On Checking Your Faith Quotient...

Alternatively entitled:  

"You can never have too much faith."

Shirt by: The Billionaire P.A.

Something has changed, or shall I say resurfaced in a new light, within me.  My faith has grown tremendously and especially in action.  A couple of years ago I was very diligent about doing my prayers morning and evening everyday.  I may miss one morning or one evening here and there but I was pretty on top of it.  Then, I fell off out of nowhere.  I didn't lose my faith but I wasn't putting in nearly as much effort to do my prayers everyday.  As of the last month or so, I've stepped up my game 10 fold and what a difference I've seen in myself and in my life.  I mean I am really in flow with everything and everyone around me, again.  People just want to help, people are kind.  Green is super green and blue the bluest blue. I'm catching sunsets that are amazing.  "Coincidences" are happening at lightening speed and you wouldn't believe how many people are willing to help on my first music video which is coming up.  Everything is so effortless it seems.  My gratitude for it all is in direct correlation to what I'm putting into my life and everyone around me.  

Took this with my camera phone.  It's the reflection of the sunset through my side mirror.  I was late for an appointment due to crazy traffic.  Because of that, when I was leaving my appointment this was in the night sky.  How amazing.

As a Buddhist, I'm taught not to feel guilty about missing prayers.  I believe one mustn't do things begrudgingly, be it hanging out with friends or what have you.  What I have realized in hindsight, though, is that by letting that aspect of my life fall off, I lost my footing in life...for real.  I became irritable, worried, depressed and insecure.  These are not qualities I possess on any given day in my life.  That's just not me.  Slowly but surely as I stopped taking quiet time for myself to reflect upon my life, my spirit became disconnected from the Source and I was like a fish out of water gasping for air.  Only as of late have I realized where my true grounding in life comes from...practicing my faith.  For me, it's a base from which all things spring forth.  The way I interpret and communicate with others, the way I live, love myself and others, workout, create....  Geez, I really must have felt so arrogant or lazy to think I didn't need to put in the effort no matter if it was even 5 minutes in the morning and evening in front of my altar.  What does it feel like to be back?  Winning!  And you know how much I love winning.  :) lol  It really does feel amazing.  I feel like my old self but way more dope (if it's possible lol).  The reason is because I have this experience under my belt now.  I took my practice for granted.  That's it!  That's what it was.  I took my practice and thereby myself and my life for granted.  I wasn't practicing appreciating every moment and so more moments seemed to start sucking.  lol  But for real...having had this experience not only increases my faith but it's a reminder of how precious decisions truly are.  When I decided that my practice could take a backseat to most everything in my life everything became backwards, seriously.  Damn, it's all a reflection of me.  Everyday, that rings more and more true.  How much power we really have is incredible once we learn how to be in tune with the universe and wield it responsibly, we can see and create beauty in everything we come in contact with.  Everyday and evening as I remind myself that I am a Buddha and so are you I am in touch with the beauty, love, peace and compassion that encompasses and and surrounds us all.  (sorry, i just teared up for a sec.)  When I remind myself of that and continue to practice that on the daily I am more frequently enlightened.  Enlightenment is not a destination it's a practice.  Everyday we may have a moment or many moments where we are at one with everything.  To sustain that truth and understanding is my goal.  I know I can do it and am doing it.  Thank you and this is my sincere prayer.  With love...  Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.

100.

Bright

p.s. please check out this guy The Billionaire P.A who made my new shirt (that I'm ordering), the pic above.  I t-t-totally love his philosophy..."I am going to help over a billion people speak their dreams into existence!  That is why I call myself "The Billionaire P.A."; not just to acquire a billionaire dollars, but to inspire over one billion people.  My success will come through helping billions of people develop wealthy minds.  The best part about what I do is I save lives tomorrow that want to die today."
http://www.wealthymindsclothing.com/

F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real.  

- Hill Harper

I am not afraid of most things.  I cannot wait to jump out of a plane.  I wasn't afraid to go to Jordan.  I'm really not afraid of dying.  I like going places by myself.  No problem going to dinner alone.  The movies by myself = cool with me.  I am afraid of failure.  I am afraid of not winning at being a director.  I have been going through this whirlwind of emotions and thoughts... So many thoughts.  I am unhappy with my current job.  Not because of the people I work with.  I think they're awesome.  My job is stressful but it's exciting.  The hours are ridiculously long (think 80+ hour work week) but I get to see cool stuff.  I mean in the span of 2 months alone we worked with a live elephant, rhino (yes, a real live rhino!) and Danica Patrick (cooler than a fan).  My problem, my frustration is that I am helping to put out other people's dreams, not my own.  My home is a safehouse for dreamers who grind...My sister, her best friend Sakinah, my friend Damani, my friend Shawn....  These are all people who have made the leap and I love them for it.  But not me.  I haven't made the jump to go after what I want 100%.  For the third time in my life, I feel alone.  I see myself standing at the top of the cliff and watching all of the people I love and admire and brainstorm with one by one smile at me, turn to look at the cliff and take a running jump.  They disappear from my sight for a second and reappear with wings.  They motion for me to come.  "It's ok...it's easy", they say.  But I'm paralyzed.  I look over the edge and wonder if my wings will sprout, too, or am I not special enough.  Maybe they're different than I am, maybe they're better, more talented.  I have tears in my eyes now because I want it so badly and I am ashamed of my lack of confidence, faith, belief.  Where did it all go?  This is NOT me, I feel like an alien in my own skin, in my own mind.  When I found out my mom had cancer, it exacerbated my anxiety.  I felt like time was running out.  I have to show her that she did an amazing job.  She did the right thing.  Prove to her that everything she has gone through having us was a winning move.  "I just wanna be, I just wanna be successful...." keeps playing in my head.  My vision is blurred and I'm having difficulty tapping into the source.  I go go go but feel like I'm running in circles.  What's funny is that when I moved out to LA 5 years ago, I was not afraid in the very least.  I left every person who knows and loves me to make that leap by myself.  I moved clear across the country to fulfill my life's mission without one ounce of nervousness.  This jump somehow seems greater.  And it is, in a sense...This is the most important decision I have had to make to date.  I know that I am prepared and that the people who love me will love me always no matter what happens.  In my heart I know that I will be ok but my mind, my inner hater, tells me I'm not ready yet, that I don't have what it takes.  Fuck you, hater.  Seriously.  

"...let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

That's so real.  So, what am I going to do?  I get into this cycle with work where I need to pay my bills so I work but then I'm exhausted.  Tapping into my creativity after not utilizing it at all feels impossible.  I have to remember to make the things that matter most to me a priority.  That means praying, writing and shooting.  This also means that I will buy myself a new computer so that I can upload footage to work on editing to improve my vision.  I will budget money better so that I don't have to take every job that comes my way because of some wack scarcity mentality.  This will allow me to stay in the creative mindset longer to actually see my vision clearly and create it.  Making this decision is an act of faith.  I have been extraordinarily protected and will only have the opportunity to win if I truly tune in and take care of me.  That's what I'm here for anyway.  Besides, this site isn't called "Inspire the Wackness/Complacent/Fearmonger", so I'm going to leap.  I have to...I owe it to myself.  I'm going all in because I'm sure as hell not going home.  

100.


Bright

Believing in the Unseen = Faith

I'm inspired by Clarence, thanks for the blog post:
http://aconvowithgod.blogspot.com/2010/04/universal-law-of-faith.html


Most of us never put ourselves “out there”. What that means is we don’t go after particular goals because we don’t believe we can obtain them. Before we can go after something, we must first believe it’s possible and have faith. I realize that most people’s so called “lack of work or effort” is really a direct reflection of their lack of faith. When we do not believe it is impossible for us to act. We later blame our unproductive lives on a lack of opportunities but opportunities are everywhere, in plentitude.
 
I received a call from a friend to enter a modeling contest online. Now what I didn’t know is he told about 25 of his girl friends on Facebook. 2 of us decided to enter. The other contestant entered and said that she had been a finalist in their previous contest years ago. I could definitely see why she had just cause to enter the contest again. Now on paper I’m only 5’4, and far from thin (I like to think I’m wonderfully curvy) so becoming an industry model wasn’t exactly something I was planning to become. But it just so happened that this particular contest was about hair and facial attributes which means height was a non-factor and so was weight to a certain extent. It made me realize that there is always a particular way to do almost anything even goals that seem very restricted or incredibly limiting.

In my friend's blog, he talks about one woman's faith. More specifically, he talks about a biblical story in which a woman in need of healing approaches Jesus. When she finally sees Jesus in the crowd, she makes a decision she is going to touch him, and she also "knows" that she is going to be healed. But that makes me wonder several things. What made her know that she was going to be healed? Did she make that decision beforehand, that if she ever saw Jesus, she would touch him regardless of who was there and she would become healed? There is a Universal Law…it’s proven in religion and physics that “what goes towards comes towards”.

It’s the scientific law of cause and effect. The issue is most people don’t realize that the cause is our thoughts or more specifically, our original decision to go after a particular goal. In my situation, the cause was making a definite decision to enter the contest. The effects are all the actions that happened after that decision. The woman in the story decided she was going to be healed, and so it happened.

Most of us like to think that things “just happen” to us. We think we are born lucky or born fated to disaster. Wrong.

Once I decided to enter, I then ACTED upon that initial decision, immediately. I sent out an email to all my folks and then I sent out a link on facebook to get people to vote for me. This was the scariest part. I had no idea what was going to happen next. But it was too late. I had already acted upon my decision. This is where I encourage people who are going after a particular goal to do something that makes them commit to their decision. The best way to do this is to tell other people about it. If I had waited to send out the email another day, my inner hater would have destroyed me (fear is no joke). I started thinking limited thoughts right after I sent out the email. “What if no one votes for me?” “What if folks don’t think I should be a model?” "It's just an online contest, is it worth any effort?"

But it was too late…I had already sent it. And the next two days something crazy happened, I was part of the Top 8 immediately. I was totally surprised. And then my co-worker told me something that I’ve told myself over these past 3 months. He said, “If you’re going to go after something, you might as well decide you’re going to win at it and be successful.” And, throughout this whole competition, not one person has ever said, “I don’t think you should have entered”. Imagine that! But most of us…oh no we totally sabotage our best intentions. We don’t say that we’re winners. Instead we say things like “I’m just going to enter the contest and see what happens. I don’t really care anyways.” "I'm not going to go after (fill in the blank) because I don't think I can do it. And if I try it, and I fail, people will think I'm stupid."

From the beginning, I decided my plan of action would be to send out 2 emails per week to my friends/fam and to send a daily reminder on facebook, in order to remain in the TOP 20. It started out WONDERFUL (beginner’s luck huh), I was part of the Top 8, then the Top 10, later the Top 20…but then I fell off completely after 3 weeks. My dad called me and said you need to do more. But I was already executing my plan. Maybe I needed to give more in my emails, so I started incorporating stories. More phone calls came in to let me know I wasn’t part of the “Top” group anymore. YIKES! I started to panic, but I realized that I was doing everything in my capacity to act upon my goal. Then came the inner hater, "Relax, it's just a contest!" You can quit now and know one will really care that you started it". Or I could just believe that I was going to be in the Top 20, after all, I had put forth effort.

A week later, I walked into work, and someone yelled out to me, “Hey Shak, you’re number 6! What did you do over the weekend?” I was FLOORED. I couldn’t believe it. Did more people start voting for me? Was their a glitch in the matrix? Or….

The next month, the same thing happened. I was holding on to #19 for dear life and then I was bumped off completely. Now there were over 1000 women in the contest, and my friends let me know that there were billboards up everywhere. Folks at my job told me they heard about the contest over the radio. I wanted to panic again…but I was dealt with this just a month ago. I was sticking to my initial plan of action. I didn’t want to inundate my friends with any more emails and I didn’t want to fall into a competitive mind set. I decided I was going to just wait and relax. (BTW, I never sent messages on facebook like “PLEASE VOTE FOR ME NOW, I NEED YOUR VOTES BECAUSE I’M ABOUT TO LOSE MY SPOT”). I always sent messages thanking people for all of their help. I decided in the beginning that I would only send out positive messages of thanks and no messages of panic.

Last week, I bumped up to number 8 from 23/24. Now, I have no reasonable explanation for why this happened as I’m not that skilled and savvy to have a reporting system that captures all of the votes. But I was nonetheless really pumped by the results. And what was to come next?

More obstacles…most recently, I’ve had a few folks close to me, hate on this endeavor, underhandedly of course. In the past, I would act secretly towards a goal without telling anyone because of fear of these types of obstacles. But with this goal it is impossible to not “put oneself out there”. My friend asked, “What are you going to win again?” in a condescending tone. “When is it over? Wow, that’s a long time for just a contest.” I was actually offended and hurt. But one thing I’m learning through the process is to remain detached personally from others, thanks Bright. We only give off to others what we feel inside. And so we should not take what others say about us personally, although it is hard to do when we care about people.

I’m convinced by simply DECIDING to go after our initial goals we become changed, we become more, and some of us become believers. We gain the ability to really have faith in the unseen. There are now 1240 women in the contest, I’m number 14 which in mathematical terms, I’m part of the 1% group. How awesome is that?

With only 2 days left, I’m going over my initial reason for entering the contest. Initially, I thought whoooo hooooo, with $5,000 I can do this and that like take a lil trip and film some material. I also thought, I could use the contest itself to promote the plays I’m in…but something else happened. I ended up writing stories, and sharing them with people. And now I look forward to writing stories, it’s not about the contest or the play, how about that? God is so clever. I received so many responses over the past 3 months, I feel like I’ve already won a major prize. We never know how we find our paths you know. We just have to submit to the process and stay open. We often say I won’t do this or that but we can be blocking the very thing that brings us joy. We have to fight fear DAILY or else we end up doing much of the same which is often not doing much of anything.

P.S. http://www.thegreatmodelsearch.com/profile.asp?CustomerID=23

Shak
100.

I'm Inspired By: Faith

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I’m inspired by this piece, Allegory of Faith by L.S. Carmona (1752-53). It reminds me that almost everything we see around us: cars, cell phones, computers, lights, buildings etc. was once unseen; unimaginable except in the minds of those who had inner vision, and the belief to make their creations visible to the rest of the world.

My New Year's Resolution: Believe more in the unseen=Have more faith.

Shak

100.