YING and YANG LIVING Wisdom and Wellness: Changing Your Mind, Changing the World

"If you change your mind, you change the world." By Buddha

I was an Asian Studies major in college, and my first course on Buddhism was academic and dull. I never thought such ancient idealistic aphorisms would ever ring true in my life, let alone that I would practice them. Through all my years of struggling to find my passion and calling (I know, this sounds trite) and living through many depressing days (and still have them), I realized that I am my own worst enemy. How does changing your own mind can possibly change the world? It's not about changing the world, as it is about opening your mind to change. You have to change your thoughts in order to change your energy in order to change your behavior, which then organically transforms everything around you: your career, love relationships, friendships, etc. When we have negative thoughts like "that is too hard," then we make endless excuses not to do it. The lack of taking action prevents us from allowing luck to happen and seizing the amazing opportunities as they emerge.

I wanted to start my own company some years ago and had all the usual doubts and fears, distracting me from taking action for a long time. Struggling to start my own company, I coincidentally re-visited the Buddha quote, and a small light bulb lit internally: "If I change my mind, I can change my life" is how I translated it. Whenever doubtful thoughts came into my head, I tried hard, like salmon swimming up the river, to reverse them immediately by engaging in the cliché mantra: "I can do it, I can do it, I can do it... " With practice, I had enough confidence to jump off the bridge to found my own company without calculating the distance of the fall, the depth of the water, or the velocity of my falling speed-which all just amounts to excuses. I jumped-with tenuous faith--because I internally evolved that I would rather die trying than never having the courage to do so. While I am still struggling and far from where I want to be, the important thing is that I am doing it. A great commercial slogan Nike coined is: "Just Do it." I am pursuing my dreams no matter what the doubtful thoughts may be, and my faith in the process is slowly growing stronger every day. Obviously, I am human and negative thoughts will always creep up, but I make a conscious effort each time to spar them with good ones.

I realize that this may seem overwhelming to do at first, so let's discuss small first steps. Write down one negative quality you see in yourself, for example: "I'm not creative," and underneath this statement, make a list of all the things you have done in the past year where you were creative in your work, school, or relationships and made a difference-small or large. Each time you think "I'm not creative," replace it with something creative on your list. Repeat this process each and every time this negative thought rears its nasty head in your mind. While you will not see dramatic results at the beginning, the accumulative effect of this exercise will be transformative.

When you have positive thoughts, you take positive actions, which inspires people around you to be and do better-a viral effect that changes the world. So indeed: "If you change your mind, you will change the world," so "Just Do it."

Moon Cho is the Creator of Ying & Yang Living, a healthy lifestyle resource that provides Asian living tips in food, home, garden, health, fitness, fashion, beauty, and Asian wisdoms for your spiritual wellness. For all our free Asian living tips, visit our website at http://www.yingandyangliving.com/

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Where Is Wisdom? Why Is It So Hard to Come By?

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us." Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

Wisdom is deep inside each and every one of us. If wisdom is right here, right where we are, why are so few truly tapped in?

Wisdom comes from a deep place inside us, where most people rarely visit. Wisdom can be defined as thoughts, feelings, concepts, and ideas that are bigger than you and facilitate the greater good of the whole. The only way to have and experience these types of thoughts, feelings, concepts and ideas for yourself is to connect with something bigger than you. We can call this God, Universal Intelligence, Great Spirit, or Source.

This is no longer about religion, or faith, or philosophy. Today's world demands we go beyond these limiting mental constructs deep into the felt experience of true wisdom. This depth, this experience, this wisdom, is available to each and every person willing to let go and surrender their "smaller self" into this larger "bigger than you" reality.

My spiritual path has long been focused on establishing a strong partnership with God, Universal Intelligence, Great Spirit, or Source. I see this as THE most critical skill to survive and thrive in the 21st century. With the amount of change, information, and choices exponentially increasing in our lives, it's ESSENTIAL we connect with the changeless, infinite, wise guidance inside.

While Spirit communicates with us in many ways, one of the most powerful and effective ways I have found to partner with the power of the Universe is to tune into my own body. If it's true that we and Great Spirit are one, then we need look no further than right here, right where we are, to tap into divine intelligence and guidance.

So why aren't more people doing this? If wisdom is available to each of us, inside us, why are we not tapped into it? Well, in our western paradigm of living we are accustomed to thinking of intelligence arising, or coming from, the head. Familiar terms like "Use your head" and "Get your head in the game," exemplify this way of thinking.

However, what science has discovered in recent years is that intelligence actually exists all over the body; in fact there are neurons, similar to those in our brain, that exist in the heart and as well in the stomach. The new field of neuro-cardiology has called this bundle of neurons in the heart the heart-brain, and those in the stomach have been named the belly-brain.

In addition, studies have shown there is more communication going from the heart to the brain, than from the brain to the heart. The brain does not run the heart - in fact, in a fetus, the heart is formed and starts pumping before the brain is formed. And if you know anything about heart-transplants, you'll know that a heart removed from the body can continue to beat with no connection to the brain. And those neurons in the gut, they produce the familiar "gut instinct." We haven't really understood these things until now.

Someone once said "There is more wisdom from the neck down, than from the neck up." This is an amazing thing to truly realize, and starts to turn our brain-centered, head-centered western way of thinking and being "on its head." The bottom line here is that there is wisdom, insight, and intelligence coming from other parts of ourselves!

So why don't we hear the wisdom from our body? First of all the head is so dominant with its screaming and yelling and nonstop fear-based messages that the subtle aspects of ourselves get drowned out; you just can't hear them. The voice of wisdom coming from our body is the often-talked-about but seldom heard "still small voice." It really is still and small. You have to want to hear it, get still, and really listen. If you don't do this the head continues to dominate you with fear-based, survival-oriented commands. This is unfortunate, because with your head running your life, your life becomes a death march that's all about avoiding pain, seeking pleasure, and controlling as much as possible. This is called survival and it's completely void of God-like experiences including joy, unconditional love, compassion, inspiration, deep peace and serenity.

Here's an interesting insight. Spiritual practices are pretty much ALL about one thing: connecting to Source. That's it. In one way, shape, or form they are ALL doorways to connecting with Source. Chanting, meditating, prayer, postures, mudras, mantras, etc. etc. etc. Anything you can think of. Every single one of these things is A MEANS TO THE END. Mostly they are about calming and quieting our mental, physical, or emotional distractions. Why? So we can finally connect, hear, and EXPERIENCE that still small voice that is the God Inside each and every one of us.

Think of the mind, or your head, as the manager, and think of your body, and especially your heart, as the leader, as the visionary. Without a divinely inspired vision, the manager, or your head, is just spinning its wheels doing busy work. Your mind is there to serve your heart; however most people are so in their mind, and disconnected from their body-based wisdom, that the mind is dysfunctionally running the show. With these insights your practice becomes about getting connected to your body and accessing ALL your wisdom.

Try This:

Sit in a comfortable position with your feet flat on the ground and your hands resting on your thighs. Take several deep belly breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. Close your eyes and feel your awareness draining down from your head, down into your body. You can literally sense this energetic shift of awareness-energy coming down from your head, down into your body. Imagine your awareness just melting down from your head down into your body as you breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth. Do this for a minute or two and longer if you want.

Once you have moved your awareness down into your body, just sit calmly in that state for a few moments and notice the quality of your thoughts and feelings. If you have truly succeeded at moving your awareness-energy down into your body, your will likely notice your thoughts are more peaceful, calm, confident, courageous, loving, inspired, and actually wise. More, one might say, "God-like" in their quality.

Congratulations - you are one step closer to your mojo!

Roger Kenneth Marsh is a Spiritual Life Coach & creator of the Major Good Mojo System. He has an engineering degree, MBA, is a Certified Life Coach, HeartMath® Provider, and Passion Test® Facilitator. Get his book "NexGen Human" on Amazon.com, and FREE CD "3 Keys to Major Good Mojo" at http://www.majorgoodmojo.com/free-cd

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