about people who are addicted to alcohol, nicotine, drugs, or even sex. But what we really don’t talk about is that there are so many other addictions less graphic in nature. For instance, you could be addicted to shoplifting, addicted to watching television, or addicted to needing a boyfriend/girlfriend. These three addictions are no different from any other classification of addiction. Every addiction is initially driven by a closely-related unmet need within yourself. Looking for something, or someone, outside of yourself to give you a sense of meaning and fulfillment will always fall short of providing you what you desire. This is because your ultimate desire is to be at one with yourself – to be at peace. The idea of atonement is the concept of being at one-ment. External things used to try and fill these unmet needs will always fall short and will always reappear – either in the same form or possibly with a new pattern of addiction.

Take this opportunity as a stepping stone to recommit to what’s important to you. Use this opportunity to discontinue engaging in activities that take you away from achieving those things to which you are committed and to use that time, energy, and money towards what it is you want to accomplish in life.

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Copyright ©2010.  All rights reserved.