Category Archives: Personal Journey

Measuring Your Life Through Spiritual Impact

Posted on by kgoodman

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It is all too easy today to get distracted from your values and start measuring yourself with the wrong metrics.

When money is abundant in the economy, it seems like we are all measured by financial impact.

When money is scarce in the economy, it seems like we are all measured by financial impact.

It is all too easy to start picturing ourselves as piggy banks instead of spiritual beings. Whether you have money or not, there are things of more substance to measure yourself against. It doesn’t even matter if the world recognizes your effort, you will know.

You need to keep grounded in the metrics that reflect your values.

Take a moment to consider what you value. Now think for a moment on what metrics can be useful in measuring your impact within those values.

It is okay to value money. Money is simply a tool. Tools can be used for good and bad impact. Tools have value.

I absolutely value money, but I also find myself resentful of it. I work hard at getting money to take a back seat to my higher values.

I value spiritual growth. I nurture it in myself and I encourage it in others. It’s a big reason why I write and share with others. I love to communicate and share ideas with people. I also love to connect my daily experiences with my spiritual growth.

Spirituality is, in many ways, a tool. I have seen spirituality used for good and bad.

One of the most authentic pathways to spirituality is through personal empowerment. Reminding people of their inherent value gives them the confidence to trust their instincts and follow their intuitive path. Through self esteem, self discovery is enabled. As they walk the path, natural instincts will kick.

I have also seen people’s drive for a spiritual connection lead them down a path to communities that exploit them. These communities will take a person’s natural instinct and drive it toward the communities needs instead of the individuals needs.

Being a self actualized individual feeds communities in a natural way.

Telling people how they should be spiritual puts forth a false spirit. It isn’t as powerful and it doesn’t last when the external driving force is removed.

Ultimate spiritual drive and impact must come from with the individual.

I often get distracted from my own values and find that I am measuring myself against what others value. This miscalculation leads to a path where I don’t measure up. This is when I find that I am measuring my life by metrics that matter to others, but are not as important to me. My impact and my inherent value come more from authenticity than from mimicry. Try all I want, I will never be someone else. I can only excel at being me.

Finding ways to measure your spiritual impact can be valuable. But they can also be distracting. If you don’t know how to measure your impact, don’t worry, just follow your path. Be true to yourself. Don’t worry about metrics and measures. Living an authentic life will lead to spiritual impact that cannot always be measured, but can be felt. Relax into the flow of your life.

Namaste,

Kevin

Putting Forth Your Best

Posted on by kgoodman

It’s important in this life to do your best and let go of the results.

There are many challenges in both stages of the process.

Doing your best can be challenging because there are often expectations that we are somebody else. It’s important to remember that when you’re giving your best, it’s YOUR best, not someone else’s.

There is often confusion about what we bring to the table, and frequently that confusion comes from within us. Begin to understand your strengths and operate from within them. When operating from within your strengths you benefit everyone around you.

It can be difficult to manage expectations on two levels.

First, the people around you can often expect you to be exactly like themselves or someone else they are thinking of. It is very rare in life to find someone that expects you to be you.

Secondly, you have spent so much of your life with people expecting you to be someone else, that often you expect you to be someone else.

I know this sounds odd, but think about it for a few moments. When was the last time you were disappointed in yourself? Odds are that you were measuring yourself against a standard that may not even apply to you.

To find your true self and maintain that truth throughout your life is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. And by direct correlation you become a blessing and a gift to the world.

People being true to themselves and authentic change the world.

People trying to be someone else, simply blend into the crowd.

The next step is letting go of the results. Please bare in mind this does not mean apathy. This does not mean you no longer care about the outcome. This means you trust that you have done your best and that the ultimate outcome is beyond your control. Allow for success and allow for failure, but be secure in the fact that you have offered the world the most authentic you, that you have to offer.

Lastly, allow for this to evolve. As you learn more about your true self, the authentic you, your authentic offerings will likewise change and evolve.

This does not mean you are changing yourself, you are discovering yourself.

This does not mean you were false or wasteful with previous offerings, it simply means that you were in process.

We are all in process.

I believe that is the point of our life here. We should embrace the process discovery but let go of the expectations and timeline for results. Allow for you to become aware of you at a rate that is appropriate for you.

Namaste,

Kevin

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The Path Of Resistance

Posted on by kgoodman

I have always believed that things should flow organically in life. There is a natural rhythm to life and our path through it.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy, it does mean it should be fluid.

It is important to remember that organic things do some difficult work. Organic doesn’t mean easy. It implies that the process is natural.

I believe that when you find yourself hitting resistance, there are two potential reasons:

  • You’re going the wrong way
  • You’re going the right way

Understanding the difference can be subtle and frustrating. It can be especially frustrating resistance comes from your own team, the people that are closest to you.

Traveling the path of most resistance is frequently not the right answer. Sometimes you are simply headed in the wrong direction.

Other times you’re headed the right way, but on the wrong path.

Shortly after I had moved to California, I drove  up to San Francisco for a conference. I was not used to driving on busy city streets. Driving around in San Francisco can be challenging for those unfamiliar with one way streets. As I tried to find my way to the convention center I took a right turn, because I knew I needed to be somewhere in that direction. I was so disorientated though my sign reading skill had shut down. So I was ignoring the helpful signs pointing the other direction simply stating “One Way”. Not only did I turn and head the wrong direction but a massive dump truck being driven by a man who confidently knew he had the right of way, was headed straight at me. I quickly veered into a convenient driveway and waited for my racing heart to calm down. I was headed in the right direction, but on the wrong road.

I was soon able to find another road that was one way, in the direction I wanted to go, and I arrived safely at my conference.

Traveling the path of least resistance is frequently not the right answer. The easy thing, and the right thing, are not always the same. When you are first learning to ride a bike, the easy thing to do is to fall down get bruised and walk away. But it is certainly not the ideal thing to do. If you give up you’ll never reach the next stage, which is being able to ride a bike. You are up against a learning curve; However, Once you’ve mastered the basics of balance and learned to trust the bicycle, you’ve gained a powerful and fun life skill. You can get around a lot quicker now. Once you’ve learned how to balance the road opens up to you.

Traveling under your own power is so much more efficient on a bicycle.

As with all things in life, the path to success involves operating between two extremes. Finding the balance between “way too easy” and “way too hard”.

As you operate just beyond your zone of ease, your skills grow and your path unfolds. If things are too easy, you lose your edge and become lazy.

If things are too hard, you can’t even get started. It would be like trying to balance on a bike when you haven’t even learned to walk yet. You simply can’t make the leap and you give up. You’ve set your mark so high that you can’t even see it, let alone imagine how you could reach it.

The road to success is somewhere in the middle on the moderate path.

Remember when you run into resistance it can often be a sign that you’re on the right path.

Trust your instincts. Listen to your gut. Follow your heart. Stay sharp.

Namaste,

Kevin

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Soul Fragments – Part 2 – The War

Posted on by kgoodman

Thank you for the interest and comments on last weeks post. I’ve decided to share the second part of the story. This came up just a few weeks ago during body talk and I haven’t had time to fully process the implications of it.

I have a 3 year old and a 10 week old. I have always been set off by crying, but I just figured every parent is. There were times when my 3 year old was younger that her crying would just set me off into a very negative place. My beloved wife has been in charge of most of the night time duties, partially because I can’t handle extended crying, it just puts me on edge and makes me anxious.

About 6 weeks back, when our baby was 4 weeks old, we took a trip up to Berkley, CA. On the approximately hour long drive home our baby woke up and started crying. He had protested car rides in the past so we weren’t sure what we could do for him other than get home and out of the car. So we kept driving. Instead of settling down, he cried the last 30 minutes of the car ride. When we got home I was shaking, anxious and just a mess. I felt like I was on the edge of an anxiety attack for the next 6 days. It made me cranky and irritable and I felt miserable. I was set off in a big way.

So when I went in for my next body talk session, I mentioned I’d been anxious to my body talk practitioner. She usually questions my body to see what I need to process that week. But she also takes notes about how I’m doing before the session and then asks if my body has those things to process as part of the agenda. In this case my body and my mind were on the same page. We needed to process this crying response.

What came up, still amazes me.

I had a soul fragment attached to me from a Vietnam veteran. When he was in the war, he had been commanded to “clear out a village”. After the carnage and killing he was standing in the center of the village and all he could hear was the screaming of the babies that were left. As she described this energy fragment an intense vision of the situation came to me. I still shutter now thinking about the horror of it.

So this was the tie in to why I couldn’t stand to hear babies scream. She cleared the energy through the processes that body talk uses and the results were amazing. My anxiety lightened immediately. I still react to crying, but I argue it’s more on a parental level now and less of a post traumatic stress response.

I found my reaction to this knowledge interesting. In my previous post I talked about my asthma and the fragment that had generated that problem. When I learned about the soul fragment and how it worked, I felt like a hero. I had taken on the burden of another and helped to balance out the universe through my life. It made me feel good and victorious. It’s amazing because my asthma has always made me feel weak or lesser. Yet learning that I’d dealt this this for 30 years as someone else’s burden made me feel heroic.

When I learned about this Vietnam fragment, I felt victimized. Why would the universe burden me with such horrible energy? It felt abusive and wrong.

I find this so interesting because looking at the situations from an outside prospective, I can see them as both just energy. And I could feel equally heroic or victimized in both scenarios. It may have simply had to do with my energy entering the situation. I really don’t have an answer to that.

Namaste,

Kevin

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The Icarus Deception

Posted on by kgoodman

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I’ve been working through The Icarus Deception By Seth Godin

 

The base concept of the book comes from the legend of Icarus.

 

If you’re not familiar with the story of Icarus, here is the overview. Icarus and his father were imprisoned. To escape his father crafted wings for them out of feathers and wax. They were successful in flying. Icarus’ father warned him not to fly too close to the sun. As they were escaping Icarus felt so powerful that he flew high into the air approaching the sun. As he did so, the sun heated the wax, the wings fell apart, and Icarus plummeted to his death.

 

The deception from the title comes from our cultural retelling of the story. Part of the original story, that is withheld by the industrial world, is that he was also warned not to fly too low. Flying too close to the sea would cause him to lose lift and crash.

 

We are constantly surrounded by messages of conformity telling us to lay low, fit in and generally don’t shine.

 

We need to break free of these messages.

 

Remember that changing your viewpoint takes time.

 

The messages of conformity and the cultural drive to be a cog in the great machine have been hammered into us since birth. It’s not something that can be unlearned over night… But you can learn to think and act differently.

 

I have been struggling with changing my mindset for years. I have actively made choices that have been moving me in this direction for over 8 years and I only now do I feel like my egg is beginning to crack. Over time, I will emerge a new creature, and you can too.

 

Remember, when the challenges comes, you are the right person, in the right place, at the right time. You are making a difference.

 

Keep up the good work.

Namaste,

Kevin

Gratitude For All Things

Posted on by kgoodman

 

I was sick last week. In bed and unable to function for a few days beyond taking my vitamins and trying to drink fluids.

I have an 8 month pregnant wife, and a 3 year old. The 3 year old was also sick and through a blessing beyond measure my wife never got sick.

Needless to say, we were NOT abundant last week in time or energy. My pregnant wife could barely keep up with caring for us and I could barely keep up with blowing my nose and nursing my fever.

We were abundant in community.

So this makes my gratitude and appreciation for the outpouring of help from our friends and communities all the more powerful.

There are times when I feel isolated and alone. There are times when I feel out of touch and out of communication. Last week was not one of those times.

Through a few facebook posts my wife was able to ask for assistance and the offers and prayers came pouring in.

Today, one week later, my body is still on the mend, but my spirit is soaring. Thank you everyone that helped and thought of us last week. You give me courage.

As an individual reading this, know that in your own community you are priceless. Sometimes you are in need, and sometimes you are the caregiver. Embrace both rolls. For everything there is a season.

Namaste,

Kevin

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Insider Mindset – Own Your World

Posted on by kgoodman

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Ownership, of an activity, gives an interesting shift to experience. Ownership is powerful. If you feel ownership you care about the outcome. You don’t suffer the apathy of a spectator, you become a participant.

One of the keys to ownership is feeling like an insider.

Have you ever noticed in a good movie or book, that you care about the characters? Not just care, but actually identify with the characters and find a way that the story could be about you. Good storytelling takes time to introduce the characters and make them relatable.

I was watching the remake of Ocean’s Eleven, the other day. About 30 minutes into the movie a team of eleven people is assembled for a party to begin their scheme. I realized as the camera panned around the room, showing all the participants in the scheme, that I knew them all. They had taken the time to introduce each of the characters and I felt like I knew them, I was even comfortable in this group. It is a group of thieves, normally I am a little uncomfortable when surrounded by thieves, but the film had done a fantastic job of introducing each of the characters to me and making me care about what happened to them. I was invested. Regardless of the merit of their activity, I was an insider now, and I wanted them to succeed.

This is something a good manager does. Building up a good story and explaining it clearly to the team. When someone new joins a company or a team, it is important that they understand the motivation of the organization and the players involved. They need to be connected and emotionally invested.

Take a moment and look at your life.

Think about the activities that you own.

Where do you feel like an insider?

Where do you feel like an outsider?

Observe the differences between these two feelings and the results? Do you participate in more insider activities? Or outsider activities? Why?

In many ways being an insider is a choice. If you don’t feel like an insider you can point the finger of blame at the world. Often being an outside is a result of your own choice or perception of not fitting in.

Insiders are the game changers. They are the game makers. They are the backstage pass holders. They take the stage, while everyone else watches from the sidelines.

Shift your mindset. Remember, you hold the key. Find a way to become an insider. Own your world and begin to shape it.

You are the ultimate insider, nobody else is you!

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I would love to hear back on your epiphanies of ownership.

Namaste,

Kevin

Crafting Illusion Into Truth

Posted on by kgoodman

School Shootings.

Corporate Greed.

Genetically Modified Foods, Untested and Unleashed on our food supply.

Religions that teach outsiders are wrong or even evil.

Governments that can’t manage their pocketbooks.

It’s not uncommon for me to be frustrated. I am frequently lost in thoughts of how the world should be and the contrast of how the world actually is causes me tension. This cognitive dissonance creates angst and fatigue as I try to comprehend the space between what is, and what should be.

I believe, that as a culture/society/world, we can rise together to become more and better than we presently are.

I believe that we can craft around us a world that we are truly proud to live in.

I believe we have a lot of work ahead of us.

I have a favorite quote from Babylon 5 (a sci-fi TV show from the 1990’s). A character was delusional, believing he was King Arthur. The delusion was causing this person to live a life of meaning and he was making a difference. The doctor on the show wanted to “heal” him, to bring him back to “reality”. Marcus Cole defended the delusional man’s position saying “Better the illusions that exalt us than 10,000 truths”. “Babylon 5: A Late Delivery from Avalon (#3.13)” (1996)

This has always stuck with me. The world is a challenging place. And the truth of the world, that media would push on us, is that we are a violent and out of control people without moral guidance. But I don’t believe that is the whole truth. It is a half truth that only tells the negative parts of the story.

I choose to focus on the illusions that uplift me and allow for a world that can be better. I choose to believe that we can all be a part of the world we want to live in, and make that world the truth.

I invite you, as 2013 begins, to find the illusions that make our world a better place. Focus in on those illusions until they become our truth.

Namaste,

Kevin

You Cannot Run Out Of Time

Posted on by kgoodman

“You cannot run out of time. There is infinite Time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. This…is wrong tool” – Zathras (Babylon 5, 1996) – click for sound byte

Reminder to self, “time is abundant.”

I have been dropping things lately. The hypochondriac in me was beginning to think I might have some early onset neurological disorder. Then I started looking at when these things were happening, and I realized these occurrences are not coming from system failures, they are coming from my perception of scarcity.

I have been operating in an attitude of scarcity of time. Rushing from one thing to the next has lead me to a mindset of urgency and I have lost patience for the moment.

I could blame our culture. I could point the finger at my financial needs. I could even blame my iphone, always making me tap the screen to make sure I’m not missing anything.

But at the end if the day, blame is no resolution.

I am the one intimately impacted by my rush. I am the projector of the perception of lack.

My attitude of scarcity ripples out and impacts the world around me in so many unseen ways.

So I must remind myself, through grace and release, that “Time is Infinite”.

I love this cliche’ – Each moment is a gift, that’s why they call it the “Present”.

Namaste, Kevin

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Breathing Through Transition

Posted on by kgoodman

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Let me begin by saying, I am a man. I have only experienced birth as an intimate spectator. Our daughter came into the world in our living room, by design, with our wonderful midwife. I have the utmost respect for women and the choices they have to make involving the health and welfare of themselves and their child’s life, and I intend no disrespect in anything I say in this column. These are simply comments and observations based on my experience as an assistant and observer.

Birth is never easy. But it is natural.

Hospitals tend to make us think it’s a medical condition. When it comes to the treatment of a pregnant woman at a hospital, you would think she had a 50/50 chance of making it through the process. We seem to forget that birth is natural and more specifically something that nature intended for humanity. If birth was an unsuccessful activity that always required surgical intervention, the worlds first surgeon would have never been born.

Birth is a beautiful process involving transition from one state to another. Going from a state of Union to a state of duality. One becomes two.

There are several lessons I learned from the birth of our daughter almost 3 years ago. As we prepare to bring a second new life into the world shortly, after the new year, these lessons are coming to the forefront of my mind once more.

1) Stay calm and remember to breath. Breathing is critical to flowing with the process.

The ocean doesn’t create a beach by throwing itself at a wall of rock one time. It slowly and rhythmically works at the rock wall over many years. Breaking the rocks down bit by bit until the rocks become a fine sandy beach. So too, patience and gentle rhythmic breathing enables the dramatic transformation of birth. If you hold your breath and try to force transition, something will rip, rupture or generally become damaged. You must allow for your body to leverage the flow of the process to enable new life to emerge.

2) Birth cannot be forced, it cannot be rushed, and it cannot be slowed down.

We have drugs to speed things up, we have drugs to slow things down and we have surgery to rush it… But if you intend to stay with the process and allow nature to take it’s course, then you must let go. Be with the birthing process.

3) It’s okay to hire a coach.

Major transitions such as birth are dramatic and powerful. They can also be scary and daunting. It’s okay and even encouraged to find someone experienced at the process and engage their help in the transition.

4) Your work isn’t over after the birth is complete.

We love births! We love having a new life to wonder over and to see the world through fresh eyes. But for a parent, birth is merely a transition state. After the birth, your work isn’t over. Nurturing this newborn is a lifetime practice.

Embrace the work ahead and remember lesson number 1, stay calm and breath.

As I enter several transitions of my own. I find myself pondering the birthing process and trying to learn from it.

When transitions come, I tend to hold my breath, waiting for the next moment to come. This only makes me nervous, anxious, and increases the risk of something rupturing.

Breathe through it.

When transitions come, I tend to want them to get over with. I see the change coming. I want to hurry it up. Get this over with, so I can get on with my life. The change is more powerful if it takes its time and comes naturally. Also, the change is your life. It is not a side station to wait at, the process of change is life in action.

Don’t force it, don’t rush it, it will be here exactly when it is intended to arrive.

When transitions come, I tend to close my eyes and hope I won’t be too alarmed when I open them again. The nature of these transitions is change. Change that occurs needs nurturing after its occurance. For lasting change in your life, you must nurture the result of that change, it will not sustain itself.

Be with the changes in your life. Sit with them, work with them. Allow for the transition. And remember to nurture the results so they grow into healthy changes that can have a positive impact on your world.

Namaste, Kevin