7 Keys to Optimal Living

What if you could get closer than ever before to living optimally? Begin by jotting down what this means to you in the short  term. Use as much detail as you can. You can add details about medium and long term to this at another stage.

For now, ask yourself how would you go about grounding the short-term vision. What can you do to feel better about yourself where you are now?Which steps can help you inspire self-directed initiatives and positive change? Invite you to begin with these seven tips to get closer to optimum living:

1. Identify repeating patterns or challenges that come up for you

2. List negative feelings that have been arising

3. Be sillier and immature more often (i.e. pillow fights, laughter, tickling, spontaneity)

4. Join us for our weekend rainforest hike

5. Take up a regular spritual practice alone or with a friend

6. Watch movies in a genre that evoke your humor and light-heartedness

7. Schedule in time to explore new ideas, innovate and connect with new people

Share your ideas and experiences for living a more fulfilling existence. 

The Value of Down-time

It is common to respond to being overwhelmed  by work or tasks in three ways;

1) to force yourself to focus more intently on tasks at hand without breaks,

2) to work more hours in a week, month or year

3) to avoid the efficiency trap and instead, work smarter

This said, you may ask, what does work smarter mean? It is not about doing more in less time. Rather, it is about paying more attention to what is going on within you during down-time (when you are not consciously task-oriented).  This is about recalling what it feels like to tune into and be aware of what is going on within you, body-mind-spirit. (That's right, all of you, not only mental chatter.)

Thus, you no longer schedule critical tasks when you are mentally drained and you are more informed to let go of what is no longer necessary.  Take a moment to reflect what it feels like to maximize effectiveness.  Grow conscious of distractions and eliminate them. Reflect on your inspirational mentors today. Who is inspiring you to review how you perceive and use time? 

Live as if nobody can teach you

Reasons exist for everything we perceive and invite into our lives. Most people are inspired by others.  We all imagine and create people we admire for qualities and experiences we relate to or aspire to have ourselves. 

Yet, inspriational mentors we connect with and admire also silently invite us to grow more conscious of our own true qualities so we can bring these to light. Ponder these ten points that encourage seeing yourself more often as your own guru or inspirational mentor:

1. Stand on your own

Even for a moment or a day, let go of ideas, all that you are taught. Unspoiled wisdom exists within you. This involves trusting yourself more, living more in love than fear. Trust is not about techniques, strategies or tools, but about getting to the root of your character.  The more you interact with empowering people, the more you empower and listen to yourself, the more you are accepting yourself.  What is your inner voice sharing? How does this en-lighten or en-liven you?

2. See into the nature of pleasantness

The only way to be genuinely pleasant all the time is if everything around you is always seen to be pleasant.  This is unrealistic. To be happy all the time is to deny the full gamut of emotions and lessons available. Every ah-ha moment is drawing you deeper into yourself, to see the origin of your beliefs, projections and reflections. Which core beliefs are you discovering and healing?

3.  Notice assumptions and beliefs cloud perception

As you grow more skeptical about everything and everybody, about social systems, policitial structures, religious beliefs, scientific theories, and popular beliefs about other planets, you discover no ideas enable you to get intimate with real life.  Getting real involves the willingness to question familliar foundations and bravely remove the carpet you imagine that you stand on.

4. Observe the inner skeptic 

Life unfolding around you is never going to be 100% what you think you want.  Ask yourself who thinks it should be? See the inner skeptic as the teacher it is. At any given second, a geosynchronous satellite is emitting a T1 ( a terabyte) of information.  The human brain compresses 3-4 terabytes of information for memory storage. Imagine the interaction between the human brain and geosynchronous satellites and what we are downloading unless we grow conscious and take personal responsibility.  We have the capacity to transcend all that which gives the illusion we are separate from true self.  

5. Delve into the secrets of time

How else could you learn but through the invention of time or imagined gaps between here and there? Earth is not about instantaneous manifestation though many people tell themselves this is what they want or work toward.   Recall your intention in being here. Be aware of conditioned impatience or the urge to want things or results faster. What is time teaching you about yourself, downloads and your human experience?

6. Mistakes are necessary

If you are protected from committing mistakes, you can never learn anything.  Being aware is noticing the difference between mystics and mistakes; mystics see everything the way it is, people who see mistakes judge how things should be.   Watch what happens as you grow more solutions-oriented and then begin to identify the source of perceived problems and solutions is the same.

7. See through illusion of directions

What you assume is up or down, side-to-side or in other directions, is arbitrary. Reflecting on the planet as a spinning sphere, if you are looking upward, you cannot ever be sure which direction you are looking in. The only direction you can be certain of is what is outward and what is inward.  As you explore the outer world, your inner world grows sharper.  Imagine yourself as a pilot in a plane in a wild spin with no sense of up or down. What do you do? How do you ground yourself without traditional points of reference?

8.Conscious choice followed by conscious action

One view of the ideal path is to live with awareness of what is going on energetically within and without.  The more conscious you are of what you dream, the more  conscious action you take to pave the way for what is unfolding as new realities. You take conscious action to draw out more of your forgotten or hidden self.  Notice what is arising within. Trust arises in consciously observing truth and grows as you embrace vulnerability. What truly matters?

9. Stop lying to yourself

Pain and pleasure happen within you. Have you ever experienced anything outside yourself? Who determines what happens within you? Notice what happens as you determine how your experience of life is on this planet is 100% determined by you. You cannot lie to yourself and make any more excuses as the truth reaches conscious awareness. You respond to everything as a way to wake up to the big picture.  Everyone and everything is helping you help yourself. Who or what stands out as helping you most right now?

10. Unleash your inner radiance

What feels like moments for me seems to be hours for others.  Time stops as I discover everything I believed was me is not me. What is here is there, what is there is here, past and future get mixed up until distinctions disappear.  As the fog clears, when two eyes are open, the world of time exists and when these eyes are closed, another reality presents itself though another eye. Watch what happens as Mastering Time becomes a conscious choice.

5 Lessons from the Courage to be Disliked

Books that appear in our scope are guides on our path to greater fulfillment.Everything can be viewed as a teacher with a message when we are open to it.  Many people  list favorite spiritual books and such lists are often changing.

The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga  is a book full of surprising lessons.  I read it in the airport recently while awaiting a connection. Its conversational style is engaging yet requires paying attention to keep track of changing points of view. Millions of copies sold in Asia already, reading the English translation invites discovery of why its popularity is growing. When ready, readers of Kishimi and Koga's book are invited to grow aware of their own reflections and projections.

It is like a modern take on Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind that incorporates what Fumitake Koga describes as "the shock value of Adlerian psychology." Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of "Individual Psychology." Adler viewed human beings as an individual whole. Along with Freud and Jung, Adler is viewed as one of three highly influential minds of psychology of the 19th century.

In a nutshell, the book unfolds through exchanges between a philosopher and student. The philosopher explains to his pupil how each human being exists to determine our own life, free from the limits of past experiences, doubts, and the expectations of others. The book invites readers reflect on what is deeply liberating, on what or whom allows us to reach inside ourselves to find the courage to change.  It is set up to invite readers to see through self-created limitations other people seem to place on us. Ponder these five lessons that stand out:

1. Accept you cannot please everyone

To say yes to everything and everyone, is setting yourself up for a fall. To be true to yourself means accepting how you feel, expressing your truth and accepting everyone is not going to agree with you or see the world in the same way you do. Agree to disagree and life is then much simpler.

2. Discover all relationship problems mirror inner conflict

The view offered is that we create relationships as a means to get to know ourselves.  This problems we think we have with others point to our unconscious resistance to accepting parts of our shadow.

3. See that seeking recognition is an ego trap

Instead of seeking recognition, pinpoint why you do not recognize yourself as you are, why you resists recognizing and celebrating what you have already achieved, or why you resist giving yourself recognition.

4. Discard other people's tasks

You are taught to live according to other people's views, desires, direction and percpetion of life pupose and experiences. Turns out, stepping back and recognizing who and what you truly live for is a thought-provoking and potentially life-transforming journey.

5. Trusting yourself and being confident are not the same

Feeling inferior or superior, making choices in life to reinforce related unconscious beliefs are stepping stones to growing aware of the bigger game that you are playing. No valid excuse exists for hiding from truth.  You only begin to see through and dismantle smokescreens when the ego becomes a friend and teacher. 

Interview with Joanna Albrecht

People only ever enter our lives with perfect timing.  They always exit with perfect timing too.  We create relationships, invite them in and  all the lessons we can handle. 

Joanna Albrecht is a thought-provoking guide in many areas and especially for relationship transitions. She has been there, done that, been there, done that again. She is also an energy healer with a toolbox of gifts and skills to empower people to get to know themselves on a whole new level. She senses streams of energy that often go undetected and draws your attention to your blind spots.  It hits that you only truly get what you feel.

It is with pleasure that I share the following interview with Joanna. I marvel at the synchonicities arising during the process that prompt me to chuckle. Its a friendly rreminder that everyone who crosses our path does so for a reason. Its up to us to make this conscious. Either you draw people to you to change your life or you are already in the process of somehow changing theirs. Most often, both are happening together.  You do not have to know how energy is shifting to feel it.

Joanna, I could speak with you for ages. The depth and substance of your experience is so engaging. Between your world travel and the diversity of training under your belt, this life has certainly guided you to explore different directions. Please share key events that led up to writing your new book, Moving On and Letting Go.  Why write and share it at this point in your life?  

I have had a long history of being in-and -out of relationships. I was always looking for that man, my soul mate, to save me. The knight in shining armor that was going to make everything ok and bring peace and happiness to my life.

But every time I got into a relationship I never felt like I was complete. I never felt filled up and I would often times feel alone, even if the person I was with was right next to me.

At one point I realized that the love I was looking for was never going to come from outside of myself. Unless I learned how to give myself the love I was looking for, I was going to be constantly in a state of clinging and neediness looking for that next person who could give me more love, more energy, more attention.

When I was out of a relationship I would find my way back to love. I would tell myself the things I was longing to hear from a partner. I would take myself out on dates, I would treat myself with love and kindness, but as soon as I was in another relationship everything would go out the window and I would find myself clinging and needing again.

After a particularly challenging breakup I saw the pattern happening again and I said, “That’s it! I am writing a book on all of the steps that I take to go from totally losing myself in relationship to fully loving and appreciating myself again.

What a wake-up call! Many readers will feel you are speaking directly to them, even though you are speaking on a universal level, referring to that thing called love. This is an invitation to enjoy the moment rather than cling to it. Co-dependence is so rampant in the West.

Years ago, I recall reading Co-dependent No More by Melodie Beattie.  I also appreciate how she matured and  published The New Codependency  She covers the root of boundary issues, self -care, unconscious deprivation, control, universal topics, worth attention for those who invite them in.  

As you point out, healing from neediness requires loving ourselves.  As you also add, this is often easier said than done. Women in particular are conditioned to love, encourage, support and depend on others.  Knowing how to love ourselves is not taught. We have to become our own role model for unconditional love. This involves self-care, self-talk, conscious awareness of discomfort and that which can only be known directly. So many juicy topics covered in your book. I love it!

In your own view, what distinguishes your book among relationship books? What is you intention in writing and sharing it?

Having worked with Energy Medicine for the past 25 years I have a different outlook on relationship energetics. I see the energy between people as tangible and textural. When someone has constant thoughts it is usually because of some energy of another person in their personal space. I help people to find that energy and release it. When this happens the thoughts and emotions will dissipate and the pain is dissolved along with it.

I am hoping that these techniques will help people break the cycle of needing to find the love require out side of themselves and to feel whole and complete within.

That intention, to invite people to see what love really is, and let go of attachment to what it isn't, certainly has potential to guide people to transform themselves. Amen to that! The subtle message of taking responsibility is remarkably simple, when people choose to see it this way. 

Of course, books that explore relationships have universal appeal. It is what our lives are based on and shaped by. Human existence unfolds based on perceptions of encounters and responses to interactions.  What stands out about your book is your conversational style, and how you present the valule of moving beyond personal stories.  Please tell us more about this approach. How did you get to a place where you see beyond the personal? 

I don’t share personal stories in this book. I feel like going back through the stories actually brings you into the energy of them again and creates a feedback loop that causes them to happen again.

What I do like to do is to help people to understand why they feel the way they do and how to shift it easily and effortlessly. We make up these dramatic stories in our minds that cause us pain and suffering, but if we can breathe and relax for a moment and release the cords and energies that are causing the suffering we can be free in a matter of moments.

I would watch myself time and time again going from absolute sobbing and crying to a place of peace and calm just by releasing the energy and cords that I had to another person…when I realized this was actually possible I wanted to teach other people what I found to release them from pain and suffering.  

Many people self-question or get nervous before talking with people, as well as throughout dating or longer-term relationships. You suggest that being human includes the willingness to take risks, be vulnerable. How do you come to respect the neurotic inside? How do you get beyond your own doubt?

I am full and complete within myself. When I meet another person I know that my opinion of me is all that matters. There is a saying “What other people think of you is none of your business.”  If people love me, it is because they see me through a filter of love. If they hate me they are looking at me through a filter of hate, but none of it has anything to do with me. I tend to think that we create our relationships from our own self love and self worth and will attract people into our lives based on our own view of ourself.

So if I am meeting people who love me, I am seeing my world as a reflection of love. If I am meeting people who are judging me, there is a place inside of myself who is judging myself. Whenever the world seems less than loving I know that it’s time to get quiet and find the places within myself that aren’t feeling loved and love them again, as soon as I do that my world becomes a much more loving place.

Absolutely! It is life-transforming to reach that place where the external is seen as a mirror of how we feel inside about ourselves.  Books like yours help more people get here to this place of deeper self-understanding.  This is so crucial to seeing through the fog of conditioning.  Thanks so much!

Does it ever happen that you seek guidance outside yourself when in relationship predicaments?  What have you turned to in the past and who do you turn to currently? Has any of this helped?

I go within. The answers I am looking for are always inside of my heart. I think everyone always knows the truth if they get clear and quiet enough. No one outside of yourself can give you your own truth. When I am feeling resistant to do this and need a reminder of how to shift into that place I will often listen to Abraham Hicks who reminds me that my mind is creating my reality.

Love Esther Hicks workshops and the 'ah-ha' moments triggered by Abraham-Hicks recordings.  It is indeed useful to have a 'go-to' that helps shift your focal point of attention back to the centre, what you know in the heart. That's all it takes to wake up or intuit what is real/ unreal.  

Please share some of your favourite books about relationships and how and why you are drawn to them as guides along your journey.

The 5 Love Languages taught me about the different ways that people need to experience love. I tend to show people love my actions and words, but need physical love and attention in order to feel loved.

Attached was another book that blew my mind. I am a calm, grounded and rational person, but when I get into a relationship with some people I turn clingy and needy almost instantly. This book explained that there are different attachment types in relationships and that I tend to be more Anxious in relationships and when I got together with someone who is Avoidant, it would turn on a fear protocol that would send me into a tail spin of clingy and neediness. The more I would want closeness, the further away they would go. From this I learned that if I am feeling these things I need to come back to myself and love myself fully and completely and them I could come back to the relationship. But if it continued to happen, then that relationship is probably not the one for me. 

I am familliar with Gary Chapman's book but not the other book you mention.  Adding that to my list. Completely understand the draw of learning more about attachment types, what to recognize within yourself, what to avoid and how to heal. You might also appreciate a new book Soul Mate Love by Shannon & Scott Peck. Is it not lovely that we are always drawn to precisely what we need.  Situations repeat until a lesson is learned and thus, a new situation and opportunity for new lesson created. This is the wheel of time and life.

This said, we all love a great movie.  Which relationship films contribute to your real-world model of relationships and which films alienate you? Draw from your favourite film genre or a variety of genres. 

I love a good romantic movie…but I have realized that the whole romantic movie story is not the whole picture. You get 2 hours of falling in love, conflict and resolution and think that is the way relationships go and are disappointed when it doesn’t go that way in real life. These movies tell you that there is another person that is going to complete you out there in the world and unless you find them you will be sad the rest of your life. I just don’t think that is realistic and sets everyone up for failure. If you can truly find the love within yourself then when you meet someone who is a complement to your life, then it just amplifies yours and their own self love and you cheer each other on to live full and complete lives. You are not coming to each other as half of a person wanting to be whole, but two whole complete people wanting to share that fullness with one another to do great things in the world. The relationship is more of a partnership of building a life together that is not only good for each other, but in some way, helping the world.

That is so accurate. If we are truly honest with ourselves, mainstream romantic stories perpetuate the illusion of separation.  These emotional rollercoasters invite the audience to live vicariously through who they are not and imagine and even desire a kind of love that is unreal.  I cherish the vision you present of two complete individuals coming together to enrich each other and the world. I feel tingles and pulses of energy listening to you about this.  

If you spend a period of time with a friend, what is the probability you would seek their advice and counsel regarding your personal relationships? What if you hired a relationship advisor and acted on what turns out to be horrible advice? Who is the biggest troublemaker in your relationships and how do you effectively deal with it?

I have very few people in my life that I seek the counsel of, but when I do I always ask them to help me to find my way back to loving myself. I used to blame my partners, other people or circumstances for my sadness or problems in life, but what I have come to realize is, you create your own reality. There is some sort of reason you brought this situation into your life and sometimes it is as simple as…You wanted to see how far you could get from love in order to find your way back again. When ever I feel a lack of love I ask myself what I need to do to get back to love again. My mind is always my persecutor or savior…it’s up to me to choose which one it will be today.

How does your own direct experience differ from expectations you have had for relationships? How have your expectations changed?

I used to make it the ob of my partner to make me happy. These days I know that happiness has to come from within.

How do the practices of self-observation and awareness impact your focus and understanding of relationships?

The relationship with me comes first. If I am in a state of fullness and love then I can come to any relationship with a full to overflowing cup and I can give them from that place. If I am empty and needy I can not be a good contributor to any relationship. I now take responsibility for myself and my state of mind and emotions instead of putting that on other people. When I can bring myself

into a state of love before going out into the world, that is the energy that I am going to attract to myself. If I am receiving anything other than love I need to step away from the world and come back to myself to find the places that need love and to love them up. Your mind creates your reality and your vibration attracts to you the same. If you like what you are attracting keep doing what you are doing. If you don’t, then it’s up to you to shift your thoughts, feelings and vibration into a place where you attract more of what you wish to see and feel.

Describe life-changing revelations you have had as the result of relationships. What would you not change for anything? What related advice can you offer for readers to take away?

Everyone is always looking for their Soul Mate not knowing that Your Body is your Soul Mate. Your body is the perfect mate for your soul. It is the reason you get to be here this lifetime. If you get that relationship to a solid and loving place your whole reality will change. You will stop desperately seeking outside of yourself for love and will feel a constant state of love and appreciation inside of your own self. I think that is the key to calm, serene bliss.

How refreshing! Straight talk- right to the point. I resonate completely.  Widespread mis-understanding exists about twin flame and soul mate. What you highlight here invites readers to recognize wholeness within themselves.  Changing how you perceive yourself definitely reshapes the external world.  Direct experience is its own proof.  Conscious awareness of what is happening is mind-blowing. It is like as you grow conscious of the nature of love and what you are, then people can no longer pull the wool over your eyes. You are suddenly able to see through your own lies and everyone else's.  You sense the truth to the degree you accept your own.

So, what is your ideal relationship? How close are you to living it in the real-world and if you are not living it already, what prevents you from doing so?

I am happy and in a wonderful relationship with myself at the moment. I love the experience of living alone and the quiet expansive time that I have everyday to think and be present with my life.

If I do eventually find someone who I decide to share my life with it will be more of a building our life together and supporting each other’s work in the world. I love intimacy, kisses, cuddles and amazing sex, but at the moment I am just enjoying living life on my own.

Ah! Savoring this moment, right where you are. That is like breathing deeply, eyes closed, feeling centred.  Its that place where you silently see what used to hold you down shifts into the energy that wakes you up to what truly matters.  Shifts of energy on the heart change everything.

Please share anything else you feel would benefit our readers.

Dramatic, unhealthy relationships can be like an addiction. They can throw your entire life and well-being into a tail spin. When you can release the energy, emotions and attachments of the past it can free you so you can feel a joyful and calm state of mind again. If you are ready to feel peaceful and free, there is a way. You are not alone. You are never and have never been alone. There is a love inside of you that is more vast, warm and comforting than you have ever known, you need only tap into it.

Indeed. Freedom is about being able to objectively watch problems, see how they are imagined into being instead of being lost in them.  No solution exists when you are lost in negative energy. You offer useful reminders that seeing energy first helps you find peace inside yourself.

Infinite appreciation and blessings Joanna. For readers who wish to get in touch with Joanna, she is easily accessible through Linked in and her website. Pick up her latest book Moving On & Letting Go from Amazon.  Its available as paperback, for kindle and as audiobook.