⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

❤️‍🔥 Free Workshop: The Hour of Power: 60-minute flow to an insanely good day, every day. Registration includes free access to a 100-day journaling course. Sign up here.

🤖 Voice AI for Emotional Work: An AI voice assistant that expertly guides you through emotional blocks and into flow. Try it here.

🚰 Creativity Faucet: This article explains a technique to boost creativity, likening it to a faucet where initially 'bad' ideas (wastewater) need to be expelled before clear, good ideas flow. This process, used by renowned creators like Ed Sheeran and Neil Gaiman, involves embracing and working through these initial bad ideas to make way for original, impactful ones. Read it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

This remarkable photo of the tiny fungus known as Mycena Subcyanocephala was taken by Eric Cho. This species of fungus is found in the tropical parts of Taiwan. It’s notable for being one of the smallest mushrooms in the world, with its caps measuring about 1 mm in height.

🌊 Tidal Wave Choices

There are certain decisions we can make in life that lead to cascading possibilities. They can open up worlds that previously remained out of reach.

It's easy to imagine wild and heroic acts that lead to transformation.

But oftentimes impactful change can start quite simply.

A mundane choice that at face value seems to be of little consequence. Something that feels completely realistic and reasonable.

But in walking through that door, a domino effect begins that fundamentally alters your life.

New relationships. New skills. New narratives. New trajectories.

There is an email you can write.

There is a phone call you can make.

There is a question you can ask.

There is a habit you can start.

There is a truth you can speak.

All of these things can serve as Tidal Wave Choices.

They look small in the moment but in time set off tsunamis of change in your life.

A small momentary break from the gravitational pull of your everyday routine can reorganize what orbits into your world.

Take a moment to ask yourself...

"What is a Tidal Wave Choice I could make right now?"

I dare you to do it.

 🍐 Make The Ordinary Come Alive

Enjoy these words from William Martin:

Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

🤓 Learn This Word

Wabi-sabi: Finding beauty within the imperfections of life and peacefully accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

Ram Dass’ Simple Practice for Appreciating People Just as They Are

I love Ram Dass.

Born Richard Alpert in 1931, Ram Dass is well-known for being a friend and colleague of Timothy Leary’s in the 1960s. At Harvard, Leary and Alpert were pioneers in the early efforts to conduct research into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics.

After being dismissed from Harvard in 1963, Leary and Alpert moved to an iconic estate called Millbrook, which became a spiritual retreat center and testing ground for accessing higher states of consciousness via psychedelics. In 1964, Leary and Alpert published The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, along with their former colleague Ralph Metzner.

In 1967, Alpert traveled to India, where he met Neem Karoli Baba, a Hindu mystic who would become his guru and give him the name “Ram Dass,” which means, “servant of God.”

Since then, Ram Dass has become a spiritual teacher, sharing wisdom on life, death, meditation, stress, love, and change with millions of people. He is perhaps best known for his seminal spiritual manual, Be Here Now, an illuminated manuscript that I experienced as a refreshing, awareness-raising breeze when I read it several years ago.

Ram Dass has spent decades teaching, writing, serving, and (co-)founding several world-improving foundations and projects. He was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in 1991, and it’s estimated that he’s given away millions of dollars in charitable donations over the years, to the point where he has had difficulties affording healthcare in old age.

When asked if he could sum up his life’s message, Ram Dass replied, “I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people… to me, that’s what the emerging game is all about.”

Ram Dass is a beacon of light in an often dark world, and today I’d like to say thank you, Ram Dass, for all that you’ve given us. I love you and am truly grateful that you exist.

​[Continue Reading]

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With Wonder,

Mike Slavin