DO YOU REALLY LISTEN.......& HEAR?

I received this in my email inbox just recently. It was from a person called Amish Shah to whose newsletters I subscribe. It relates his wife's interaction with their daughter and it explains VERY WELL how so often in life, we listen to respond \ react rather than listen to hear............Do you agree?

Enjoy the read!!

"My wife Puja is really into Buddhist and Zen philosophy and I recently overheard her telling our daughter a story that was told by a Zen master.

She said, "Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served his guest tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then just kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in! Stop!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Like this story depicts, we often approach life situations with our own views and ideas, without taking off our opinionated lens. How then can we truly live life if we don’t release judgments?......"

When we judge something as either only positive or only negative, we are blocking ourselves from understanding the complete picture. No situation or circumstance is ever only positive or negative - however, each individual may have a PERCEPTION that it is.

Your perception then is KEY in understanding that every negative has an equal and opposite positive and every positive has an equal and opposite negative. 

An intellectual understanding of this concept is one thing; applying it to your life is another!

Where are you seeing something ONLY as positive or ONLY as negative?

Who are you seeing as ONLY positive or ONLY negative?

To living life fully,

Lilly

INSPIRED TO ACT

I have just read a quote by John Demartini (founder of The Demartini Method©) – it says, “When you are truly inspired by something you cannot fail because you don’t give up” – so true! 

However, when I reflect upon leaving education, re-training and setting up my own business as Consultant\Counsellor (as opposed to a Coach even though some of the work I do is often described as ‘Coaching’), I have had an enormous number of ‘pot holes’ along the way.

 

What I realize when I reflect on these pothole situations is that I have continued on my journey despite them and that those pothole situations presented themselves to me to learn a lesson in order to move forward; those pothole situations have served me and have been significant in my growth.

Where I differ with John Demartini’s quote is in the use of the word ‘fail’.  I don’t use ‘fail’; in my Mind there is always a result; it may not be the one you want but unless you actually do nothing (and even then it is the ‘doing nothing’ that is a result, an action, a choice, in my opinion) there is ALWAYS A result. Once you acknowledge that, you come from a different Mindset that enables a position to move to another level of action - if that is what you want -  and if you are INSPIRED (in spirit) you WILL want to do that.

 

So, the quote in my Mind is this:

“When you are truly inspired by something you WILL succeed and you WILL continue to succeed because you won’t give up; inspiration is a powerful driving force, an internal state of being.”  That’s a Lilly Fitzgerald adaptation!

Reflecting on that quote I believe it is important to acknowledge and be grateful for all the macro as well as the micro steps you have taken from the inception of your undertaking to where you are now; when you acknowledge those steps, big or small, major or minor, you place yourself in a Mindset that appreciates you for you; your heart opens, your vibrational frequency alters and you see opportunities that you ignored previously or just didn’t acknowledge even though they were always there!!!

To your success!!

Lilly Fitzgerald