Life is a large marketplace in which we are all seeking to express our intrinsic and cultivated value, whether it be dating, business, friendship, artistic expression and even our value to our environment when we are alone. Today's Ascended Business Master must have a broad and conscious understanding of her environment and the deeply interconnected web of life in which we all live. Real business leadership is about human leadership, integrity and social responsibility. Ultimately real marketing is about knowing yourself and your identity. You are the human-resource currency. You need to have a healthy self-valuation and then allow your natural gifts and unique signature to become a supportive part of the social ecology. We are in this thing together.
Marketing is a part of life and the grand natural order. Marketing is not about stuff, money or capitalism; it is about intrinsic, life-force resource currencies. Birds sing and dance to attract mates, and it seems that no matter where we look we find some animal showing off— especially us humans. And maybe those new-age hippies were on to something too, because if you want to strengthen your brand you can learn from the flowers. Flowers are first and foremost in the advertising business. Flowers know how to attract what they want and need. Flowers express themselves and their value naturally, and do so without running Super Bowl ads. Natural, truly organic or spiritual marketing is an effortless expression of simply being your own truth. Nothing sells better than the truth.
Much of what I do is try to help people reestablish awareness of their true identity. If you are reading this then you are likely trying to understand how to better market and sell yourself, or a product. But marketing is much more than a learned action or skill; it is an intrinsic part of the natural order of life. To be masterful at sales or marketing you need to know your identity and be a zen-master of self. While the crude and immature tools of manipulation, arrogance, swagger and a polished glib tongue may get you noticed in the small pond, the skills needed to thrive in the higher-realms are more spiritual, personal and mature.
Please take some quiet time to meditate on the incalculable beauty of the gift of life. Remember to take some time each day to play. Touch the Earth, walk on the grass barefoot, swipe the dew from a leaf with your finger, take a deep breath and remember what you are — you are a beautiful child of creation. Glory to you *"people of beauty"* everywhere. Thank you, thank you, thank you — that from somewhere, somehow, a new smile is available for each heart, each new day. Joy is in the simple things, and it was always meant just for you.
Some people love to relive their pain; they are perpetual victims — self-abusing, emotional-drama junkies. They are always fanning into flames every little spark. Some people are addicted to the trauma of the drama; their *raison d'etre* is the daily struggle against their own created turmoil. The struggle in life is their stagecraft, where the people around them become unwitting performers in their dramatic scenes. Crisis is their sensation of being alive; spectacle is their excitement and proof of life. In absence of true passion and purpose, some people engage in the dark surrogate of petty commotion and drama. These people do not want to let go and move on, because they need to struggle and destroy, to live. Blame is their getaway vehicle they use to flee the scenes of their emotional crimes. The pain they carry within themselves is flung and strewn on everyone they encounter; contaminating every peaceful moment with spots of uneasiness and discord. They are raging against themselves. They fight outward enemies because they are afraid to confront the enemy within. They are deeply wounded people, who can be very dangerous to your peace of mind, your family, and your life. Like a wounded animal, they will bite your hand of comfort. They will suck you into their hellish world if you let them. They will keep you there forever, for drama after drama, as their emotional support — as their prisoner. It will never end; every molehill made into a mountain of problems — mountains of madness. When you find yourself hanging off the cliff, with someone about to pull you over the edge, you have to cut the rope. Sometimes letting go of someone is the only way to survive.
Everyone goes through hell, but not everyone stays there. Stop tormenting yourself by reliving the pain over and over. Good people go through terrible things, but wise people know when and how to let it go. We all know that wisdom does not come easy, it often comes from painful experience. Many of us are very unwise in how we handle our pain. Like an animal that struggles in a steel trap, we worsen our wounds the way we struggle, deny, and fight against what simply, is. When we refuse to learn the wisdom of acceptance, we become our own tormentors. When we refuse to let go we suffer, yet we cannot let go of something until it has taught us what we need to learn. Letting go is a process of recognition, confrontation, acceptance, and healing. Letting go simply means not suffering any more than absolutely necessary, but just enough to expand and strengthen ourselves. Some suffering is needed to deepen our compassion, to grow, and to learn. Letting go means you have learned enough, and now have compassion for yourself. Letting go means not touching that sore spot until it is infected, and instead letting it heal. Letting go means carrying a permanent scar, but not a permanent wound. Letting go means you may have walked through hell, but came out the other side ready to make your life a heaven. Letting go means you refuse to be a victim forever, by letting one moment define the rest of your life. Letting go means you accept change, and you accept that your pain is not permanent. Letting go means you accept that you cannot take away the past, but you insist that the past cannot take away your future. Letting go means you are ready to move forward and live. Letting go means you are no longer afraid. It was always fear that held you prisoner; letting go means you are finally free.
Some people's problems are more than you can bare, and without proper boundaries, in time, these people will wear you down to a frazzle. Your hope and optimism is no match for their bottomless pit. Your pep-talks and quick fixes are no match for the endless self-destruction loop running in their minds. You can give them compassion, but they will settle for nothing less than your destruction. If they don't get help, you're the one who will soon need it. Their unresolved traumas will seep in, as your trauma. Their wounds, will become your wounds. Their madness slowly becomes your madness. If you will honestly look in the mirror at the stress on your face, and in your eyes, you will see what they are doing to you. They are remaking you into their likeness; a terrorized person, who is desperate for peace.
Uneasiness and suffering spills out on everyone around the wounded soul who cannot see themselves. What they have not observed, accepted, and healed within themselves infects everyone they meet. Their instability shakes every encounter with uneasiness. Their desperate longing for meaningful contact and peace, is steadily amplified by their unconscious and ill-mannered quarks of petty drama, or neglect. Broken people often demand from others, what they cannot summon from within. Many wounded people who cannot be at peace with themselves, force the people around them to walk on eggshells to create the illusion of calm they demand. The cost of their feigned composure of phony harmony, is your peaceful state of mind. Their state of ease in a room, is only equal to everyone else's state of unease. They obliviously belly laugh, while others heart palpitate. They smile, while you grit your teeth. They exhale in satisfaction, as your diaphragm flutters with anxiety. They ingratiate themselves into your deepest bonds of dependency, where you are more like a hostage than a friend, because you fear their meltdown should their affection go unrequited. The commotion they create in your life is like a toxic and confusing haze of crossed boundaries, broken trust, and endless disappointments. They are often mostly unaware of the energetic load and burden they place on others. The truth is, they cannot help themselves; they are sick, and need professional help.
The reactive mind is a crippled mind, because it limits and distorts everything. The reactive mind even deforms how we construct ourselves, through choices based on distorted perceptions. Reactivity is the birthplace of ignorance, and the graveyard of potential. Reactivity is pure mindlessness, and pure madness. Reactivity is the opposite of mindfulness; it is a mindless, stray, erratic, and accidental state of semi-consciousness. The reactive mind is volatile, and cannot see itself through its splintered attention span. Reactivity comes in varying degrees with equally varying states of self-developmental retardation. The more reactive you are, the more you are stunted and cut-off from experiencing the full measure of life's grand endowment. Becoming mindful of your own reactivity is the first step toward a form of practical enlightenment. Awareness IS your opportunity. Your calm, measured, thoughtfulness, and graceful awareness of your own reactions, will begin to move you toward a life of peace, and a deeper sense of sturdiness against life's trials. Your life experience can only be as deep as your awareness. Your existence, as you know it, is a measure of your awareness. Each step toward self-awareness, is a step toward freedom, that only a truth with self can grant. Awareness is how everything you will ever have or experience — arrives, or is taken away. Be considerate, and consider yourself.
There is a difference between having a reaction, and using a reaction. Unconscious reactivity is a form of low self-awareness — even more dangerous than low self-esteem. Being aware of personal deficits is empowering, compared to no awareness at all, as to why life seems to grant one little favor. Life favors awareness; awareness of every sense and dimension, for through awareness comes choice. Unconscious reactivity makes your choices for you, leaving you feeling bullied by life, and powerless. Reactivity is how 'gluttons for punishment' are held prisoners by their own thoughtlessness. Being oblivious to your own reactivity is unrefined and gluttonous — it's appetite for gobbling up your opportunities has no end. The reactive mind is a monster; it is the feral reflex of animal survival — uninhabited by higher consciousness. Like a traumatized, caged animal convulsing behind bars, the reactive mind and tongue squirms and digs behind clenched teeth to escape, and interrupt. The force of restraint in the tightened sphincter of their pursed lips are aching to blurt their mind's spasm. They are not listening; they are mentally interrupting behind a facade of listening. They are not mindful; their thoughts more akin to seizures of thoughtlessness. To those with no awareness, they may seem attentive, but to those with awareness, they appear neurotic — their face a mountain of ticks. The atomicity of their upset permeates the core of their being, and radiates discomfort, out, and into the core of those in their proximity. The more they force calm, try to be polite, hold their tongue, and feign patience, the more their wounds, tensions, and unease mounts. Their anxiety fades in-and-out, on their oddly poised face, and in their twitching gesticulations, and quirky manner. Their inner turbulence sloshes out of their concealment, in waves of reflex upset, knee-jerk offense, exasperations, eye-rolls, inappropriate laughter, and mental belches of incorrect assumptions, judgements, and hurtful misunderstandings.
