These three things are great, but just like listening to your gut feelings, it’s what you do before and after listening to your gut feelings that matters. Your inner signs are just a guideline, but your own personal energy matters too. You are like a runner riding the wind, the heat, or the terrain, and while these things all have their own particular uniqueness (pressure, dehydration, friction) that it offers you, it’s what you do with these things that make a difference.

I can run 5K anytime, but the way it is ran depends on me. I can start running, decide it’s too cold after 1K, come back home and do tread-milling for the last 3 kilometers. I can run with a flat foot, ensuring that I run slow, but in a very leisurely way, getting to chat with the neighbors, and sometimes receive some pleasant surprises (today, one of my neighbors gave me a basket of cherry tomatoes, she was picking them ripe from the vine).

I can run with the balls of my feet touching the ground, knowing that my run will be a lot more exciting, the trees will brush by in a blur, in a solo mission that changes from sprints to jogs, or simply full out of one particular kind of running.

These are all wonderful, and the entire run can be considered a goal, but a goal is not the “end-all” of the cycle. It is simply a part, a beautiful part, and just as importantly, the before and after is what I’m concerned about mostly. If you choose to go for a run, you can go 15 steps in a brisk pace and call it a day. There you go, you’ve “ran”. Good job

…or

You can make a smoothie, ensure that you have a light, awesome breakfast, suitable for your body type and preferences, and take a run that brings everything out of you and more, pushing yourself past your 2nd, 3rd and 4th wind, and even then as you jog your way back to your original destination, you do so with control and finesse.

More and more, maybe because I associate myself with increasingly skilled dancers, I’m more aware of the finer nuances of pretty much everything I do, including the writing of this blog post. I wrote this post thinking about a way to express a subtle thing to more people than simply those who appreciate dance, and then I suddenly came about with the idea of running, simply because I had a run today myself. The original concept comes from listening to a beat. All dancers (and even non-dancers) can clap to the beat, “Boom, Ka, Boom Ka”/”1 and 2, 3 and 4″. So that doesn’t really matter, that’s rhythm, everybody has it, but musicality (when one dances), what you do before and after, how you interpret the music and the refinement you bring to your movements, allows for something undefinable yet not quite so, come out into existence out of your real being.

Da da da, Boom — Ka, tik tik tik tik… this guy’s awesome

Is Your Child Gonna Die?

Yes, yes, they are.

At least, eventually. It seems pretty reliable that death comes to everyone.

But will your child die in the next week? I can almost guarantee not.

(Note: For those of you who happen to have a friend/child/relative precariously close to death, I’d really love it if you chose to take whatever good you can from this article, and not pick on rhetoric, humour, or poor phrasing )

Will you be killing your child if you support their dreams?

Again, I’m thinking not.

And yet, this is super-common thinking for many parents. They’ve bought into the myth that if they don’t personally hand-direct every choice their child makes, (as they may have for much of the child’s life) then their child is going to turn into a waste, or not contribute or… die.

The thing is, parents are people too, and they often get a bad rap. They’re powerful, they’re dedicated, and then sincerely want to help.

They have one of the biggest impacts on their children’s lives. Friends, workplaces and backgrounds change all the time but there are always parents that are influencing us in one way or another. It’s really easy for kids to blame parents for their disappointments or lack of success or being held back. It feels shitty, to the parents and the kids.

Our parents are awesome people who’ve invested in another human life, and you can’t really blame them for reacting strongly when their kid is sleeping in till 1pm and playing video games all day, when all they truly desire for their child is for them to get off your ass and make some changes in their lives. That’s right, changes.

(Of course, sometimes when the child gets the guts to make big changes, parents don’t always handle it so well )

 Parents truly have the best intentions with every action. They don’t nag because it makes them feel good. They nag because they have run out of ways to help you change, except for kicking you out, and nagging feels a LOT easier then taking THAT step. They feel like their kid is wasting away and that they’re supporting it and making it happen. They’ve been supporting a child for years and I bet they’ve been looking forward to a break. So when you’re 25, still living at home and they’re still, still, still waiting for a break, I can understand why they’d start to get worried and stressed.

Imagine you’ve spent 22 years raising your little rug rat and you’ve given him awesome guidance, tool and support and will continue to do so no matter what. Here’s where it gets tricky. Your lovely son or daughter is still at home at 22 and not doing a whole lot with their life. You would love to see them out there in world making money, contributing to the world and being the fantastic person you raised them to be. It’s tough though, when they’ve been ‘half-finishing’ the same things for 22 years now, and you’re ready for a change but its not happening. From society, conditioning and our friends, parents default to just nagging kids into change or trying to coax or bribe them into doing something, ANYTHING.

There’s another way. Let them go. Drop the nagging, and drop whatever else is bothering you. If keeping them around the house with their half-finished projects feels bad to you, stop it. Tell them how much you believe in them. How you see so much potential in them. Not only that but tell them how you are really feeling. If you’ve never communicated deep feelings with your kids before, person-to-person, this may feel awkward, but sharing feelings is a natural human action.

Maybe you feel like you’re supporting their laziness and lack of action, but you can choose to support them in many different ways. You don’t have to keep doing what you’ve been doing. Perhaps you can offer to pay first and last months rent for them, or give them financial support. You can support them with time and an impending deadline by saying “I love you and will help you in anyway I can but it’s time for you to spread your wings," or you could withdraw all other support but brainstorm ideas, contacts, and connections to help them with their plan, vision, purpose, or project. And these are just tip of the iceberg!

Anyway, we had huge response to our Does Your Family Love You? post from a child’s perspective, here’s the follow up from a parent’s perspective.

Enjoy

And the primary tool for getting to these ideas, is reading. And there are so many different ways to read, everybody has their own preferred pace, on when and how and what they like to read, it’s all amazing.

Personally, I have a very long history with reading. I’ve been reading books or blogs non-stop almost everyday since I was about 14 years old, and along the way I picked up some powerful ways (at least, I think so), that help me absorb a lot of the most quality information in a relatively easy and fun way.

When I read something difficult, like “The Web of Life by Fritjof Capra” what I do is read it like a newspaper, and jot down all the words that I don’t know. I don’t really care about the word as I write them down, I just do it and then forget about it. Just like a newspaper, you’re never worried about if you skip a few words.

And then at the end of the reading session, I simply google, dictionary.com or wikipedia the words I don’t understand.

This is a great way for some of you to read the latest book from SpiritSentient, Idealution & Thoughtsperity, especially for some of our Japanese friends overseas and those still in Toronto, enjoying our website.

Hope you guys enjoy your new reading tool, and hopefully it will motivate you to conquer new paths of learning that were previously unavailable

I recently saw Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan (whom I’ll not hide the fact that I respect greatly), for the second time in a week. I love it, and it relates very strongly to people managing their thoughts and using the imaginations.

I’m going to talk about this movie, and I may include a spoiler or two. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favour…

Go watch it.

I’ll wait.

…

Done? Good.

Inception is similar to The Matrix or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Vanilla Sky, but it’s definitely it’s own flick.

It’s been touted as a "thinking man’s movie," and it’s main subject is imagination, dreams within dreams, and thoughts. It touches on some very interesting points that can really connect to thought-management and creating awesomeness.

Christopher Nolan is a gifted director, combining action with deep concepts in a pop-culture vehicle embraced by many. He does this consistently in his movies, and Inception is no exception.

Nolan provides a break from the big-guns, big-tits, and shallow escapism (which’re fun and helpful in their own right) of many summer blockbusters, and gives us instead a walk through intriguing ideas at an adrenalized pace. (How’s that for some word-weavin’ ?)

(Plus the effects were unique and really well-done. The exploding produce & books are something to behold.)

The movie delivers some incredible lines that seem simple and straight-forward at first, but which actually delve deeper into the laws of thought-management and creation.

Let’s take a look.

Ideas Are Like Viruses.

Leonardo DiCaprio narrating the trailer:

"What’s the most resilient parasite? An idea. A single idea from the human mind, can build cities. An idea can transform the world, and re-write all the rules."

This is said for dramatic effect and to setup the premise of the movie, but it’s also very true. Everything humanity has ever created started out as a seed of an idea first. Sometimes it materializes quickly after the first thought, and other times it requires several generations before results are seen.

It also raises some really cool questions. Is the media able to plant ideas in our heads? Are they doing it now? Can we plant our own ideas, (ie: affirmations)? Are easily influenced personalities and minds (like children) more susceptible?

Can you remember someone telling you something when you were little, and you believed them, only to come to your own conclusion much later in life, and choose a different thought than the one your parents believed. Many people today have different feelings on sex and marriage than their parents, for example. Many grew up with one thought, an inception, but it didn’t stick, and they later came to see it as false.

Want to know more about this? Read Seth Godin’s IdeaVirus or Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point or Robert Anthony’s Beyond Positive Thinking. Absolutely fantastic resources.

It’s Pure Creation.

Ariadne is the team’s ‘Architect’ (portrayed by Ellen Page); she designs dreamscapes for them to entrap their targets. She says that Dream-Architecture is ‘pure creation.’

She returns to the illegal inception-scheme, because she finds having her imagination become reality (through shared-dreaming) to be a complete thrill. This is actually a mirror of every human being’s desire. We all love to see ourselves imagine something cool, something beautiful, something fulfilling — and then have it come to be in a relatively short time.

I did the same thing with this blog post. I imagined myself writing it, quickly, easily, and inspired-ly, and as it took shape, I felt a sense of accomplishment and reward. Some people imagine a new home, or new car, and when they eventually get it, it’s a total rush. (Just writing about it, has me now imagining filming parties in a place like this, with this.)

"Dreams feel real while we’re in them."

This kind of creation becoming + feeling real, does happen in dreams, and it’s the main reason people practice ‘lucid dreaming.’

"We create the world of the dream."

You Mustn’t Be Afraid To Dream A Little Bigger, Darling. The pithy ‘Eames’ (deftly played by Tom Hardy), shares the screen nicely, but is usually imploring others to make use of their imaginations. He belittles ‘Arthur’ (not SpiritSentient’s very own, but a character in the film), daring him to dream bigger, and basically create a bigger gun, instantly.

This calls to many people’s desire to dream big, achieve goals, and use more power, and Eames is right, there is absolutely, positively, nothing wrong with using a few (or many more) moments of your day imagining things and dreaming big.

No one accomplished much by dreaming small. Dreaming small is a mockery of people’s potential.

You’ve Got To Forgive Yourself.

Ariadne delivers a double-edged remark about thought-management, pointing out to Cobb (DiCaprio) that unless he forgives himself, his guilt and his subconscious will make them all suffer and die. The alternative side of this, is that releasing his hurt and trauma allows Cobb to truly access his strength, imagination, and creative genius.

As he let’s Mal go (Marion Cotillard’s potent take on Cobb’s subconscious), he’s able to rescue Saito and return from the limbo of the dream-world, to a blissfully happy ending… or is it (Nolan gives us a classic cliff-hanger ending.)

You’re Just a Shade…

"Look at you. You’re just a shade, a shade of my real wife. How could I capture all your beauty, your complexity, your perfection, your imperfection, in a dream? Yes, you’re the best that I can do. But, I’m sorry, you’re just not good enough."

With this line, Cobb makes it clear that ultimately, he’s able to tell the difference from his powerful dream creations, and ‘real life.’ He makes it clear that his love for the deeply unique and beautiful person Mal was, is far more than his imagination can re-create in the dream-world.

This could be seen as a dis-empowering of himself and his creative abilities, or an applauding of the un-imitate-ability of true, inspired love. (Though the whole point of ‘inception’ is to plant inspiration in another person’s mind.)

Always Imagine New Places!

"Never create from your memory, always imagine new places!" Cobb says firmly, as Ariadne recreates bridges and locations in the dream-world.

The idea here is that creating from memories makes it easy to confuse dream and reality, but new places make it clear that you’re in a dream, imagining.

I’m not sure about all that, but not creating solutions from the same memories that led to a problem, is a staple of thought-management.

If you somehow got yourself into debt, or into an abusive relationship, or whatever — acknowledge that this was created by certain habits, actions, thought-patterns or omissions. Accept that adopting new thoughts, and imagining new things is the solution. Thought-management 101

Anyway…

Inception is a really fantastic movie and it gets rave reviews all over the place. The theatre I went to was sold out for the matinee, and sold out for the following showing, and this is 2 weeks after the movie debuted. It also drives a lot of points home regarding thought-management and self-creation. Go see it. If you’re feeling this post, let us know in the comments, maybe I’ll do a follow up on the recurring themes in the movie (it’s got some really cool ones: falling, dreaming, reality, numbers, music, architecture, etc.)

Inception suggests that other people can choose our thoughts for us, and that they can be planted through ‘inception.’ I really love the movie and I love many of the points it raises, but I’d like to categorically state that every thought you have is your domain and freedom, and you can direct them. Yes you can *allow* others to direct them, but you never have to.

Take Me To The Joe Vitale Tribute!

He’s an awesome creator, and he creates often and a wide variety, and that’s how I love to be. He’s a very prolific, value-providing guy. He offers tons. TONS. Lots of what he creates he gives away for free. And he knows how to get things done. The short-version is: When you receive an inspired idea, don’t question it, don’t doubt it, don’t second guess it, don’t write it down in an idea book for *later* … JUMP AT IT. Take action. He’s written over 50 books, he’s been on Larry King twice, he runs an active blog and social media, he does many media appearances, has been in 15 movies, and his list of products is over 40 pages long.

I’ve put together as many of his free resources and offerings as I could find, and packaged them all together in one download. Including:

• Joe Vitale – Attract Money Now
• P.T. Barnum – The Art Of Money Getting
• Dr. Rick Barret – Give To Live
• W.J. Ennever – Pelmanism: The Forgotten Secrets Of Success
• Genevieve Behrend – Attaining Your Desires
• John Speller & Kathleen Sedaker – Seed Money In Action
• Nick Ortner – The Tapping Solution
• Frank Channing Haddock – Mastery Of Self
• Neville Goddard – Nevillizing
• Napoleon Hill – Think And Grow Rich
• Wallace D. Wattles – The Science of Getting Rich
• James Allen – As A Man Thinketh

Free Audios

• Beyond Marketing Podcasts
• Meditations
• Interviews & Bonuses

There’s also his Free Hypnotic Sales Templates and Dr. Rick Barrett’s Acts of Service Journal.

If you don’t want to download the whole thing, I highly recommend you check out his stuff over at MrFire.com, and it’s a big site with a lot of content as well. If you do want to download SpiritSentient’s Vitale Tribute, or want to know more…

check out our look at the Father of Spiritual Marketing over at vitale.spiritsentient.com.

Do you want to be the best? Can you imagine the feeling of the crowd cheering, family and friends bragging about you, and the world taking notice of your accomplishments?

This is a theme for humanity, being the best that you can be is a fantastic idea, that everyone loves. When’s the last time you heard someone say "Give it your 50%, half-assed effort man!"

This is not an uncommon dream, and it’s not even an uncommon experience. The world has more successful people than ever before, and these people all say the same thing when asked why they do what they do.

I do it because I love it. I do it for it’s own sake. I don’t care if others are looking or not.

Even I myself have this dream. Many people have noted that I’m already more skilled than many at a wide variety of things, and receive praise for them, but I don’t compare myself to others, and all I care about is my own personal mastery of life.

What is Mastery?

Mastery is a personal thing; it’s a degree of excellence that you feel personally. When you reach a level of growth you’re comfortable with in a particular area, you feel it’s ‘mastered’, you have a ’sense of mastery’ (at least for now).

Mastery is personal, because all that it really is, is the continual surpassing your own personal best. For some things, you’ll keep surpassing your personal best so quickly that you’ll also surpass everyone else’s as well. This transforms personal mastery into a social thing.

Mastery can become a social thing when the world wakes up and takes substantial notice of your achievement, and then they all get on the same page regarding your excellence and achievement. Whether they do this or not though, should ideally not affect your own pursuit of personal bests.

Even the humble Shaolin monks in China, who when asked, "Are you an expert martial artist?" answer sincerely: "No, I’m still learning and on the path of training for body and soul." The reality is, that they know in their hearts that they have the ability to take on a massive amount of the world in any form of martial arts ‘competition.’ They are basically ‘masters,’ and it comes from this paradoxical attitude of humbleness and deep-confidence.

People who excel at their craft… practice, they practice nearly every day, and it’s important to note that experts at anything work on foundation. Foundation, foundation, foundation.

Let’s imagine an audience watching an athlete. Now, the people who see a master athelete perform usually only see and pay attention to the power moves or the flashy displays but if you ask any real athlete, you’ll find out that every day he’s working on some form of pushups, sit-ups, and basic cardio, just like you or I would if we wanted to improve. Now, they may do it with their own style, and they may show a lot of personality in their variations, but at the core of it, they’re all stretching, warming up and then doing the basic movements. Even when they’re practicing the harder techniques, they’re often running through the basics as part of the process.

This habitual repetition of the basics can apply to anything. Take cooking, for example. If you cook, then you know how to make-up or look up a recipe online, put on your apron, prep the ingredients, add in some oil and begin cooking… voila! The basics are a big part of it. Of course, it can become more in depth from that point, but the basics are always gone through over and over (until maybe you acquire a few sous-chefs to rock things for you).

So if the basics are simple, and all the experts became experts simply by passionately pursuing them, why do people judge and hate on the difficulty of learning new things? You hear all kinds of nonsense.

Oh! It’s so hard!

I could never do that.

That must have taken years of training

Practice Is Mastery

Learning mastery is not difficult. In fact, mastery is not difficult, even though this is what most people repeat over and over. Mastery is a very, very, very, simple process, that may require some ‘difficult choices’, but it is not actually difficult.

Most experts seem to have invested "years of training", but the reality is that their core learning comes within a few months of intense passion. A lot of the other ‘years’ were really just the person adjusting their attitude and personal style, marketing themselves, and allowing themselves to feel inspired about expanding their personal craft in every way imaginable.

Before I became an expert creative-thinker, I took inspiration from everything. I spent hours speed-reading books, copying comics, drawing and writing for family, friends, and school. I collected music and movies and art and talked about it all with anyone who’d listen. I hung out with people who appreciated beauty, art, and creativity. I studied philosophy, religion, and inspiration in all walks of life. I read spiritual teacher after spiritual teacher, personal growth authors, and books about muses. I passionately pursued what I loved with my heart and soul — putting time into the basics, and appreciating others’ creative creations.

Before I became an expert conversationalist, I had millions (billions?) of conversations which I poured my heart and soul into. Many are what people would consider boring, or grunt-work. Many of them were ‘failures’, alienating people I truly desired to connect with. Many caused other parts of my life to suffer. It never phased me though, and I engaged in arguments, debates, story-telling, soul-sharing, advice-giving, empassioned listening, non-verbal chats, online, and much more. I connected with all races, ages, sexualities, religions, etc. I watched movies and tv rapt with attention at the exchanges, I watched high-brow humour and british comedy, making sure to follow well. All these things are very, very simple, especially when a lot of it were just ‘failures.’ Anyone can fail multiple times, right?

Eventually I succeeded, and eventually I ‘mastered’ it.

Note: When I call myself an expert I just mean that by the vast majority of my personal circle of contacts, most would consider me an expert. SpiritSentient is not big on comparisons to others, generally. Personally, I don’t have to think when performing the above 2 examples, they come easily and naturally.

You’re An Expert Already

You can easily apply this concept of foundations, practice and mastery, to anything you’re even remotely good at.

Are you any good at walking ? Got much practice? Do you fall often? Do you remember learning to walk? Do you remember that it was a bit scary and a new experience on your rubbery-toddler legs, but you still had a deep, passionate desire to walk, whether you fell or not? Do you remember focusing on the basics?

"If I can just stand up and stay steady, maybe soon I’ll move like Mom and Dad."

"Okay, if I can just take two steps, I’ll have part of it down. I’ll keep practicing those two until it’s easy and I can try for a third."

Ok, so maybe you don’t remember your thought processes when you were a child learning to walk, but the process is the same.

Everybody Wants Something

Everybody wants to be good at something, and everybody can be. You see, there is room for more than one master. Everyone is unique and adds their own personal style to things. These musicians did the same thing: The Beatles, Mozart, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Queen, Abba, Lady Gaga, and Black-Eyed Peas.

All of the above could be considered musical masters, and experts in their field. They all added their own uniqueness, style, and their own combination of gifts that go beyond the music. The Beatles focused their craft on short, poppy, catchy, danceables tunes. Mozart went with deep, transcendent, lengthy compositions. They were different masters for different parts of society in different time-periods.

By now, I’m sure you feel a deeper understanding of mastery and excellence.

We’d love for you to drop comparisons to others and focus on your personal best. You’re naturally inclined and passionate towards some things, you have a life on earth to use these passions, and add your own unique style and accents to it. The way of mastery is not hard, — don’t wait, get to doing what you love, we’re all waiting for it and we’ll appreciate it as soon as we realize it exists, so show us!

Are you good at something you want to share with others? Let us know in the comments.

The process of life is both simple and complex, can you make sense of it?

I know, this idea has been thrown around as a cliche about a million times, but as we delve a little deeper, we can see just how true it is. The power to do anything. Imagine the feeling of empowerment in being able to inspire the "launch of a thousand ships". Or imagine understanding that kind of power, and moving through the world with an awareness and sensitivity to it. Wouldn’t it be nice to know if there’s something affecting how you behave?

But first…

I’ve been reading Dr. Joe Vitale’s works, Buying Trances, Hypnotic Writing, The Attractor Factor, etc. and in his works he repeats over and over, many principles we champion here at SpiritSentient.

Deep focus and attention brings more of whatever the focus is.

Focusing on pain, creates more pain in the world.

Accept everyone, judge no one, agree with them and meet them where they are, then lead them.

Dr. Vitale references all this stuff as applied to marketing, and breathes new life into marketing through these universal principles. There’s one idea in particular that I really love though, which is:

"Have you noticed how often ads on television and in newspapers focus on pain to get your attention? The method works. But I don’t want to add to the pain in the world…In short, all the marketing experts who say pain is the greatest motivator have forgotten the power of our driving force in life: Love." — Dr. Joe Vitale.

Marketing based on the driving force of love! Sound crazy and outlandish? Maybe, but Joe Vitale applauds the process over and over throughout his books, and there is no question that he knows marketing. Labeled the "Father of Hypnotic Writing", Vitale’s passion and prowess for marketing has skyrocketed him and thousands of others to massive success with the spread and sale of their product or message.

He notes that pain is a very effective motivator for people, perhaps the most powerful, instant-manipulation tool, but he says that it eventually falls short, and overall, marketing through focus on people’s pleasure is cumulatively far more powerful.

I’m going to look at this concept through the lens of beauty and muses.

Musing on Inspiration Through Pleasure

Inspiring others through offers of pleasure is an interesting thing, and it can be done in very manipulative ways or through loving, unattached, offerings of value. Muses do this consistently and well.

What is a muse? Nature can be a muse, intense emotion can be a muse, and not uncommonly at all, a woman can be a muse (note: anything and anyone can be a muse, this list could go on forever). Beauty is one of life’s supreme pleasures. Beautiful women are certainly one of life’s key pleasures, and some would suggest they’re the epitome of pleasure, a kind of super-pleasure.

Melodie Moore (the heart and soul of Toronto’s hoola-hoop community, SpiritSentient Super-Fan, and beautiful radiant chick in her own right), recently made a post on her blog lotalove.com about fashion, dress, and beauty. In it she speaks on how dressing with others in mind is a loving thing to do, as is dressing for oneself, regardless of what others think; anything that offers or brings pleasure is what she’s talking about.

Note: before I start in on this, I’d love to offer a disclaimer to all those who intend to gripe that I’m not ‘being equal’ or offering the perspective of men being beautiful, etc. — I’m addressing something I feel will appeal to people, I could write a million watered-down perspectives, covering all the bases, but that’s not thrilling writing (or reading) to me.

In other words, she’s talking about the power of a muse, which (possibly because of my artistic background), I’ve often focused on. Throughout history, men have often been inspired towards massive undertaking and achievement because of the energy and pleasure a woman offers them, or even for the (often unfulfilled) future-promise of it.

• Wars have been fought when a man feels somehow that starting one will secure his enjoyment of a woman.
• Incredible ballads and chart-topping songs have been odes to women.
• Even Anakin Skywalker ended up becoming Darth Vader ‘for a woman.’ (See Stars Wars for more on this)

"Got to meet the hottie with the million dollar body / They say it’s over-budget but you’d pay her just to touch it / Come on!" – Nickelback, Something In Your Mouth.

This amount of attraction and inspiration is a form of control, if a person knows how to use it (think Angelina Jolie, Catherine The Great, Cleopatra). It’s control, and it’s a massive power to wield — think about it, what would you do with the power to inspire any act at all from another human being?

So there are a million examples of men being inspired by the pleasure a woman offers them. Just like Dr. Vitale pointed out earlier, women are not motivating people so much by the pain, but instead inspiring through the rush of offered-pleasure, and it’s all tied to attractiveness and beauty and youthful energy.

David Deida says:

People Will Do Anything? What’s Going On Here?

What’s going on is that women’s bodies are continually designed and re-designed, through evolution to be one of the most sublimely beautiful pleasures we can experience. Actually, that’s not exactly true, what’s happened more is that men’s brains and thought-processes have evolved to perceive a certain type of beauty, and society reflects this change in thinking.

Whatever the case, women have evolved geometry and curves, and habits that are magnetically attention-catching. This is a big reason why sex sells, but that may not be the best use of the power of beauty and pleasure. Not only have women evolved physically, but our culture and society as a whole has evolved.

• We’ve evolved an industry of decoration to elevate them to even more appeal.
• We photograph them almost incessantly in extremely flattering light and poses.
• Many practically worship them, seeking them out on screens and in clubs and wherever else.

Life and evolution and natural selection promotes things that serve life, and our culture of beauty is no exception. Life designed it as an enhancement of power and strength. We’ve evolved a culture of beauty that seems clear and easy to analyze, and yet, so many people are confused about it all.

Earlier I said that women’s bodies have evolved into a form of "super-pleasure." Actually, that’s not exactly what happened — what’s happened is that men’s brains and thought-processes have evolved to perceive a certain type of beauty, and society + fashion + culture reflects this change in thinking. Lately science has been focused on the idea that sensitivity to beauty is an aspect of the male brain, reflected in the physical manifestations of what we find beautiful. (see: Nancy Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest)

Basically, how we think about beauty becomes reality over time, and because of how men’s thinking has evolved, a woman’s phyiscal body comes hand-in-hand with an interesting form of power.

How to Use Beauty and Pleasure

To manage the power of physical beauty, you need a well-managed mind. (Yep, SpiritSentient’s talking about thought-management again).

In support of this is Chizu Saeki’s work. Saeki is a stunningly beautiful Japanese skin-care expert with the most radiant gorgeous skin at age 60 you’ve ever seen. Her techniques? They’re almost all mental processes. She sells very few products and doesn’t tout some gargantuan line of skin lotions to be beautiful. She doesn’t harp on how hard it is or how long it takes. She focuses on a few principles: Get to know your body well. Love your skin. Desire to be beautiful.

And I’ll reiterate one of my favourite quotes from a truly beautiful woman:

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” – Audrey Hepburn

What this is saying is that the healthier a person’s mind and attitude towards herself, others and the human body in general, the healthier her energy and appearance will seem.

Oh sure, easy for her to say, she’s beautiful… right?

Well, beautiful people do tend to get a lot of ’special treatment’, but that’s because a) the people around them habitually think certain thoughts about beauty, and b) they’re often comfortable with their bodies and beauty in general, they focus on offering pleasure/value to others, and they go the extra mile to do so. So yes, people love them, flock to them, and respond well to them. They’re making use of an extraordinary power. It’s so powerful, that as long as someone else is around to stimulate, you can use beauty, energy, and pleasure to create anything and influence anyone.

(Do you know how to use it? Are you interested in learning or prefer to remain ignorant?)

This power is not just for the naturally super-beautiful. It works for everyone in every relationship and every walk of life. Even an inanimate website like SpiritSentient is intended to be a somewhat more beautiful, more pleasurable experience, than a lot of other ‘Spiritual’ blogs out there. We do our best to offer pleasure and value and beauty (check out our I Love Women video for some real beauty.)

Everyone has beauty inside them, and through proper management of thought, each person’s own beauty-potential can emerge. Everybody has room to be ‘more beautiful’ and offer ‘more pleasure’ to others. Marketer’s like Joe Vitale know that any offering of beauty and pleasure is extreme power. People near (and sometimes far) will do practically anything for it.

To be able to work on one’s self — one’s thoughts and one’s body and one’s energy and one’s decoration – is to create heavy influence over other people. Period.

So what have we learned?

1. Pleasure is a more powerful selling tool than pain, according to our generations marketing king, Dr. Joe Vitale.

2. We have a culture of beauty mainly to enhance the power of inspiring others through pleasure, so says evolution (though it can be confused and misused).

3. Everyone has beauty potential, and the ability to offer ‘more pleasure’ to at least some other human beings. Hopefully this is common sense. If you were to ask the world’s most beautiful if they felt they could grow in their beauty, they’d all tell you "yes", and if you ask the world’s ‘least’ beautiful if they could grow in their beauty, they’d likely say the same (or at least know it deep down.)

4. This beauty-potential is vast power, and can be creatively used and managed to life-changing effect.

5. The way this management is done is directly related to our way of thinking, an idea championed by Audrey Hepburn, Chizu Saeki, and Sophia Loren, among others, as well as supported by science (Nancy Etcoff has many references for you.)

So as we can see there is quite a bit of truth in the original headline. It may not apply to only women, but the inspiration to great heights is definitely related to beauty and pleasure. Now, go out in life, fresh with an enhanced understanding and appreciation for beauty, your own and others.

Guys, be aware that women naturally have an incredible power, and make sure you handle yourself well in relation to it. Think: are you being influenced in ways that have you acting like a moron, or in ways that suit you and your goals.

Girls, give yourself credit and realize you have much more control than you may realize, go use it well in life. When you move and dress and converse each day, think: are you offering pleasure to others to get guys to trip over themselves and buy you drinks, or are you inspiring them to rock life and contribute to humanity?

Addendum: Ciara currently has a billboard hit that celebrates this power, in an oh-so-poppy way. Ciara – Ride [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp6W4aK1sbs] “I market it so good / They can’t wait to try / Me / I work it so good
Man, these niggas try to buy me “

Any thoughts of your own on beauty? We’d love to hear them!

You’re a sifter! That’s right, I called you a sifter. We’re all sifters.

Sifting, is simply the having of experiences, and then seeing how we feel about them, and then making choices that feel better. Repeat.

Can you stop having experiences? No. (Well, *maybe* if you kill yourself, but even that’s not guaranteed.)

Can you stop having feelings? Not that I’m aware of.

Can you stop choosing? Nope, because even ‘waiting’ and ‘inaction’ are choices.

Clearly, none of us can stop sifting through experiences and making choices. We can, however, have an experience, and even though it feels bad, continue choosing it. This gets at the root of self-abuse, addiction, abusive relationships, depression, unfulfilled goals, etc. When you have a thought (or an experience), and you then choose to repeat it in one form or another, it almost looks like you’ve stopped sifting, and maybe you’ve held back your sifting, or mis-used it, but you can’t really stop it.

Sometimes people react to situations with "Oh I hate this and I hate that, and I judge this and I label that and how dare the world bring me these experiences."  That’s one way to sift — having an experience, realizing it doesn’t feel great, and then spending inordinate amounts of time hating on it.

That’s a pretty miserable way to sift.

We’re all going to sift, can’t say that enough, so why not have fun with it?  When an experience comes, why not sift through it, looking for something you like. It’s like looking for a dropped contact lens in a trash dump. Everyone’s intention is to find the lens and help out, no one stands around wasting time saying "Oh, I picked up a rusty screw, not the lens. Let me complain about how much I hate finding rusty screws when I’m looking for contacts." — They just toss the screw aside immediately and keep looking for the contact lens. After this process continues, someone usually finds the lens. If everyone involved stood around complaining about the garbage they kept finding, the search would likely take much, much longer.

So as you move through life, realize there are some experiences you may not prefer. It happens. They exist. (Maybe avoid comparing life to a treasure-hunt in a trash-dump <grin>) Instead of bitching about these experiences, which will hold back your journey towards what you want, try thinking/saying "Oh, there’s *one* aspect of this I like", or even, "Oh! I’m glad someone else is able to find value in this".

Do anything, anything you can, to appreciate the experience that’s coming and anything to enjoy sifting through it, because joyously sifting through the less desirable experiences is what gets you quicker to the ones you really love! It’s kind of like, having a library full of books or an mp3-library full of songs.

Say someone gave you 100,000 songs: some you knew, some you didn’t, some friends recommended, and some you’ve never heard of.

Well there you go, that’s quite a gift. You’ve now got this abundance of song-choices and listening experiences. Now, you could start checking out the first one alphabetically, and it could be some song you really don’t like, and you know you don’t like it.  You have the choice of ranting and bitching about the song and telling everybody how much it sucks. But notice that, while you’re doing this, you’re not sifting through the rest of the song library.  While you’re whining, you’re not hunting down the fun stuff that’s in there. That particular song could be good for someone else, great, as long as it puts a smile on their face. If it’s not for you, a pro-level sifter would give it the barest flicker of attention and then eagerly and excitedly browse through the library for more awesome tracks that suit them.

Life is less like a trash-dump and more like one big library of mp3s.  It never stops and it never ends, and everything in it is value for somebody.

Do yourself and everybody else a favor, and have fun sifting.

I love SpiritSentient fans and readers, and feedback recently has been that people aren’t finding it super-easy to hunt down our best posts and I’d love to improve that situation. We used to have a search box, and I’ve always thought of doing a best of post. I’ve never done any kind of a re-cap post and I’ve been thinking about doing one for awhile, so here it is, some of my personal favourite posts:

2010

World-Shaper’s Manifesto – You!

Love & Sex: The Magnum Opus

Trick To Getting What You Want

15 Songs On How Jay-Z Is A Spiritual Guru

I Love Women

2009

Fame, Leaders, and Followers – What Are You Missing?

Careful What You Wish For

Rock-Climbing Is A Metaphor For Life

Playing With The Best

Value or Val-You?

2008

How To Get a Handle on Attention and Opportunities

Creative Boosts For Women Who Like Beautifying

Creative Boosts: 35 Visual Art Inspirations

2007

No- No- No- Limits

Thanks So Much

Though they may be a bit different, hopefully you’re able to find some value in some of our older posts. Thanks so much for your time and attention.

Last but not least, my favoritest of favorites, our:

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