Category: Spark The Flame (el libro)

A book that desires to inspire people to see and reach more of their positive potential. This in turn helps others.

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Chillin Quotes In Person Using The Brain

It’s Beautiful When the Simple Things Make You Happy

Let me quote my mom and myself for a minute.

Yesterday my mom texted me: “I finally have an armoire to put my sheets in. Yay! So silly the things that make you happy when you get to my age. Have a wonderul day. Love you!!!” And I replied to her: “It’s beautiful when the simple things make you happy mom ❤️”

I have been struggling with gratitude recently. As I said to someone a few days ago:

“I feel like the practice of gratitude for me…I have to keep working on it….its like I get called / lured away from this gratitude, by these social cues / lures for things that I desire, not really material things but more ideas of a ‘better life’, like an amazing self-business or making so much $ from selling books, or having the whole family and everything with amazing job….but I look at people with fame, with $ and status, with great work, and I know they have sacrificed, probably things I dont want to sacrifice, things I truly value, like the people in my life, my loved ones. health, people, meaning and comfort. so this means that really, I think I have what I value the most, and I dont want to lose it soon, not before its natural time….I have to be grateful. and its this constant exercise of not only telling myself that this life is ok, but looking at it in its gorgeous illustrious beauty, because it is beautiful. gratitude really gives us beautiful lenses to see everything with.”

So, I think it is beautiful when we can appreciate the small, simple things. In fact I think appreciating the small simple things expands them in a way to be bigger and even more beautiful things. A key to happiness? Hmm….

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Chillin Exponential Potential Quotes

The Comfort Zone

“Whatever your Comfort Zone consists of, you pay a huge price for it. Life provides endless possibilities, but along with them comes pain. If you can’t tolerate pain, you can’t be fully alive. There are many different examples of this. If you’re shy and avoid people, then you lose the vitality that comes with a sense of community. If you’re creative but can’t tolerate criticism, then you avoid selling your ideas to the marketplace. If you’re a leader but you can’t confront people, no one will follow you. The Comfort Zone is supposed to keep your life safe, but what it really does is keep your life small.”

-Phil Stutz & Barry Michels, from their book The Tools

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Chillin Life Is Yours Oetics

A Poem for Love for Me

I found this poem tonight. I had written it on 4/4/2013 at 1am. This was a poem I wrote to myself; I was realizing and learning how I needed to feel love, instead of just logically knowing that I was loved. At the time I was referring to romantic love. Now I can probably expand this beyond that:

A Poem for Love for Me

It is not enough for me to know I

am loved, I need to Feel it.

I need to feel I am loved.

A week ago I realized a baby portrait of

mine has had barbed wire attached to

it all these years, literally. I could

not hold the portrait tight. I could

not hold it right.

Then I realized, that baby needs to be

held, not looked at. Not put somewhere

to be looked at. He

needs to be held.

And that is me. And it is a daily occurrence,

daily need. I need to feel it

everyday. Anything else is not enough.

Because When I don’t, I shrivel up and recoil,

and get cold and bitter. I cant live like

that.

I need to grow and open my heart,

open up, and bloom. I’ve come too

far, I must

continue opening and growing

I May forget these details, but my heart

will not. My heart knows

that it needs Love it can feel.

My heart will not let me

stay with anything else.

-Dr. Orlando Fernandez

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Halloween Life Is Yours

Happy Halloween Birthday :)

A Halloween Birthday Wish

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Exponential Potential Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Quotes Using The Brain

The World Belongs to Optimists

The world belongs to optimists.
That’s all you have to say.
Just keep your eyes on those blue skies
And you will find the way…

To climb the mountain of success-
Now here’s the magic key:
That while you earn, you have to learn
To help humanity.

-Dr. Robert Kavesh (recently deceased)

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Chillin Interconnectivity Quotes In Person Reality

A Decision Can Change Your Life

“A Decision Can Change Your Life” – Janine Diaz

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Chillin Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Relationships

True Connection

Maybe the fact that we have flaws makes us a perfect human.

This is a beautiful video my cousin sent me. I must credit the creator, Verodigm, from Instagram. Here is the link to the video, and I am pasting the video below:

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Exponential Potential Hooraaaaaaaaay Inserts Reality

Passed My Dissertation Defense!!!!!!!!!!

Nice photo here, of me FINALLY passing my dissertation defense. Ed.D., here we come! Should be official by the end of September.

Included in this photo are my three faculty advisors, whom I appreciate very much. They strove to help me make the best, most professional, acceptable, stellar work possible.

I cannot quantify the hours, days, weeks, months, years of time, I put into this doctorate degree. Technically it was about 3.5 years. But the real time and effort is not quantifiable.

One interesting thing, is that during the process over these years, I could not let myself imagine this day, because it was too painful to imagine while I still had so much work to do. I had to stay Present in the work to keep my motivation. Essentially, not really lifting my head up, but keeping the head to the grindstone until the work was done. Otherwise I was afraid of becoming lazy and unmotivated with the weight of all the work that remained.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Spark the Flame - Short Vlog

Giving What You Have, to Life

This video doesn’t do justice to this set of thoughts and feelings I have. But it is a little hard to unravel, I will try a little here:

I write, speak and think a lot about meaning. Creating meaning, living meaningfully. Experiencing meaning. The reason why is because I’ve felt and experienced the opposite, which is a dangerous place to be because without meaning it is difficult to come up with a good reason to stay in this life.

I love this quote: “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Somehow, meaning is tied up in this, in a sort of giving, sacrificing. We are all temporary. Like beautiful pups or tiny plant shoots that spring in the beginning of our lives, we are full of all kinds of potential, time, vigor. Through life, time, and all that, we expend, transmute and propagate energy. We are energy conduits, channels. But every conduit in reality that humans use, endures weathering with usage and time. There is another beautiful quote which I love to try to remember: “We have only the present moment, sparkling like a star in our hands — and melting like a snowflake.” – Marie Beynon Lyons Ray.

When I think of that quote, I think of the snowflake like a burning star in our hand. Alive it once was. Alive it began, full of potential, life, energy. And then it expends these things, giving beauty, giving heat and warmth. Very likely, giving meaning to the observer. In this expulsion and giving, sacrificing of energy, of life, of meaning itself, it creates meaning in whoever or whatever is lucky and blessed to experience these things.

It gives its breath. It gives its mind. It gives its heart, its warmth, its focus, its attention, its Presence, and burns into that palm. And in that experience is beauty, warmth, wonder, tears, love. Meaning.

Is that star asking for anything??? WELL? IS IT??? If you think so, go ahead and tell it that. Tell that star, burning itself to death, but in that process exuding brilliance, light and practicing love of life, that it is asking for something. Maybe it is. Maybe it wants connection. Maybe it wants your attention. Your presence. Your focus. Your kiss.

That is my intro to this video, which comes off slightly different than this intro, but which is trying to get at the same thing, I think.

Blessings. And Love.

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Chillin Interconnectivity

Finding Purpose and Meaning through Hopelessness and Suffering

Here is another quote from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” The author was a researcher who survived the Nazi concentration camps. In this book he writes about these experiences, and how it impacted his awareness of how people find meaning:

“Another time we were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. I was again conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. ‘Et lux in tenebris lucet’–and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me.”

This quote struck me. I find it beautiful in many ways.

Right now, regardless of what we think about the bird in this excerpt, it is obvious it was profoundly meaningful for the author, for the bird to land in front of him and look steadily at him. I gather that this meant there was connection there: connection between him and his wife (who was deceased at this time), and connection with this bird. And I think the meaningfulness stems from and has something to do with this sense of connection.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Using The Brain

No Matter What, Know that Things Can Get Better

No matter what, know that things can get better.

No matter where you are. Or what is going on. Regardless of the impacts of the past, the future can be very unpredictable.

No matter what we think is going to happen, or how we believe things will turn out, we don’t consciously know it all. We don’t know the details. And so often, wild, crazy things have entered into Life to be a part of reality.

Keep positive. Keep open. And definitely, please, stay real.

Keeping positive doesn’t mean denying the truth of the moment. Positivity that can spark change is about accepting the truth of the moment, being a “Yes” to it, with humility, love, connection, and optimism. Imagine the number of people who have done the worst things, and then turned their lives around. Imagine the many miracles people have experienced with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but which have been saving graces in their lives?

Keep positive my friends. Real to your self, your core, your Soul. And yet, positive. Loving. Accepting. Forgiving. Loving. Loving. Loving.

Blessings to you and yours. And all. One Love.

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Chillin Life Is Yours Using The Brain

Meaninglessness, and Feeling Meaning

I have been struggling off and on with feeling meaning. It comes in waves. It’s difficult to define how long this last one was, I think it was on and off for almost a year. It was more on struggle this autumn until a few weeks ago.

I think there were a combination of things that helped alleviate it. My mom helped me paint to a much brighter color in my living room and bedroom. And she shared with me a meditation which put me in a purer state of Presence when listening to it. These things helped a lot.

One of the greatest contributions to my sustaining more meaning in these recent weeks is drastically reducing the noise that my brain listens to. I live by myself, and during my free time I’m normally listening to news, sports content, talks, etc. When I cut out all those things and just sat quiet while eating, while cleaning, while brushing my teeth, etc., I was in effect spending more time with a part of my self.

While I care about what’s happening in the world, possibly the greatest meaning is found within my self. Or at least, it was a huge factor that was not getting any attention to Be, and be Present, and quiet. Quiet so that I can discern and feel the meaning that exists in the fabric of the moment.

I feel a lot better now, having cut out a significant amount of distractions from my free time. I automatically sense more meaning in the moment.

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Chillin Using The Brain

Slow the Perception of Time

As I’m getting some older I notice time in general seems to go by more quickly. At the end of the year I would look back and think “Wow this year flew.”

There are some exceptions. Like the last couple of years with so many changes in my life.

I’ve been interested in this because I don’t want time to fly so quickly. Even though I am talking about the perception of time and not the speed of time itself, I still want to feel things going by more slowly. I don’t want to wake up one day and be really old and say to myself “Where did my life go?”

An aside: I do think it is possible that the actual speed of time fluctuates, even within a single day. Not sure how much control of this we have. My theory is it’s attached to some wave-like pattern / mechanism (like gravity waves?).

Back to time: I found a video which emphasizes how to slow down the perception of time:

  • being very Present (I had an intuitive hunch about this method, and had written and drew something about this previous post under the section “Stay Present”).
  • having new experiences that are attached to your ever-evolving identity.

I’ve been testing this out the deeper Presence and it seems to work. Whenever I am more Present time seems much slower. This is ‘paying’ attention to the Present moment. One way I can tell how Present I am being is when I’m in my elevator in my apartment building, if the ride went fast, I know I was distracted. If the ride feels slow, it tells me I’m being Present.

Here is the video with some thoughts on slowing your perception of time:

 

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Interconnectivity Quotes

Forgive to Feel your Connection

“What the ego doesn’t try is forgiveness, because that would undermine its very existence. To forgive others for insults, real or imagined, is to weaken the boundary between self and other, to dissolve the sense of separation between subject and object. And thus, with forgiveness, awareness tends to let go of the ego and its insults, and revert instead…[to view] both subject and object equally.”

Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit

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Chillin Interconnectivity Life Is Yours

The Door is Within

The Door is within.

What the heck does that mean?

I feel like, whatever it is I’m looking for, asking for, wanting…, the access is inside.

It’s not like I need to search and find the door, the “thing”, somewhere out there. Maybe something specific, sure it is physically outside of your body. But as if it does not arrive in your path unless you have opened the door inside you. And that door is arrived as a vibration of your mind, your emotion, your being.

Imagine if you vibrate at certain levels, you actually see different things that exist on those levels. In this case, your own vibration is the door you are looking for to bring that which you want to you.

Now whether or not that thing is a good thing, is a different story, and one I might as well get to here : )

I say, shoot for health. Or meaning.

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Chillin Interconnectivity

The Way of Water

Beautiful quote from Avatar 2. As I was hearing it in the movie, I was thinking the quote could also be used to describe air / breathing. Here is the original quote:

“The way of water has no beginning and no end. The sea is around you and in you. The sea is your home — before your birth, and after your death. Our hearts beat in the womb of the world, our breath burns in the shadow of the deep. The sea gives, and the sea takes. Water connects all things, life to death, darkness to light.”

-Avatar 2

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Halloween Hooraaaaaaaaay Life Is Yours Reality

Happy Halloween Birthday =D

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Quotes Using The Brain

Two Pleasure Systems in the Human Brain

“we have two separate pleasure systems in our brains, one that has to do with exciting pleasure and one with satisfying pleasure. The exciting system relates to the ‘appetitive’ pleasure that we get imagining something we desire, such as sex or a good meal. Its neurochemistry is largely dopamine-related, and it raises our tension level. The second pleasure system has to do with the satisfaction, or consummatory
pleasure, that attends actually having sex or having that meal, a calming, fulfilling pleasure. Its neurochemistry is based on the release of endorphins, which are related to opiates and give a peaceful, euphoric bliss.”

-Norman Doidge, from: The Brain that Changes Itself

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Chillin Exponential Potential Inserts Quotes Using The Brain

Luck is the Residue of Design

“Luck is the residue of design”

– Predestination (movie)

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Chillin Exponential Potential Spark the Flame - Short Vlog Using The Brain

I do not Seek. I Find.

Referring to Pablo Picasso’s quote “I do not seek. I find” – and how the concept helps me perceive and appreciate the beauty of what is already here, and trying to reduce the ‘chase’.

When I chase certain things, they can be like forms and shapes in a cloud far away – as I get nearer the form disappears and what I thought was there turns out to be an illusion. Instead of chasing / seeking, we can ‘find’ what is here right in front of us, or beside us and around us. Instead of pursuing far away, we can open our senses and experience what we have been brought together with that exist with us right here.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Life Is Yours Relationships

Loss and Connection

My uncle is about to pass away. He battled many things, one of which is addiction. I love him dearly.

My grandma passed away in late June. She raised me.

There was a challenging, yet beautiful connection between my grandma and my uncle (mom and son). I think they needed each other in some ways.

Love you both. I am glad my heart feels your loss…it will be a way to connect with you.

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Chillin Exponential Potential Life Is Yours

The Best Security We Have

The best security we have is in who we decide to be, who our relationships are, and our faith in the higher power.

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Chillin Using The Brain

A Bit on Nostalgia

This winter I realized that I was craving for some things from my past, like video games from my childhood. And I found a way to start playing some again, and it’s been great 🙂

I noticed once, in my very cold apartment, that thinking fondly of things from the past, from my warm past, actually made me feel warm physically and as if I was not alone. It was a beautiful moment and revelation.

Here is a brief online article about how nostalgia has been found to literally reduce mild pain: https://neurosciencenews.com/nostalgia-pain-20114/

And here is a New York Times piece on many benefits of nostalgia which I personally found very surprising: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/briefing/nostalgia-oscars-mardi-gras.html

If you don’t have access to the New York Times article you can look at the Wikipedia entry for nostalgia which mentions a lot of the psychological benefits I found surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia

Cheers to a warm past reaching out to give us comfort, security and hope in the Present.

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Chillin Life Is Yours Oetics Reality

Be Surprised in Life and Enjoy It

Allowing / Appreciating versus Pulling / Feeding:

If I find myself energetically feeding on someone, whether feeding through their body or some other way, and I tell myself and get myself to stop, I find that it equates to a change from taking to allowing. And inevitably that allowing transforms into or invites my appreciation.

So that got me thinking: if I did more appreciating of how things turn out and allowing instead of pulling, then I’d be more open to how Life wants to turn out, and I think I would be more aligned with the purpose and meaning of Life, which may be to: be surprised and enjoy it.

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Inserts Interconnectivity Quotes

What You Are Looking For is Already Here

Thoughts, reflection on a message from the inner deep. In the midst of self-wallowing about being lonely, single and wanting, a message that came to me again, saying: “What you are looking for is already here.” Not as in I’m going to manifest something. Rather, it is about becoming aware of what is here already.

With Love.

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Chillin Interconnectivity Reality

Existential Journey

A short radio excerpt:

Joe Frank – Existential Journey

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Chillin Interconnectivity New Year

Happy New Year 2022!!!!!!!

As I take a little time to reflect,

I give you all my peace and respect.

I’m feeling pretty good. From this year I think I picked up a better sense of balance. Balance between trying my hardest, and making sure to stick with my greatest values: one of which is to enjoy myself. So, a balance between self-enjoyment, and trying my hardest. While knowing that the well-being of loved ones is top priority, while also keeping in mind well-being of the world.

I also realized that I love teaching. Maybe I will focus on that, instead of trying to get a more high-paying job that requires work which I struggle to enjoy or find meaning with.

When I think of what the world needs, it probably boils down to compassion.

Things just keep ticking, huh?

Keep the faith. Keeping a good mentality makes a huge difference.

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Chillin Life Is Yours

How About Some Sweetness for that Joy?

Right now, looks like I’m going through another identity shift or movement.

Im wondering whether I need to relax on myself, and my standards of discipline, a little, so that more joy enters my life.

I work really hard and diligently. My life is filled with beauty, love, blessings, and grace. Even with all these blessings, I have been missing a more consistent joy that I want. Even acknowledging that I want this joy, and having an idea of how to allow it (by relaxing more on my requirements and discipline), I feel better and more relaxed. Truly, I want to treat myself sweeter.💘💘

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Chillin Interconnectivity

Knowing We Are All Equal In Value

I need your help for me to grow, get better. I need you to show me the energy of knowing that we are all equal in value.

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Chillin Quotes Using The Brain

Power Over Your Interpretation

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I love this quote about having power over our mind, but not outside events. How I see it:

It’s obvious, if we are paying attention to our lives and circumstances, that we dont have direct control over everything, (and maybe not full direct control over anything). Simply put: out what we can control, we have a lot of power in creating change. But, there are plenty of times when we will receive surprises, and depending on who we are, we may interpret them in various ways, as in “good” or “bad”, etc. We have influence over our interpretation, over the meaning that we derive. And depending on our chosen and effective interpretation, we contribute or “attract” certain outcomes.

Something interesting here: I distinguish between interpretation and view. View is our perspective. If we were looking at an enormous boulder in the woods, and I was on one side and you were on the other, our view / perspective is different. The interpretation is the meaning we make with our perspective. So, to change meaning, you can try to change viewpoint.

So, while I’m with Marcus Aurelius on this quote, I think we have power and influence over both, our mind and outside events, but we will also get surprises. But we have power over how we interpret those surprises, which impacts the present as well as future events.

Good luck!