By MJ Blehart
The podcast currently has 135 episodes available.
Your best ally and most reliable resource is you. Practicing self-awareness puts you in touch with that truth.
Self-motivationWhat IS self-motivation? It is finding your own inner resources to motivate yourself to do things.
Self-motivation is not selfish. Putting yourself first is NOT selfish. Selfishness only occurs when an action you perform wantonly denies somebody abundance and prosperity.
Self-motivation is making a way to do something. Consciousness creates reality. EVERYTHING in the universe falls into this.
Self-talkWhat is self-talk? When you get inside your own head and look at your thoughts and feelings, often you create an internal dialogue. Sometimes, this dialogue takes no form in true words, but more in feelings and impressions. Sometimes this takes you down a dark path. It can also get abusive.
Despite the fact you’d never take this sort of abuse from someone else, when you do it to yourself you might think that’s just fine. You believe that you deserve it for doing wrong, messing up, and being imperfect in various ways.
You have the ability to use mindfulness to become aware of what you’re thinking and what and how you’re feeling. When you do this, you open yourself up to recognizing just what you’re thinking and saying about yourself and can change it as need be.
Mindfulness and self-awarenessSelf-awareness is for everyone. This is achieved via active conscious awareness. That is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is knowing your inner being, and really getting to know who, what, where, how, and why you are. You’re utterly worthy and deserving of this. That’s why self-awareness is for EVERYONE.
The more you see and practice this the more you can help others to do the same. That, in turn, can change the fear base of society to a more reason-based one. You are thus empowered to live that way and use self-awareness to be all that you desire to be in this one-shot you get at life.
One Last Applied Guidance for Mindfulness ToolPractice mindfulness and active conscious awareness. To be self-aware and practice mindfulness, pause from time to time and ask these questions:
· What am I thinking?
· What am I feeling?
· How am I feeling?
· What are my intentions?
· Is my approach to things angled towards the positive or negative end of the spectrum?
· What are my actions?
These can all only be answered at this present moment, in the here and now. That happens to be the only time that’s really, truly, real.
Use your self-awareness to change anything about your life that you’re not okay with or desire to alter. You are thus empowered. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
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Sometimes it feels like it's all spinning out of control.
Is this really the truth of society? Have people become this dominantly sad, depressed, and discourteous? It sure as hell feels that way.
Yet I believe that’s not the truth. Why? Because everyone desires kindness, compassion, and empathy. Unfortunately, too many outside influences make them appear to be lacking, scarce, and something you must compete for.
What if the truth is that they’re abundant and the competition is a lie?
Most competition is BSLet’s be honest. Most competition, as we are shown it, is bullshit. It’s a lie.
If you’re playing golf, tennis, or participating in a game show, you’re competing with others. Pro sports and the like are competitions. Otherwise? You’re not truly competing with anyone.
This is part of where the weaponization of fear totally comes into play. Multiple types of authority figures will tell you that “they” are competing with you for this, that, or the other thing. If you don’t compete with “them” you will lose what is rightfully yours. This, of course, is utterly untrue.
Everybody wants kindness, compassion, and empathyIt doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. When it comes to yourself and your life, you desire to receive kindness. You want people to be compassionate towards you. You desire empathy for who you are, your goals, ideals, beliefs, values, and whatnot.
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with this is that many people don’t recognize that to get kindness, compassion, and empathy, they must be given. You set yourself up to not receive them when you don’t give them.
First, let’s recognize this important fact. Kindness, compassion, and empathy are in abundance. They are infinite. There will never be a lack, insufficiency, or scarcity of kindness, compassion, and empathy. They are in abundance beyond your comprehension.
Secondly, everybody desires to receive kindness, compassion, and empathy. However, not all recognize them for what they are. So much time is viewed as being in competition, and so many false narratives about lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are put forth, that they drive people to think they’re limited. That’s not true, as they are abundant and infinite.
Thirdly, nobody is any more or less deserving of kindness, compassion, and empathy than anyone else. The wealthy aren’t more deserving or worthy than the poor. FYI, this applies to the planet, animals, and virtually everything you can think of. Kindness, compassion, and empathy for everything is never bad.
Practice giving kindness, compassion, and empathyTo get more kindness, compassion, and empathy, practice giving them.
You’ll see that the more you give, the more you will find to give. Then, ultimately, the more you give, the more you get.
Practice locally. Because in truth, you have such a limited reach that this is where you can do the most good. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by practicing this.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Look around you and figure out where you can give more kindness, compassion, and empathy both to yourself and other people. Hold doors, help old people across streets, and the like.
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Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations
This is an abundant universe with more than enough for everyone.
The implication, sometimes blatant - but more often subtle - is that the thing you desire is finite. Tangible or intangible, there’s not enough and if you don’t take yours, you’ll miss it. There’s only so much pie to go around because it's limited.
The truth, however, is that the pie is not, in fact, limited.
Abundance is everywhere in everythingThis is not a universe of lack, scarcity, or insufficiency. It’s an abundant universe. Stretch your mind and see that abundance is real in both the material and immaterial. Most, if not all lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are artificial.
The pie is not limited. When it comes to the things you want and desire, tangible or intangible, the pie is infinite.
The limited pie is a trickImplications of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency – limited pie – are false. They’re artificial, created by this person, that government, that industry, or whatever/whoever else to disempower.
People who believe in lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are disempowered.
Why does empowerment matter?You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody else can think your thoughts, feel your feelings, experience your emotions, and so on. You’re it. Outside influences can provide some info and context. However, for the most part, empowerment comes from within.
Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. You gain it not via your 6 senses, but rather your inner being. Becoming aware, in the present, of your thoughts, feelings, actions, approach, and intentions, makes you consciously aware. Using them or changing them is mindful and empowers you.
Empowerment is how you choose and decide for yourself how to live your life. This will show you that the pie – tangible or intangible – is not limited.
This is an abundant universe with more than enough for everyone. The notion that the pie is limited is not true.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Write out a list of all the things you need or desire to have. This should include both tangibles and intangibles. Divide the list into three parts.
Must haves Not absolute musts Desires you can live without
Figure out the things you can’t live without, the things you really want but aren’t musts, and the things you desire but could live without.
Is there anything on this list that’s not abundant? If not, why not? If you have it, doesn’t someone else go without (or will they just have to wait for the next production run or choose an equal alternative?)
Does this reveal to you how much there is to go around, and more?
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People can change. But only if they desire to. When they don’t, they won’t.
Sometimes you’re forced to change. Circumstances utterly outside of your control force change. They happen, and they are outside of your control. Intellectually you know this. The heart, however, is quick to disbelieve.
Change can be terrifying, especially when the other side is incredibly uncertain. You have a choice here, whether the change is of your own making or happenstance. Be afraid and resist from there - or - be reasonable and learn what you can do and what it means.
The weaponization of fearFear can be a helpful tool. When your life is in danger and you run because of fear, that can be a game changer. Much of the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency in the world today are utterly artificial. They’re made up to evoke fear. When people are afraid, they’re more likely to look outside of themselves for answers, help, and support. Especially when this is an intangible and not life or death. This has led to some of the deepest divides, without open war, in a very long time.
You can’t make them understandIt’s clear to me that one side of this coming election is all about obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. Sadly, I know they feel the same about the other side – obstruction, hoarding power, zero ethics, and worse. A complicit media and almost four decades of brazen greed and hyper-consumerism don’t help.
Worst of all, perhaps, is that you can’t make them understand. Funny thing is, they feel the same about you, too. You can’t make them understand. It’s infuriating when you see injustice and can’t do much about it. Attend the protest, make calls, write letters, send emails, and for the love of exercising your civic duty vote in elections. Sadly, that’s the extent of the actions you can take.
Try though you might, you can’t make them understand.
So what the hell can you do?
Be understandingWhat I am getting at here is all about you and yourself. The only person who you can make understand is you. I could focus a ton of my time and energy on them. There has to be a way to make them understand, right? Reason, logic, science, something?
There’s something more to consider. Will that change anything about your life? Will getting them to understand what they don’t impact you?
The only way you can address this at all is to be understanding. Understanding of yourself. You, and only you, know your mind. You’re the only one capable of knowing what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what intentions you have, your positive or negative approach, and your actions or inactions. They can’t do that for you just as much as you can’t do that for them.
You can’t make them understand. You can be understanding, but mostly only of and for yourself. This is not selfish. Working with and from this is empowering.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Actively pay attention to the words being used by advertisers, politicians, various leaders, and so forth. Familiarize yourself with some of the underlying issues that are dark and dangerous and only barely being addressed.
Do what you can so that you are as able to understand as possible. Be mindful, and do what you can to be a good person and a good example of a reasonable, logical, decent human being.
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According to multiple sources, human beings make over 30,000 choices A DAY. That is a lot of choices.
But for the most part, you don’t make them consciously. Let’s face it, if you did, I think you’d probably go mad. Thirty-thousand-plus choices, per day, add up fast. That means that in a 30-day month, you make 900,000 choices. Hence, per year you’re making more than 11 million choices.
It’s a very good thing that so many of the choices you make are automated.
Recognize and acknowledge the levelsWhen you get down to it, choices and decisions come in four sizes. They are big, medium, small, and seemingly insignificant.
Big choices include major life-changing things like marriage and divorce, moving, college education, bariatric surgery, and the like.
Medium choices include big purchases, vacations, buying and selling stocks, and so on.
Small choices include stuff like choosing what to wear today, where to go to dinner, the route you take from point “a” to point “b”, etc.
Seemingly insignificant choices are the most rote, routine, and subconscious. This includes choices and decisions about when to get out of bed, scrolling social media, what you eat and drink, how you brush your teeth, what tabs you leave open on your browsers, and other seemingly insignificant matters.
Nothing you choose is truly insignificant. Because they’re so numerous, they’re far more important than we often credit them for.
Life’s choices and decisions are yours to makeWhen it comes to being consciously aware of choices, most people focus only on the big and medium choices. While they are impactful, they’re the tip of the iceberg. That’s because below the visible are the small and seemingly insignificant choices. They are the base structure on which the medium and big choices are based and made.
Mindfulness puts you in the driver’s seat. You can use your knowledge of your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approaches to alter your choices. The power is wholly yours.
Your choices and decisions factor into everything you do. Big, medium, small, seemingly insignificant, and everything in between, you have the power to use conscious awareness and mindfulness to choose. That can change your life for the better.
Unfortunately, you live in a fear-based society disempowering you at every turn. False notions of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are bombarding you to believe that you can do little to nothing to take control or make useful choices and decisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You have the power.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:For the next 5 days, every morning, take one thing a day that falls under “seemingly insignificant choices” and actively, consciously make a choice or decision about it.
This can include changing how you brush your teeth, what time you eat, what you eat, any habitual action you could change but don’t necessarily need to.
Observe how you feel throughout the day about making choices and decisions. Has altering that “seemingly insignificant choice” made the making of other choices and decisions, actively, easier?
Consider if this has a positive impact on your self-awareness continuing to apply it.
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I write about conscious reality creation, mindfulness, manifestation, and the like frequently. Each time I write about it, I explore how it requires combined thought, feeling, action, and a positive approach. Then, from there, you must apply intent with your action to make manifest the tangible or intangible.
Intent and action and time. Seldom, if ever really, is it instantaneous. When it comes to me and my choices, do I apply them?
Not enough, no.
This doesn’t just apply to fencing at all. Overall, my patience on nearly every level of my life has been disregarded, ignored, and shunted away. Ironically, as much as I teach patience here and to new fencers, my own is lacking.
Recognizing and acknowledging the need for greater patienceUpon closer examination, it certainly looks to me like a lack of patience is causing me distress on many levels. The blockage I’ve been trying to identify might all come down to this.
It starts by recognizing my impatience. Recognition is only the beginning. It needs to also be acknowledged. That way, I’m saying not just “I see I’m being impatient,” but also “I acknowledge my lack of patience needs to be adjusted by me.”
Recognized and acknowledged, now I can start to do something about this.
What do I do? The first step is to pause. Pause before I type, pause before I attack when fencing, pause before I get on the road. Then, be mindful, and consciously aware of what I’m thinking, what and how I’m feeling, my approach, then my intention and actions.
Am I being patient or impatient? This is a question I haven’t been asking, but clearly need to be. When I meditate, this should be considered. When I do, going forward I need to be more cognizant that I’m doing as I say.
Maybe you have patience that I don’t. Pausing, however, is good for you, too. In a society where it’s always “go go go”, pausing allows you and me to better get a handle on things. You and I can take more time to be present, here and now, and work smarter (not harder).
I see I have some work to do here.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Here’s an exercise to invoke more patience. This is a simple 3-step applied patience process you can use anytime you make choices or decisions or do anything at all.
Step 1: Pause. Don’t just go. Pause, reflect, consider first.
Step 2: Be mindful. Be consciously aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your approach (positive or negative), then your intention and actions.
Step 3: Act. After steps one and two, consciously and mindful, act.
· Pause
· Be Mindful
· Act
Does this added step of patience help you better balance?
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Even on the worst days you might experience, there’s always something that you can be grateful for. It might seem impossible in the face of sadness, grief, and uncertainty, but that doesn’t lessen the truth.
Thank you are among the most powerful words you can say and feel. They might be equal to I am and I love. Whatever follows “thank you” is a powerful acknowledgment of something that makes you feel good and positive. It empowers you not only to recognize and acknowledge the one item you’re saying “thank you” for, but also find and be grateful for more.
Gratitude is the ultimate fuel for empowermentWhen you’re distracted, it’s easy to lose sight of your own conscious awareness. Distraction starts to pull you into mindlessness, taking you away from intent and action. That then allows you to lose yourself in your subconscious mind.
The subconscious mind will often take everything put into it at face value.
One of the best ways to begin to access mindfulness is gratitude. Finding and expressing gratitude for things tangible or intangible is a matter of intent borne of thought and feeling.
Practice empowersThe world needs more empowered people. If more people are empowered, those who maintain the fear base of society with artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency become visible.
Gratitude is always positive. It always empowers, both when given and received. Gratitude, mindfulness, and positivity are linked because all are tools of incredible empowerment that, together, can change your life and put you more in control.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Start a gratitude journal.
At the beginning or end of the day (or both) take a moment to write down 5-10 things you’re grateful for. Write them out in complete sentences like, “I am grateful for this life I get to experience. Thank you.” Use both grateful and thank you in your sentence.
After you’ve written them out, read them (preferably aloud). As you read, let the feeling of gratitude that goes with the thought and words sink into your consciousness.
Read them three times each. Note how you’re feeling after you do this.
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Life is unexpected and uncertain. No two days are alike. Similar, maybe, but not the same. Change is the only constant in the Universe. That’s because the Universe and everything in it is impermanent.
Buddhism takes a deep look into the nature of impermanence. But outside the Buddhist way, it’s often disregarded, ignored outright, or denied. You strive to create things permanent and enduring, as does everyone.
The reality is that nothing is permanent. Nothing is enduring.
The meaning of life is to liveYou are one of 8 billion individual people on Planet Earth. Every single person has one unspoken goal in life. To live.
Think about it. No matter who you are, where you come from, what you know, your goal in life is simply to live. You will go to great lengths to ensure that this comes to pass.
Everything above about what it takes to live is artificial. To live, all you truly need to do is breathe in.
All you can control is your inner beingNothing at all in the entire Universe will give me control over any of the above. What I do and can control, however, is my reaction to it.
Specifically, my inner being. I control my thoughts, feelings, actions, approach, and intentions. What I do in the face of adversity, pain, suffering, frustration, and the like.
How is this an empowering realization? I can’t control anything external at all. I can and do, however, control my emotions, thoughts, feelings, and actions. This is empowering because it means I can shift my focus and stop trying to control what I can’t control.
What you do control is your thoughts, feelings, actions, approach, and intentions. However, it takes mindfulness and active conscious awareness to do this. The empowerment comes from this realization.
You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody but you think your thoughts, feel your feelings, intend your intentions, and take your actions. These are all that you control. That’s a lot because controlling them determines what living looks like for you.
Real, genuine, actual living. Life can’t and won’t always be one given way.
Accept control of nothing and just liveMindfulness lets you accept what you can’t and don’t control. Then, when you be here, now, you live. You’re alive. Your heart is beating, you’re breathing, and thus you’re living.
“Just live” looks small. But isn’t that, truly, the goal of every single being? Aren’t you on this Earth, here and now, primarily to live?
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Is there something outside of yourself driving you crazy? Impacting your mental, emotional, and spiritual health?
Take a close look at it. What is it? What impact is it having on you? Write this down.z
Here’s the question to ask and answer:
What, if anything, can you control about this?
Include everything you can think of when it comes to answering this. Then, take that information, and decide if said thing is yours to control at all and how much power, if any, to continue to give to it.
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Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com
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The word “discipline” gets tossed around a lot. Often, it’s attached to a concept of doing something with full attention, within rigid parameters, and with no room for mistakes. Too little discipline and shit doesn’t get done. Your art isn’t made, your practice isn’t improved, and you leave a bad impression of yourself.
What if I told you that’s not the truth of discipline? What if discipline is less rigid and more about mindful, consciously aware practice?
A different approach to disciplineDiscipline is not extreme willpower to get the job done. Instead, it’s an idea of active, conscious awareness to move yourself and your goals forward.
Life is in a constant state of motion. As part of that, change is the only constant. For the most part, there are three ways to live life.
1. Let life live you. Mostly you live by rote, routine, and habit, letting whatever happens, happen.
2. Curl up in a ball and await death. Life sucks, there’s little to no point in anything, the world is coming apart at the seams, so why bother?
3. Take the wheel and drive your life. You do things to live your life, make choices and decisions, and seek growth, change, and so on.
These are not absolutes, other ways fall between these.
Mindfulness is the core of disciplineThere are two lies about how art is made that often derail a burgeoning artist. The first is that you must be uniquely skilled and talented, gifted, born to this world entirely to make your art and be a wild success as a bestseller, storied painter, world-renowned chef, and the like. Only those so endowed are worthy.
The second is that only by rigid, strict, ongoing, never-ending practice and extreme willpower can you succeed or be worthy of calling yourself an artist. Only those who give hours of their life, their time, and sacrifice to it are worthy.
Discipline begins with mindfulness and choosing to do your work.
Discipline is active conscious awareness in practice. Recognizing and acknowledging this shows you that it’s easier to act on your goals and create what your heart seeks to share with the world. Practice is important, but perfect practice through strict discipline is not real. Your work - and the choices and decisions that go into it that lead to doing it- is discipline.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Is there something that you have desired to do but put off doing? Write it down. Also, write down why you haven’t done it yet, any reasonable or unreasonable reasons behind that, and anything else that comes to mind.
Then, work out how to do it. Write that down, too.
Now – do it. Get to it. Discipline yourself to begin.
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Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com
Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations
All opposites, like positivity and negativity, black and white, good and evil, are extremes. They’re not, as most would suggest, opposite sides of a coin. That’s because the space between them isn’t so thin as the edge of a coin, but far broader, making it more akin to a cylinder.
Recognizing this is important because you and I live in a fear-based society. From the semi-harmless, like certain forms of advertising, to blatant falsehood and lies, like large swaths of politics and religion; fear is everywhere you turn.
Fear is so deeply interwoven in society that it frequently goes unrecognized.
Reason versus fearFear is not necessarily bad. After all, without fear, human beings would never have survived to become the constructive, creative beings we are.
Intangible fear is the main type of fear people experience today. It’s weaponized blatantly and subtly to direct and misdirect you. The only way to combat this sort of fear is not fearlessness, but reason. Reason is looking at the fear and asking if it will truly harm you.
Mindfulness of fearMindfulness has two district brands. Internal and external. Part of the nature of this fear-based society is to distract you. Thus, its focus tends to the external.
Active conscious awareness is self-awareness. It’s the key to being aware of you, yourself, here and now. That then tells you who, what, where, how, and why you are.
Choices and decisionsYou make choices and decisions every single day. Some are big and especially impactful. Most, however, are small, partially by rote or routine or habit, but still impactful.
When you let fear do the driving, you will be swayed by outside forces. Conversely, when you let reason drive you, you’re practicing active conscious awareness. Ergo, you’re taking control.
Reason in face the fear defeats fear. The more each individual practices reason, the more habitual it becomes. That, over time, as it gains traction from person to person, can turn this world from fear-based to reason-based.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:Is there something you’re afraid of? Specifically, an intangible such as success, failure, love, and so on.
Write down what it is. What are you afraid of? Then, ask these questions:
· What am I afraid of?
· What do I think will happen if this comes to pass?
· How do I think this will change the way I perceive myself?
· How do I think this will change the way others perceive me?
· What will the suffering be like if this comes to pass?
After you’ve asked and answered these, can you apply reason to them? Not rationalization, reason. As in you look at them, detached, and ask if they might be as awful as you fear?
See if this lessens the fear. Meditate on it if you meditate regularly.
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Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com
Cover artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations
The podcast currently has 135 episodes available.