Live fearlessly

Figuring out my website. Dived in & am swimming in the waters of webdesign... Did I say "swimming"? More like a dogpaddle. But the wonderful thing is, I am investing in myself. Living fearlessly! 

This morning, I listened to Anita Moorjani's Tedx talk on YouTube (below). Anita had cancer and experienced a near-death experience. While in that other realm/consiousness, she discovered that her cancer was manifested from a lack of self-love. Once she understood this, she knew, if she chose to return to her physical body, she would be healed.

An analogy she shared was to imagine entering an immense warehouse. It is dark, and you have a small flashlight, so you use this to look around. The beam shows you certain things, but not much else. You can only see what can be seen within the narrow beam of your flashlight.

Then imagine one day huge floodlights go on, illuminating the entire warehouse and you now see that it is enormous. Shelves line the walls, filled with all sort of things - things you can imagine as well as things you cannot imagine. Some of the things are large, some small. Some are beautiful and some are not. You remember seeing a few of the things with your flashlight, but most you have not because your flashlight had never shined on them.

Now imagine the floodlights go off, and you are left once again with your little flashlight and its small, narrow beam. Because you saw all that there was when the floodlights were on, you know that it all still exists, even though it can no longer be seen.

This is how Anita felt once she returned to her body. So much more exists than what we can see, here in our physical bodies. So much more exists than what we see, believe or experience.

The beam of the flashlight is our awareness. "When you flash your awareness on something, it becomes your reality, it becomes what you experience. There can be something else that's right under your nose, but if your flashlight is not shining on it, you won't even notice it. You won't even be aware of it."

What we focus upon, is what we manifest. It is what we bring into our day to day lives. And so to change our reality, we must change our focus. If we focus, or zoom in on what is undesired, that is what shows up in our lives. If we change our focus to what is appreciated and desired, this is what shows up instead. "We would have a very different world if we changed our awareness."

Here are the five most important lessons offered by Anita:

• Focus your awareness on love: "When we love ourselves, we value ourselves. When we value ourselves, we teach people how to treat us. When you love yourself, you find no need to control or bully other people, nor do you allow other people to control or bully you. So loving yourself is as, or more important, then loving everybody else. And the more you love yourself, the more love you have to give other people."
• Live life fearlessly: Most of us are brought up to fear everything from foods, poverty, terrorists, disease... to the unknown or unfamilar. "And people think that fear keeps you safe: that is actually not true. Love keeps you safe. When you love yourself, and you love other people, you make sure you keep yourself safe and that you keep other people out of danger's way. Love keeps you much safer than fear does." Love manifests more of the same, just as fear or hate manifests more of the same. This keeps you safe, because when you hold a stance of love, love is what guides you. Love then inspires each step you take and each path you follow.
• Practice humor, laughter and Joy: "We're born knowing it's important to laugh, because that is what kids do all the time. We're born knowing love and fearlessness, but it gets conditioned out of us as we grow up. Laughter is so important... and finding your joy in life. It's more important than any other spiritual activity that you can think of. If we had more laughter, in fact if even our politicians learned to laugh, we'd have a very different world. And if we had more laughter, you'd have less people with illness, you'd need less hospitals and you'd need less prisons as well."
• Life is a gift: Many live their life as thought it was a chore." Even the challenges that come to you are a gift." Anita thought the cancer was killing her, but actually she was killing herself before she got the cancer. "In the end, you will always find that your challenges are a gift. And if you're in a challenge and it doesn't feel like a gift, it means you haven't come to the end yet." We may not see the insights offered until we get through the challenge.
• Always be yourself: "Be as you as you can be. Shine your light as brightly as you can. Embrace your uniqueness. Realize who you are, get to know who you are, love yourself unconditionally and just be yourself."

From Anita's grandfather, while in non-physical:
"Now that you know the truth of who you really are, go back and live your life fearlessly."
And so this is the start of my fearless living...
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