The Heart Way

Screenwriting instructor and author of How to write your movie in 21 days, Viki King, says you need to write the first draft of your script from your heart, and rewrite the second draft with your head. (Incidentally, in the movie Finding Forrester, William, played by Sean Connery, gave Jamul the exact same advice.) When you engage a blank page with your head, all sorts of mental debris obstructs your flow. Self-doubt, judgment and other insecurities inevitably surface when you try to think your way through a story or idea. Work of sheer brilliance in any medium is never conceived of in the head. Inspiration is rooted in the heart, through your Divine dance. The mind helps communicate the message of the heart, which sometimes takes years, even decades, leading many of the world’s greatest artists and mystics to insanity.

How does one harness the power of the heart, something he does not understand? Although we may not be able to explain how to write, speak, listen, act, sing or draw from the heart, intuitively we know when it transpires. When operating from the heart, time dissolves into a sea of nothingness, blockades crumble to dust, and resistance is unrooted. As if joyfully skipping from cloud to cloud in a robe of clarity and eloquence, unknown forces craft the work others call “genius.” And what happens after a work of utter brilliance is formed? The mind, or more specifically, the ego steps in to take credit. “What an amazing job I have done?” “This is my best work!”

If we view the heart as being a direct link to God (or perhaps more accurately, that the heart is God), the source of this extraordinary gift becomes lucid. Interestingly, artistic geniuses throughout time have rarely taken credit for their work, always acknowledging that the piece flowed from a higher source—through them, rather than from them. (See the Impossible Journey titled "Inspired Writing" for further explanation.)

Passionate people operate from the heart when doing their chosen work. Dispassionate people wonder why the world isn’t fair to them and why they aren’t lucky. Operating from the head obstructs the gateway to Divine creation because the ego centers around I, whereas the heart’s focal point is the greater good of eternal love.

But how does one transcend the ego and return to the path of love? Keep reminding yourself: “It’s not about you.” Catch the ego taking credit for what the heart wants to share. There’s no ego in a warm, loving embrace or in a deep gaze with a genuine smile. Dogs seem to be blessed without an ego, which may explain why they can comfortably gaze at you for long periods of time and continually send you unconditional love.

Folks, the heart is THE way. Search each day for ways to let go of your mind and embrace the love planted deep in your soul. Only then will you uncover true peace. Only then will life’s meaning shine forth to illuminate the path of your blissful adventure.

With love and happy journeys to all of you!
Scott Jeffrey

A Penny for your 50,000 Thoughts

According to psychologists, we each have approximately 50,000 thoughts per day. (If this sounds inconceivable, close your eyes and try counting all the random thoughts that float through your consciousness in 60 seconds.) Like the Indy 500, most thoughts race through our minds, zoom across a range of awareness, and make occasional pit stops in our mental psyche.

Pondering this staggering number, it’s amazing we’re able to communicate coherently (usually) or accomplish any task (sometimes). The array of thoughts zipping through our head isn’t necessarily the problem; generally speaking, we function fine. The greater challenge lies in the quality of these thoughts: Out of the 50,000 thoughts you had yesterday, how many are different from the 50,000 you are having today?

We have the tendency of locking ourselves into patterns of thinking reinforced by beliefs, behaviors, and habits. Although each moment is unique—a whole universe within itself—by default, we unknowingly engage analogous thoughts over and over. Precision focused with positive intention, these thoughts can be powerful allies as you fashion your legacy. Alas, too often we contemplate inharmonious work environments, replay nonsensical arguments, and simmer in ongoing family and/or financial crises.

The qualitative sum of your thoughts defines your experience. Your level of happiness, passion, freedom, energy, and faith is a byproduct of those racing, aimless thoughts flashing through your psyche. Gravity tends to pull us toward the lowest common denominator. If we remain unaware of our thought patterns, we end up like the vast majority of people who do not attain their desired level of bliss.

Obviously, the “power of positive thinking” is not a new concept. We know. We get it: What we focus on becomes our reality. But with 50,000 chaotic, whirling thoughts to attempt to manage, even our best efforts will likely fall short. So why not try something different? Perhaps even more useful in our mental navigation efforts is the ability to step back from our cerebral zooming, observing the racecars rather than driving in them. A person exhibiting such mindful mastery might live in the high mountains of the Himalayas, in secluded monasteries, or some other isolated, sacred environment with limited outside distraction. Through endless hours of meditation, these highly conscious beings learn to detach from inherent mind chatter and achieve a state of idyllic calm, love and interconnectedness.

What about the rest of us not living in temples on mountaintops? Can we learn to let our thoughts zip by without trying to grab hold? Certainly. And as is the case so often in life, the solutions are simple:

• Sit on a bench and stare aimlessly at the sky.
• Lie in bed with your eyes closed and focus on a single breath.
• Sit by a window and listen to the summer rain chiming against a parked car.
• Let go of all your inhibitions and swing a golf club.
• Walk calmly on a hiking trail leading to an unknown destination.
• Hum a tune to a song you haven’t heard in years (or hum an unsung song floating around in your head.)
  

Find a sacred space within yourself and uncover a land of ultimate peace (at least, momentarily) beyond worry, depression and anger. Deep in the dark corners of your conscious mind await hidden treasures of love and tranquility. Once you unlock the chest, a pool of newfound energy and ideas springs forth.

So what are you thinking about?

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey

Who’s your Wendy Allen?

With every great hero comes a great villain. The bigger the villain, the bigger the hero called forth to face it. In fact, the villain’s role is to challenge the hero to grow or perish.

At times, your villain can be your internal dialogue, an illness, lethargy, limited thinking, disempowering beliefs, dream-stompers, a disability, a co-worker, a boss, a bully, a competing company, a spouse, a sibling, a telemarketer, or a woman named Wendy Allen…

Verizon gave me a rare gift when I moved last year—an easy to remember phone number. In the weeks following the move, telemarketers had a difficult time reaching me, but one day, as if a kink had been released in the telemarketing hose, an onslaught of incessant calls gushed in at the rate of four or five per day.

Suppressing my frustrations and anger (usually), I started chatting with the telemarketers and found they were all calling for a Wendy Allen who either owed money, signed up for a subscription or opted-in to a specific sales list. At first I figured that Wendy Allen was the prior owner of my phone number and assumed the calls would diminish. A couple of sales agencies told me she had provided my number within the last seven days. At that moment I realized Wendy Allen was using MY phone number as her phony number!

One year later I still have the same phone number, and I occasionally get inconvenient telemarketing calls. But my reaction is different now: Instead of getting irritated, frustrated or angry, I smirk and wittily engage the human being on the other end of the phone. I briefly tell him or her the story of how they were given a phony number and how I appear to be intertwined in a deceitful plot. He or she laughs and apologizes. The event ends there.

Sometimes we can maneuver around unwanted situations, carving out favorable results. Frequently, however, events will be outside our control and the only thing we can manage will be our reaction. How you react to frustrating, untimely circumstances greatly determines the direction your Journey will take.

Don’t try to eliminate Villains—they are a sign of a thriving adventure. Our Wendy Allens serve the vital purpose of preparing us for another stage of our Journey. Villains like Wendy Allen continue to show up in our lives until we master a particular lesson. Although the villain may still persist, her power over us will be weakened. Once we learn to throw water over the Wicked Witch of the West, she will never bother us again. However, more insidious villains lurk around the corner.

Instead of trying to rid yourself of villains, be open to attracting bigger problems into your life. Remember, the size of the hero is in direct proportion to the size of the villain. Once you become proficient at conquering smaller villains, larger ones will appear. As you evolve in your hero role, you will achieve the wherewithal to overcome the treachery of even the most mammoth monsters.

Will you cower in the face of upset? Or will you laugh and enter the demon’s lair? In a way, this choice defines everything.

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey

P.S. And Wendy, if somehow you’re reading this, I’d still appreciate it if you stopped giving out my phone number. Thanks!

Love as Your Default

Since writing the Impossible Journey "How can he love so much?," I’ve been haunted by this concept of choosing love, especially when Yoda (my puppy, for the new folks) knocks over a glass on my leather trunk, chews on a wooden shelf, or commits some other puppy-like mischief. In the heat of the moment, my instincts seem to deploy an attack, where Yoda’s expression says, “Oops … sorry … okay, let’s play.”

Sure, love is a choice, but I wish it was the emotional default. Life would be immeasurably more enjoyable if gravity pulled us toward love instead of toward the wicked emotions to which humans often cling. With love as the default, arguments dissolve before they begin, petty bickering ceases to exist, and mankind experiences a level of joy and freedom beyond comprehension.

Anger, spite, dishonesty, and animosity are all imprisoning emotions that hinder our pursuit of happiness. And in the end, isn’t happiness what we really want? Despite this intellectual understanding, most of us frequently avoid surrendering to love. Why is it so hard to choose love, especially in moments of great upset?

The ego feeds off negative emotions. We engage in deceitful acts because the ego rewards us with the illusion of power and superiority. The seeds of these debilitating emotions seem rooted within us, but we control whether or not these seeds are nourished. When negative thought-harvesting goes unimpeded, weakening emotions grow like weeds.

According to many of the Great Traditions, the most direct pathway to God is through the heart. While most other paths can be taught, the Way through the heart cannot be communicated. Yet we experience glimpses of heartfelt love all the time: A mother cradling her newborn baby, two old friends reuniting after a long time apart, and yes, a dog wagging his tail.

Every time we yell, bicker, or fight, we unknowingly choose a path other than love. And when we engage this precipitous action, we detract from our experience—in that moment (and usually many subsequent moments), happiness eludes us. In choosing to attack, we cast away the love and joy we so desperately seek. When one loves unconditionally, there’s no filter and no decisions to make regarding when to love … you just love. Is this degree of Divine love only to be assigned to saints like Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi? As mere mortals, can we not also elevate to this level of perpetual bliss?

Establishing love as your automatic trigger emotion will transform your Journey. Consciously and genuinely choose love for seven days and observe what happens to your level of joy. The challenge for most of us is that we are so conditioned to move away from love that choosing love isn’t so easy, but with Yoda as our guide, I say we go for it!

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey

Take an R-Day

When was the last time you scheduled a day just for you? How often do you honor yourself by doing what truly gives you bliss?

I dare say most of us do a pretty lousy job in this arena. We put off personal celebration, telling ourselves that we’ll take some time off when “we’re done.” The challenge is that we’re never done: emails continue to flow, phones continue to ring, and there’s a never-ending demand to complete a task and move on to the next. And the celebration is postponed indefinitely, or so it seems…

But celebrating is critical for personal fulfillment, which is why Rejuvenation Days, or R-Days, are so important. An R-Day is a day or block of time (R-Time) consciously set aside for nurturing your body, mind and spirit. These brief periods of joyful, spiritual nourishment transform your life perspective.

On our Impossible Journeys, we often overextend ourselves, depleting our physical and mental reserves, eventually leading to varying levels of burn out. R-Time miraculously cultivates greater levels of energy and enjoyment for even the most mundane undertakings.

Taking R-Days will unleash your passions by reconnecting with a remote part of yourself—an area buried by years of responsibilities and self-sacrifices. Even if you are intensely enthusiastic about what you do professionally, scheduled time away from work only adds to your drive. Sometimes the best way to stay on track is to periodically diverge from the trail.

We limit R-Time by telling ourselves that we haven’t earned it and/or are not worthy. Yet rejoicing in special moments at scheduled and arbitrary points during the day can give us a higher degree of self-worth. Taking R-Time is a decision to play, void of any work- or home-related concerns. In this sacred space, magical healing occurs through recovery and renewal. What could daily celebrations add to your life?

For those still chanting the mantra of “I don’t have time”—yes, you do. Sometimes demanding schedules prohibit an entire day or afternoon for energizing the soul, but you can always take an R-Hour. Pulling yourself away from work and engaging in an hour of play can sometimes be sufficient. You can’t afford not to take R-Days. In many ways, this cherished time becomes the lifeblood of your passion. Also, there’s a working theory that says the more R-Time you take, the more productive and fulfilled you become. (Care to put this theory to the test?)

My R-Days usually lead me on a hike through the woods, a writing adventure in a café or an exploratory journey through someone else’s words. (Or playing with Yoda, of course.)

Where will your R-Days take you?

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey

Divine Timeline

Things never seem to work out as planned … at least, not how we planned them.

Even the best-laid plans get derailed. We set objectives and chart our course, but our deadlines pass with our goals frequently unmet. This usually causes desire to falter and passion to dissipate. What was once an exciting opportunity mutates into a frustrating blockade.

Much of this aggravation can be alleviated by an often overlooked, subtle yet powerful element of the attainment process. With this elusive principle we detach from outcomes, especially in reference to time. This spiritual concept contains profound wisdom shrouded in mystery: How can you be clear about what you want and effortlessly restrain yourself from wanting it immediately?

Living in a culture of immediate gratification, patience and trust are obscure virtues. High-speed Internet connections are sluggish, microwave ovens are time-consuming, and our professional aspirations crawl toward completion. But learning the gift of your divine timeline can alter your need for haste—whether you’re a mother of five or a chief executive.

Deadlines stimulate a sense of urgency, curb procrastination, and provide a tool for measuring progress. Deadlines instill focus, inspire creativity and guide decision-making. Deadlines are important.

Visualize a deadline as a straight line—with you at point A and your objective at point B. Most of us believe that this line is finite, starting where you are and ending at your deadline. In truth, the line is infinite (without beginning or end), filled with unforeseen bumps, twists and loops over the horizon. (So the line isn’t actually straight.) This ceaseless pathway is your life adventure, and a deadline is simply an arbitrary point along your obstacle-ridden Journey. This road ahead requires trust in Divine guidance because these unexpected curves and challenges are always around the bend.

Trusting in a Divine timeline requires a belief that you are being guided, having faith in God and in Divine creation. You are here to serve a purpose (even if you’re not 100% certain what that purpose is.) Operating on faith, you can eradicate worry from your life. If you know things happen in their own time, what is there to worry about? Worry is a feeble attempt to control situations, putting negative energy on something that is beyond our control.

Periodically remind yourself that things find their way. I was once fearful of this principle because I thought it might cause complacency and enervation. (As the argument goes, if things are meant to be, then why get off the couch? Which gets us into the sticky, predetermined destiny vs. free will debate. That’s for a later discussion.) Avoid this trap. It’s simply not true. When you connect with your Divine guidance, you find a renewed vigor to tackle greater personal challenges and expand your territory. You still have to do the work, but knowing that everything is divinely planned takes the pressure off. Your adventure will reach the next enchanting gateway, but you don’t need to know when.

Simply trust and do what you know to do.

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey

Inside a Bigger Box

“Think outside the box.” The phrase has been so overused that it was recently used as a punch line in a television commercial. The concept behind the phrase seems to have merit: We normally think in certain patterns, but to be creative we need to think in diverse, chaotic patterns. True.

However, this antiquated phrase is still inaccurate. Thinking “outside the box” is literally and figuratively impossible. Here’s why:

An individual’s thought process is a magnificent blend of beliefs, rules, experiences and intuition that shape ideas and each person’s personal reality. Since each of us has unique beliefs, rules, experiences and intuitive senses, we each have a distinctive thought process, otherwise called our box. In order to think “outside” our box we need to shift one or more elements of thought. The result of this shift is a “new” concept different from how we, and perhaps others, perceive things.

But this new idea is not “outside the box.” As a result of this new pattern of thinking, your box expands, giving you a much larger telescope with which to view the world. With a larger vision, you can capitalize on numerous opportunities that did not exist in your smaller worldview. A bigger box doesn’t just affect you—it has a way of improving the lives of people you know and even those you don’t.

New ideas can enlarge your sphere of influence and transform your world. A single nugget of information combined with an existing concept can spark an empire. A seed planted from something you read in an enlightening, non-fiction book or in an elegantly written work of fiction can change all the rules. Something you notice in a magazine or see in a movie can start the launch sequence.

You may not know it when the idea invites itself into your psyche. This mystical creature may percolate in the inner tomb of your mind, dancing aimlessly for endless hours in a room of normalcy … until it’s his time to be heard. Or the idea can collide with you, sending an electrical torpedo through your nervous system and out the top of your head. You are fully aware when these thoughts strike because they have a way of keeping you up at night (whether you want them to or not.) The application of this idea may be presently unknown, but you’re certain things will never be the same again.

Either way, when this occurs your box is forever expanded. You can’t go back. And why would you? You can now handle a level of problems that was once incomprehensible. The more your box grows, the easier it is for you to tackle any challenge.

How do you expand your box? With a beginner’s mind, continually ask questions and seek out the answers. (And remember to avoid the single, most deadly phrase: I don’t know.)

The ultimate box—the universe—is expanding at the speed of light. How fast are you growing?

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey