"Are You Striving Or Thriving?"
(continued)


So what can we do about this striving vs thriving syndrome?


First, Let's look more closely at what the "pop-culture" is saying these days...

Here is a summary of some of the nice sounding ideas that seem to make such good common sense because they have evolved as a part of the accepted nonsense we now consider the normal way to live, love and work.

Seek life balance
Your personal power is unlimited
Practice good time management
Don't be a 'workaholic'
Think positively
Time is money
Have a mission statement and stick with it
Visualizing your goals will help them come true
Saying self-affirmations will raise your self-esteem
Quality time is more important than quantity of time
If you feel pressured, just cut back
If you work hard enough, you can have it all
It can be so if you will it so


These are myths of success based on four major fallacies:

Wrong key to success: Seek life balance.
Right key: Balance is impossible. Relish life's natural chaos.

Wrong key to success: Use your personal power to be all you can be.
Right key: Live from who you are

Wrong key to success: Don't be a workaholic.
Right key: Love as intensely as you work.

Wrong key to success: Always be optimistic, be upbeat, and use the power of positive thinking.
Right key: All emotions are essential and life affirming.


Pearsall states:

"And we saw that there is more than one kind of success: a healthy success and an unhealthy success—a success that is toxic. There is a kind that makes your life better and the kind that robs your life of its energy. There is a kind that draws you together with your family and friends and the kind that takes you away from them; a kind that devastates your health and the kind that enhances your health; a kind that makes every day just a joy to live and the kind that makes it such a hassle that you have to struggle to find time to add any joy to your life.


So why do we do allow this Toxic Success to continue? Money issues? Thinking we're not good enough? Trying to get that raise or that promotion? Striving for acceptance from bosses, parents, friends, or your own inner critic?

Or is it just not taking time to just stop, breathe and really allow ourselves to reconnect?

Vernon Howard calls this condition where we allow circumstances and stress to determine our reactions and how we live our life "Psychic Sleep". Psychic Sleep occurs when we're not fully aware of what we're doing or why we're even doing it.

A good friend of mine named Mitch that I went to college with puts it this way:

"Paul, we've allowed ourselves to be brainwashed. I was led to believe that you go to college, work hard, get good grades, graduate, get a great job, get married, have kids, and like the fairy tale says that we've been force fed, "you'll live happily ever after"."

Mitch continued:

"It's all a lie - an illusion that we've bought into. If I had it to do all over again, I'd look at my choices a lot more closely and maybe not make the same choices again..."


Mitch almost had tears in his eyes because the fairy tale had almost become a prison for him. His passion was missing, that sparkle in his eyes was replaced with sorrow. My heart ached for him. I told him I understood how he felt and that his Heart would guide him through this challenge in his life.


So what can we do to let go of Toxic Success?

Dr. Pearsall recommends:

1. Never just get up in the morning

"Thoreau wrote something like "The first thing I do in the morning when I awaken is I take time to wake up." What he meant is, that first moment in the morning sets the tone of your mind and heart and consciousness immediately. So the first thing to do when you wake up is to not get up. Lie there. Breathe. I died of cancer 12 years ago. I had three deaths from it. I had a bone marrow transplant. I was on a resuscitator. I was intubated. When they took that tube out and I took a breath on my own, I should have died. I never take the nature of breathing for granted."

"No. Once you lose that it's true, you never take it for granted again."


"When I get up in the morning, my first thought is that I can breathe myself. The one thing about human beings is that we have the ability to place our attention. Animals are very reflexive. But you and I can put in our minds what we want there in our consciousness. But for many people, when they wake up their first thought is "What do I have to do? Where do I have to go? Where are the kids? Gotta get breakfast, gotta go! Where is the car? I gotta call this person."

I am saying the most important moment is when you wake up. So that is one suggestion.

Second: Now this is going to take some time. These people who are so toxic sometimes, they say that they don't know if they have the time. Well they do. The issue isn't time; the issue is attention. And you just take a minute in the morning, afternoon, and late afternoon at work to do something that's very radical . . ."

"Nothing..."


Right. And boy is that difficult. I didn't say meditate, although meditation is a great thing. Everybody knows about that already. I am saying just do nothing. Sit. For a minute. And let your brain do whatever it wants to do. The brain is not going to want this because the brain has lost its mind. The brain is going to say, "Get busy, make a call, check your e-mail, don't just sit here, what are you doing?" because the brain is in a lethal alliance with our body. And it is driving it to toxic levels.


What we have acclimated to is dangerous. Let the body quiet down. Just do nothing. When you go to Japan, if a worker is sitting at their desk staring away, no one interrupts because they assume that person is very busy. That’s also true in Hawai’i; that's Hawai’ian. If someone is just doing nothing, never interrupt them. Only interrupt people when they are busy. Look at the Western way.

I know these sound like silly things to do, but just try it and let your brain go where it wants and just laugh at your brain. Sit back as if you're watching a child just act stupid. And if you just observe your brain, your heart will see that it's nice just to quiet down.


A third recommendation is this:

We have found that with Toxic Success one of the most calming effects is to be content, calm down and connect—don't forget to connect. It's very important with a friend, a brother, a wife, a spouse, an associate, during the day to have some time to sit with some person and not talk about work, and not talk about success, and not answer e-mail, and do not attempt multi-tasking. There should be signs everywhere, "Multitasking is hazardous to your health!"


This may cause some controversy. When I was dying of cancer, and people knew I'd written 15 books on all these types of things and some said, "Why did you get cancer? You have this perfect attitude, you didn't smoke, you didn't drink, you practiced aloha, you do all these things." The "positive attitude movement" has really caused a misunderstanding of this whole process.

"That you're guilty if something goes wrong?"

Yes, and it’s very dangerous, very dangerous. So when you asked about attitude and everything, when I was dying of cancer, I had a miserable attitude. I was a pain in what the Hawai’ians call the okole.

Pearsall suggest this simple way of thinking...

"So I say ask three questions:

Am I loving fully? Am I letting go completely? And am I living totally?


Dr. Pearsalls book, Toxic Success is
a wake up call for your Spirit and for
your Dreams.









If we allowed ourselves to just be present and wake up to each day asking these simple questions, our lives will be simpler and we'll feel the way we truly deserve to feel...

And So It Is...


Mahalo...

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