Love In Your Life

SMART goals are statements that describe very Specific, Measurable objectives. They are also Attainable and Realistic, Relevant in your field. Finally, they are Timely, making sense with what the current environment warrants.

Once you have done your "homework," (& might I suggest writing your goals and preparatory notes), a conversation with your boss is directed and organized. Just as you are professional and persistent, you are better able to sound prepared, with ready responses to questions that arise.

Part of the preparation for these conversations is in the self-talk that precedes the meeting with the boss. We can't convince another before we have already convinced ourselves of our worth. Know your value, come armed with your quantifiable accomplishments to date and make your case with confidence.

Are you prepared to negotiate a job offer? What about during a performance review...Do you know your worth to the company and how to communicate that during your feedback session with your employer?

If you accept an offer and then are subsequently dissatisfied as you feel under-compensated, this will affect your attitude on the job. All of us want and deserve to be compensated appropriately, meaning in accordance to how effectively we meet the goals of the position or how well we have performed during the course of time if we are being reviewed.

What is essential for us to understand is the specific marketplace, how we meet and/or exceed the expectations of the position and where this job fits in the grand scheme of our career. If it is a stepping stone, that has one implication on how we position ourselves. If this is the job of our dreams, it takes on another perspective. In both, however, it behooves us to be prepared, patient, persistent and professional.

Having listened to people my entire life (most know less about me than I do about them because of this preference), I hear the anxiety that comes from one way or another. This is in thoughts, in actions and in held perspectives. In so many ways, we demonstrate extremes. We feel it, speak it and behave in ways that originate from an attachment to one position or its polar opposite.

I have always felt in the middle somehow. Perhaps it's because I was born under the Libra Sun, referred to as "balance." Or it may be because I am just one of those people who often can see merit in both ends of the spectrum when it comes to opinions.

I know this: Opinions are not fact. When we are inflexible, unable to even hear another side of an argument, I wonder how ego is in the way.

Why, for example, do we get offended when presented with a scenario in which we feel opposed?

The Buddha spoke about the "middle way." The inference is that once ego enters, imbalance is created, manifesting in judgment. This discomfort must be adjusted through what is known as karma. It allows us another opportunity to accept what we created and observe deeply to uncover its cause. We get to deal with what the true motivation is for our upset so we can correct it there.

"Our minds are divided into different sections and the Gita speaks about a consciousness which arises entirely above all duality and diversity. That is the Middle Way."

What is unresolved within ourselves will continue to manifest in ways such as our being offended. We need to ask ourselves why and listen to the answers that come up when we sit quietly with the questions. It's all ego that judges and therefore generates offense. If we can let that go, let go of the need to judge, be offended and suffer the consequent pain of all that, how would your life be changed?

How is happiness tied to authenticity? If I fail to live authentically, am I guaranteed unhappiness? If I am happy, does it mean that I am living an authentic life?

"To thine own self be true," as stated in Shakespeare's Hamlet. "And it must follow as night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

Such adages infer that authenticity is essential to not only being happy and living the truth of who we are, but that it is also essential in our relationships with others. We all recognize the importance of relationship. It's pretty much everything, since we do not live alone but interact with a variety from family to friends to work associates.

When we live from the place of truth, we do not hide behind falsehoods and consequent feelings of unworthiness but are more apt to embrace self love. Loving ourselves automatically leaves the door open to loving others in the same way. We can not give to another what we do not possess for ourselves.

When we ask about life's meaning, we might be asking for ourselves personally. That's one motivation: What is my purpose here (this time) and how do I live a meaningful life?

We might also question our collective time here. Why are any/all of us here? What is the purpose of our being here, on earth? What does it signify, in terms of humanity's collective purpose?

What if forgiveness is both our individual and collective purpose? Letting go (of our judgments and attachments to outcomes) is simple but it is not easy. But what if that's it? I adore the simplicity of such an idea. It does seem that forgiveness tends to be one of our biggest challenges. Letting go of judgements whether on the individual level or as a collective is not without real work. But that may be the precise reason to consider that forgiveness is indeed our purpose here.

When an acquaintance suddenly passed away at the age of 40 last week, the shock quickly morphed into wonder. I recalled the numerous conversations I had shared with him, mostly about his business ventures and questions about where he might find the greatest income stability. I wondered, if he had experienced proper guidance, would the younger version of this enthusiastic man have profited? Would it have made a difference? Would the feedback gleaned from either a professional assessment or an encouragement toward introspection have made a difference?

The reason for my questions is that it had been determined that he had experienced a massive heart attack. When I hear that, I think of the genetic component, sure, but also of the metaphor of the heart. She references the heart to represent the center of love and security--to squeeze all the joy out of the heart in favor (or need) of money or position. It's about feeling scared and not enough. He had just found what he may have believed was the "love of his life" and here he had to make a living instead of enjoying this love. He had said to me a few weeks ago, as he was doing work at my house that was not particularly enjoyable to him: Right now, I would rather be sitting at the lake with my girlfriend." I felt the instant sadness for someone who wished himself elsewhere but felt the strain and stress of the need for money. Lousie Hay says "hardening of the heart. Belief in strain and stress.

It is clear that knowing oneself is not the same as knowing about oneself. The kind of self awareness we speak about on this show is more about understanding our essence. It clarifies our purpose here on earth this time around, if one believes that we are here more than once in the evolution of the soul.

Assessments that get at our motivations and provide descriptions of the kind of environment that is suited to our needs often stir deeper meaning of life conversations. Very often, individuals seek to go further and uncover secretly held beliefs and feelings, fears and desires. This more in-depth introspection gets one closer to purpose.

When we speak of knowing ourselves in our form identity, it is more about our ego. Truly knowing ourselves requires that we seek beyond the ego. Eckhart Tolle says it best: "Knowing yourself is being yourself and being yourself is ceasing to identify with content."

We have been here before: Do we live our lives determined by our experiences or is the meaning we attribute to our experiences determining our lives? Are we in control or simply coasting our way into the future?

Whether in questions of our career decisions or in living our personal lives, we are either governed by our past or creating our futures. In the first scenario, experience is the cause of our sadness or feelings of rejection and failure. In the second, we are making out of our experiences whatever suits our purpose.

We need to think about this. It offers us the light for getting our of our cycle of anxiety, disappointment and failure. We are setting ourselves up. It is not a bad premise, because it opens up positive possibility. It offers control as we are responsible for our experience rather than victims of it.

We all have memories of "Mom used to say" and Dad says." In my case, whenever my Mom referred to an "educated person," she meant one who behaved with dignity and respect. It had nothing to do with a piece of paper.

In coming across a quote from poet Robert Frost, I remembered my Mom and it so resonated with what she taught me. I learned and believed as my mom did, that education has little to do with acquiring knowledge for the purpose of getting somewhere with a career. There are many individuals who have letters after their names and possess the highest academic honors but demonstrate behaviors that are inconsistent with what an "educated individual" truly is.

Robert Frost says "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." Why that makes so much sense is because "being educated" ought to mean that you accept the fact that individuals have unique thoughts and opinions. That fact ought not mean enough to you that you become angry and upset enough to lose your temper. Equally unnecessary is the idea that you feel inferior to one who does have those letters after their name.

We are at a moment in our culture to consider the wisdom of these words. We hope that you will be open to this education.

We have become painfully aware of our national sickness and need to begin the healing process...together. We must do this not only with lip service but with the kind of compassion that moves us toward action.

Empathy is at the very heart of understanding so that we can hear and feel the others' pain. Having that kind of sensitivity to another's experience leads to seeing what needs to change. It enables us to identify what we need to personally change in and for ourselves, and more importantly what can be changed on a larger scale to vanquish this abhorrent manifestation of a belief in separation.

For those who are A Course in Miracles students, this belief in separation is at the heart of our egos, a fictional state originating with the thought that we could actually separate from our Creator. We can't and we didn't. Acknowledge that and we are literally One in Heaven!