How to Embrace Life

In this post I will continue with my discussion on how to experience life's tough times and problem areas in a manner that keeps us calm, confident, creative and connected to our goals and ultimate life's purpose. I know it’s a big order but you'll see it's not as difficult as it sounds. We just have to make a few assumptions.

The 1st assumption is you have read and understand my prior posts on our spiritual, physical and intellectual natures. Next, we assume that in tough times our intellectual nature (coach) reviews the possible solutions available to us, chooses the one it wants and then sends in the play for our body to complete. Our intellectual nature performs this function because our “free will” resides there.

So the question really becomes “How does our coach know what play to send in”? In ideal situations the coach has a relationship with and consults our spiritual nature (mentor) prior to sending in a play. This is especially necessary when we are experiencing those one-of-a-kind problems frequently thrown at us by life.

We won’t always come up with the “perfect” solution to the problem. As a matter of fact, we may not come up with a solution at all. That’s because the job of our mentor is to lead us in the direction of our highest and best good. Unfortunately, sometimes we’ll have to experience tough times in order to get there. That's why it's so important that we develop a close working relationship with this spiritual nature. It will somehow let us know that what we are experiencing is ok.

As faith in this relationship increases so will our ability to confidently deal with life's tough times. I'm reminded of a quote by Emmanuel Teney. who says: “As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit.”

As the interconnectedness between our spiritual, intellectual and physical nature matures we will begin to embrace life, be less prone to worry and reduce our stress levels by not trying to control how things must be. We will recognize that we have a competent mentor and coach to help us experience life in the physical world as it unfolds. We’ll also learn that tough times occur when we resist what’s going on in our life.

Also, by understanding and utilizing the previously discussed law of cause and effect we are able to choose our response to life. We can choose either to become victors over what's going on in our life or to become victimized by these same issues. The choice is simple and the choice is ours.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on our spirit-mind-body connection. In my next few posts I'll discuss how to apply this concept to areas of leadership, productivity, health and our work-life balance. Until then here's hoping you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God bless.

Solving Life's Problems Using Our 3-Part Nature

In this post I will tie together the 3 aspects of our human nature, namely the spiritual, intellectual and physical. I’ve discussed our spiritual nature (inner voice) in previous posts. I’ve also discussed our intellect and stated that it houses our “free will”. If I had to assign roles to these natures, I would say the spiritual performs the role as “Mentor” and our intellect as “Coach”.

In the past, I likened our spiritual nature to a GPS, which unerringly provides us directions towards our destination. It doesn't matter where we’re located because it knows how to guide us safely to our chosen destination. And as you know a mentor is defined as a trusted counselor or guide. It's our spiritual nature or mentor that often guides us to a solution to those one-of-a-kind problems that are unsolvable by intellect alone.

My goal in this post is to provide a simplistic overview of how the different aspects of our nature interrelate as we experience life's tough times and problem areas. It’s not to tell you how to go about your normal day-to-day activities, which are usually placed on cruise control anyway. By that I mean, upon waking each day we normally use the restroom, cleanup, get something to eat and then complete our daily activities. At the end of each day we do what is necessary to prepare for the next, and so on. Our intellect handles this aspect of our life quite well.

When life’s tough times and problem areas occur, our intellect (consisting of our mind, will, desires and emotions) chooses a desired outcome. It then allows our GPS to issue directions and guide us towards our desired destination.

Additionally, our intellect (Coach) sends instructions to our physical body (which assumes the role of “Player”) that allow us to interact with other bodies and the material world. Our bodies do nothing more than wait on the sidelines for the coach to send in a play (“Gimme the ball coach, Gimme the ball”). It then uses its physical attributes to carry out that play to the best of its ability.

Our physical body is a complex, finite organism that has no volition of its own. It returns to the earth when our intellectual nature/life force no longer occupies it. It does however have the necessary intelligence to monitor its own operation and sends signals back to the coach when it detects an internal malfunction or breakdown. A simple analogy is that our body is like an automobile that’s useless until occupied by a driver (intellect/life force).

The take away from this post is that in order to successfully experience the tough times and problem areas of life in a manner that keeps us calm, confident, creative and connected to our guide, we must understand how to employ an integrated approach that involves our 3-part nature. This is accomplished when the “Mentor” provides guidance to the “Coach” who directs the activities of the “Player”.

I will provide more examples of how this works in my next post. Until then, here's hoping that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God bless!

Intellect and Awareness - The Dynamic Duo

In my last post entitled “Be aware of your instincts”; I discussed “The Intellect” and how it interacts with our three-part nature. I stated that while it is a valuable tool in solving empirical problems, it is not very useful alone in solving the one-of-a-kind personal problems we find in life. I have already shared with you a few of my successes; now let me share with you an area of personal setback. It's not an area I'm proud of but I share it in order help you to not make the same mistakes I made and to say that it's not important what happens to us in life. It's how we respond to what happens to us that really counts.

As a matter of fact, if you are like me, the more I use my intellect alone to solve personal problems it seems the more personal problems I get. For example, early in life as a result of my engineering background and problem solving ability, I concluded that I should easily be able to find a mate and life's partner. I thought if she was attractive, articulate and intelligent then we would make a good couple. Sound a bit chauvinistic, don't I? Boy, was I wrong!

It took me 3 divorces to figure out that there is much more to finding a mate than their looks, conversation and intelligence. I found out that I should be aware of their home life, interaction with their parents, past history, emotional stability and many other things. I also needed to be aware of how we connected and interacted together on a personal basis. However, I only saw my potential mates as I wanted to see them and not for whom they really were.

In seeing them that way, my mind created a person that never really existed. This wasn't their problem; it was mine. I gave them attributes they never really had and assumed their life’s goals were the same as mine. However, I did determine an interconnection between our intellect and awareness.

Wikipedia states that Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. Had I been more aware and in the moment, I would have paid more attention to those areas where I sensed incompatibilities in my relationships. Understand that I am not blaming anyone. I am just stating I should have examined my feelings more closely at those times. However, since I had always created my relationships in the same manner, it wasn’t until I hit rock bottom that I was ready to try something new.

As a result I spent a number of years using my intellect to learn about personal and interpersonal relationships and the secrets to their success. After applying these principles I was finally able to sustain a good relationship for more than a few years.  My point is that without this proper combination of intellect and awareness, I would’ve been doomed to failure.

Now relationships aren't the only areas of life where we continually butt our heads against the wall. Other areas may include health, finances, purpose for living, etc. and we will discuss these in future posts. Until then here's hoping that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God bless!

Be Aware of Your Instincts

In my last post I continued the discussion on our intellectual nature, which I call “The Battleground”. I stated that it is central to how we live out our life in this physical world. What I mean is that we too often unquestionably rely upon the direction it provides us and it’s this unquestioning aspect of our three-part nature that I will discuss here.

We must understand that our intellectual nature in and of itself is error-prone. How many of us have made and followed through on a decision that was based solely on our intellect and contrary to what our instinct told us? And later we regretted that decision shaking our heads and saying, "I should have listened". How many of us know really smart individuals who continually mess up their lives by making dumb decisions? You know there really is a difference between book sense and common sense, don’t you? We just have to know when to apply which.

Our intellect is a valuable tool in specific areas such as: schoolwork or applying specialized knowledge to solve problems. But when it comes to solving life's problems the intellect by itself isn’t enough to get the job done. We need to team it with other aspects of our nature. Allow me to provide an example.

I owned a successful Information Technology company that was recognized by Inc. Magazine and included in their Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held corporations in America. However one year I was having a really tough time and it was touch and go as to whether I could even stay in business. Luckily, we received a subcontract from a major corporation that would provide us enough revenues to pay our expenses but make very little if any profit.

In finalizing the paperwork for this subcontract a question was asked  "Who would pay the payroll and overhead expenses for individuals hired to accomplish the work?" Since I always figured that amount in my bid price I, like I had always done in the past, initially responded that my company would cover these costs. However, something inside me (an instinct) urged me to respond that I expected the prime contractor to cover that cost. So, I followed my gut and changed the answer from my company to theirs. To my surprise the contracting officer accepted this response My profit increased from something negligible to a very substantial amount. This gave me enough working capital to comfortably plan for the following year.

My point is that we should not be so set in our ways that we don't take a few moments to examine why we do what we do if we're not happy when we get where we go. In this case I teamed my intellectual nature with what I call awareness.

I will discuss the subject of awareness in my next post. Until then, here's hoping you live today and every day passionately and with purpose! Thank you and God bless. 

Failure Isn't Always Fatal

In my last post I began putting the pedal to the metal by accelerating my providing of information on how to experience life successfully here and now. I selected the intellect to begin with because it is the most volatile of our 3 natures. I call it "The Battleground", since it's where the fierce fight for control of how we live out our life in the physical world takes place.

I stated that in order for us to live prosperously and peacefully there must be interaction between our spiritual and intellectual natures. This interaction is not religious in nature, but more about balance and growth. We have to recognize that our spiritual nature, like our intellectual one, is immaterial in that it can't be seen or felt.

Our spiritual nature allows us to communicate with the spiritual world, which consists of entities that can help or hinder us in our efforts to live the life we desire. Yes, there are spiritual entities out there that try to influence our core beliefs and attempt to rule us completely. However as a result of free will, which is an integral part of our intellect, we can pick and choose which spiritual entities get to play in our game.

I like to describe our spiritual nature as an internal GPS that provides us with directions towards our goals and ultimate life's purpose. After the destination is input, our GPS obtains advice from different spirits along the way to guide us there safely. Because our goals and destinations usually take years to complete it's important that we keep our spiritual nature strong and properly nourished. And using our intellect to provide the necessary food for successful growth in the spiritual realm does this. We can't expect our GPS to mature and function properly if we keep feeding it the same food we fed it as a child.

For instance, if we find that we are continually failing in one or more aspects of our life (relationships, finances, health, business, etc.) then we might want to take a look at how we keep arriving there. Could it be that unfriendly spirits, influencing us to create negative core beliefs, are impeding us? If so, don’t despair. These spirits will occupy a weakened GPS and lead us to destinations of their choice until we tell them to leave. The beauty of life is that “failure isn't always fatal” and because of free will we can turn our lives around at any instant. However, this won't happen until we become sick and tired of being sick and tired of our continued failures.

We can replace these unfriendly spirits with friendly ones that help us to create positive core beliefs. We can positively use our past failures as teaching points to help others to avoid what we've experienced. You see every dark cloud does have a silver lining. Allow me to close by paraphrasing the poem "Invictus", "It matters not how straight the gate or charged with punishment the scroll, we are the masters of our fate. We are the captains of our souls".

I will continue this subject in my next post. Until then, here's hoping that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God bless!

Intellect Is Not Enough!

Hello again, and thanks for your interest. In this post we're going to begin to understand what it takes to improve our life physically, spiritually and intellectually. It does not matter if we are in a jail cell or a boardroom. It doesn't matter if we're going through bankruptcy or experiencing great financial success. It doesn't matter if our physical body is deteriorating or we are at the pinnacle of physical fitness. What does matter is that we recognize we have the power to improve our condition and begin experiencing a prosperous and peaceful life right here and right now.

To begin, let us take a look at our intellectual nature. It consists of our conscious and subconscious mind, our will, desires and emotions. Some folks may call this the soul, life force or heart of man. It's not important what it’s called as long as we recognize its existence and that it is distinct from our other natures. Many say that it separates from our physical body during death and continues to exist. Others say that when we die, it dies. I am not here to try to convince you one way or the other. I just want you to understand that it does exist and is separate from our physical and spiritual nature.

I like to call our intellectual nature “The Battleground”. This is the place where all of our mental and emotional distress takes place. And, although it's not physical in nature, that is, it can’t be touched, smelled or seen, it can have a devastating effect on our physical body. As a result, it is not to be completely trusted in and of itself because as easily as it can lead us to unlock the mysteries of the universe it can lead us to wrongly convict someone of a crime they didn't commit.

At the center of our intellectual nature is this thing called “free will”. Our free will gives us the ability to choose whatever course of action we desire. It allows us to do so whether or not the course we choose is helpful or harmful to others. However, we must recognize that there are always consequences associated with whatever actions we take.  In case you are asking “How is this information going to help me improve my life?” let me get to the meat of this post.

You may have heard the saying “The mind is a terrible thing to waste”. And that's just my point. Our mind, an integral component of our intellectual nature, is one of the greatest tools that we as human beings have available to us. As a tool it can be used to create works of good or evil. However, as a result of free will, we can allow our minds to be influenced by whatever we choose. This is where our spiritual nature comes in to work hand-in-hand with our intellectual nature.

As stated in earlier posts our intellectual, spiritual and physical natures must interact together in order for us to experience the prosperous and peaceful life that we seek. In my next post I will discuss how our spiritual influences our intellectual nature. Until then here's wishing that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God bless!

Improve Your Life Here and Now!

Hello, Al Spinks here, and thanks for your interest. You know what? I just don't get it. We live in one of the greatest nations on earth but I feel we're letting that greatness slip away. From an individual perspective, it seems as if we are yielding to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. It's as if we want others to do for us that which we are very capable of doing for ourselves. We want to become rich, famous and healthy over night but have a tendency to become depressed when that doesn’t happen. We seem to have forgotten that we have to put in work in order to attain anything worthwhile.

In a conversation with my son Michael who is a personal fitness trainer, we discussed how even after an intense workout we are not able to see any significant change in our body the next day. We just put in the work and have faith that over time a proper combination of diet and exercise will produce the desired results. It's a process that works and this process will work for anyone regardless of his or her physical condition. To obtain this better level of fitness all we have to do is start where we are, have a plan and put in the work.

So, if we can gain better fitness by assessing our current physical condition and creating a plan to improve it, don't you think we can do the same thing to gain a better life? All we have to do is assess our current spiritual, intellectual and physical condition and then execute a plan to improve them. We all have inside of us the necessary components to positively change the quality of our life. We just gotta wanna do it and get started right here and right now.

First, we must take responsibility for whatever hand life has dealt us. It's not as hard as you think. As a matter of fact it's kind of easy. As stated in earlier posts, our health, age, circumstances and situations do not matter. All we have to do is want to improve our life and find an impartial coach to show us the way. But before I continue let me share this brief poem with you.

The Man Who Thinks He Can

by Walter D. Wintle

If you think you are beaten, you are;

If you think you dare not, you don't.

If you'd like to win, but think you can't

It's almost a cinch you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you've lost,

For out in the world we find

Success begins with a fellow's will;

It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are:

You've got to think high to rise.

You've got to be sure of yourself before

You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go

To the stronger or faster man,

But soon or late the man who wins

Is the one who thinks he can.

Remember, all you gotta do is believe you can improve your life and you will! What are you waiting on? In my next few posts I will provide information that will assist you in this very worthwhile and rewarding journey. Until then here's wishing that you live today and every day passionately and with purpose. Thank you and God Bless!