Goal & Activity Log

The above image is a snippet of a spreadsheet I use to keep track of my progress on certain goals. The overall purpose is NOT to try and accomplish each goal every single day. Instead, it is an observation tool to see how much balance I'm creating in my life. Making a little bit of progress each day on a few goals is better than very sporadic or infrequent progress or no progress at all. Consciousness and awareness of one's actions is key. After a period of time the chart shows me if I have neglected any goals or if I have spent too much time on certain goals but not on others. A balanced life leads to fulfillment.

A summary explanation of the goals:

• Exercise - about 10 minutes of bicycle and then some strength training and back exercises.

• Holosync - my meditation program on audio CDs. Usually a half hour or hour long.

• Journal - keeping my handwritten diary up to date.

• Catholic Formation - this includes going to church, studying with a private tutor to become a Catholic, spiritual reading, learning, and prayer. There are some really great online study groups at CCEL.
  

• Big Mind or Shadow - these are practices from Integral Life Practice. You could say that the Big Mind meditation helps you experience god-consciousness. Shadow work (i.e. the 3-2-1 Process) involves dealing with difficult people, emotions, memories, situations, etc.

• ACIM Lesson - study of one of the daily workbook lessons from A Course in Miracles.

• Learning - listening to audio or viewing videos from the Integral web sites, Gnosis.org, Theosophical Society, Speaking of Faith, Eckhart Tolle with Oprah, LibriVox.org, and anything else I find interesting that adds to my knowledge. It helps to use my pocket MP3 player so I can listen and do chores at the same time. The Internet is really a treasure trove for learning!
  

• Write my book - progress towards writing my book on esoteric Christianity.

• Compose music - progress on writing about 20 minutes of music for a small string ensemble.

• Blog post - writing posts for my blog, like this one!

• Morse Code - now that I've got my ham license, I want to learn the code before I get on the air. I'm still mastering the alphabet.

• Special Projects - this relates to a list of various special chores around the house, such as organizing all my photographs into albums, cleaning out closets, redecorating, etc.

• Volunteering - time spent helping my condo association; and eventually I would like to volunteer at a nearby hospital.

• Friends & Family - hanging out with people.

• Dining out - not necessarily something I want to do too much, as it can get very expensive very fast. By monitoring my activity I can help to avoid excessive spending.

• Library, Park, Museum - free fun activities that get me out of the house. With 6 months off from a day job it could be easy for me to become a hermit at home. I have to watch that I make sure to get outdoors, enjoy the weather, and socialize.

Mindfulness

The older I get, the more I find that my level of mindfulness determines my level of happiness. I would also include related qualities, such as having clearly defined goals, self-discipline, mental clarity and concentration. Without mindfulness (i.e. the awareness of one's own thoughts, feelings, and actions), the mind can just wander off all over the place, skipping from one association to the next, one fear or memory after another, a tendency that Buddhists vividly refer to as "monkey mind". Without mindfulness you can feel as if your life is passing you by, as if you have no control and time is being "stolen" out from under you. And everything starts with the mind first - if the mind is a mess, then the feelings and actions that result will also be a mess (and vice versa).

When I was a teenager and had unlimited free time during summer vacations, I found that if occupied myself with working on my goals and interests that time would just fly by very joyfully. My mind would be so wrapped up in accomplishing goals or learning something new that I didn't wander off into other thoughts or concerns. My mind kicked into gear and focused on one thing and that was the happiest time of all. Such experiences are often described as being in a state of "flow".

But why is it so hard to maintain mindfulness? Without self-discipline to put mindfulness into practice, one can fall into a lesser passive state - sitting for hours watching TV, browsing the Internet, playing video games, drinking alcohol, etc. After wallowing in the passive state you can end up feeling like you didn't accomplish anything. The time flew by with little or no benefit and you might as well have been asleep! Now, this is not to say that mindless leisure and relaxation do not have a valuable purpose. I am all in favor of a little daydreaming or mindless fun activities once in a while to recharge my energy level. The problem comes when you realize that copious amounts of time escaped into nothingness! Weeks, months, years!

Here are a couple of nice quotes from Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:

To control attention means to control experience, and therefore the quality of life. Information reaches consciousness only when we attend to it. Attention acts as a filter between outside events and our experience of them. How much stress we experience depends more on how well we control attention, than on what happens to us. The effect of physical pain, of a monetary loss, of a social snub depends on how much attention we pay to it, how much room we allow for it in consciousness. The more psychic energy we invest in a painful event, the more real it becomes, and the more entropy it introduces in consciousness.

And this:

The only way to take over the ownership of life is by learning to direct psychic energy in line with our own intentions.

And this fits in well with another life-changing book I love, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. A quote from the very first chapter:

If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life. This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health, and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings - everything!

One part of my daily mindfulness practice now includes a spreadsheet in which I monitor the status of my current goals. Every day I check off whether or not I spent some time working towards each goal. This has really helped me tremendously to see where my time has been going! In the past I would create "to-do" lists or schedules, which invariably always seemed to fail. I would not do what I told myself to do, leading to guilty feelings and further procrastination; a vicious feedback loop of failure. But this is different! It is simple self-observation of one's actions and use of time. If you can simply observe yourself, without judgment, you can see what you have been doing with your time and then make adjustments or changes as you go along. It helps to create balance in your use of time, which in turn helps to facilitate the "flow" experience, leading to a higher quality of experiencing life itself.

Tomorrow I will share with you a screen shot of my spreadsheet chart and goals.

Gratitude of Former Paid Employment

Today was the last day of the “day job” and it still doesn’t seem real. Maybe because it has been yet another week of sleep deprivation, making me feel like a zombie (a lamentable condition of unreality). It feels like I have been going to the day job, day after day after day, since forever. Hard to believe that when Monday morning comes along I will not have to get up before the crack of dawn, jump on a bus, hike many a block of Minneapolis skyway to fill a chair in a cube farm, and stare, glassy-eyed, at a computer monitor for 9 hours straight. Now I have the leisure to stay at home and stare at my own monitor for as many hours, days, and weeks on end as I can tolerate (hopefully NOT – I am getting tired being chained to computers! Especially with the tantalizing edge of summer emblazoning the sky with warmth and electrifying the grass in hues of vivid green!).

I am so grateful to have met my coworkers. Lots of really excellent people, and the best supervisor anyone could possibly ever imagine. I feel a twinge of regret that even after spending about a year and a half with these people that there always remained a few fascinating characters that I never really got to know at all; and even the ones I thought I knew, still left me wondering how much more was hidden in their hearts that I would never know. Our lives intersected these many months and now I am moving on to other things; and, in turn, each one of them will be moving on and inhabiting their own realities as well, going about living their individual lives, intersecting with other people in an infinite web of connections. It is so true that you don’t realize what you have until you’ve lost it. Now that I contemplate this latest turning point in my life, I feel immense gratitude that my life intersected with all of these beautiful, genuine people. I hope I can keep in touch with them in the future, or at least keep them in my thoughts and prayers from time to time, wondering where they are, what they are doing. Bless them all!

If only life were long enough and deep enough that we could know other human beings in more authentic ways, in their souls. How many times do we pass by our co-workers, people with whom we spend an enormous portion of our waking life, making idle chat that only touches the surface of lived experience, when each person holds within himself or herself an unfathomable world of consciousness, memories, perceptions, and potential greatness? It is impossible for any of us to know what it is like to be another person, to be inside their eyes and minds and perceive the outer and inner worlds from their unique viewpoint, as well as vice versa. When I think about this, I am awestruck by the immensity of life! Each human being a self-contained universe, known only unto itself! Such a wonder!

I passed the test

A shiny new copy of a Morse code key, similar to one used by my great-grandfather as a telegraph operator for Western Union. This is the famous Vibroplex "bug".

I took the exam for the Technician class license of Amateur radio this morning. I passed it! In about 15 days I should be able to find out my callsign from an FCC website. This is so exciting! I've been thinking about joining Ham Radio since I was a kid. Getting a callsign will be like getting a new name or identity.

It was a little awkward (and funny) for me at the testing site. I was the only female in a room full of about 30 or 40 middle-aged white guys, and probably one of the few under the age of 40. Once we were allowed to begin our tests, I zipped through mine in about 2 or 3 minutes at most, raised my hand, and had my test graded and reviewed by the examiners. One examiner made a humorous glance at another, bugging his eyes out, and then later giving me the thumbs up signal that I had passed. I was the first to finish my test. I didn't stick around to see how long the others took. Taking a zillion practice tests on this site made a big difference, but I already knew most of it just from playing with shortwave radios over the years. Plus the Technician exam is super easy anyway.

Now my next goal is to master the code this summer and save up for a key, antenna, and HF rig by the end of the year. The Vibroplex bugs look cool, and would certainly be nostalgic for me to connect with my great-grandfather, but I'm thinking an iambic key would be easier to use. These keys look pretty spiffy and are expertly-crafted works of art.

Theosophy & Morse Code

The past few weeks have been so hectic! Yet also so rich with possibilities and glimmers of joy and a vision for greater potential and endeavors in the next few months. May 9th will be my last day at "the day job," with six glorious months of freedom to pursue some old and new dreams.

This Saturday, May 3rd, I will take the exam to get my first Ham radio license. This has been a dream of mine since probably the age of 9 or so, when my Grandpa Martin gave me his old Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave radio and a clunky old crystal-powered police scanner. Ever since then I have been hooked to shortwave radio, scanner radio, CB radio, and amateur ("Ham") radio (with offshoots into astronomy and playing with electronic kits). For years and years I was either too desperately shy to pursue the Ham license or too busy wandering off into other hobbies (Taoism & Chinese, anyone?). One of my goals this summer is to master Morse Code thanks to a really nice guy's excellent resource, so I can chat with people around the world and exchange QSL cards. Sure, people are chatting 24 hours a day on the Internet, but there is still just something magical about stringing up some flimsy little piece of wire and tapping out an esoteric language through the atmosphere on a few watts of power. It is miraculous!

Speaking of esoteric, I have also joined the Theosophical Society and look forward to attending my first local meeting in a few weeks. I feel a greater urgency to expand my search after the deeper truths in life, something that can't simply be found from sitting around at home reading books all day. You can have lots of nice thoughts and philosophical musings, but a genuine, deeply lived experience of the Divine is the ultimate goal in life. I sense an inner expansion of awareness, a desire to get out and find fellow-seekers on the path to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Life is so much more than what we perceive so superficially with our physical senses. I'm not talking about psychic powers or auras or flying through the air or things of that nature (not that I'm against such beliefs; but such things really don't resonate with me). I'm referring instead to an inner knowing, a divine spark in which you just know, deep down in an intuitive-heart way, that there is so much more to life beneath the surface. As William Blake famously said,

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

In a way there is an overlap between the mystical vision, of seeing the world, everyone and everything, with a new perception, and using Morse Code to communicate through our globe's invisible atmosphere, zipping at the speed of light across continents. Both require a new awareness, a mental clarity or vision. Both are like a newfound world, a new language, a new sense of self and other. Damn, isn't life so kickass fantastic and exciting?! Let's live every moment!

What makes you excited about life? Do you ever wonder that if you should die tomorrow whether you had truly lived? Life is always here, right now, in this present moment. The question is whether we can wake up to it in the now-moment or whether time will run out before we can fully realize it. I believe that is why we exist - to seek and find that answer.

Time & Interiority

Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

- John O'Donohue, from his book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

I am starving for free time; for simple, basic, unstructured and open-ended free time that allows the mind to wander into secret uncharted territories. Our society is too obsessed with keeping busy and doing rather than being. Every minute has to be somehow "productive," as if we are our own mini factories of industriousness. Even after all these years without a television to devour my few free hours, I'm still catching myself being a slave to the clock and judging my use of time. There should be a law against the 40-hour work week. Supposedly the people of the Medieval ages could get by just fine working for 20 hours a week to sustain life. How is it we have become so much more uncivilized today than those people back in the "Dark Ages"?

Silence, daydreaming, and stillness. These things are as vital to me as air and water. If I go along for too many days, whisked away into busyness and socializing and chores, without a chance for my spirit to catch its breath and my mind to find stillness, my inner sense of sanity starts to crumble. I get anxious and frantic, like a trapped animal. It is hard for me to imagine how others can constantly be on the move, or socialize for hours day after day, or find quiet alone-time to be lonely and scary. If I could get away with living as a hermit in some far remote place I think I could do just fine.

Here is a tip from Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

The essence of mindfulness in daily life is to make every moment you have your own. Even if you are hurrying, which is sometimes necessary, then at least hurry mindfully. Be aware of your breathing, of the need to move fast, and do it with awareness until you don't have to hurry anymore and then let go and relax intentionally. If you find your mind making lists and compelling you to get every last thing on them done, then bring awareness to your body and the mental and physical tension that may be mounting and remind yourself that some of it can probably wait. If you get really close to the edge, stop completely and ask yourself, "Is it worth dying for?" or "Who is running where?"

View of Catholicism

I submitted a response to a survey from the NPR program, Speaking of Faith, on a potential future radio program on "The Humanness of Catholic Identity." Here were the questions they asked:

If you are or were Catholic, we'd like to hear your perspectives on what anchors and unsettles you in this vast tradition. We're also interested in the hopes and concerns you have for the church, now and into the future. What do you take solace in and find beautiful about this faith of nearly two millennia and more than 1.3 billion members spanning all the cultures of the globe? What hopes, questions, and concerns are on your mind as you ponder the state of the Catholic Church and its future?

Any my response:

I find solace and beauty in the esoteric dimension of Catholicism. The focus by the media, and the overall public perception, seems almost exclusively centered on the external, dogmatic aspects of the Church (i.e. prescriptions on behavior, morality, arguing over "right" versus "wrong", etc.). There is a place for dogma and rules, but, to me, the heart of Catholicism is experienced in its inner truth, its mysticism, esotericism, and contemplative practices; it is about coming to the realization of a genuine, lived experience, within one's own being, of God or Christ-consciousness, an experience far beyond following rules or commandments on pieces of paper. I find solace and beauty in the Liturgy, contemplative prayer, Gregorian Chant, the rosary, architecture, and art. I find solace and beauty in the saints and writers like St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Teilhard de Chardin, Meister Eckhart, the Desert Fathers, as well as contemporary theologians like Thomas Keating and Willgis Jager. Through centuries of tradition I find a deeply profound connection to my European cultural background and ancestors; I can participate in the Mass and experience a realization that I am part of something larger than myself; a connection to Spirit that binds me to God and to my human family in the past, present, and future.

Yes, there are both good and bad aspects to the Church. Yes, there has been much evil done in its name, all of which should be recognized and atoned for and learned from by the Church’s members and leadership. Like a family, there have been and always will be segments of the Church that don’t get along, with skeletons hiding in closets, and areas begging for reform or healing. Yet somehow the Church keeps going strong, accepting and integrating diversity, differing cultures, and differences of opinion. I find beauty and solace in the miracle that such an institution has lasted for two millennia. My hope is that the Church, in moving forward into the future, will be able to look at itself honestly and address any neglected issues it needs to face.

We live in an age that is terribly polarized, and that polarization has infected the Church as well. My hope for the Church is that we will find the patience and wisdom to step back and examine ourselves deeply; to look at where we have come from and where we are going. In the words of the American philosopher, Ken Wilber, the Church might find a way to move forward by "transcending and including" those aspects of itself that have become polarized or marginalized. We can include and integrate the liberal and conservative expressions of Catholicism while still recognizing and validating those differences. We can include and integrate the rational and mystical minds, finding value and meaning in both, moving forward holding both. My hope is to one day see a healthy, holistic, "integral" Catholic Church, comfortable in both its dogmatic and mystical aspects. A Church that is proud of its traditions, practices, and cultural expressions, yet mature and honest enough to learn from its mistakes, take what is good, true, and beautiful, and throw out what does not serve Christ’s ultimate message of "love one another as I have loved you."

Looking Ahead

Time is flying by so fast but I'm looking forward to a carefree 6 month period to do anything I want, hopefully starting in a month or so. Creativity requires complete and total uninterrupted time; complete and total time for contemplation and spiritual exploration. My two main goals are to (1) write a non-fiction book in the overall area of spirituality/philosophy/self-help, and (2) compose enough music to fill an entire audio CD of around 60 to 70 minutes (yes, of course quality should be more important than quantity, but I feel I am really lacking in the quantity area for the past decade).

Sorry for this short post! I leave you with a quote from one of my all-time favorite books, The Outsider, by Colin Wilson:

We can summarize [William] Blake's argument briefly: All men should possess a 'visionary faculty'. Men do not, because they live wrongly. They live tensely, under too much strain, 'getting and spending'. But this loss of the visionary faculty is not entirely man's fault, it is partly the fault of the world he lives in, that demands that men should spend a certain amount of their time 'getting and spending' to stay alive.

The visionary faculty comes naturally to all men. When they are relaxed enough, every leaf of every tree in the world, every speck of dust, is a separate world capable of producing infinite pleasure. If these fail to do so, it is man's own fault for wasting his time and energy on trivialities. The ideal is the contemplative poet, the 'sage', who cares about having only enough money and food to keep him alive, and never 'takes thought for the morrow'. This is a way of thought that comes more easily to the Eastern than to the Western mind.

Restless

The past month or so has been very inwardly tumultuous for me. I am restless and anxious. I feel like I'm on the edge of some important and necessary changes in my life; a period of chaos before I can evolve to a higher stage of development. Sometimes I catch myself feeling so joyous and excited about life! There is so much I want to do with my life! And then there are always a million things to worry about, the chores to maintain one's life, the day job, etc. the basic stuff of life that can be rather boring. There is always the constant struggle between one's mundane life and the desire for an extraordinary life. I feel I am getting closer and closer to "following my bliss" or even that I might have found it already and have been living in it for a while and wasn't consciously aware of it. I am so grateful and amazed about life!

A recap of what I've been doing and thinking lately. It has been a whirlwind period:

• I've been working on some music I'm really excited about. As soon as I have it completed (hopefully in a month or two) I will post a link here.

• Books I've been reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, The Life We are Given by Leonard & Murphy, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and The Spiritual Guide by Michael Molinos. Soon I will read A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber, and A Guide for the Perplexed by E.F. Schumacher.
  

• Saw the film, Into Great Silence. Amazing, real, beautiful, and deeply lived lives. The guys in this monastery probably have a deeper experience of life in one year than most of us do in a lifetime! This reminds me I need to get back and pay a visit down south to this place. Stunning! If only we could all live our lives with such focus and intensity.
  

• Visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and focused intensely on three rooms full of Medieval and early Renaissance art. I've been spending some time learning about the Middle Ages, its art and history. I didn't really know much at all about these subjects. I hope to make future trips to the museum, ideally once every couple of months. It is so worthwhile and meaningful to learn new subjects and really spend a lot of time learning and thinking. It is so easy to get stuck with a few interests or hobbies. I need to break out into new territories of learning.

• I experienced a terrible phone call at my day job a month ago. It really disturbed me and shook my foundation. I need to do some shadow work on it. I will share my writings on that in the future. It is still percolating and reverberating in my psyche.

• I've decided I want to write a book! I am currently brainstorming topics I'd like to write about before narrowing it down into something specific, with chapter contents and a main title. I've wanted to write a book for years and years. Life is short and isn't going to stop for me to get my act together! Now is the time.
  
  
• Continuing to make progress with my ILP Kit. Almost daily exercise and meditation are now part of my routine, even after a week with a nasty flu. If I go a day or two without exercise I really start to miss it, a feeling I never had before. And I can tell how much of an impact exercise has had in rehabilitating my back from the herniated disc. I have had absolutely no lower back or leg pain since early February! It is miraculous!
  
  
• I'm really excited about the whole idea of an integral life! There is something great about pursuing and applying an integral approach to life and living. One of my biggest goals in life has always been to live life to the fullest and cultivate myself to my highest potential. Why else are we here on this Earth? Is life not a fantastic opportunity?
  

Gratitude & Surrender

I am again amazed at life. A month ago was another trial of pain, infirmity, and uncertainty. Even after the facet block procedure, I was not sure I would ever feel normal again or stand up straight. Things like going bowling or learning how to dance seemed like pretty unrealistic activities for the foreseeable future. But now, after ten consecutive days of consistent, intensive exercise, I almost feel as good as new, maybe even stronger than before. It is miraculous that one day you can wake up and barely move or walk without pain, and on another day feel like nothing happened, as if the past few months were just a bad dream or a little annoyance. The pain is almost 100% gone, and the stiff muscles have almost entirely disappeared as well. I have gone from feeling bent and broken, to feeling fluid motion and strength and vibrancy. So strange! And I'm not complaining, of course! Just very amazed at how quickly things can change! I am very grateful!

What am I to make of this overall experience? Certainly I do not want to take good health for granted. There is no guarantee that I shall not have relapses in the future. And on the other hand, I don't want to forget what I went through either. I believe there was real value in the entire experience. It was a doorway to different states of being and perceiving. It has forced me to take better care of my physical health (not that I really neglected it; I just hadn't paid much attention to my body or made consistent effort to exercise regularly), and even to realize there is a spiritual dimension to one's body. There are the so-called divisions of body, mind, and spirit, but I am starting to realize more and more that these three realities co-exist integrally, in an inter-dependent way. The body is not just an organism or collection of biological systems, separate from mind and spirit; it is, instead, the intersection or crossroads of the mind and spirit united together. The body is the material, visible manifestation of mind and spirit. Outward and inner work together.

The mind is really the most powerful tool we have in this life. I truly believe that if I had had a very different attitude about my experiences with back pain (such as anger, or a sense of powerless victimhood), I would still be struggling to walk to work every morning, or jumping out of my skin every time I coughed. I think we, as a society, really underestimate the power of our minds to create (or destroy) our health. The power of our minds must also extend into everything else, our perceptions of reality, our perceptions of each other, other cultures, other nations, other religions, and globally, towards the environment and the planet.

Lately I have also grown to appreciate the spiritual notion of surrender. By spiritual, I am referring to the positive sense of the term. I think there is some confusion that leads most people to assume that it ONLY means to give up, or accept things as they are (and usually counter to one's desires), to stop trying to make things different; it usually has a defeatist connotation, which I believe is missing the point of the deeper meaning.

Surrendering can be practiced in different ways, outwardly versus inwardly. To me, "to surrender" can refer to one's mental and spiritual attitude, as an inner state, separate from one's outward behavior or external actions. In the positive sense, I can surrender my attachment to a certain outcome, rather than getting upset that life isn't going the way I want it to. I can surrender my definitions of what is "right" and what is "wrong", and rest in the acceptance of the present moment; I can just allow everything to be as it is, observing it, witnessing it, without needing to attach labels or judgments on experiences, people, or events.

In the case of my back pain, I really tried hard to stop wanting or wishing for any different outcome other than what I was experiencing in the moment. Now, this does NOT mean that I also stopped trying to change the situation outwardly. Outwardly I still went to the doctor, the physical therapist, and added more exercise, healthier foods, and so on. Outwardly, I made every possible effort to remedy the situation. Yet, inwardly, I surrendered my desires and attachments to specific outcomes. I rested my mind and heart and energy. I rested in the mystery of life and God. Since I didn't really know what was going to happen, one way or the other, I found it much easier, inwardly, to rest in a state of not knowing, not attaching and not desiring. It's like the weather - you could be caught out in a sudden torrential rainstorm - does it change anything to curse the rain, or wish for it to stop? The rain just is, it exists, it's happening in this present moment. It is neither good or bad, unless we attach a label to it. Inwardly, to surrender to the rain is to accept the fact that it is raining and just let it be itself; yet outwardly one can calmly and peacefully grab an umbrella or step into a building. We can do what we need to do without the mental agonizing of unfulfilled wishes. A clear, uncluttered mental and spiritual attitude can make it easier for our actions and behaviors to flow naturally and seamlessly. Life is only difficult when we add our mental baggage into the mix.