Faith is fear.

Faith is fear.

Religion is the systematic marketing of fear.
Blessed are the poor (donate heavily). Blessed are the meek (obey). Blessed are the humble (don’t question authority). Blessed are the hungry (make us rich while you starve). Blessed are the merciful (if you catch us doing something wrong, let it go). Blessed are the pure of heart (switch off your brain). Blessed are the timid, the cowardly, the fearful. Blessed are those who give us their power and become our slaves. Muahahaha!
That’s the kind of nonsense religion pushes on people. They train you to turn your back on courage, strength, and conscious living. This is stupidity, not divinity.
Religion will teach you to fear being different, to fear standing up for yourself, and to fear being an independent thinker. It will erode your self-trust by explaining why you’re unable to successfully manage life on your own terms: You are unworthy. You’re a sinner. You’re unclean. You belong to a lesser caste. You are not enlightened. Of course the solution is always the same — submit to the will of an external authority. Believe that you’re inadequate. Give away your power. Follow their rules and procedures. Live in fear for the rest of your life, and hope it will all turn out okay in the end.
When you practice faith instead of conscious living, you live under a cloak of fear. Eventually that cloak becomes so habitual you forget it’s even there. It’s very sad when you reach the point where you can’t even remember what it feels like to wield creative freedom over your own life, independent of what you’ve been conditioned to believe.
Faith is the coward’s substitute for courage. It’s also really good marketing if you’re the one who controls the faith. If you’re afraid or unwilling to assume total responsibility for your life, you’re a perfect match for religion.
Fear in one part of your life invariably spreads to all other parts — you can’t compartmentalize it. If you find yourself frustrated because you’re too afraid to follow your dreams, to talk to members of the opposite sex, to speak up for yourself, etc., then a good place to start is to rid your life of all religious nonsense. Don’t let fear get a foothold in your consciousness.
Stop trying to comfort yourself by swallowing religious rubbish. If you really need something to believe in, then believe in your own potential. Put your trust in your own intellect. Stop giving away your power.
Dump the safety-in-numbers silliness. Just because a lot of people believe stupid stuff doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid. It just means that stupidity is popular on this planet. When people are in a state of fear, they’ll swallow just about anything to comfort themselves, including the bastion of stupidity known as religion.
***
Religion is spiritual immaturity.
It’s entirely possible to enjoy your life without spending so much of it bent over in submission. Pull your head out of your rear, and look around with your own two eyes. If you need something to worship, then feel grateful for your own conscious mind. Pull it out of the cobwebs, and boot it up.
Besides… if some popular religious version of God does exist, there’s a good chance he’s a complete and total idiot. He made us in his image, right? So perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to worship an entity so lacking in intelligence. We’re better off on our own.
God isn’t going to smite you for not formally worshipping him. If he didn’t smite me by now, it’s a safe bet you’ll slide beneath the radar as well. And if that doesn’t work, you can borrow my fake ID. I’ve been baptized and confirmed, and I’m the son of an altar boy and the nephew of a priest, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.
Praise Hestia!

The Ultimate Rice Bowl

The Ultimate Rice Bowl is my own special recipe for a delicious vegan/vegetarian meal. It’s the perfect blend of warm, chewy, crunchy, and savory. It’s also very easy to make — no special cooking skill required.
This recipe is for a single serving of a very filling meal. If you want to make a smaller or bigger batch, feel free to adjust the ingredients proportionally.
Here’s how to make it…
Ingredients

• 1-2 cups cooked brown rice, depending on how hungry you are (make according to instructions in How to Cook Brown Rice)
• 1/3 cup diced cucumber (I prefer English cucumbers)
• 1 small tomato, diced (I normally use a roma tomato)
• 4-5 sun dried tomatoes, each cut into 6-8 pieces (The best are Mediterranean Organic Sundried Tomatoes)
• 1/4 – 1/2 avocado, diced
• 2-4 tbsp minced green onion
• 1-2 tsp toasted sesame oil (I use Spectrum Naturals Organic Sesame Oil)
• tamari to taste (a few splashes with a shaker bottle)
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds (raw or toasted)

Instructions

1. Put the rice in a bowl.
2. Add sesame oil, tamari, and sesame seeds. Use a fork to mix.
3. Add cucumber, tomato, sun dried tomatoes, avocado, and green onion. Mix again.
4. Enjoy!

Variations

• Add 1 tsp mirin for a sweeter flavor (when you add the sesame oil, tamari, and sesame seeds)
• Add 1/3 cup bok choy, chopped
• Substitute regular soy sauce or shoyu for tamari
• If you like a strong onion flavor, try using minced white, brown, or red onion instead of green onion

You can certainly make this with leftover rice, but I suggest heating the rice first since this dish is best served warm.
I must caution you that this can be an addictive recipe. Once you try it, expect to make it often! 

How To Cook Brown Rice

Many people have trouble cooking brown rice and having it turn out decently, since it can be more temperamental than white rice.  There are also many different ways to prepare it.
Here’s the most efficient way I found to cook brown rice on a stove.  It takes about 35 minutes from when you start to when you’re eating (which is pretty good for brown rice).  This method works for both short grain and long grain brown rice.  I prefer long grain.  I’ve eaten hundreds of batches of brown rice using this method over the past 10 years.
Here are the instructions:

1. Put brown rice and water together in a pot with a lid.  Use the ratio of 1.5 cups water to 1 cup rice.  I normally make 3c rice with 4.5c water for a single batch.
2. Set the heat to maximum, and bring the rice/water to a boil uncovered.  Then put the lid on the pot, and reduce the heat to low/simmer.  If your lid has a steam valve, keep it closed.  Let the rice simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Turn off the heat, and let the rice sit in the covered pot for another 10 minutes.  It’s OK if you let the rice sit longer than 10 minutes (20 or 30 minutes is fine too), but don’t let it go any less.  I prefer my rice to be slightly chewy, not mushy, so I usually remove the lid after 10 minutes.
4. Eat and enjoy.  Be careful when you remove the lid, since a lot of steam may escape when you do.

This works for white rice too.
After the rice is cooked, I normally scoop some into a bowl, and mix it with a little tamari and 1-2 tablespoons of sesame seeds.  The sesame seeds add a lot of flavor to the rice.  Sometimes I’ll eat it with steamed veggies and blackened tempeh, both of which can be prepared while the rice is cooking.
I put the leftover rice in a plastic container in the refrigerator, which keeps well for several days.  Since I don’t use a microwave, I usually just eat the leftovers cold.  But when I’m not in the mood for cold rice, here’s another tasty dish I make from the leftover rice:

1. In a small pot, add 1 teaspoon of oil, and heat it for about 1 minute on medium heat.  I prefer dark sesame oil because it adds a lot of flavor.  Canola oil works well too.
2. Add some chopped veggies to the pot, and sauté them in the oil for a few minutes.  My favorites are onions, green onions, and bell peppers (any color).
3. Once the veggies are cooked, scoop in some of the leftover brown rice.  I like to use 2 parts rice to 1 part veggies.  Mix it well with the veggies.
4. Reduce the heat slightly to medium-low, and cook the rice/veggies for 3-4 minutes until the rice is hot, stirring about once every minute.
5. Pour in a little tamari to taste, and mix it with the rice.  Cook for another minute to sear in the flavor.
6. Turn off the heat.  Mix in 1-2 tablespoons sesame seeds.
7. Eat and enjoy.

I hope you find these recipes helpful.  Brown rice became a staple of my diet after I studied macrobiotics during the mid-90s, and I eat it almost every week.  I find it a great food for endurance activities.

This Is Heaven

If you maintain a negative limiting belief about your reality, such as a belief that this reality is insane, crazy, violent, indifferent, apathetic, etc., then your attitude will absolutely cream you. You can’t expect to get anywhere good with a belief that this reality is anything less than heavenly.
You’re not actually judging reality with such beliefs because you only have access to your limited perceptions of it, and those are 100% within your mind. So by labeling reality negatively, you’re actually labeling a part of your own mind in the same way. That’s a trap — a huge trap that you must avoid at all costs. Subconsciously your mind will respond to such beliefs by crippling your self-esteem and strangling your ability to leverage your skills and talents. Some people who go this route even kill themselves in the end. It’s a completely foolhardy way to deal with reality. No good can come of it. Well… no good other than the eventual realization that it was a rather lame idea.
Once you realize that your perceptions of reality are all you have to go with, the most sensible approach is to permanently rule out the idea of casting aspersions on your reality, since you’re actually ridiculing your own perceptions, which can only make you go a bit insane. You can’t afford to do anything of the sort. That cannot possibly do any good whatsoever — it can only take you down a path of self-destruction and ruin.
What’s the alternative? Do the absolute best you can to cultivate a harmonious and supportive relationship with your reality. Settle for nothing less. If anything conflicts with your efforts there, ignore it as best you can, and refocus your attention on re-establishing a harmonious and supportive relationship with reality. You cannot get anywhere in this life if
you do otherwise.
Some people have the belief that this reality is something of a proving ground between heaven (bliss) and hell (torture). They’re mistaken. When those people experience physical death, if their consciousness continues, they’ll only continue recreating more of the same flavor of experience they had here. They won’t suddenly ascend or descend just because they drop the connection to this particular physical plane. When you disconnect your computer from the Internet, it doesn’t suddenly upgrade or downgrade itself. If you want to upgrade your life experience, you must be the upgrader.
This reality is actually as good as it gets. You’re already in heaven now, if you believe such a thing exists. There is nothing better. Whatever you think you can create in heaven, you can create and experience here. This doesn’t require magical powers or magical thinking. It does require taking full responsibility for how you relate to this reality. Since that relationship exists entirely within your mind, it’s under your control… but only to the extent that you believe it is. If you think that’s a Catch 22, you’re also right, since that’s just another belief. The benefit of this particular Catch 22, however, is that you can choose to be on the side with the unbeatable advantage, so no matter what happens, you win.
I maintain the belief that reality is 100% on my side. This is not based on evidence. It is based on choice. The evidence comes after the choice, not the other way around.
I even believe that reality conspires to go out of its way to help me, and I see evidence of this constantly (again, only after I chose this belief). And so this is what my experience of reality becomes. It’s full of pleasant surprises.
Today, for instance, I received an extra $900 out of the blue that I didn’t even know was coming. Reality loves to bring me gifts like this — financially, socially, experientially, etc. And because I maintain this belief, people frequently help and support me on my path. No one is going to do that for someone who thinks their reality is somehow lacking or damaged — that belief will only get you drained, beaten down, and abused.
If you seem to have a love-hate relationship with reality, then who’s the abuser? It can only be you. If you wish to continue suffering, then by all means, do so. I won’t stop you, especially when you do it in such an entertaining and educational way. In my reality the benefit of those people is that they provide such wonderful contrast. Their mind-numbingly boring lifestyles and perpetual stagnation serve as easy-to-heed reminders about why I wouldn’t want to get mired in thoughts of scarcity, hardship, and that whole “woe is me” mentality. These people are fabulous warning signs regarding what not to do. Consequently, one can only be grateful for their dedication to broadcasting such lessons so loudly and clearly. Sucks to be them, but great to learn from them.
What if the whole time you’ve been here, reality was conspiring to bring you the most heavenly experiences imaginable, and all this time it’s been waiting for you to get with the program? Reality has been functioning perfectly — within established parameters. But perhaps you’ve been slacking off in the imagination department. Have you been dwelling on what you’d love to experience and willfully summoning it, or have you been muddling your mind with thoughts of perpetuating more of what you don’t want?
If you love what you’re experiencing right now, you can just keep observing that, and it will self-perpetuate; if that’s you, you’re already golden. But you can’t afford to let your mind dwell on your observations and their extended predictions if you’ve already established the pattern of creating experiences you don’t desire
to eternalize. If you want to break the pattern of what you’re already experiencing, you need to shift your energy from observation and prediction to unfettered imagination and creation. Essentially that’s a time management challenge — spend less time noting your observations and more time creating your desires. If your observations aren’t cool anymore, stop feeding them.
If you’re experiencing a reality you don’t particular like right now, poor baby. So you screwed up somewhere. Happens to everyone. It’s not a big deal, so don’t turn it into one. Deep down you’re still as powerful as ever. You just lost focus. An honest mistake, and you can recover from it. You’ve just been stuck too long in observation mode, thinking that was a good idea. It was a good idea when you were experiencing what you wanted, but it’s not a good idea when you’re experiencing the opposite. Be in observation and reaction mode only when you love what’s showing up; then you can fully enjoy it. But when your desires fall out of sync with your observations, don’t stay in observation mode; that just guarantees that you’re creating. Time to switch to creation mode instead.
In truth, observation and creation are actually the same mode. There’s really only one mode: creation mode. You get to experience what you imagine as real. But in observation mode, you’re filling your imagination with more of the same, and so you create and experience… bingo… more of the same. Sometimes that’s a brilliant choice. Other times it’s a rather pathetic choice.
Have you thought about what heaven might actually be like? It’s surely not all harps and angels and clouds like you might see in a movie. That might be fun for a few hours, but then you’d be bored for eternity.
Here’s how I define heaven for me. Heaven is a state of existence in which I experience the following:
Beam - Enjoy my life immensely; feel deep appreciation and gratitude for this experience; laugh and smile
Harmonize - Maintain a deeply positive, loving, and supportive relationship with my reality
Shine - Develop my skills, talents, and habits to genius level; shamelessly express and share my creativity and brilliance
Explore - Search, study, travel, learn, and discover, guided by my curiosity, desires, and intuition
Open - Open my heart; actively invite and experience delicious connections that I desire
Grow - Become more capable and free; release and shed fears and limitations
Prosper - Create and enjoy tremendous prosperity and abundance
No need to wait for an afterlife. This is achievable here and now.
What’s your version of heaven? Do you have to wait till you’re dead to experience it? What makes you think death will be any better than this anyway? Would it really be easier to create heaven in some astral realm vs. right here, right now? What are you waiting for?
If you need permission, you can have mine.

How to Attract Quality Relationship Partners

Does the World Actually Know What You Want?

First she mentions that the world knows what she wants. Does it? Is this true?
I’m apparently in her world, at least via social media, but I don’t know what she wants in a partner. Maybe she didn’t tell me the details. Maybe she told me at some point and I forgot. But whatever the reason, I must admit that I don’t have a clear idea of what kind of partner she’s looking for. And so I’m unable to refer any potential matches to her even if I wanted to. If I stumbled upon the most perfect match for her, I wouldn’t be able to connect them because I don’t know enough to recognize a potential match.
Another issue is that she might tell me what she wants, but she might tell me in such a vague and fuzzy way that it could match on just about anyone, and so that also wouldn’t be enough to go on. If she wants a guy who’s nice, kind, friendly, and successful, I’m not going to be able to do much for her since those qualities are way too general. I’ll conclude that she doesn’t really know what she wants, and so I wouldn’t want to waste someone else’s time by trying to match them with her.
If others in her reality are in the same situation, they can’t help her very much either. And so she may receive a lot less social support for this desire than she would like. I don’t know if this is actually true for her, but it’s true for many others.
Statistically about 50% of our relationship partners come to us through our existing social network of friends, family, and co-workers. So a good place to begin is to make sure your social network is well-informed and capable of helping you get what you want.
You can reciprocate too, so don’t think of this as a selfish pursuit. Even if someone isn’t a match for you, ask them what they’re looking for, and offer to help them if you find a potential match for their desires. Playing matchmaker for others’ desires is a nice way to build some goodwill within your social network. It works wonders in business too.

Broadcasting Your Desires

I’ve been writing about Broadcasting Your Desires for years. And by this I mean really putting the word out there, not just to your closest friends. Be as open as you can about sharing what you want to experience. Make it easy for people to help you.
If I visit Bettina’s Google+ page, her self-description is mainly about her work. That’s fine if she’s looking for work clients, but at the time of this writing, there’s no mention of her desire for a relationship partner that I can see, nor any mention of what she wants in a partner. If this is an important desire for her, why not include it? Is that being too needy? I don’t think so. Don’t think of it as asking for a favor. Think of it as offering an invitation to the right person.
A good test to see if “the world” actually knows what you desire is to ask many of the people in your life what they think you want. Make your request very open-ended, such as by saying, “Out of curiosity, based on what you know about me, what do you think I want most in life right now… specifically?” See if they even mention wanting a relationship partner, and if so, what qualities they’re able to list. This is a nice way to test if your assumptions about what you think people know about you are accurate.
We have a tendency to be timid in asking for what we want, often due to some shame, fear, and guilt about our desires, but holding back in this way doesn’t serve us. Do your best to invite your desires openly — shamelessly, fearlessly, and guiltlessly. Make it easy for potential matches to recognize you as their potential match.
If you’re worried about how people will react if you ask for what you want, well that’s a hint and a half that you’re not yet congruent with your desires. Allow the people who will reject you for wanting what you want to go ahead and reject you. Let them excuse themselves from your reality if they can’t happily support you. This will create space for your real supporters to get closer.

Expectations

There are many factors that come into play next after you know what you want and you’re able to share your desires openly and congruently. This is a place where many people get stuck. Those who try to align with the emotional aspects of their desires but little else aren’t really as well aligned as they think they are. The lack of alignment with Truth and Power drags down the Love alignment too. It’s hard to feel your way into a desire if the logical and action-based parts of the expectation aren’t up to par. If this goes on long enough, the Love alignment descends into frustration… and eventually into bitterness, resentment, and numbness. Trying to raise up the Love aspect by itself is an exercise in futility at that point. A holistic approach is needed since that’s where the synergy between Truth, Love, and Power alignment really shines.
Your expectations matter a great deal, and expectations go beyond feelings. Many people practice the emotional (Love) part of expecting, so they visualize their new partner and try to feel their way into this new reality. But they miss the other two sides of the triad of growth (Truth and Power).
One thing that throws people off is when they have a success or two based on using the manifesting power of Love alone. They intend what they want, and it shows up right away like magic. One view on this is that it’s just a random fluctuation — you got lucky those times. But another view that the universe was helping you understand the importance of Love alignment by making it easy for you in the beginning, and now it’s time to learn further lessons and achieve stronger alignments with Truth and Power as well, so the challenge increases.

Aligning with Truth

To be aligned with Truth in your expectations, you need some good logical reasons for expecting a match to occur. This is where a lot of people succumb to wishful thinking; they become irrational in their approach, hoping that something will change even though their strategy clearly isn’t producing the desired results.
If you think you’re living in a place where finding a good mate is unlikely, for instance, that absolutely does matter to the LoA. You may say it shouldn’t matter, but it still matters. The LoA is particularly good at rejecting attempts to should it into submission.
The LoA doesn’t magically ignore statistics. Statistics are part of the game of life, and during your human existence, you’ll be subjected to such wonderful laws. This can be very frustrating if you rail against it.
Consider that statistics can be your friend as well. Your expectations are an invitation to stretch — to put the odds on your side instead of resisting when the odds are against you.
So if you feel the place where you live isn’t rich in good matches, you’re free to go where there are good matches. That doesn’t necessarily require moving. You can still put the odds on your side, which can give you better logical reasons for finding a good match.
I have such a situation in Las Vegas, where I’ve lived for almost 10 years now. The odds of my finding a good relationship match by selecting randomly from the general population in this city aren’t very good, even if I’m emotionally aligned with what I desire. With a haphazard approach to socializing, I’ll expend a lot of time and energy meeting people with whom I have little in common. The result for me is social boredom.
So instead of pushing myself to meet people when the odds of a good match are so much against me, I cheat.
I put myself in situations where I can rationally expect to find a greater abundance of quality matches. One good place to find wonderful social matches is at personal growth workshops. I met my girlfriend Rachelle at CGW #1, and she’s from Canada, not Vegas. We’re both terrific matches for each other, but neither of us were finding quality matches in our own cities, so we put the odds on our side by looking outside our cities. I know that when I meet people at personal growth events, I have a much greater chance of meeting people I find interesting and fun to connect with. One reason I do a lot of public speaking is that it enriches my social life tremendously. I meet lots of interesting, growth-oriented people through those channels.
In this day and age, you aren’t limited to your local social pool. The whole world is open to you. If you think the good matches live somewhere else, then either go where they are, or invite lots of them to come to you by giving them compelling reasons to show up.
How far you have to extend yourself depends on what you want. How prevalent are your desired matches in the general population? If your desires are fairly easy to match, such that perhaps 1 in 50 people in your local community would be a suitable match for you, you can simply go out and meet people on the street. But what if you’re so selective that perhaps only 1 in 10,000 people would be a suitable match? Then meeting people at random is like finding a needle in a haystack. Those are bad odds. That’s essentially my situation.
What do those 1 in 10,000 people have in common? Are there places or situations where they might be more concentrated? Can you go to those places? Is there somewhere where lots of them will gather, such that your odds of finding a decent match could be reduced to better than 1 in 100?
If I want to make new vegan friends, I could try to approach people on the street and ask if they’re vegan, but vegans are only about 1/500th of the general population, so this will take lot of effort unless I get lucky. Or I could go to a local vegan meetup where about 4 out of 5 people may be vegan. And those attendees will likely know other vegans too that they can introduce me to. The latter approach saves a lot of time.
One of the reasons I like to host free meet-ups when I travel is to make it easier for like-minded people to meet each other. There’s no reason you can’t do something similar.

Aligning with Power

To be aligned with Power in your expectations requires taking action. If you take a lot of action, this will increase your expectation of eventually finding a quality match.
My preferred way of doing this is to make invitations. When I find potential matches, I invite those people to spend more time together. But I don’t do this randomly. I do it when I may expect a decent match.
If you’re doing a lot of inviting, but the people who show up aren’t good matches, then you may be aligned with Power, but then you need to get the application of your Power aligned with Truth. Notice what isn’t working, and stop it. Do something else that has a better shot of success.
Another problem that can happen here is self-delusion. People think they’re doing a lot of inviting, but they aren’t. Or they think that a few invites a month is a lot.
I know of one guy who set up 3 dates every night, spaced at 2 hours intervals, so he could meet a lot of different women and practice connecting with them in different ways. I think he even did this for months. If that’s a lot, then how close are you really to issuing a lot of invites?
Again, cheat when you can. I cheat liberally, and it pays off. How do I cheat? One way I do this is by modifying my professional life to enhance my social life.
I could sit at home blogging for months on end, but staying behind my computer isn’t a great way to meet like-minded people. I have to go out and meet people face to face. So I do a lot of speaking. I deliver workshops. I host meet-ups when I travel. And I further cheat by injecting personal examples from my own life into my writing and speaking. I openly share my interests.
People often gain a lot of value from this type of sharing, so it’s not done gratuitously, but part of my motivation for doing this is because it improves my social life. When I have a chance to share some part of myself openly, it makes it easy for people to determine if we might be a good match. Some speakers maintain a solid wall between their personal and professional lives. I don’t. In my life these aspects are interwoven. So when I speak or host meet-ups, it’s for personal reasons as much as for professional reasons.
Lately I’ve been speaking at a number of dating and relationships conferences. Professionally I do this because I know I can make a positive difference for people in those audiences. But I also do it because I meet some of the most interesting people at these events, so these are fun and lively social experiences as well.
This might sound like an over-the-top solution. It may even sound unfair. Easy for me to do this because I’m a speaker, right? But what if you’re not a speaker? What if you don’t have the opportunity to get in front of a lot of people, to share a part of yourself, and to meet lots of interesting people in one location? What’s stopping you from creating that opportunity? If you think that’s a potential path to success, why not take it? No one is stopping you.
If the safe, traditional methods don’t work for you, go non-traditional.
I love my solution to this otherwise challenging problem. I think it’s beautiful because it has so many rippling benefits, not just for me but for others as well.
Look at this from a subjective reality perspective. This is your reality. You can do whatever you want here. And that includes getting up on a stage in front of a crowd and saying into the microphone the kinds of experiences, partners, and life you most want to enjoy. Is that cheating? Perhaps. But it works. And it’s perfectly legal.
If your minimalist solutions aren’t working for you, try going maximalist for a while. What would be your version of an over-the-top solution to radically change your social and relationship life for the better? What kind of solution would put you face to face with dozens of quality matches on a regular basis?
If I can attract more conscious friends by doing several Conscious Growth Workshops and inviting people to come to my city from around the world, then why can’t you do something equally ludicrous? What’s stopping you from going big?
Again, if your low power solution isn’t working for you, what would a high power solution look like? Try it!

Understanding Your Desired Partner

It’s very helpful to deepen your understanding of your desired partner. Remember that this is a real human being, not a fictional character or an archetype.
What would a potential partner like about you? What would s/he find attractive about you?
When you give these questions some thought, you may realize that you have to modify what you’re asking for.
This is where a number of limiting beliefs can come up. For example, I know that many single Moms feel that it’s harder for a man to find them attractive because they have kids. Well, in a way that’s true. Some guys would prefer a woman without kids. But then you can’t be asking for that kind of man, nor should you try to deceive anyone about that. Instead you ought to be looking for a guy who loves kids and who’d be delighted to inherit some.
In other words, ask for the ideal piece that fits your particular puzzle. Don’t ask for a semi-adequate piece. Don’t ask for someone you’re willing to tolerate. Ask for what you’d love to have in your life. Ask for a match that excites you.
Then consider what is it about you that would excite your potential partner. Imagine that your desired partner is simultaneously asking for someone just like you specifically. Can you accept that you could be someone else’s ideal match, just as you are right now? If you can’t accept that, then either you must release those limiting beliefs, or you must take action to transform yourself into a more attractive person. Both approaches work.
For example, if you’re overweight, then you can either include as part of your desires that you want a partner who finds overweight people attractive (and such people definitely exist), but if that seems too strange for you or if you can’t accept that, then you’ll need to lose weight in order to feel deserving of such a partner. Alternatively, you can desire a partner who isn’t concerned about weight because other factors are much more important to him. But one way or the other, it’s important to bridge the gap between who you are right now and who you believe you must be in order for your desired partner to find you attractive. If you perceive a gap, then that’s an area where you’re still resisting this desire.

Declining Partial Matches

A final suggestion, which goes back to improving your alignment with Love, is to do your best to avoid settling for partial matches. This is one of the biggest traps when it comes to relationships.
One quality I really love about Rachelle is that she’s super affectionate. I can invite her to cuddle, kiss, make love, etc. and she never declines. She loves connecting through touch and affection so much that it would be an alien concept for her to say no to that. Even if we’re temporarily frustrated with each other for some reason, she still keeps the door open to connecting through touch, and she never closes that door. This kind of openness quickly melts away problems that may arise between us because we can mend any rough spots with a loving hug.
Now suppose some woman has many qualities I like, but she’s not very affectionate. Perhaps she’s had some abuse in her past and has a hard time trusting in that kind of connection with a man. Or maybe she just doesn’t like to connect in that particular way. Friendship-wise I can still be friends with her, but I would not want to get into a deeper intimate relationship her. She’s clearly not my type. Sharing affection openly and abundantly is too important to me, and I’m unwilling to sacrifice that desire.
When you encounter a partial match, it’s important not to get hung up on it. Let it go and move on. Hold out for what you actually want.
That said, it’s not the end of the world if you do succumb to a partial match for a while. It will be a learning experience for you. Making mistakes is okay. Just do your best not to make the same type of mistake twice.
What if you’re worried that your desires are unreasonable? Well, you can do a bit of research to determine how reasonable or unreasonable they are. Can you look up some statistics to see how common some of your requirements are? Have you ever met anyone who already matched on what you desire? How often do you meet such people? Are you sure they exist?
For example, is it unreasonable for me to limit myself to vegan relationship partners? Well, they’re about 1 in 500 among the general population as far as I can tell, but in some places, like California, they’re a lot more common. Fortunately there are lots of them in my reality. So holding out for a vegan partner isn’t too unreasonable. It makes it more challenging to find a good match, but it’s perfectly fine to limit my options in that way, especially since vegan women are more likely to prefer vegan men as well. I can be flexible on this requirement for friends and casual play partners since I do feel it’s unrealistic to require veganism from everyone in my life. But for a deep connection with a long-term intimate partner, she needs to be a committed vegan. Rachelle has been vegan for 11+ years, so that’s another area where we match very nicely.
If an otherwise interesting and attractive woman wanted to talk about experiencing a 3-person relationship with us, but she wasn’t vegan and didn’t share our values in this area, then that would be a partial match and an automatic decline. (And notice how I made it easy for such partial matches to not even bother asking. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time if I know they’re not going to be a good match.)
It may seem sensible to relax your desires in the hopes of creating more opportunities for a match. But you’re not actually creating more opportunities for a match by doing that. You’re merely openly the door to more time-wasting partial matches.
Are your desires really so unreasonable? Do you have good cause to believe that somewhere on this planet, there are people who could be excellent friends and relationship partners for you?
I know I can find quality matches, but not if I’m lazy about it. I need to look in the right places. I need to put the odds on my side instead of wasting years waiting for luck to happen. Rational action works. Passive waiting doesn’t.
Notice also that I cheated again. I injected more personal examples into this article, partly for demonstration reasons, but also to share something about my own desires with the world. I pointed out that I like women who are super affectionate and vegan. I reiterated that Rachelle and I are still open to exploring a 3-person connection with the right person. Are you equally shameless in sharing what you like?
When you begin working towards a fresh desire, feel free to start out fairly casually, and then keep refining your approach until you have what you want. Sometimes a casual approach works fine, but if years are passing and nothing is happening, that’s a hint that it’s time for stronger measures.
For instance, I really don’t know how likely it is for Rachelle and me to find a compatible third person who’d be interested in such an exploration with us. We’re getting pretty far from social norms here, so the available pool may be a tiny subset of the population. Even for our existing social circles, it may be quite a stretch to find a match for our various criteria. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. If a casual approach doesn’t work, and if the experience still appeals to us, we can surely devise ways to increase the odds of finding a match. How far we go depends on how important this experience is for both of us.
You may think that if you’re too specific, you’re going to limit your options too much. It’s wise to limit your options. There are too many options otherwise. Specifics can save you a lot of time. You can’t possibly sort though the billions of potential partners on this planet within your lifetime. So you need a way to narrow the search. And then you need an intelligent way to conduct that search. A computer can search through billions of options quickly. You can’t. But what you can do is keep refining your search process over time. You can learn where there are higher concentrations of potential matches. You can even create those higher concentrations yourself, such as by hosting meet-ups on a particular theme. Some may label that cheating, but it works.
Most importantly, stop doing what isn’t working. If you’ve spent a year or more on a particular approach and no good matches are coming up, try something else. Otherwise you’re just relying on luck, and luck may never come. The LoA doesn’t reward stubborn irrationality.
Meet the LoA halfway. Use that fancy brain of yours to apply some rational strategizing to this challenge. The LoA will not be offended.
This may seem like a hell of a lot of work. Perhaps it is. But when you’re cuddled up next to the yummiest of partners, and you hear “I love you” every day in whatever way you desire to receive it, I think you’ll agree that it’s worth all the personal development work to get there.

10 Reasons to Develop Your Technical Skills

In 10 Reasons to Develop Your Technical Skills, I explained why it’s important to develop your technical skills as an integral part of your personal development efforts.  Strong technical skills can save you time, increase your income, and enable you to extract the most bang-per-buck from your technology purchases.
I promised you an article on the how, so here are 10 things you can do to improve your technical skills, regardless of your current skill level:
1. Read technical books
One of the best ways to improve your technical skills is by reading books.  As a teenager I used to buy computer books at the local bookstore.  Today it’s far better to shop online because you can more easily find the true gems and avoid the lemons.  Visit Amazon.com, search for a book on a particular topic you wish to learn, and check the reviews and ratings.  Look for books with at least 4 out of 5 stars (I usually don’t buy any with less than 4.5 stars).  Take advantage of Amazon’s browsing features to quickly find the best books in any field.
Even when you opt to buy technical books locally (such as for an easy return if it doesn’t suit you), you can still check the online reviews to rule out the bad ones.  Take your time previewing books in the bookstore or online, especially if cost is a concern.  If you can’t understand the first chapter, don’t waste your money.
Although technical books can be expensive and are often padded with lengthy code listings and other fluff, the good ones make up for it with clearly organized, well-edited, well-indexed content.  Books in their second edition or later are a great choice because they’ve already been through at least one round of testing in the marketplace.
2. Read online tutorials
The advantage of online tutorials over books is that they’re accessible, timely, and of course free.  The disadvantage is that they usually aren’t professionally edited, which can leave them lacking in completeness and/or clarity.  However, they often sport other features like abundant interlinking, user comments, and interactive demos.  Sometimes the comments are better than the original information, since they can contain lots of additional tips and suggestions.  I find this is particularly true of reference sites like php.net (a reference site for PHP).
My favorite way of finding online tutorials is to use Google.  If I need a CSS tutorial, I’ll search on CSS tutorial.  I usually find something halfway decent in the top 5 results this way.  Other variations that work well include how to XXX, XXX reference, and simply XXX, where XXX is whatever you wish to learn.
3. Hang out with geeks
If you spend enough time with technical people, some of their knowledge will rub off on you.  Even geeks learn from other geeks, but if you aren’t much of a geek yourself, a great way to accelerate the development of your technical skills is to join a local computer club or users group.  Use APCUG (Association of Personal Computer User Groups) and/or WUGNET (Windows Users Group Network) to find a group near you.  Such groups usually welcome new members of any skill level.  Contact one of them and attend a meeting as a guest to see if you like it.
Once you join a computer club or other geek-ridden association, volunteering is a great way to make fast friends.  These nonprofit associations are frequently in need of volunteers for committee and project work; even if your technical skills are weak, they often just need raw manpower.  When I decided to become active in the Association of Shareware Professionals during the late 90s, I put a lot of energy into volunteering.  I wrote articles for their newsletter and served a year each as vice-president and president of the association.  It was a lot of work to be sure, but I learned a great deal from working closely with the other volunteers.  Many of those lessons have proven invaluable in running this personal development web site.  In fact, writing those articles, which gradually became less technical and more motivational, contributed to my 2004 career switch from software development to personal development.
4. Subscribe to technical magazines
Technical magazines used to be one of my favorite outlets for learning, but I cancelled all my magazine subscriptions years ago.  During the early 80s, I spent many long hours typing in BASIC programs from Family Computing and similar magazines (it took me a long time because I hadn’t yet learned to type).  While I think print magazines are less useful today — the same info can often be found online for free – they’re an inexpensive way to improve your general technical skills, especially if you’re unlikely to push yourself in other ways.  The professional editing and experienced writers are a big plus.
5. Take classes
If group learning is your thing, look for college extension courses and other classroom and workshop offerings in your area.  Periodically I get catalogs in the mail from UNLV, and while I lived in Los Angeles, I received them from UCLA, Learning Tree University, Pierce College, Santa Monica College, and others.
A key advantage of classroom learning is the opportunity to interact with an experienced educator.  Teachers with decades of experience know plenty of educational distinctions you won’t find in books or online tutorials.  And unlike many technical writers, they know how to teach.
If you really want the degree, consider going to college and majoring in a technical subject.  I earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.  But given my path after college, these degrees were unnecessary busywork rather than practical skill building.  I started learning to program when I was 10 years old, and while I did pick up some additional distinctions in college, it would have been a better use of my time to skip college altogether and learn the info on my own.  In the long run, I found my math and physics classes far more useful than my computer science ones — my knowledge of the former didn’t become obsolete so rapidly.
6. Create your own web site
Long-term readers of this site know I’m a big fan of experiential learning.  Setting a goal to create a basic web site is a great way to learn practical skills like HTML and CSS.  When you have a compelling reason to learn, your goals will accelerate your learning, and you’ll learn with a focus on practical application.
I learned HTML in 1995 when I wanted to make my first web site.  I created the site as I learned the HTML language, gradually evolving it from the basic “Hello, world” example.  Later I learned CSS, PHP, MySQL, and RSS, so I could do more interesting things than plain vanilla HTML would allow.
7. Build your own PC
If you want to develop better hardware skills, a great project is to build your own PC from scratch.  I did this in 2004 and found it very rewarding.  You’ll save money, learn a lot about how your computer works, and end up with a nicely customized machine that you can easily upgrade.  After all the components arrived, it took me about a day to assemble everything and install the necessary software.  This may or may not be a good use of your time, but I found it worthwhile for the experience.  I still use this same PC today, and it’s plenty fast enough for my needs.
A detailed, novice-friendly, step-by-step tutorial I used can be found at My Super PC.  I used PriceWatch.com to find the best online prices for all the components, which beat local retail prices by about 30% on average.  I remember buying several components from NewEgg.com.
If this project makes you nervous, I wouldn’t recommend it.  But if you feel comfortable researching and selecting components and carefully following assembly directions, it’s a rewarding way to spend a day.
8. Embrace a variety of software
General software productivity improves with breadth of experience, so use many different software programs (online or offline) to improve your overall ability to get things done through software.  I started using software in 1981, and such broad experience makes it easy for me to learn new applications quickly.  I usually dive in and start using them without going through the tutorials or reading the manual.  This saves me a lot of time and makes it easier for me to justify the effort of installing new software and upgrading old software.
When Erin has trouble figuring out how to do something in one of her applications, I’m often able to solve her problem in seconds even if I’m not familiar with the program.  After using hundreds of different software programs, you eventually learn to think like an interface programmer, so you intuit how certain features are likely to be implemented.  Think of it as technical intuition.
Branch out from software myopia, and experience the full richness of using many different interfaces.  You’ll learn a lot about interface design from image editing programs, programming tools, and of course computer games.  The greater the variety of interfaces you experience, the faster you’ll be able to learn and master each new program you use.
9. Learn to program
Programming is the art of instructing a computer to perform a task.  The key to accomplishing this feat is learning to think like a computer.  Programming is one of the most mentally challenging tasks a human being can perform, but nothing compares to the satisfaction of engineering a piece of code to solve a specific problem.  Ask any programmer. 
I learned to program in BASIC at age 10 and later went on to learn over a dozen programming languages.  The challenge of developing my logic and analytical skills at such a young age has served me well my entire life, even in seemingly non-technical pursuits.
For example, I tackle many personal development problems with a programmer’s mindset.  How do we define the problem?  What are the possible solutions?  Which solution best meets our constraints?  What are the instruction steps to implement the solution?  Does the solution produce the desired output?  Can we make this solution more elegant or optimal?  I’ve taken the common programming process of requirements gathering, architecture, design, coding, debugging, and optimization and applied it to personal development.
While humans certainly aren’t as precise or predictable as machines — we have major compatibility issues, sometimes even with ourselves — a programmer’s mindset can generate effective solutions to very human problems.  Intuition is a big factor in both personal development and programming, but I like that there’s a structured fallback process that works in both fields.  It’s much harder to use this process in personal development though because we know how a computer thinks, but we’re still figuring out how humans think.
10. Marry a geek
Your final salvation on the road to geekdom is to – gasp – marry a geek.  I shudder to think of the technical purgatory Erin would be wallowing in right now if we’d never met.  I almost cried when I first saw her slogging away on a 10″ monochrome Mac in 1994, and I soon gave her a pity upgrade to a PC with a 14″ SVGA monitor.  I told her that if I die first, she’ll need to marry another geek right away – an easy task for someone with her social skills.
If you aren’t a geek yourself, then do what you can to recruit one into your family.  If that’s too much to ask, at least find a geek you can befriend.  They can really save you in a jam, and they’ll keep you from falling too far behind the rest of the world.
Be kind to your geek friends, and offer them fair value in exchange for their help.  Creative trades are often welcome.  For example, Erin and I are both inept when it comes to fashion and home decorating (my colorblindness certainly doesn’t help), so someone who can teach us how to dress and buy furniture that matches would be a welcome ally.  Right now the best we’ve got is our six-year old daughter.  She’s very sure of herself, but I’m not sure her advice can be trusted.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, geeks are taking over the world.  How many geek billionaires are there now, including the richest person in the world?  Technical skills are of major importance these days, and the technical have-nots are more estranged than ever.  As hockey legend Wayne Gretzky says, “Skate where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”

How to Release Neediness

Learn to notice and appreciate the hidden abundance obscured by scarcity and lack, and more abundance will flow to you.
Although I enjoy some very nice abundance in my life today (time freedom, work I love, travel, wonderful friends, amazing kids), I don’t need anything in particular to feel rich. As I see it, I attracted these things into my life because I learned to cultivate a relationship with life based on appreciation and gratitude before all of this showed up.

Appreciation

Years ago when I was broke and experiencing quite a lot of lack, I focused on deepening my appreciation for simple things: a long walk at night, a warm hug, the sensual experience of a sweet piece of fruit, etc.
Beyond that, I also looked for ways to appreciate the painful parts of my life, and especially for the amazing growth lessons they contained.
I allowed myself to appreciate my colorblindness; I see the world differently than most. I gave myself permission to see the good in being arrested multiple times when I was a teenager; I can empathize with people who commit crimes without condemning them. I forgave myself for all the bad business decisions I made; I understand the temptation to focus on making money first and foremost.
If you perceive a sense of scarcity in your life right now, I feel for you. I can empathize with what you’re going through since I’ve been there myself. I know how stressful it can be. I used to have creditors calling me 10 times a day, asking “When can you make a payment?” I also know how frustrating it can be to keep seeking that next opportunity to finally make something happen, only to repeatedly watch your efforts crash and burn. I lived that way for years.

A Transformational Question

I pose to you a question that I found immensely transformational many years ago:
Is it possible for you to still enjoy your life even if your financial situation stays the same or even gets worse for the rest of your life?
When I asked myself that question, at first I wasn’t sure. But as I pondered it, I began to see that there’s so much more to life than money. Why center my happiness and sense of self-worth around something that reduces to a number in a computer database?
At the time, my number had a minus sign in front of it. And I had assumed that this tiny horizontal strip had the power to rob me of much of my enjoyment of life. I believed that without enough money flowing, I couldn’t fully enjoy my life. And so I created — yes, created — a lot of unnecessary stress and frustration for myself.
I determined that even if I stayed completely broke for my whole life, I could still enjoy my life immensely if I really committed myself to that. I could still enjoy great relationships, long walks, healthy food (which grows on trees), stimulating conversations, writing, hugs and affection, and even world travel. Other broke people had enjoyed all of those things. Why not me? I soon concluded that a lack of financial success could not prevent me from creating a very happy and abundant life. A minus sign simply didn’t have that kind of power, unless I yielded my own power to it.
That realization permanently transformed my relationship to money — and beyond that, to life itself. I no longer felt this clawing neediness to earn more money and to get out of debt. I stopped caring how much or how little I earned. I stopped using my income as my measure of success.
I decided to center my work around what I loved to do instead of around what I thought I needed to do to make money. That completely turned my financial life around within a year. To this day, money seems to flow into my life very easily. But even though I have more money flowing through my life today, I still don’t fuss over the numbers. I measure my success by my happiness and enjoyment of life, and this is under my control regardless of what’s going on in my finances.
It’s not the craving for more money that invites abundance. It’s the release of fear attached to being perpetually broke. Can you let go of your fear and resistance to being broke? Could you still enjoy your life even if you remained broke and in debt for the rest of your life? If you can do that, you will welcome the experience of true abundance into your life.
What good is abundance anyway if it can be ruined just by changing a number in a database? True abundance should be unconditional, should it not? If abundance can be threatened, it’s not abundance; it’s still scarcity.

Releasing Neediness

It isn’t hard to see that neediness is repulsive to people, and since money flows through people, neediness repels money too. The more you need money, the less you’ll have it. Haven’t you experienced this already?
How do you feel when people ask you for money, stating that they need it badly? Does their need stir loving generosity within you? Or does it make you clench up a bit? Maybe a mixture of both sometimes, depending on the circumstances?
When do you most enjoy giving? Do you love giving to the neediest people? Or would you rather give to those who will truly appreciate and value your gift the most?
The key to abundance is to stop needing more, and start appreciating what you already have.
Life can be very generous with those who cultivate a sense of appreciation. Even when it seems like you don’t have enough, could you allow yourself to perceive that perhaps you already have more than enough? Is it possible that you already have everything you need to be happy?

Relating Without Neediness

The same dynamic plays out in our relationships too.
I’ve been enjoying a delightful flow of abundance in my social life these days, and I can trace it to a similar realization. I asked a very similar question:
Is it possible to still enjoy my life immensely even if my social life never got any better than it is now, or even if it declined?
Could you still enjoy your life even if you never had a boyfriend or girlfriend again? Even if you never had sex again?
I realized that in this case, the answer was still yes. Even if my relationship life seemed very lacking, I could still find countless things to enjoy in life. I could enjoy nature, get a dog, go deeper into my meditation practice, continue writing and speaking, travel around the world, etc.
Even if I didn’t feel much social love coming back to me from others, I could still be very loving, and that would be enough to enjoy a sense of abundance.
In all honesty I would find it a much greater challenge to enjoy my life if I didn’t experience lots of touch and affection, but I do believe that if I knew I’d have scarcity in this area for the rest of my life, I could surrender to that, and I could still enjoy my life overall. I wouldn’t need to create suffering and misery for myself.

Curiosity and Love

If I don’t need anything from other people, then what’s the motivation to socialize? For me it’s two things mainly: curiosity and love.
When I meet new people, I’m curious to learn more about them. I’m curious about how compatible we are and in what ways. I’m curious where the flow of our connection will lead, even when it’s fresh and new. I hold the sense that anything is possible, and so this curiosity about what will happen next is a powerful motivator for me.
My second motivator is that I love seeing people happy.
One way I express love is by joking around and being playful. When people who’ve only read my blog finally meet me in person, they often tell me that they had no idea that I could be so silly. That sort of thing just doesn’t translate very well to blog posts, but it naturally comes through in interpersonal interactions. Ever since I was a kid, I loved to make people laugh.
Another way I express love, specifically with women, is through touch. When I have a good connection with a woman, I love to cuddle her, caress her, massage her, and scratch her head while we talk. When we’re walking around outside, I will almost always hold her hand or put my arm around her. I won’t do this with someone who’d rather not connect in that way of course, but with someone who likes being touched a lot, I love making her feel good when we’re together. It’s also fun to explore what each person likes best.
When someone is unhappy, I also feel a natural desire to want to make them feel better. During my recent Oslo trip, one woman there was feeling sad because her boyfriend had broken up with her while she was away. I was set to go out to the movies with two other women that night, so I invited her to come with us. During the movie I sat next to her and held her hand, massaged her neck, and caressed her arms. On the walk back through the cold, wet streets, I held her hand and put my arm around her. And when we got back to the apartment, I gave her a nice neck and shoulder massage and a very sensual head scratching. I didn’t need anything from her. I just wanted to make her feel good and to let her know that she was still loved. I don’t expect these simple gestures to override the sting of a breakup. This is simply my natural behavior when I’m in the flow; maybe it helps in some small way. Loving touch can be very comforting for someone who may be feeling vulnerable.

Transforming Past Pain

Years ago I had some pretty big hang-ups about sharing touch with anyone. I didn’t feel comfortable reaching out and touching people. I figured most people didn’t want to be touched and that lots of prerequisites had to be met first. Touching people casually was out of the question — it was much too aggressive, borderline assault.
These limitations trace back to my childhood. I was barely touched at all as a kid. If someone tried to hug me, I often flinched and cut the hug short. I would actively avoid people I knew to be the huggy types, hiding in my room to avoid interacting with certain relatives as long as possible.
As a child I was touched more often to inflict pain than to express love, and so I saw touch as more of a threat than a gift. It shouldn’t be too surprising then that even into adulthood, I projected this feeling onto others, remaining very skittish and believing that touching someone was practically an act of violence. I felt very conflicted because these conditioned feelings couldn’t completely override my human desire to touch and be touched. So I grew up with very mixed associations. More often than not, I held back when it came to sharing touch with someone new. I just couldn’t go there; it didn’t feel safe.
I remember on one occasion while I was in college, a very attractive girl invited me to study with her. Partway into our study session, I soon realized that the study invite was just her way of spending some alone time with me; her mind was clearly not on the books. At one point when she reached over and caressed my arm, I froze up and quickly made an excuse to leave. Then I went out of my way to avoid her for the rest of the semester. Logically I knew she was just trying to connect, but emotionally I reacted to her touch as if it were a grave threat. I wanted nothing to do with her after that. Sad but true.
I gradually made an effort to improve, and with time I was able to let go of these negative associations. First I had to welcome receiving touch as an expression of love and stop seeing it as a threat. And then I had to see the beauty in reaching out to touch someone without feeling like I was assaulting them. This was not an easy line of development, and it required pushing my comfort zone further and further out, but eventually I tipped to the other side. Now I can’t imagine ever wanting to go back to how I used to be.
The most important change I made to overcome this problem was to deliberately hang out with touchy, huggy people. It took time, and I could only handle it in small doses at first, but it really helped to interact with people who saw touch as a very natural way to connect. I just needed to warm up to it at my own pace.
Today I feel very comfortable expressing love and affection through touch, including with people I’ve just met. I’m also much better at recognizing when someone else is receptive to touch vs. when they’re skittish about it. I’m never aggressive about touching people, nor is it ever necessary to act that way. Instead I make gradual invites and gauge the person’s response. Most of the time it’s obvious that they welcome being touched, but if there’s ever any doubt, I just ask, “Does this feel good to you?”
Instead of seeing touch as a selfish act, as if I’m taking something from the other person, I now recognize it as a beautiful way to express love and caring. I just love making women feel good by touching them in ways that give them sensual pleasure and leave them feeling happy, relaxed, peaceful, and cared for.
The greatest shift I experienced here was when I let go of neediness and replaced it with a sense of appreciation. Instead of feeling like I need to reach out and touch people, I focus on feeling deeply appreciative for all the experiences of touch that are already in my life. I love feeling the warmth of a woman’s body pressed up against me, the sounds of her soft moans of pleasure as I squeeze her neck, the sight of her smile as she looks up at me, the moisture of her lips as we kiss. Instead of taking these experiences for granted and demanding more, I welcome whatever shows up. Even if I don’t have sexual chemistry with a woman, I can still enjoy making her feel good through touch.
I also appreciate that having been on the other side, I can more easily relate to others who are very skittish about being touched. When I recognize women who are like this, especially those who’ve had abuse in their past, I like to issue gentle invites to help them to reconnect with touch when they feel ready to do so. These women are normally very receptive to the idea, especially if they’ve read my blog and already know a lot about me and where I’m coming from. I give them full control and let them set the pace, never pushing them and expressing no attachment to outcomes. I really like being in a position to help these women release some of their past pain and to welcome them back into the fold. Doing this gives added meaning to my own path of growth in this area. I don’t feel sorry for these women or look down on them; rather I see myself in them. Helping them open up is very cathartic for me.
There are other ways to express love by touching each other emotionally, even without physical contact. One night in Oslo during a party, I spent about an hour just looking at a woman across the room. We gazed into each others’ eyes intently, smiling and beaming unconditional love at each other. We tuned out everyone else in the room and focused on holding and amplifying that vibe of love. At first people joked about what we were doing, thinking that maybe we were having a staring contest. But then some of them started to express appreciation for the love energy that we were creating in the room.
My past self would never recognize my current self in this area. He would find it unfathomable that I could express love through touch so casually and without fear, worry, or resistance. It’s rewarding, but sometimes also stunning, to look back and see how much I’ve changed here, largely by replacing neediness, fear, and worry with appreciation and gratitude.

Social Abundance

As a result of going through a lot of internal transformation over the years, I’ve become much more relaxed socially. When I connect with old friends or meet new people, I’m able to be fully present without needing anything from them. I don’t need them to approve of me. I don’t need us to do business together. I don’t need us to go to bed together. I may still have desires for certain types of connections, but I’m not attached to how they turn out. My sense of social abundance is becoming increasingly unconditional.
Just as I saw with the transformation in my financial life many years ago, this is creating a similar transformation in my social life. Instead of setting social goals or trying to create specific outcomes, I just hold this vibe of abundance, I welcome whatever shows up, and I appreciate the heck out of it, no matter how small it seems.
In general, this vibe of unconditional happiness is very attractive. When people see that I’m going to be happy no matter what and that I truly don’t need anything from them, they naturally want to spend time together. And these connections are easy, flowing, and graceful. It’s easy to feel comfortable around people who truly don’t need anything from you. Within the past week, I’ve been told more than once how relaxing it is to hang out with me. Years ago I seldom got that kind of feedback.
When I was in Oslo last week, I reveled in how quickly and easily new connections flowed into my life — and especially at how deep they became, practically overnight. I’d never been to Norway before, and I hardly knew anyone there when I arrived, but by the end of the trip, I had made some amazing new friends, and it felt like we’d known each other for years. As I stood on the train platform, hugging three of my new friends goodbye before I boarded the 4:59 am train to the airport, it was stunning to realize that only 7 days had passed since I arrived.
On this trip I didn’t set goals or make plans. Before I arrived, I had thought about seeing the fjords, but I didn’t cling to that idea. I simply held the intention of going with the flow in each moment. On several occasions people asked me about my plans for the day, and I replied, “No set plans. I’m just going with the flow of what arises today.”
I had so much fun on this trip, and the main reason was this pervasive sense of abundance. I welcomed and appreciated everything that came up.
I even came down with a cold and a mild fever the day I was scheduled to speak at the conference there, a result of jetlag and going too many nights in a row on minimal sleep. It’s been a long time since I’ve been sick, but instead of resisting it, I decided to welcome the illness. I allowed myself to appreciate the extra challenge of doing my presentation when I wasn’t feeling my best. I drank a lot of water and missed seeing all of the other speakers that day so I could get some extra rest. I was the last speaker of the conference, so I didn’t take the stage till about 6:30pm.
I made it through my 2-hour presentation just fine, energized by the wonderful audience there. Afterwards I participated in an hour-long panel discussion with the other speakers, then answered questions individually and took photos with people in the audience. At the end of the day, I was physically exhausted, but I felt very grateful for the opportunity to share a heart-felt message with such an amazing group. When I got back to the apartment, I had a quick bite to eat and collapsed into bed. Soon I was feeling much better, and as I recovered, I felt even more grateful for the return of my energy.

Unconditional Gratitude

A very powerful lesson that I’m still integrating into my life is: Feel grateful no matter what.
No matter what your situation looks like right now, you can always find something to appreciate. Even when it seems as if the whole world is against you and everything in your life is breaking down, pause for a moment and find something to appreciate in that moment. Appreciate the growth challenge. Appreciate your next meal. Appreciate that my blog is here for you as a free resource.
If you can learn to relate to life on the basis of unconditional gratitude, thanking life for whatever it sends your way, you’ll transform your whole experience of living. Life will become a true gift instead of a struggle.
You can’t do battle with life and expect to win. To condemn what’s arising in your life right now only makes you powerless, and it drops you to a vibe that’s only going to attract more scarcity.
Please do the best you can not to relate to life on the basis of neediness. See if you can conclude as I did that no matter what happens with your finances or your relationships, you can still enjoy a rich and rewarding life. Once you know that’s possible for you, it’s much easier to relate to life with a sense of appreciation and gratitude. And this is a very attractive vibe indeed.
You don’t need anything more. You are whole and complete just as you are. Your life is already rich and abundant, if you will only choose to look. Life has been trying for years to say “I love you.” Would you kindly take a moment to acknowledge this?

World of Energy

Perhaps the biggest core mistake you’ll make along your path of conscious growth is subscribing to the belief that you live in a world of objects.
You don’t.
You live in a world of energy.
Objects are separate. Energy is continuous.
Objects have gaps between them; they can appear to be apart and not touching. Energy is always connected to itself; it is always in touch.
Objects can sit still. Energy is always moving, even in apparent stillness.
If you work at a job you dislike and exchange your energy for bits of colored paper or for more digits in a computer database, you are mistaking objects and numbers for energy. You could be much, much happier if you aligned your working energy with your inspiration and participated in an even greater field of positive and flowing energy instead of trading your energy for dead and lifeless numbers combined with a flow-back of unaligned energy.
If you feel stressed or bored at work, you’re missing out on the wonderful benefits that come from aligning your life energy with the flow of inspiration. You may exist, but you’re not really living.
If you cling to a relationship that isn’t flowing and growing, you’ve made a similar mistake. You could be much, much happier if you replaced that object-style relationship of mutual exchanges and compromises with a positively aligned and flowing one that is constantly refreshing its energy in new and exciting ways. You could feel limitless channels of love passing into and through you from all directions instead of fixating on a person as object and choking the flow.
To begin changing modes, start acting on your instincts and intuitive impulses immediately instead of squashing them.
Some impulses may be too big and scary for you to trust at first, like the impulse to quit your job or to donate all your stuff and go travel, so if you can’t accept those yet, begin with the small ones, and build up from there.
If you’ve made many decisions from the reality-as-object model, you may initially find yourself in a field of mostly dark energy when you begin to wake up. You will notice this in the form of negative emotions flowing through your life such as fear, stress, worry, anxiety, dread, doubt, sorrow, grief, pain, loneliness, jealousy, envy, inadequacy, disappointment, frustration, anger, overwhelm, and so on. Believe it or not, this awareness is a positive step — a big leap beyond feeling apathetic or numb.
To realign yourself with the light, begin to notice this dark energy, and start consciously turning away from it. Keep doing the best you can to realign your energy with lightness, peace, ease, creativity, happiness, fun, laughter, excitement, passion, love, compassion, empathy, caring, and wholeness.
Keep the energy in your life flowing, and do your best to align this flow with ever greater sources of inspiration.
The objects in your reality are temporary forms that express the energy flowing through your life, but ultimately they are of little consequence. If you do have many objects present in your life, love them, appreciate them, and feel as much gratitude for them as you can summon.
Feel gratitude every day — every hour if you can. Appreciate. But don’t appreciate just objects. Appreciate the flow of energy in your life, even if it seems dark at first. Appreciate the lessons. Appreciate the experience. Appreciate the freedom. Appreciate the vastness of possibilities. Appreciate the pain (your teacher and ally). Appreciate the scars. Appreciate the most dreadful parts of your life as best you can, and the dread will soon evaporate.
You are here to learn, grow, create, be inspired, and most of all — to be ridiculously, disgustingly happy and fulfilled. You have the freedom and the ability to enjoy a life that is filled to the brim with delicious experiences and adventures, deep love and connection, and delightful acts of creative flow.
You’ll find it ten times easier to enter into and immerse yourself in this flow state if you release the notion that you live in a world of objects. You live in a world of energy. You are energy. I am energy. Everything is energy. And we are always interconnected. We can forget or deny our connection, but it remains strong nonetheless.
In every moment there exists the opportunity and the invitation to uplift and elevate your energy, to tap into the flow of inspiration, and to be happier than you were just a moment ago. Can you sense the presence of that invitation in your life right now? Are you saying yes to it?
Even if you read this as text, this article isn’t just words. It’s energy. The words are merely the envelope. The message is the energy. Did you receive and feel the energy from it?

The Harder It Is, The More You Must Love It

Some goals are far more difficult than you first imagined. Perhaps you’ve tried all the easy and obvious approaches, but the goal simply won’t succumb.
Sometimes you have to make a couple hundred failed attempts to find an approach that works beautifully for you.
Don’t give up just because you missed 20 times or so. You may be 10% of the way to a brilliant solution.
Does that sound promising or annoyingly discouraging?
If you only want the end result but resist the difficulty of grinding it out, you’ll likely give up long before you even reach the 10% mark.
For harder goals, you’d better find an approach to the daily grind that you can fall in love with.
You may need to make hundreds of attempts on certain goals, not necessarily because they require so much experimentation but because you need all that training to become strong enough to succeed.
The work may be hard, but can you love it anyway? Can you love it not in spite of the difficulty but because of the difficulty? Can you look at something really tough and say, “I love that you’re so challenging because just attempting you will make me stronger”?
You won’t accomplish much in life if you refuse to fall in love with the grind.
Stop trying to make everything in life easier. Learn to cultivate tenacious determination to conquer a goal because it’s ridiculously tough.
If a goal isn’t tough, it’s probably beneath you.
If you learn to love difficulty, you reduce resistance to goals that you associate with hard work. This puts more options within your reach. Labeling a goal as “too difficult” as if the difficulty is something undesirable is the same as saying, “I’m not ready to receive this desire.”
Eliminate your resistance to difficulty, and you’ll find, with much universal irony, that your resistance to difficulty was actually your greatest roadblock preventing the achievement of the goal.
The harder it is, the more you must love it.
That’s what she said.