MyEmoHeart

You can’t see it now, but just around the corner of what’s hurting you now is what will arise to meet you and help you make room for what is next.

In order to enjoy the blessing of this precious gift, you must endure the hurt you feel right now.

Please, my dear, trust the journey.

Wait ‘til you see what I see in your future…

With a crystal ball,

Your Inner Pilot Light

“Most people do not realize that as they continue to find things to complain about, they disallow their own physical well-being. Many do not realize that before they were complaining about an aching body or a chronic disease, they were complaining about many other things first. It does not matter if the object of your complaint is about someone you are angry with, behavior in others that you believe is wrong, or something wrong with your own physical body. Complaining is complaining, and it disallows improvement.”

Esther Hicks, best-selling author and speaker.

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

- Lance Armstrong. Armstrong is an American professional road racing cyclist and cancer survivor. He won the Tour de France a record-breaking seven consecutive years

When You Numb Your Pain You Numb Your Joy! Stay Open!

Negative energy is an interesting thing. We tend to dislike it - and it makes sense. It’s not fun to experience either giving or receiving. But, it’s a part of life - and to deny this part of life is to deny life.

My mom said something REALLY wise to me last week. She has had MASSIVE back troubles in her life - surgery, dying and coming back from it and she is a token of perseverance and rising above the diagnoses of doctors. She has had a relationship with pain her whole adult life. And if anyone is justified in being negative, it’s her.

And you know what - she’s not. She is my constant spiritual teacher in being cool, calm, collected and present. We talk pretty much every day and it’s something I’ve done for the last 11 years since I moved to L.A. Last week she said, “When you numb your pain, you numb your joy.”

And this is a BIG statement coming from HER. She knows A LOT about pain because she lives with it daily. And it really got me thinking. I get asked all the time how folks can “be open, but not feel pain.” And that’s just not how it works. And my mom’s wise statement pretty much sums up why. When we are open to life, we are open to pain. And life is a duality. Positive and negative. To be open, is to be open to both.

The KEY is in how WE interpret these energies. It’s easy to interpret positive energy in a powerful way. It’s not so easy to interpret negative energy this way. It’s damn hard. It’s almost impossible.

But that is one of the keys to happiness, fulfillment and spiritual growth - to be open and to give negative energy an EMPOWERING meaning. I didn’t say - make negative positive. NO. And I didn’t say DENY negative energy, I said give negative energy an EMPOWERING meaning. That means to learn the lesson, see it in a way that honors the negative’s existence, but doesn’t make you dwell in it.

Hurt, pain, anger, loss - all these are natural parts of life. To stop ourselves from living because we do not want to go to these emotive places is to stop ourselves from living at all. As we open to life, we open to all of life. And that’s what we signed up for in this human experience. To be on this rollercoaster and to not let it consume us, but instead, to become steadfast enough in our practice where we feel - and float with it - instead of against it.

When we are open to life in its BRILLIANCE, BEAUTY, JOY, ABUNDANCE and its HURT, PAIN, TRAGEDY and SADNESS - then we are fully alive. And as we open to the negative, it also gives us more empathy for the negative that others are experiencing - and this tends to unite us.

Don’t cut yourself off from life because you only want to feel the good and are scared of feeling the negative. The journey is worth it. The pain is a teacher. The negativity brings us lessons that we NEED to learn. Stay open.

ARE YOU WORKING TOO HARD?

I know, it’s funny to think that we can work too hard, isn’t it?

As you know, I am on a fitness quest to be in the best shape of my life. It’s a part of my life that I have yet to master. But I AM and I WILL DARN IT!

I was reviewing my workout and eating schedule with a professional who is an expert in these matters. He rocks. And I showed him what I am eating, what I am doing every week. And to my SHOCK he told me I was working out too much.

C’mon! Really? He told me that I am already eating nutrient dense meals that are calorie deficient, but it still takes energy to lose weight. He says that adding too much stress to the body actually prevents weight loss, because it puts our bodies in a state of holding on to what it has because it thinks it is starving. CRAZY! Never thought about that. He also said that working out too much isn’t sustainable long-term.

It was a total mind reversal that I had never yet considered. Could it be possible that I am working out too much? And you know me, always gotta go deeper on it. And this idea totally ties in with what I was writing about earlier in the week - taking time away for ourselves so that we can show up better for others.

It really seems that this is the message The Uni-verse is trying to send to me right now - slow down Mastin. And, I’m such a hard worker, I get a thrill from hard work, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and being “great” that I am starting to see how this quality also has a dark side. And that dark side is not serving me.

So, I’m in a state of reevaluating my life and seeing where else I am working too hard. Because normally when we have a trait in one area of our life, it tends to be pervasive in all areas of our life.

Today’s blog is short and sweet. Could you also be working too hard and not getting enough rest? Could you be pushing yourself over your limits for short-term gain that isn’t sustainable for long-term health and happiness? There are a lot of comments in the community having this discussion on the BLOG, so head on over there and let’s discuss! Click here to hop on over to the blog and leave a comment and let’s discuss!

Much love & rest,

Mastin