Resistance is futile - there is an easier way.

"You are the only problem you will ever have and you are the only solution." - Bob Proctor

Resistance is the thing that kills all enjoyment and effectiveness.

The cause of all your problems is resisting what is happening.

I get to talk to a lot of people so I get to have a good overall view on what causes people pain and suffering.

Every time any one ever has a problem - and I mean 100% of the time: not even most of the time but all of the time - the problem is caused by resisting what is happening.

I will talk to them and they will use words like “should” or “could”, some kind of idea that involves their ideal present moment.

I will nod, and politely agree, that actually this ideal would be nice, but what is happening right now is different.

Do you see the difference between what is happening and your idea of what should be happening?

The only time you have a problem is when you can’t give up the should.

When you come to terms with what is, when you fully accept it, all your pain goes away.

Then, and only then, you can work with what you have, rather than wishing for something else, or insisting that something else should be happening.

Non-resistance isn’t giving up your dreams or living a passive life, it simply is seeing the clearest way through. It’s full acceptance of the current situation yes, but it doesn't mean stop walking towards what you want. That's giving up.

You really are the source of all problems and all solutions. When you see how you create all peace or pain in your life you will learn true happiness.

It's all within you - which is cause for rejoicing. You are the one person in the whole world you can actually change.

The wisdom of choosing to be happy.

"Oh, I don't really think about that, because it's wasted energy, isn't it? What's done is done, we can't change that, but we can change the way we cope with it."

- Diane Piper, mother of Katie whose face was burnt in an acid attack, when asked how she felt about the attackers

Everyone has challenges. Everyone has troubles in their life.

But what amazes and inspires me is seeing people who have lived or are living through horrific things and yet who shine, full of gratitude and love for their life, as it is.

You might call them “glass half full” people.

Then there are those with comparatively event free lives who grumble and complain through every little inconvenience: “Glass half empty” people.

Why is that?

You constantly choose your response to life.

This choice defines how you live, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in. This choice is total: You decide whether you live in peace or in suffering. No one and nothing can cause you to suffer; you decide to suffer.

I know it doesn’t feel like this. No one wants to suffer, everyone is looking for a way to avoid it. The trouble is we don’t know how.

Furthermore, suffering has become normal, it’s almost expected as “part of life”.

Being constantly happy is viewed with suspicion by some. If you decide not to suffer it’s almost like you’re not being “real”, whatever that is.

Once, a friend of mine who realised it was her choice to be totally at peace with the world was taken aside by a acquaintance in the street and asked if she was on drugs.

Bizarre isn't it? Happy lady, walking down the street = must be on drugs.

But definitely those, like Buddha and Jesus, who have transcended suffering are elevated to a mythical status, beyond humanity.

Actually, it’s your human birthright not to suffer.

Your birthright is to have absolute sovereignty over your responses to life. Complete freedom from suffering is simple.

It all begins with you deciding to take responsibility for how you feel, how you react to life.

Don’t take this decision lightly - it means you can never blame anyone else for anything. It’s all on you.

Then, decide that nothing will make you happy - you won’t delay your happiness for a future moment, you’ll find happiness right now, however your circumstances.

No longer will you wait for your partner or a new TV to make you happy. Now you’re going to choose to have happiness that is uncaused.

That is it. Take responsibility for your own happiness, and then choose it.

You will come to a point where you'll realise that to choose anything else is madness. And therein lies true wisdom.

Your life is your attitude.

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." -Viktor Frankl

Sometimes I get accused of being unrealistic, harping on about the need for living life with the glass half full. People say that having a constant positive mental attitude is a nice idea, but sometimes life isn’t like that, that positivity is sometimes ignoring reality.

But what is real? What is reality?

Here’s what I see: You shape reality by *how* you see *what* you experience. It is all about your perception. Nothing is real, beyond your thinking about it.

Do you realise this?

Here is your life, and here are your mental processes about your life. They are the same thing. Your life isn’t different from the filters that you maintain – the judgements, the beliefs, the attitudes.

You, and you alone, define your own life. That’s what you get to choose, and no one can take that away from you. It is your internal attitude that shapes and makes everything. This choice is total – the experience of hell or heaven depends on you.

Your life isn’t about the circumstances, your life is always about your response to these circumstances.

You decide how you will respond to everything. Engage this choice, it is one of the most precious things you possess. Choose to see the good, to appreciate. Choose to be thankful. Choose to love.

Choose and choose again until it becomes a habit. And then choose once more. You will come to a place where nothing can make you suffer, unless you consciously allow it.

Heaven or hell? It all starts with your attitude.

The key to staying cool, calm and collected

The key to staying cool, calm and collected is to have little islands in your day, regular little points of detachment from the world where you completely come away from what you are involved in. Spreading these times throughout your day when you stop and reconnect is the key to not losing your peace and fully enjoying what you are doing - whatever that may be.

How you do this is up to you. When I first started The Bright Path Ascension meditation, what was recommended was time in the morning before work, some time in the afternoon - perhaps at lunch and/or on coming home, and last thing at night.

(This is eyes closed time - "power nap" or meditation/breathing time. Anything else is fine, but time closing your eyes is much more beneficial, just so you know.)

This way I had a little "oases" (plural for oasis) so I could start the day right, plug back in so the afternoon was easier, and/or in the evening so I could let go of the day and sleep well.

It quickly made such a difference to my attitude and energy levels.

Doing this means peace is a priority to you. If you commit to these times - not let them be flexible on a if and when basis, but a definite appointment, then you are saying to yourself that remaining clear, calm and content is the most important thing.

It sets a bench mark of calm so its easier to know when you're getting wound up and you need to back down.

Without this benchmark stress just creeps up on you. Sometimes you're not aware of how uptight you're getting simply because most stress comes in little by little, a death by a thousand cuts.

When a weight gets cranked up little by little it goes un-noticed until the straw comes that breaks your back, and you yell at the person who (usually) least deserves it.

With this benchmark you are more prone to take action to stay there. You are more conscious of your physical wellbeing, your internal attitude and mood, everything.

If you're regular with a practice of stopping it means this benchmark of calm is easier to come back to. If you fly off the handle, you can let go and reset quickly. You fly off less, need to apologise less, everyone is happy.

The bottom line is the ability to act - to have clarity of choice - as opposed to reacting, habitually.

There is nothing better than the ability to consciously steer your life in the direction you wish it to go. There is no need to be captive to the ups and downs of life. You want to be captain of your own ship, and you can be, it simply requires a little practice.

Freaking out about life

I just came back from three months at the Bright Path Ishaya retreat in Spain. Waking up this morning in my little cottage in the UK is different, but wonderful. There was a real sense of peace and serenity and aliveness on the mountain there in Spain.

But you know what? There is here in North Yorkshire too.

While waiting for our lift to the airport I read the last chapter of an autobiography of a guy who went to live besides a river in India to find his peace.

He returns back to the west after years and years of spiritual study and practice and instantly freaks out. The noise, the yelling, the traffic,the consumerism, the drunkenness, the sex.

He completely loses it, becomes a gibbering wreck until he manages to stumble upon a meditation centre - to him, an oasis of sacredness in the midst of a city of the profane.

How sad.

He's completely missed the point of all of his practice. He's created a mood, an idea that peace and clarity is only available when the world looks a certain way. When I'm by my river, then there is peace. When I'm on my mountain retreat, then there is peace.

Life is out there, continually knocking at your door. You cannot avoid it forever. You cannot make it look the way you want it to all the time.

But peace is everywhere, no matter what, if you know how to tap into it.

In reality there is nothing that is not worthy of love.

All this time you've been looking for peace, it has been within you - and it will be, forever more.

Life transforms when you realise this. The circumstances of life don't give you peace, you bring peace to life - regardless of the circumstances.

Permanent peace, freedom and happiness is an inside job.

It may take practice to realise this, but it is the only reality in town.