What Is Your Sadhana?

In an average, modern day social situation, a question commonly heard asked is, “what do you do?”, which generally means, what do you do for a living?

The answer you give to that question is one way others can get some information about you, what you value and maybe even a hint at your education, intelligence, interests etc.

In an average, modern day spiritual situation, a question commonly heard asked is, “what is your Sadhana?”, which means, what is your spiritual approach, experiment, or practice? What is your moment to moment approach to life?

The answer you give to that question may give some information regarding the depth of your spiritual life, as well as what has been determined to be your biggest challenge in your spiritual evolution.

For instance, if someone were to ask me what my Sadhana is, my answer would include the following:

1. The continuous practice of maintaining attention to the basic felt sense of existence, I Am-ness, presence or aliveness.

This means I attempt to maintain a wordless awareness of the experience of being alive by placing and resting attention in the open space of the heart.

This practice undermines and undoes a lifetime of bad habits including:

- being lost in useless ’self-talk’ that erodes the quality of your moment to moment experience of life.

- inattention to the sweet and subtle moments of life’s beauty because you aren’t really there for them.

- poor quality of thought because your thinking mind is not sourced from a place of silence and stillness.

- avoidance of experiencing the most sublime and blissful way of life, which is a life lived with attention firmly rooted and anchored in a place where it is actually pleasurable, JUST TO BE ALIVE!

2. The practice of recognizing what draws my attention away from the openness and direct experience of the heart space, and into the concepts and self-talk of the head space.

This means I am vigilant and watchful for triggers that cause me to react with thoughts, judgments and interpretations, which will almost always lead to emotional reactivity such as anger, frustration and disdain.

The most amazing thing about this Sadhana, or practice, is that it turns your mental/emotional reaction triggers into opportunities to practice connecting with, resting in, and living from, your own deep, wise and loving heart.

Put differently, living in the head space is ONLY a habit, a bad habit that destroys the quality of  your life, and a sure sign that you too may “lead a life of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in you” to quote Thoreau.

So let me ask you this: What is YOUR Sadhana? What is your moment to moment approach to life?  What is your ongoing method of living life deeply?

Come On a Re-Tweet With Aaron

I’ve been a little hard on the Tweeters who quote other people rather than going deep and having something quotable fall from their mouth. So why not come on a brief Re-Tweet with me and look at a few of my best Tweets?:

The weakest link in most forms of PD is the lack of implementation.  Being Awake IS implementation.

How does it feel to know that everything that has ever happened is what SHOULD have happened, because it DID happen? Reality says so.

Transformational Speaking, is mostly about the speaker. The Transformational Speaker, is ALL about the audience.

Life is a magical display, an amusement park, a living lab — IF you have the eyes to see. Have you had your eyes checked lately?

Most quotes on Twitter are like hand-me-down clothes – outdated, unoriginal, old and smelly!

I’m wondering why everyone quotes other people, rather than saying something quotable. In other words, go DEEP and speak from that place.

A Caring Professional uses their livelihood to learn how to open their heart to the world. Are you one?

Chasing a mirage of cool-aide instead of a mirage of water, still leaves you dead of thirst.

The truth of ‘your’ existence is the truth OF existence. Remove ‘you’, to remove what keeps you in a state of suspended foolishness.

Considering how, of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, faith is the most childish and least evolved.

Did you know that your life is the size of your awareness?

There are only a few things we can say about life with any real certainty. What do you know for sure?

Wondering if you have ’self-knowledge’, or the understanding of how your body/mind is patterned?

You will very seldom have a thought that is anywhere nearly as profound as the silence it springs from. If you do, it just HAPPENED to you.

Most approaches to personal development are heavy on the personal and absent on the development. Validation does NOT equal growth.

Considering how the silent mind is the reflective mind, seeing without embellishing, watching the naked moment display itself, unadorned.

The fact that ‘Affirmations’ are seen to be so valuable in our society, just makes me sad…

Resting in the understanding that incessant yearning for what ISN’T, cripples our ability to contentedly be with what IS.

Affirmations and positive self talk is for children and sleeping adults… No kidding!

I’m thinking that if I wasn’t me I’d wanna know me because I’m into the coolest stuff EVER!

Until you can you can’t!

Emotional reactivity happens when we are asleep, eyes wide open!

Maturity is the ability to contain experience long enough to determine if it’s wise to share it. Being awake is the key to maturity.

Handcuffed and procrastinating, neck deep in organizational and time management books, finally, I let myself drowwwnnnnn……

Contemplating the fact that a life dependent on materialism and externals for happiness is unstable. Happiness without condition? You bet!

Hey money grubbers! Have you ever heard of the idea of living with an open heart?

If you believe the thinking mind is where creativity comes from, maybe it’s time I told ya the truth about Santa Clause too

72 hours of balls out creativity and productivity, done with an empty mind and an open heart. Keeping perspective is KEY.

Juggling chainsaws, glass balls, rubber widgets, and puppy dogs is easier when there is ALMOST too much at stake, and too much to do

I’m considering how I can explain the idea that we all live with closed hearts and busy minds, a product of our less than ideal upbringing.

What Does It Mean To Be Awake, and Why Does It Matter So Darn Much?

Awake is a term I use to describe the capacity to remain energetically connected to your experience, moment by moment, without drifting off or getting lost in thought.

You are aware of what is going on inside of you (thoughts, emotions, sensations) as well as what is going on around you (stimuli, input, movement).

There is a heightened sense of aliveness because you are the center-point of your life, and you are aware that your life is dancing and shimmering and fading before your very eyes.

As you read these words, are you also aware you are alive? Can you feel your aliveness? Are you breathing? Are you relaxed? Is your heart open?

Are you aware that you are the living, breathing – still-point – around which your life turns?

Transformational Speaking vs The Transformational Speaker

Transformational Speaking, is mostly about the speaker.

The Transformational Speaker, is ALL about the audience.

More soon!

From the Inside Cover of the Waking Up to the Heart of Care Workbook

Dear Colleague and Caring Professional!

I salute you for committing to the most noble of professions. It is my intention that by completing this workbook you will possess and enjoy a variety of skills, tools and perspectives that will:

=> Dramatically enhance your job satisfaction, allowing you to rekindle your  passion and joy for your work …

=> Help you to manage difficult emotions, volatile interactions and stressful situations with grace, wisdom and maturity.

=> Vastly improve your effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity, while also experiencing much less stress! (Yes, it IS possible, I call it Friction Free Flow)

=> Help you to keep things in perspective by keeping you in touch with your most cherished values and deepest vision of life…

=> Allow you the ability to stay connected to your kind and caring heart, offering an attention that is open, accepting and comforting…

=> Show you how you can get paid to improve your personality, your life, your job, and your relationships, all while touching the lives of those around you (I laugh my head off every payday, because I know this secret)

=> Help you to manage workplace gossip, backbiters, abrasive personalities, energy vampires, and other potentially harmful characters…

=> Show you how to silence your mind just by looking at it (like my Dad used to do to me!), enabling you to see things clearly, free of distortion …

=> Help you to balance and integrate your work-life with your home-life, by always being larger than either…

This workbook will serve you as a lifelong guide, helping you to create the conditions for re-invigorating your care providing career.

Table of Topics for Waking Up to the Heart of Care

I’ve always loved Table’s of Contents.

A snap shot of between the covers.

Good ones can sell me on a book, while others shouldn’t have gone beyond.

Here’s the Table of Topics for my new book, Waking Up to the Heart of Care

Tell me you’re not intrigued, and I’ll tell you that you don’t have a pulse.

Table of Topics

Gratitude’s and Dedications
Someone Much Like You

Section 1 — pg. 11
Preliminary Perspectives and Rules of the Road

Regarding the Length of This Book
The Origins of These Perspectives
Waking Up Your Caring Heart
Wellness and the Promotion of Mediocrity
Searching For Understanding and Finding My Heart
I See You!
Trust Yourself, Or Put This Book Down
Pulled Between Your Greatness and Your Smallness
What Happens When You Understand?
A Few Thoughts about ‘Best Practices’
The Practice of Tonglen Will Ruin You
The Cover Story
Are You a Light Bringer?

Section 2 — pg. 37
From the Eyes of a Caring Professional

The Call to Be a Caring Professional
The Practice and Life Path of Opening the Heart
Detachment IS
Unconditional Love With Conditions
Are You Avoiding Relationship?
Love’s Threshing Floor
Home Is Where The Heart Is. Where Are You?
Will You Die With Love Ungiven?
Are You the Hand of Death?

Section 3 — pg. 55
Reactive Patterns: Are You Trigger Happy?

Do You Know This Familiar Stranger?
Why Are You Avoiding Peace and Harmony?
Discomfort, Midlife and the Birth of Wisdom
You Are Possessed By Reactive Patterns
Do Any Of These Triggers Belong To You?
Overcoming Emotional Reactivity In
the Dance of Life and Love
The Origins of Withholding Love
The Warrior and the Nobleman
Four Steps to a Life Experience That Sucks
Managing Workplace Gossip, Backbiting and Other Forms of Immaturity
The Fire-Question That Consumes All Reactive Patterns
The Guest House

Section 4 — pg. 83
Advanced Perspectives For
Advanced Caring Professionals

Awake In the Cockpit of Life
The Bottomless Pit of Personal Development
Four Things You Can Do Right Now, To Improve Your Life
Injured Innocence for the Caring Professional
You Are Beyond All Roles
The Value of a Largest Context
Its Way With You
How to ‘Not Sweat the Small Stuff’
Using Your Messy Life
Reclaiming Your Non-negotiables
The Practice of Bridging the Heart and Mind
How Very Strange We Are!
Are You a Deep Diver or a Seagull Target?

Section 5 — pg. 117
Waking Up and the Key To Life,
Freedom and Amusement

Waking Up to a Definition of Waking Up
Surveying the Sleepers
Talking About Waking Up While Still Asleep
Attention Training, The Spectrum of
Satisfaction and Beyond
The 5 Factors of A.W.A.K.E.-ness
Waking Up Isn’t Being Awake
How Do You Do, Waking Up and Being Awake?
A Sleep-walk and Awakening In Kin Canyon
The Mind Is A Nice Place To Visit, But…
Debunking the Myths of Attention Training
The No-Thought of the Day
The Look That Scares Kids and Silences Minds
The Wake Up Guy Wakes Up
The Missing PD Key
An Experiment in Caring Voyeurism

Section 6 — pg. 147
In the Trenches — Face to Face, Eye to Eye

The Grateful Caring Professional
The Practice of Locating, Magnifying and Expressing
Benevolence
Waking Up to a Culture of Care
Preparing to Forgive
Opening Beyond the Play of Patterns
Beyond a Life of Healing
Remembering To Remember
Have You Been Left In the Bud?
Are You Like a Fist or a Flower?
It’s ALL About the Caring Professional
The One True Thing

Two bonus excerpt’s from Waking Up to Life!

A Pictorial Example of Why I Love Scotland:

*****            No pots of gold here. Only astonishment.

The Back Cover of: Waking Up to the Heart of Care

A ‘How To’ Guide to a Livelihood of Superior Functioning, Deep
Fulfillment, Meaningful Interactions and Stress Free Productivity.
For Care Providers, Educators, Social Workers, Leaders, Parents and
Anyone Else Who Cares About HOW They Care.

Finally, a practical, yet profound guide to leveraging every waking moment of your work-life and your home-life, while learning how to:

- manage difficult emotions, volatile interactions and stressful situations with grace, wisdom and maturity (these are high level executive skills)

- stay connected to your kind and caring heart, offering an attention that is open and comforting (be the silent center of your workplace chaos)

- get paid to improve your personality, your job, your relationships, and your life, all while touching the lives of those around you in a magical way

- manage workplace gossip, energy vampires, backbiters, dark clouds, abrasive personalities and other potentially harmful characters

- silence the life-eroding ’self talk’ of your chatty mind, just by looking at it!

It isn’t easy being human these days!

What kind of situations put you out of your heart, causing you to speak and act with indifference, impatience, or unkindness?

What are the triggers that cause you to react from your busy mind, rather than respond from your gentle heart?

What kind of people cause your heart to close down and your mind to create harmful, mental stories and judgments?

This field-guide and companion will help the Caring Professional to begin to use the workplace as an arena to transform difficult situations into opportunities for opening the heart and sharing a kind of care that is deep, profound, and non-negotiable.

Waking up to the Heart of Care is a series of reflections which dramatically point the way toward learning how to bless those we care for, both in the workplace and in any relationship that matters to us.

Contact Aaron to a arrange a talk with your group of Caring Professionals

It’s ALL About the Caring Professional

No, it isn’t all about the patient, resident, customer, or client.

It’s all about the one serving them, the Caring Professional.

It’s all about the one who is out there serving and loving and sharing and caring. The Caring Professional.

It’s all about the ones who protect us, and heal us and hold us and mold us.

Yes, it’s all about the Caring Professional.

The really amazing thing is this:

When it IS all about the Caring Professional, who kindly shoulders the sweet burden of caring and supporting and nurturing all of us, it automatically DOES become all about us.

The Caring Professional will see to it.

A happy, appreciated, involved, challenged and Awake Caring Professional always does and always will make it all about us.

They don’t need to be told it’s all about anyone or anything.

The Awake, Caring Professional will always make it all about us, you and I, because that’s what Caring Professionals do.

That’s what they are.

The job of managers is about supporting and elevating the staff, so the conditions that make caring easy are in place. The Caring Professional doesn’t need to be told, it’s all about the client.

In fact, a manager should have no more need to tell a  Caring Professional, ‘it’s all about the clients’, than a Caring Professional should have need to tell their managers, ‘It’s all about the Caring Professional’.

Waking Up to a Culture of Care

In the early stages of your life, the culture you were born into and the society that supports that culture, were very strong forces contributing toward your growth and development.

Every culture and its supporting society has a vested interest in educating you in the ways of its members. When you learn the shared rules, roles, beliefs and practices of a given socio-culture, you are then able to be a contributing member of that group, thus strengthening and ensuring its continued life.

But what happens when you exhaust the education offered by the socio-culture you are a part of? What happens when the socio-culture you are part of, becomes a barrier to your continued growth and development?

This is important, because it points to a question that every advanced Caring Professional must one day ask, which is this: What happens when my socio-culture begins to limit me?

Put differently, what happens when the rules, roles, beliefs and practices of my culture begin to limit my growth as an individual?

I’m glad you asked.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been a part of countless workplace cultures, some of them nourishing with clearly defined and well considered philosophies and visions, and some degrading, with no real philosophy or vision at all.

If you are part of a workplace culture that is corrosive, poisonous and life denying, but cannot afford to leave for whatever reason, what can you do?

I’ll tell what you do: You step up.

Step up and become an example of open heartedness, humor and light.

Step up and demonstrate for those around you what it looks like to be Awake, attentive and alive.

Step up, just like every hero and leader you’ve ever admired, and become a living breathing model of excellence,
compassion and caring action.

Make no mistake about it, you will likely meet with some resistance, as everyone who has ever stepped up to make a difference does.

No big deal. It will all be grist for your mill, as you slowly grind that resistance into fuel for your inner fire.

But one day soon you will notice that those who have been watching you model your light, have begun to mirror that light and have become alive with that same light.

Soon you will see the loving beings around you, modeling and mirroring the light and the life that we all are, each reflecting and being reflected by the other, in a multi faceted prism of love and life.

You will become, in the words of Remesh Balsekar, “like a net of jewels in which each is only the reflection of all the others in a fantastic interrelated harmony without end.

THAT, is what you do!

What else?

Check out your bonuses for an awesome interview with service expert Brian Lee, about how you can change a workplace culture, singlehandedly.