by Ada Porat | May 1, 2018 | Empowering changes
You have the power for success in you. Yes, you have the power in you to change your life! Every day, there are people all around this country and the globe beyond who are living their dreams. Families are experiencing harmonious relationships. People are becoming healthier. Life-long learners are growing intellectually and improving their chances for success. And this power for success is in you, too.
Living the life of your dreams is indeed possible. People prove that every day. Right now, someone somewhere is healing their relationships, improving their health and fulfilling their potential.
Why not you? You have the power for success in you. Yes, you have the power to change your life!
Have you ever wanted to do more fulfilling work? Have you looked at someone who seems to have it all together and wished that it could be you? People think about finding happiness and fulfillment all the time, yet only a small number of them actually do. Why is that, do you think? Fact is, you have the same power for success in you. Are you using it?
Someone is going to start a business. Someone is going to follow their bliss. Someone is going to start the journey to deep fulfillment. So why not let it be you?
Today, around the globe, someone is embracing the challenge of starting something new. Someone is shaking off their limiting beliefs to align with something better. Someone is choosing to share more love with their family. Someone is scheduling meaningful time with friends. How about you? The power to change for the better is in you as well!
Someone is going back to school to improve their life. Someone is becoming a life-long learner. Someone is reading an inspiring book or listening to a lecture every week for the next year. Why not let it be you? You have the power for success in you – why not use it?
Right now, someone is noticing that they need to lose a little weight and they’re choosing to become healthy. Someone is training for their first marathon. Someone is joining a yoga or Pilates class improve their health. How about you?
I think by now you get the point: Everyday, everywhere, people are improving their lives. Whether you approve or not doesn’t matter to those who do. They are doing it, regardless. It is simply a choice they made. The power for success is in you, so why not let that person be you?
How to do it is simple, really. There are only three action steps involved.
Commit to honor the power in you.
This is the first and most important step to improving your life. Do you wish to improve or stay the same? What you’ve achieved in the past is fine, but it doesn’t give you a free ride into the future. The decision about who you will become is made now, today and every day. Every day, you can commit to grow and thrive. You have the power in you to change.
Make a plan.
Once you’ve decided to improve your life, you need a plan with practical action steps. It can be simple: Start to meditate each day. Walk a mile a day. Read an article a day. You just need a simple plan with achievable goals. Today, you can take action toward a better life; you can develop a plan to take you into the future of your dreams.
Take action.
Even the greatest ideas, without action, become stale and useless. Action is the key that turns dreams into reality. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. People who act on their dreams and ideas are a select few, but they reap the rich rewards of building a life they love. You have the power in you to do this!
Perhaps you’ve been looking at others who live the good life, wishing that you could as well. Well, no more! Commit to your unique life, your abilities and your potential; develop a plan and act on it. You can do this!
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit www.AdaPorat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Apr 5, 2018 | Conscious living, Fear and anxiety, Life transitions
Too much change, too fast, becomes counterproductive. It can feel overwhelming because it pulls us out of alignment with our habits, beliefs and values without giving us enough time to adapt.
If you’ve slipped into overwhelm, it’s most likely not because you’re a loser but because you are stuck in situations that have pulled you out of alignment with your inner truth. Restoring alignment and flow in life is at the core of all personal growth.
To regain harmony, you need to restore a greater sense of alignment between your external environment and your inner self. This restoration work has two parts: changing your outer environment and changing your inner relationship to your outer environment.
To restore alignment with your outer environment, you may need to let go of friends who drag you back into old habits or step out of a destructive relationship at work or home.
The second part requires changing your internal relationship to your outer environment. This alignment is more important because you have complete power over your internal choices, whereas you have less influence over your outer environment.
Changing your internal relationship with your environment takes a lot of effort – there are no short cuts to glory here. The payoff – increased peace, harmony, joy, energy, clarity, self-respect, empowerment, satisfaction and meaning in life – is its own reward!
Here are some critical components that can help you restore alignment with your environment.
- Refocus
Refocus on your core values. As you do this, an inner sense of integrity will return to your life. When there are no discrepancies in your value system, decisionmaking becomes easier, so you can align with environments that support your being instead of suppressing you.
- Define Your Purpose
You are the only person who can define what your life needs to look like to have meaning and success. For a moment, imagine you are at the end of your life, reviewing the life you’ve just lived. What’s the single most important accomplishment in your life? What is it you wish to be remembered for? What is the legacy you leave behind? When you connect with that core purpose, it will bring focus to everything else you do.
- Look for Clarity
Next, what things in life bring you joy? Even if you can think of just one thing, reflect on it until you see why it brings you joy. Is it playing with your dog because it makes you feel unconditionally loved; or spending time nurturing family members where you feel that you are making a valuable contribution? Identify what brings you joy and why; then start looking for ways to bring more of that into your life. With clarity around what brings joy and meaning to your life, you’ll enjoy the effort of working toward it, instead of feeling burdened.
- Cultivate Awareness
Observe animals in the wild and you’ll notice how fully present they are in each moment. For them, it’s a matter of life or death. For you and me, the process ultimately leads to the same outcomes although we’re not always aware of it. Each waking moment, we make choices that either move us toward a fuller expression of life or deaden the Life Force in us. Cultivate full awareness and you’ll make more optimal choices.
- Stay present
Stay present in the moment; discipline your mind and bring it back from a hypothetical future fraught with fear (“What if I lose my job?” or “What if I get cancer?”) Fact is, the future is not created yet and by letting fear-filled thoughts run rampant in your mind, you’re setting in motion probabilities that won’t serve you well! Likewise, ruminating about yesterday serves no purpose other than distracting your focus and draining your energy. At the end of each day, review the events of the day; forgive those who’ve hurt or let you down; ask forgiveness for those areas where you didn’t live up to your highest potential; resolve how you’re going to make different choices; and then let them go! Stay present – this is the only place from where you can bring about meaningful change.
- Be resourceful
When faced with challenges, don’t limit your options. Choose different responses; find more than one way of looking at things. Broaden your viewpoint to include possibilities you may not have entertained before. Consider all options you can think of before narrowing down your choices. You’d be amazed at how this simple exercise opens up possibilities!
- Banish self-judgment and negative self-talk
When you indulge in self-judgment and negative self-talk, you’re replaying the old tapes of others’ criticism and judgment that you’ve internalized. These behaviors are self-destructive. Stop it! You wouldn’t dream of attacking the Divine Presence in you, so why would you attack the human aspects that need healing? Healthy introspection acknowledges limitation and failure without judgment and allows you to change behaviors that no longer serve you.
- Maintain respect
If your actions were made public, would you retain self-respect? Societal norms commonly condone acts of greed and dishonesty as long as the perpetrator doesn’t get caught. Tolerating such lack of integrity undermines respect for ourselves and others. Do only that which you’d respect in another, and that which you wouldn’t mind being made public. When you maintain respect, you are strengthening the foundations of your life and your society.
- Stay in the Game
The game of life is not over until the final breath. Don’t give up at half-time because you’ve fumbled the ball. Never let one bad move knock you out of commission – get back in and give it your best! Change the things that don’t work and focus on what does. Give thanks for the breaks along the way and keep at it until the final moment! Miracles and breakthroughs often come at the most unexpected times, but you must be in the game to benefit from it.
Working with even just a few of these aspects will help you restore a sense of alignment between your inner life and your external environment so you can be the difference our world needs now!
About the Author:
©Copyright Ada Porat. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Feb 25, 2018 | Mindfulness, Self-awareness
Some people possess a very special gift: they embody the presence of peace within. When we have a chance to sit close to someone like that, we also feel calm. They radiate inner peace in a way that deeply touches us. The presence of their inner peace stills our wandering thoughts and calms our anxieties.
Whenever we have a chance to be with a soul who lives in the eternal Now, we can feel this subtle source of peace and joy. Through their presence, we’re able to connect to that source as well. Their inner tranquility calms the turbulence in the world around them, and they teach us by example how to find peace within.
You too can learn to live this way. Living from a place of inner peace is not reserved for gurus and spiritual masters only. It is a learned behavior, just as constant worry is learned.
You can shed your learned ways of hurry and move through life as if there is no need to be somewhere else in this moment. You can move through life as if you already are exactly where you need to be — as if you are arriving with every step. Every moment of your waking consciousness can bring you closer to that perennial peace within —embodied in the presence of Now.
When you choose to move through life this way, you dissolve your sense of isolation in the world. You start remembering that you’re not a separate individual rushing about to avoid bad and reach for good. Instead, you start feeling again your connection to the whole, like droplets remembering they belong to the ocean. The drop of water does not need to do anything – it simply feels the embrace of the ocean and lets itself be carried along by the current in each present moment.
That inner current of peace is your spiritual core; the inner voice that whispers to you whenever you tune out the brassy loudness of the material world. To truly feel alive and at peace, it is essential to learn how to tune in to the presence of one’s spiritual core in each moment, and to live from that inner presence instead of reacting to the outer chaos.
When we forget this, we act in ways that cause pain or separation between ourselves and others. We become reactive; we may misunderstand others and lash out in fear or anger. And afterwards, we beat ourselves up with guilt, shame and regret.
You cannot change the past, but you can release its hold over you. The power of healing the past lies in this present moment. From this place of mindfulness, you can choose forgiveness and reconciliation to clear away misunderstandings, anger and grief from the past. It is exactly in this moment, Now, that the work of healing must be done to set you free.
No matter how difficult the challenges of the past were, they are over. You are here Now, reading these words. You are alive Now! Treasure the fact that you are alive in this moment and embrace the opportunity for healing it offers. Sit down quietly and go within: meditate to look deep and sweep away the woundedness, prejudice and mistakes of the past. Accept the opportunity offered by the presence of Now, so you can be free.
This present moment offers a gift. It allows you to forgive, to heal and return to peace within, which is your natural state.
Life is present in this moment, waiting for you to choose what to do with it, and your choices determine the quality of your peace within.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Jan 22, 2018 | Conscious living, Fear and anxiety, Resilience, Self-awareness
Are you feeling rushed as you read these words right now? Welcome to the modern world of constant connectivity! And the faster our pace of life, the more essential it becomes to nurture our inner life for resilience.
We’re living in an amazing age, every bit as futuristic as the Jetsons or Star Trek sagas some of us grew up with. I love being able to connect face to face with clients on the other side of the world, or download a song in a second. Yet this continuous connectivity also poses a challenge: many of us have trouble disconnecting from all the intensity for some peace and quiet. Our inner life can silently wither even as we chase the outer holy grail of success.
The thinner we spread ourselves, the more we skitter across the surface of our outer lives, never going deep. And technology can track us down just about anywhere, anytime, it seems there is literally no escape!
Trying to keep up the pace can take a huge toll. That stress shows up in suppressed immune systems, high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and digestive ailments.
What is needed is more resilience: the ability to rebound from setbacks and challenges, similar to the elasticity of a rubber band returning to its original shape after stretching.
Resilience can be developed with practice, just as you can develop muscle strength by exercising.
The process of developing resilience starts with a reminder that our true nature is eternal and not time-bound. We literally need to disconnect and remember that our souls exist in timelessness. Poet E. E. Cummings put it this way:
“How fortunate are you and I
whose home is timelessness:
We who have wandered down
from fragrant mountains of eternal now
to frolic in such mysteries
as birth and death
a day, or maybe even less…”
By connecting to the soul’s eternal nature, we regain our inner sense of poise. We can learn to not push into the future, nor run from the past, but to walk our path in this present moment with unhurried grace. Lama Surya Das calls this place of the eternal present “Buddha Standard Time.” In his book with the same title, he quotes Liu Wenmin, an early sixteenth century poet, making peace with time:
“To be able to be unhurried when hurried;
To be able not to slack off when relaxed;
To be able not to be frightened
And at a loss for what to do,
When frightened and at a loss;
This is the learning that returns us
To our natural state and transforms our lives.”
The busier we are, the more we need time out of the rat race to regain perspective and renew ourselves from within. It is our inner life that ultimately sustains us, and not the outer bells and whistles.
Honoring your inner path of truth is essential for a meaningful life. Research by palliative caretaker Bronnie Ware showed the number one regret of dying people is wishing they’d had the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not the life others expected from them.
How do we honor our inner compass amid the frenetic demands of life so we can live without regrets? Three concepts come to mind: Stay true. Stay present. Follow the energy.
- Stay True:
A commitment to truth, at all levels, is automatically a commitment to freedom. It is always truth that sets us free. And where Higher truth prevails, why would anyone need to lie?
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius advises his son Laertes:
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Any “security” gained through loss of inner freedom actually submits to fear at the cost of integrity and truth. A nation that puts national security above personal freedom has lost its true power base. In saying this, I am not suggesting that a country should suddenly lower its guard against all enemies (both real and imagined). I am saying that addressing the outer issue before addressing the inner conditions in consciousness that created it, will simply not solve the problem.
This is why politics is not the answer to what plagues the human condition. Politics is like a trainer who seeks to harness and train the collective energy so it will function for the good of all. It will ultimately succeed only at the lowest common denominator.
True freedom is an inside job that starts with elevating consciousness at the individual level by aligning to Higher truth. That alignment fosters confidence, resilience and trust.
- Stay Present.
Stay in the Now. Past and future are always adjuncts to that. Don’t let the busy-ness of the world rob you of this priceless gift of NOW.
That means you need to make peace with your past so you can live without regrets. It also means you need to release the need to control the future because that is an illusion causing unnecessary anxiety.
You and I do not know what the future will look like because it is not yet manifest. There is no other human who can accurately predict how life will play out, because the future is created through a myriad possibilities and individual choices that ultimately manifest when conditions are favorable.
There are no veterans or pros for where humanity is going now – it is new to all of us. The choices you and I make in each present moment, will collectively decide the future that unfolds for us. So let’s nurture our inner resilience and stay true to our path right here, right now!
- Follow The Energy.
Let your body be your barometer. It will show you what you really need. You always create the perfect scenarios to get what you really need.
There are no good or bad energies. All people and things are just energy… which is, essentially, neutral. Energy is as neutral as the electric current that lights up both a cathedral and a drug lab.
Some frequencies of energy may seem particularly useful and attractive to you for where you’re at in your individual consciousness right now. Other frequencies can repulse for the same reason. That does not make them good or bad; they are simply useful to your journey at this particular time or not.
Pay attention to the things that attract or repel you; they are clues to what you need to do, choose or say in order to move forward on your path.
Together, these three principles can help you cultivate a richer and more resilient inner life, no matter how much turmoil you face in your environment.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Dec 18, 2017 | Change bad habits, Conscious living
We’ve all been there: resolving to do great things with our lives, our careers, our relationships or our health, only to find that we somehow keep making the same mistakes. We fall back into the same old habits because we still believe the same old lies.
But no more! When you become conscious of the five core lies holding humans back from reaching their highest potential, you can reclaim your truth and choose to live from your personal power instead.
Living an authentic life requires courage, compassion and connection. You need courage to face your imperfections and the compassion to embrace them, so you no longer need to create distractions or false ego constructs to survive. That allows you to connect to your full potential, allowing the light of truth to set you free. Here are the lies you want to recognize, along with better options for an authentic life:
Lie #1: Winner takes all
Human beings have evolved in some astonishing ways on this planet. And yet, we have held on to some of the limitations imposed by ancient survival needs. One of the most insidious is the limiting belief that everything can be reduced to win or lose. This form of scarcity thinking makes us believe that life is about everything or nothing, and winner takes all. It also causes us to think that for every win there must be a loss, and nobody wants to be at the short end. This lie causes excessive competition because if you gain something, it may mean a loss to me somehow.
Nothing could be further from the truth! We live in an abundant Universe. Look around and you will see how lavishly Nature shares her bounty with everyone. In fact, we do not have a food scarcity problem or a scarcity of resources on this planet; we have a problem of hoarding and greed brought on by the primal lie that winner takes all. The truth is that there is enough for everyone, and we can help restore equality from wherever we are – simply by acting on the truth of inherent abundance, instead of holding on to the lie of scarcity.
Lie # 2: You’re alone
Loneliness is the symptom of a life that looks for validation in the outer, material world. Solitude, on the other hand, is stepping away from the crowd in order to savor the richness of a multidimensional experience which flows from a vibrant inner connection to Source. Poet May Sarton put it this way: “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”
We are not alone on this planet, in this life or at any moment. We are surrounded by the companionship of Creation; embraced by unseen arms whenever we feel vulnerable or afraid. You can overcome the lie of being alone by deepening your connection to nature, to your inner Self and to your Source. The richness of this multidimensional connection is your innate birthright as a human being, and it will sustain you when the fickle promises of the physical world fail. You are always connected to Source.
Lie # 3: The world is always getting worse
Ah, this lie screams at you the minute you turn on the daily news, right! It is always ready to point out what’s wrong in the world because that feeds the ego’s need for survival and keeps the false circuitry of survival – scarcity – competition going.
Don’t feed the lie; change your channel. Things are not always getting worse, they are merely changing. Change is a fact of life, whether we like it or not. As things change and show up differently, we may need to remind ourselves that different is not necessarily worse. Renowned psychiatrist Dr. David R. Hawkins used to say, “Just because you prefer chocolate, you don’t have to hate vanilla.”
Change ushers in new possibilities. Throughout history, every civilization that crumbled, made way for new and different societies to emerge. Ultimately, these changes brought about the incredible developments we enjoy today. A much more empowering response to change is to find the possibilities in each change and to align with that, rather than to fight the process.
Lie # 4: Others have the power to define you
People love to judge, don’t they? Pick up a magazine and you’ll see how much gossip flies around anybody who lives in public. But do the gossipers really know the people they judge? Have they seen into another’s heart? When you allow others to define or judge you, you are giving away your power to a lie. You compromise your truth to fit into their limited mold, and you deny your uniqueness as a soul.
You are in this life for much more than that! You are free to grow, become and evolve; you don’t need to buy into the limiting peer pressure and group think of others who can only see on the surface. Everything negative others say about you, is really about them, not about you.
Refuse to buy into the limiting viewpoints of others. You have bigger fish to fry! Tune out the naysayers and celebrate your own magnificence. Your purpose in this life is not to keep others happy, but to seek your own fulfillment by magnifying your potential.
Lie # 5: To survive, you have to stay in negative agreements.
So often, one person in a group starts talking down about someone or something and you feel the pressure building as others join in. It feels as if you need to agree with the negative viewpoints to fit in. You may even feel as if you have to share their hatred to belong with them. Well, that’s a big, fat lie!
Complaining and negativity hurt you because they set up negative outlooks in you. You do not need to join the hate fest to establish rapport, ever! You are not obligated to agree with others, especially when their limiting behavior is harmful to you.
Instead, choose to remove yourself from negative environment that are toxic to your well-being. Surround yourself with positivity. Seek out individuals who are forward thinkers, and cultivate friendships with people who expect miracles and are open to all possibilities.
Banish these five lies and you’ll change your life. It will shift you into a place of empowerment where you can thrive.
By challenging these five lies whenever they surface, you can make a different choice to align with truth instead.
Finally, remember that this is a journey and not a sprint. When you start peeling back the lies that have held you back and reclaim your truth, remember to practice the same kindness and forgiveness toward yourself that you offer to others. It is the power of love that transforms, not the brute force of judgment. Always remember the power of love, and that your best effort is enough.
About the Author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
