Discovering Your Senses – Smell

Sniff, sniff… ah the sense of smell. What a primary sense this is! Have you ever acknowledged the beauty and the gift that the sense of smell is? Can you imagine your life without it?

Let’s see what rich possibilities this exploration of the sense of smell can open up in our lives. 

To begin with, I would like to acknowledge that this sense – like the other traditional 4 senses of taste, touch, hearing and sight – has a variety of functions. Did you know the sense of smell is capable of identifying seven types of sensations? Just as a curious fact, these sensations are put into the following categories: camphor, musk, flower, mint, ether, acrid, or putrid.

Coupled with all our other senses, traditional and not, the sense of smell has been used as a survival mechanism for centuries, a primary resource in guiding us to safety and alerting us to danger. At the same time, the ability of this sense of smell to trigger different responses and activate natural instincts allows it to lead us into a state of bliss.

Try this exercise. Just sit for a moment and sense what response the following smells provoke in you:

the smell of your favorite dish; 
the smoke coming from a cigarette; 
the smoke coming from a chimney;
the smoke coming from a chemical factory;
the aroma of a rose; 
the smell of chlorine in a pool;
a whiff of a breeze coming from the sea; 
fresh baked cookies;
burnt toasts; 
the smell of wet grass and soil after the rain.

The response would be different for everyone. In fact, this exercise is a great way to access your pure perception of these smells, without the interference of mental associations that physical environments often invoke. You see a whole series of projections and judgements, which have nothing to do with the actual smells you are experiencing, and that can influence how you feel about a certain smell.

When we associate certain smells with certain people, places or experiences, it leads us into categorizing our experiences and limits the possibilities this sense of smell can offer us. We begin reducing every encounter with a smell into two choices: good or bad, yes or no, right or wrong, likes and dislikes, attraction or repulsion, stinky or good smelling. But what if we were really willing to explore the subtleties of this sense? Would we be able to access the wisdom and intuition that this sense of smell has helped us develop over the centuries?
Migrant populations, for example, would wander in the mountains or in the forest looking for water or for food. The sense of smell enabled them to choose in what direction to travel, when to settle in different territories geographically, close to the sea, close to a river, close to a place where the earth was fertile, so that they could actually grow food for eating, have drinking water, and increase the possibilities for future living and expansion.

Also dogs, trained nowadays for hunting, use their sense of smell to guide them. How closely related are we, as living beings, to the ancient populations and the modern day animals who utilize this amazing sense for survival? With all of the resources available to us as human beings, could we go beyond survival to thrival, if we were willing to extend the application of this sense even further, to explore the possibilities of the 5 senses and beyond?

What do you know about scents and the smells that travel through the air? What information in addition to the initial yes and no, I like it or a I don’t like it could you receive?

There are so many smells that seem putrid, for example, that may be an indication of what the Earth is reacting to. If we are willing to be aware of a smell, could our awareness and observation possibly interact with it in a way that would actually influence the toxic or non toxic nature of chemicals being exuded? Can we change the elements by being willing to acknowledge the components of the smell and thereby transform them?

These are highly sensitive questions. What power does our awareness, recognition and observation have? What possibilities can we open up with an enhanced sense of smell that will create a different future in the world?



Kass Thomas





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Discovering Your Senses – Hearing

The wind whistling outside my window just before a storm.
The rustle of the leaves falling from the trees in the garden.
The chirping of birds, the fluttering of their wings.
The sound of feet, walking up a creaky stairway.
The ring of your alarm, after you have hit the snooze button.
It truly is a privilege; the sense of hearing that leads us to sound. It begins with a vibration, which is everywhere at once, and guides us – without us even acknowledging it – to hear the sounds that vibration creates. Pleasant sounds have the power to uplift us when we are most upset, and unpleasant ones can make us feel really badly.
For me personally, hearing is such a precious sense, because it led me to discover the vibrations and sounds of one of my innate gifts and passions: singing!
I love singing and, over the years, I have realized how much sound and music can easily influence the thoughts, feelings and emotions that constitute our mood. A lot of our likes and dislikes may be dependant on our current state of mind. We might like jazz or classical music when on vacation, blues when we are suffering a broken heart, and then techno, salsa or disco music when we are dancing the night away! These sounds help us maintain the current mood.
Music and sounds evoke certain feelings and emotions in us. They have the power to completely transform our mood, as well. The sound of your mother’s voice, for example, may relax you, or it may startle you. The gentle motion of ocean waves hitting the shore may change your feelings of tension into a sense of calm. Emotions and sounds are closely related. They interact and affect each other, and this combination can settle into our being and our minds and dictate the way we feel.
Memory also plays a role in how we relate to different sounds. A familiar sound can stimulate a memory and bring you back to the very moment you heard it, and you feel the same way you did when you experienced it for the first time.
Your wedding theme song, for example, will take you back to your first dance, and a nursery rhyme from your childhood might put you immediately to sleep. We remember ourselves the way we were when we first heard the sound, and all the feelings and emotions that were present in us at that time.
Memory attached to sounds can take you completely out of the present moment, making you relive the past, time and time again.
That’s why I love live music. Somehow it invites us to appreciate our sense of hearing in a whole different way. The live performance, as a combination of hearing and sight, brings us to enjoy as well the present moment. Some musical styles encourage improvisation, or solo performances, even within a well known song, and that is like hearing the tune or the words to the song for the very first time. What if we could live our lives that way? Willing to hear new sounds in familiar tunes? Or hear new tunes and make them familiar? How can this exploration of the sense of hearing through music and sound invite even more into our lives?
A highly niche skill, music is not only for enjoyment, but has also been proven to develop and sharpen aptitude in the human mind.
Think about it for a minute. Music is not only loved worldwide, but it also has the power to help you communicate with others. Beyond language, borders, and nationalities. The hit song “Despacito” found recognition and appreciation even to the ears of the non-Spanish speaking populations across the globe.
Music has always been a part of my life and I have always allowed it to enter into my soul and transform me. I find it to be one of the easiest means of expression and it relaxes me and brings me back to the joy I really am. What would it take for us to allow this magical perception and sense of hearing to bring us closer to who we truly are and enhance our connection with everyone and everything on the planet?
When we are willing to acknowledge all the many vibrations we are aware of, we can hear those that create sound in a whole different way. The magnitude of it is astounding, even when a vibration is not audible, we may not hear it, but we can still perceive it. What beauty of this wonderful sense of hearing can we acknowledge that will allow us to expand our senses beyond the limitations of this reality?



Kass Thomas




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Read the other ones on Discovering your Senses:
Sight
Taste

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Discovering Your Senses – Taste

Taste
The word alone conjures up so many different ideas for me. As I delved deeper into the topic, thanks to this month’s articles and calls, a whole new world of possibilities reveals itself. Through sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste, we have access to so much information, it is really quite astounding. Let’s explore this topic of Taste today, and see what more deliciousness we can invite through our senses.


What is Taste?
Taste is a means of perception brought to us through different areas of our tongue. It helps us to differentiate spice from salt, sweet from bitter and allows us to enjoy the richness of different foods.


Initially food was considered one of the basic human needs: food, shelter and clothing. But over the years, food has gone from a necessity to a lively market which includes financial, social, and luxury arenas. Today, in fact, the food industry is a major employer and income-generator for a large sector of the population. It also gifts us the pleasure of a beloved and globally shared passion: eating!
And all this centers around the celebration of this wonderful sense that is – taste!


How does this sense of taste work?
There are five different tastes that are perceptible through our tongue’s receptors. Each one of them reflects the presence of a different element: sweet taste in food signals the presence of sugar; salty taste indicates the presence of minerals; an excessively sour or bitter taste may alert us to the presence of potentially poisonous elements; umami confirms the presence of proteins. And how much more information do these receptors give us? We may be relatively familiar with salty, sweet, sour and bitter, but what do we know about the latest discovery, umami?


What is this umami?
Umami has recently been unveiled as the fifth taste. Recognized as a savoury and delicious taste present in rich foods, it is also said that umami contains glutamate, an element found in breast milk. Say what?!?!


That’s right, this newly discovered taste of umami gives us a full-packaged, nurturing and wholesome sensation that stimulates sensations in us that go beyond our palette – it reaches and settles into our very being. Why is that? Well, perhaps because the presence of glutamate in the umami taste triggers memories of the first identifiable food for the human race –  breast milk. Wow! So, whether or not you were breastfed as a baby, the presence of umami on your palette can activate a feeling of home, safety and belonging.


It is interesting how food and tastes alone can connect us to the roots, history and memory of things that we may or may not even be cognitively aware of.


The five different tastes – sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami – and the ways they are used, usually distinguish different groups, cultures, and geographical areas, often providing nationalities with a large part of their identity: the pizzas and pastas of Italy, the hot dogs and cheeseburgers of the USA, sushi and sashimi from Japan, chicken tikka masala from India, borscht from Russia.


What else is truly possible through this basic yet profound sense of taste?


Bridging the gap through Flavor
“There is so much more that unites us than separates us” is the tagline to my book 7steps to Flawless Communication.


I love hosting international dinners and events and including a variety of these tastes in the menu. It always peeks a sense of curiosity and delight in my guests as they get a chance to explore a taste of different cultures.


Taste is a way to celebrate different flavors and discover new sensations. In addition to the deliciousness of the food, there is also the richness of histories embedded into the flavors of the food we eat. Discussions and sharing different tastes and flavors can unite people, bridge cultural gaps and lower barriers of communication. It might be the smell emanating from the kitchen of a stranger that reminds you of the love your mother poured into your favorite dish, or the memory of the best pasta you ever had that ignites your passion to finally learn Italian.


Food is also a major influencer for travellers who trot across the globe to visit a small town or major city known for a particular dish. The origins of certain tastes – and how they combined with other tastes to create celebrated dishes – is a topic of many television shows lately. It is also a great incentive for food lovers, like me. I personally love experiencing the local flavor of a place through the people, food, wine, smells, sights and sounds. In my trips around the globe, the magic of taste creates rich memories of my visits and actually influences my choice of where to go next.


Taste is definitely a super-sense – it brings with it the joy of eating along with memories of our past, a sense of comfort in the present and inspires possibilities for a future that we have yet to explore.


I look forward to exploring even more about the five senses and beyond but in the meantime, remember to savour the richness of this sense of TASTE, today.



Kass Thomas





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Discovering Your Senses – Sight

What does sight mean to you?
As you read this sentence, for example, do you acknowledge the magical way in which the letters come together to form a word? Or do you immediately start trying to make sense out of the words without ever observing the individual letters?


When we allow ourselves to perceive what’s in front of us with a fresh approach, we are truly engaging our sense of sight and enjoying a host of facilities that this sense can provide us with. These include:


Beauty
Colors
Shapes
Sizes
Forms


Sight gives to us the difference between light and dark, between colors and shapes and figures. It is the ultimate guiding sense that underlines the use of all our other senses. But do we realize its importance?


In order to realize the importance of sight, it helps to acknowledge that what we see rarely has to do with the vision that is actually in front of us. The appearance of something often triggers a particular memory of that vision and activates a feeling or reaction in us that we are not even aware of. Yet we live the whole experience based on that feeling or reaction. The physical surroundings of a happy event, for example, may lead to a bout of excitement in us that we cannot explain. Similarly, the same surroundings might invoke sorrow.


If I have a particularly happy memory of enjoying reading a book while watching a storm outside my window, every time I see a storm, I may recall that happy feeling, even years later. If instead, I was once caught outside in a storm and had a bad experience, every time I see a storm I might feel sad.


In what way can we enjoy the magic of what we see in the present moment without defining everything based on past experiences?


Here’s a little exercise that may help. Think of an incident that is the strongest in your memory. It could be happy or sad, but just the one that you feel has impacted you most. Got it? Good.


The next would be to close your eyes. When you close your eyes, re-create that situation, and focus on the physicality of it, more than sound, smell, taste or feel. Re-create the colors, the shapes, the structures, and the light. Focus on just that. Make a mental note.


After this, you may open your eyes.
Write down everything you saw. Whether the sun was shining brightly, whether the rain made the sky grey.


Now, the next time you see these things simply notice your reaction.


This is what I call the moment of choice. The moment you acknowledge that you are using your mind to interpret what you see in front of you, you are at the pinnacle of the moment of choice. At this moment you can choose to continue creating your present based on the past, or you can choose not to do that any longer.


It is true that the mind is generally prone to distraction. But when we acknowledge this tendency, we can then consciously choose to see what’s in front of us with a fresh view from the present without comparing it to the past.


Something different can show up in the present and we can appreciate the importance of sight in a whole different way.


And what about the future? Is it possible that the way we see things can help the creation of our future?


The truth is that we usually only realize the importance of something when we don’t have it anymore. Why do we close our eyes when we concentrate? When we meditate? Because when we cut vision from ourselves, it removes huge influential elements—the physical surroundings we are present in.


Let me give you an example.


Last month I organized a 7steps Prelude dinner at a St. Petersburg restaurant called Dans le noir, which literally means “In the Dark”. There were about 12 of us and we started conversing in the light of the lobby while selecting our food menu. We were then  lead into the dark dining area, where we continued talking. Gradually, in the absence of light, the initial predictable conversations began to transform into meaningful dialogues on unusual topics. Even though we had all met before at my 7steps workshop, the absence of light inspired us to approach each subject with a delicacy and authentic curiosity that inspired an atmosphere of a first-time encounter. The evening was called “Beyond the Veil”—one of the steps in my book 7steps to Flawless Communication. At the end of the evening, once we returned to the light, we allowed the gift of the sense of sight to enhance the magic of our experience and continue creating a future of possibilities.


The feedback from this workshop has been amazing. Participants have shared how they now see people and things anew every day, allowing their sense of sight to gift them with new choices for the creation of a future beyond the veil of past behavioral patterns.


What if we could simply enjoy the beauty, shapes, faces, and awareness we receive in every millisecond thanks to our sense of sight, without trying to identify them and make sense of them beforehand? Might that possibly change the future we create?


Hmmm


Well, now that we are aware of the vastness and importance of sight, comes the question:


What else is possible? What else can we create when we are willing to truly recognize the importance of this sense of sight?


Well, here are some reminders that hopefully will help you explore the possibilities with the sense of sight and open you up to a vision of the future that goes beyond your wildest imagination.


  1. Be Present
    Take in your surroundings fully and completely.
What shade of blue is the sky today? Does the dew in the leaves make it look even greener?
Trace the features of your loved ones, with great detail. This will help you be more aware and notice and appreciate things you hadn’t before.
  1. Learn to distinguish between your sight and your feelings.
    When we correlate what we see and how we feel, we are forever altering our perception of that sight and that feeling.
    Recognize that the way you feel is based on a whole lot of different elements coming together to form a unique experience and emotion.
Appreciate it as a distinct experience, and when you experience those sights again, be aware that this too is a distinct experience and allow it to be new and fresh.


3.   Close your eyes. Sometimes, just by closing your eyes and allowing the other senses to contribute to your perception, what you see when you open your eyes again can take on a very different sparkle… the magic of the sense of sight.
At the end of the day, we realize that it is true: sight does not exist alone. It finds its friends and support in our other senses as well as our mind. Still, we can do our best to appreciate the gift of sight and take full advantage of its value, even when we are dans le noir.


Usually, we only use sight to confirm the road we have already decided to choose. What if we allowed the sense of sight to enhance our exploration of new possibilities instead of repeating past experiences.


So, how can we utilize our sight to enhance the experience of the present?



Kass Thomas




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Do You Have The Courage to Stop, Start, Continue or Change Your Life?


One of my most beloved topics of discussion- transforming you into the best version of you.
Before we begin, let’s consider this question- Does it take courage to change your life?


Changing yourself requires making a series of decisions that are not your default choices. If you have been living a certain way of life, your body and mind creates natural reactions to situations and people. Once you decide to change your life, you need to start consciously making decisions that are not natural, not automatic, and do not come with relative ease.
Courage is involved when we make choices that do not come to us with ease, so it is required when we decide to change our lives and transform us to the best possible version of us.


Like all changes, the first step is to recognize and be aware of when and if we must change the way we are living. How do we do that? These are some guiding questions that might be helpful-


  • Are you content and satisfied?
  • Do you feel that you are more present in your heart, or more present in your mind?
  • Are you constantly judging yourself and the choices you are making?


If you find yourself answering that you are content, that you choose with your heart over your mind, and that you are free from judgement, congratulations! You are doing awesome.
If not, then it is possible for you to get there, with a little self reflection and some courage.

Another way you know you need a change is when you are not a 100% convinced with the decision you are taking. If you have a choice to work with a poor home or work with a rich company, be sure to to make the choice you are convinced with. For example, if you choose to work with the poor, make sure it is the happiest poor home ever, and that you are doing your best to help them. Similarly, if you are not 100% convinced with a situation which could be a career, a relationship or even where to go for dinner, realize that you need to stop and think. What would it take to make a decision that you are a 100% convinced with?


But living your best  life does not just mean abandoning everything you have done so far, and what you practice presently. It means having the courage to be able to see your reality for what it is and make a choice to either Stop, Start, Continue or Change your life.


  1. Stopping
    When we are in a motion, we find it difficult to stop, look around and observe.Reviewing a situation is hard, because it creates the possibility of a bad review. As individuals, we want to have faith in the choice we took earlier that has led us to be where we are today. But we must find the courage to stop and look around.
    Is the choice we made earlier benefiting us now?
    Can we be in a better place?

    Asking these questions helps us to avoid being at the end of the road, our shoulders heavy with the weight of the dreadful “What If?”
  2. Starting
    Starting something new requires courage and faith. It requires us to begin, and be ready for the possibility of stopping if the situation is not favourable any longer.
  3. Continue
    Sometimes, it is easier for us to drop what we are currently doing, because it seems harder at the moment. We need to realise that a hard choice right now could lead to a beautiful life in the near future.
  4. Change
    To change does not mean to change completely. We must realise the aspects of our life that require change, and those that need to be left untouched. Our lives are a series and mixture of choices that lead to the grand result. Choose that permutation of decisions that leads you to the result where you are the best version that you could be of yourself.


It is also important to remember that transforming your life is a gradual process that is the result and sum of smaller choices. Every little thing adds up to make a grand change. All we need to do is review the universe for all the opportunities it offers us. If you see an opening you like, go and grab it. Find what inspires you to not just exist but truly live.


Kass Thomas








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Do You Love You?

This is a question that we are not often asked.

We are asked: Do you love your friends, your family? Do you love what you do? Do you love your country?

But rarely does anyone ever ask us the most important question of all:
Do YOU love YOU?
Most of us don’t even consider this question because we have handed over the power of validating ourselves to other people. We don’t recognize the importance of acknowledging ourselves. We think we have to do more, or be more, or that we are not ENOUGH. What if “not enough” was irrelevant when it comes to loving you?
More and more people are waking up to the awareness that loving themselves is the starting point for being happy in this life. When we are functioning from a place of loving ourselves, interestingly, it becomes much easier to love and appreciate other people. We become grateful for everyone and everything around us. Without this, one cannot find the peace and calm, the motivation, the kindness, and the support that is all-important to being truly happy in your life.
And it’s funny how we tend to treat others better than we treat ourselves. Usually, we are more kind, warm, helpful and patient with others than we are with ourselves. Many times, however, we hope that in doing this, they will acknowledge us and be kind to us in return. But with these expectations, in reality, we are giving to others the control and power over something that only we can truly have full claim to: 
the ability to recognize and be kind to ourselves.
It is because we deserve it, just by being who we are and not because of something we have said or done.
Loving oneself is not essential to life, like eating or breathing, where if you abandon these activities, you cease to exist. However, it does make everything you do considerably better and more fun. If you love yourself, you breathe easier, eat better, sing and dance better, and lastly, love others with more ease. Finally, loving you allows you to love and appreciate other people regardless of what they say or do. 
CONNECTING TO YOU 
Now, all this begs the question: How do I reach that place where I love me, recognize me and am grateful for me?
Well, the first step to this (and with many things in your life) is to look inside yourself and find out who you are.
WHO AM I REALLY?
The best way to appreciate something is if you are willing to see the value of it. We would not ask a man from the stone age his opinion on which mobile phone is the best because he would have no idea what it is and therefore not see any value in it!!
We too have this tendency to discard or not recognize things we don’t know exist. If we don’t know it exists, we don’t see it as valuable. So, the first step in recognizing your value is:
KNOW and RECOGNIZE YOURSELF.
Familiarize yourself with who you are, connect with you, acknowledge you and you will begin to see the value in you.
However, if you are at a point where you don’t easily see what is valuable about you or you think NOTHING about you is valuable, then stop for a moment and acknowledge one thing:
As a human being on this planet, I can assure you that there is NO ONE on the planet that does YOU better than YOU. You are unique and the best version of YOU that exists.
This quality alone makes you SPECIAL and valuable and deserving of appreciation, gratitude, and care. If you are willing to acknowledge that about you, it will expand your reality and set your life on a different track. Are you willing?
CHANGING TRACKS 
How do you change tracks? All you need to do is open up your eyes. That’s right, simply open your eyes, look around you and acknowledge your current reality. (If you don’t like the reality you see, the possibility exists that you can CHANGE IT). Once you have acknowledged you and your reality, you can start to choose what brings you joy, inspires you and the things you love doing that vitalize you. So, what are the things that bring you joy?
What are the things that inspire you and you love doing? What are those unique qualities that you have?
You can find the answers to these questions by doing these three things: 1. Look inside 2. Observe 3. Step Into the acknowledgment
Look Inside – take a look at your life, Try to focus more on ‘what makes me happy’, as opposed to what makes other people happy. Granted, sometimes others being happy makes you happy, but the truth is, it all starts with you. Recognize what unique capacities you have that make you (and others) happy.
Observe – look at your actions and reactions When you are looking at what makes you happy, SEE and NOTE those happy moments and recognize what it is that you do (and usually they come so easily to you that you don’t even see it). When do enjoy yourself, enjoy interacting with others, what is it that brings you joy about those moments and what contribution are YOU BEING to them that makes them occur?
Then observe those moments when you are NOT so happy. Perhaps when you are feeling stressed, or under pressure. How do you act when there is a deadline to adhere to, for example? How do you react in a pressurized situation? How do you behave when you are on a stage, or in a position where you are receiving a lot of attention? Now, note them and thank them for the gift they are so you can learn something about you.
Step Into the acknowledgment – appreciate the qualities of those you love and acknowledge them for their brilliance. Being an individual, it is hard to view ourselves objectively. The best way to find out which qualities are pleasant and which ones are not is to observe and note the actions and reactions of others. Notice how they make you feel and recognize which qualities in others make you react favorably and imitate them (such as generosity). You notice these qualities in others that you are and many times you never acknowledge YOURSELF for doing them as they are usually the easiest thing for you to do so you place no value in them. Interesting, no?
Lastly, recognize which qualities in others that do not bring out the best in you, acknowledge and thank them for bringing you this awareness of things that do not contribute to your life.
So, figure yourself out, (look inside), and appreciate things that you like about yourself and others (observe) and acknowledging them. Now CHOOSE (step into this awareness) those qualities you’ve identified that bring you joy, make you happy and have you loving you.
Please don’t ignore this. Choose to use this to create a better life for yourself.
Many times, all the things that we become aware of can conjure up thoughts, feelings, emotions or judgments in us. But please remember, it is just an interesting point of view that you have. Is it real? Is it? It is about choice. Choice that is the key. We can choose possibilities that are nutrient to us and incorporate them into our lives. In this way, this knowledge expands beyond just us – it touches others too. When things benefit you, helps you love you, it benefits others as well, which makes us happy all around.
CHOOSE – to do things and invite people and behaviors into your life that encourage you to love you. Think of people you enjoy being around, things you love doing, activities you enjoy doing, songs you love singing. And don’t forget your body – move your body more and let it know that you love it too! A person who loves themselves exudes a special kind of energy and invites more love not only into their world but also into the world of everyone around them. And that is the true gift of this. Acknowledge yourself, love yourself and bring this love to others and the world around you!
When you love you, you change the world.



Kass Thomas









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Do You Have The Courage To Be Afraid?


Courage.
This word is just about the best compliment one can receive regarding their character. It is a skill, an ability that was needed in the past, that is needed now, and will forever be needed by all animals and elements alike to truly achieve greatness.


But what is courage? What does it really mean?
To me, courage is a subjective term.
Some time ago, I moved to Italy, uprooted my life to begin again here. For most people, moving to a new country, changing my career, my lifestyle, the people I frequented (and not having enough money!), was a brave thing. For me, it was a choice, and not a difficult one. So in this particular instance, I was courageous in the eyes of others, but in my eyes, it had nothing to do with courage.


So you see, we have courage in two parts:
  1. When we are courageous in our own eyes
  2. When we are courageous in the eyes of others


For all intents and purposes, the first one is the one that holds weight, as the most important opinion you should value is your own.


When we are courageous to ourselves, or for ourselves, we have been honest with ourselves about what is easy for us, and what isn’t. To be courageous is to go beyond yourself, to achieve something extraordinary.


When we are courageous in the eyes of others, a choice which comes with ease and is in the natural flow of things to us will seem like a huge effort to others, as they are viewing it from their own perspective and not yours. We are all different people. What is easy for you might be hard for others and vice versa.


Like all abilities, courage is developed, nurtured, created, and may even be destroyed and recreated. When we are born we have raw courage – untouched by human experiences. As we go on with life, accumulating scars, victories, and knowledge, we unlearn and relearn courage to best suit ourselves and the circumstances we put ourselves in.


It is a broad topic, and we can talk circles around the possibilities and opportunities of courage. But there are aspects that will help us understand it better, and learn to use it better in our lives.


  1. Honesty
    One of the values embedded in a courageous person is honesty. Honestly with self and others alike aids you in understanding your own capabilities, and what is a brave act for you, and what isn’t. You must be honest with yourself about what you want to actually achieve and then go and get it.
    We must view situations as they are, and not as we think they are. Facing the reality of the situation is so important when choosing a path in life that leads to the best of you. We must learn to be present, and not inject past and future projections of our experiences and expectations, but just be in the moment and see it for what it is. We also need to remove any judgments and subjectivity from the way we view things. To be able to look at the situation from each person’s point of view, to be truly empathetic, is a true skill that leads to making courageous choices, as it leads us to the choice that creates happiness for everyone.

    We must also be honest with others in order to practice courage.
    How do we encourage others to be courageous through honesty?
    Be completely you with others, so they see an example of how possible it is to make better choices, to make braver choices when you are being honestly you.
  2. Being Free of Judgement
    Much easier said than done, once we rid ourselves of making judgments, it will be much easier to practice courage. For this, we must make a clear distinction between judgment and observation. We observe what is present, but we judge based on past implications.
    When we judge, we are lying to ourselves. This leads to us choosing something that will not be best for us, or for others.

    And it is not just our judgments that affect our choices, but others’ judgments as well.

    What is courage viewed as in society?
    Courage is determined by other people’s judgments. What our society judges to be courageous, we accept as a brave act, Going back to when I moved to Italy and transformed my life, others perceived it to be brave, while I felt it was a natural and ease-filled choice for me. If I had allowed other people’s judgments to influence my choice, I may have never moved. But instead, at that moment, I removed the effect of other people’s judgments about my actions and choices and saw the situation for what it really was: a choice which came with ease and was in the natural flow of things for me.

    We must also accept when we are not making a choice that is brave. Learning from a situation that has gone differently than you hoped it would is also a courageous choice. We must gain the knowledge to choose differently when faced with a similar situation, and not be forced into a default reaction.


So courage, in the end, is just what you think it is. It is present and embedded in ourselves and the situations we create for ourselves. All we need to do is grab it.



Kass Thomas









#kassthomas #7steps #createanewreality #life #change #choice #empoweringpeople  #communication #betterlife #newreality #courage #nevergiveup


How Well Do You Know Yourself?


As human beings, we tend to make judgments about the world. The world is viewed and interpreted by you based upon your own imagination and understanding of what you perceive it to be. You are perceived by people in a similar way.

But have you ever directed this unique, personally curated lens upon yourself?

What I have found is that most of us have a distorted and unrealistic view of who we really are. We look at who we are masked by a film of judgment and insecurity. This is especially true when we consider our “inabilities or weaknesses”.

But before I continue, let me state one thing: it is important to understand that we as human beings are always looking for validation or acceptance. We might be looking for it from our peer, our family, our boss, etc., but the one person that we need it the most from is ourselves.

OK, now let us concentrate on our inabilities and weaknesses. We tend to have more compassion and objectivity for other people’s inabilities and weaknesses than our own.

One of the reasons that comes to mind is that we are more emotionally involved (those feelings) when it comes to ourselves. Criticism is hard on us, we get defensive and feel badly about our inabilities and our weakness, they make us feel less than or worthless.

From my experience in team building training for project development in my Dancing with Riches workshops, I realized people often don’t want to acknowledge areas that they are not skilled in, they consider it a weakness in themselves. They think that if they acknowledge “these

inabilities” they are feeding the flame of their weakness. That is simply not true!
Knowledge about yourself, both what you are good and not so good at is extremely useful. As it allows you to always find the path to overcome your weaknesses.
So, this is the part that may “blow your mind”:
If you are not willing acknowledge and have the awareness of the areas you consider yourself to have “inabilities or weakness in” then you are resisting the knowledge of what you are good at.
Yup. That is correct.
This resistance doesn’t allow you space and time to work on enhancing the skills you DO have. Instead, people try to figure out how they can improve the skills they are weak at or acquire skills they don’t possess. They become so busy trying to better these things that they skip right over the knowledge of what they are great at and the possibility of becoming even better at it.
You literally deny yourself space to PRACTICE what you are good at and become an expert.

Let’s say, for example, you’re a sculpture and want a website of your work and who you are. You hire consults to construct a website as you know nothing about. However, you must now write something about yourself and there is a deadline. Perhaps writing is not something you do well. You struggle at this task, judging yourselves, attempting to write a biography, but it just doesn’t work (a weakness). You keep doing it and doing it attempting to improve. How much time and awareness are you spending on this (perhaps up to 80%)? How much of that time and energy is left available for the things you are good at, known and unknown (perhaps 20%)?
You see, if you had asked someone else to do this task (write), this would allow you the time to produce more sculptures, take amazing photos of your work, meet potential buyers, or perhaps investigate that silly idea your friend has about you having a good business sense (yes, however, I am an artist) and getting other artist together to form a cooperative and a gallery and then who knows the possibilities…

The resistance to acknowledging the things you are not good at, and accepting their so-called weaknesses, does not allow you to receive the information about what you are good at, your strengths.


Think about this:

What if recognizing what you are not good at is a strength?

The funny thing is if you think about it, it’s all just information. Being willing to recognize where you might not be at the top of your game is useful information and affords you two great gifts:


1. KNOWLEDGE​- If you don’t have full and complete knowledge about yourself, you cannot employ all your abilities and skills to their fullest potential​. In addition, this would allow you the understanding of what kind of people and talents are compatable with you, a contribution to you, and nutrient to you that would assist you in your life and business. What this means is “What qualities are you going to look for in someone or something that will add to your life?”.


2. PRACTICE​-. This allows you to focus your attention on those areas you are good in and gives you time and space (if you’re willing) to explore them in more depth, to accentuate the positive.

Again, if we don’t have the knowledge of ourselves, and the practice of being who we are, we cannot function to the best of our abilities.


So now is the time to start saying hello to your inabilities and weakness and see how they can contribute to your life.


What have you decided is a weakness to eliminate that if you would embrace it instead would become a strength or contribute to your strength?



Kass Thomas







#kassthomas #7steps #createanewreality #life #change #choice #empoweringpeople  #communication #betterlife #newreality #beyourself

Become the Best Communicator You can Be


As human beings, one of the more advantageous abilities we have is the ability to communicate. Other species also have their own unique ways to communicate though, that are effective in their own right.
In many ways, humans have an upper hand, but in other ways we succumb to pressures that distort our message, and what we want to communicate.
The determination to always be ‘right’, greed, pride and other unproductive motivations do more harm than good in the long run. These elements contribute to a lesser standard of communication which leads to the opposite of what we desire from communication, and creates confusion.
It is helpful to think about where we want to reach through communication and backtrack from there.
What is the desired result of communication?
I would say it is clarity, end result, and in an ideal situation, equal satisfaction for all parties that are affected by communication.
There are multiple things that we communicate:
1. Opinions/Thoughts
2. Feelings
3. Facts
Keep in mind, the first two could be our own opinions and feelings or others’ opinions and feelings. These two communication topics are also subjective, and differ from person to person.
Now, the question: How Can You Become the Best Communicator You Can Be?
Communication is a skill that has become highly desired not just in personal matters, but also in businesses. A good communicator can be the difference needed to achieve personal and business goals.
Here are a few ways I check myself, and my communication:
1.  LISTEN first, and TALK later
If ever you are in a discussion with someone, make sure that the tone of the discussion tips more towards ‘conversation’ than towards ‘argument’ in the communication scale.
When we listen to the other parties first, we have a better chance in understanding where they are coming from. Everyone thinks they are right, because they are the only people that understand the perspective that makes them think they are right.
For example, A is a vegetarian. A wants a pineapple pizza and B wants pizza with ham. If B listens to WHY A wants to order a pineapple pizza (because A cannot consume ham) B might be in a better place to understand where A is coming from.
So LISTEN and understand the reason why anyone’s thought differs from yours.
2.      Talk CLEARLY and SLOWLY
One of the simplest ways to become an excellent communicator and make sure that people actually listen to you: Talk slower.
A major reason why most of us rush through our words, is because we are afraid to take up too much time. We are afraid someone will cut us off, or not want to hear us. This is a misconception, because people WILL listen to you as long as you say things they can relate to. So first, check your content according to your audience. If it is good to go, take your own sweet time, with some pauses in between and be at ease when you talk.
3.      Don’t HEAR to answer, LISTEN to others
A lot of us ALWAYS have an answer ready. We approach conversations like a debate, and have already imagined every possible answer and response. We create a structure to the conversation, without even listening to what the other person says. This is driven by the need to always prove ourselves “right”. But think about it, what is right?
Right is what we perceive it to be. It can change if we hear something valuable by another, and that information can make our perception of right better than ever.
4.      EMPATHISE and NEVER BELITTLE
We also have a tendency to look down upon people when we have a discussion.
“How do you not know that!”
“Were you living under a rock?”
And the worst one-
“Told you so!”
When did communication become a weapon? A tool used to prove that we are better?
Instead of viewing it in that way, if you feel that the discussion is tilting your way, EDUCATE, don’t CONDESCEND.
The power to give knowledge is higher than anything else, and we must remember that everyone knows something that you don’t. You have a better chance of receiving from them if you give to them generously.



Kass Thomas



#kassthomas #7steps #createanewreality #life #change #choice #empoweringpeople  #communication #betterlife #newreality #success

What is Your Relationship With Your Body?


All of us are a combination of different elements. These elements join, separate, interact and react to each other to construct the totality of who we are.The elements are made up of more elements and so on. For example, our personalities include our skills, feelings and reactions.

Different parts of ‘YOU’ or ‘ME’ may include our personalities, experiences and our bodies. 
In this blog, let’s talk about ‘BODIES’, and three things about it, namely, our awareness, acceptance and appreciation of our bodies.

Your body is the best indicator of how you are feeling. Your body is the outlet your mind uses to express itself. Bodies give us signs. These are signs can be of joy, of sadness and anger, of anxiety or excitement. If we listen to our bodies, we know how we feel. When we know how we feel about things, we are able to act in the manner to do things that result in happiness and excitement, and avoid things that result in sadness and anger.


Awareness

How aware are you of your body?
I don’t mean just in terms of theory, but also in terms of feel. 
We know how many hands we have, but do we know where our hands are comfortable being placed when we are sitting? When we are sleeping or walking?

We have two legs, but how do those legs move when you run? Do they twitch when you are nervous?

When you realize a strong emotion manifesting in you, make it a point to stop and listen to your body. How is it reacting, how is it behaving?
For example, when you are nervous, does your heart beat faster? Do you start shaking your knee?

You can also track backwards from your body movements. If you suddenly notice your hand is shaking abnormally, stop and think about where your mind is at that moment. What are you thinking about, what thought is running through your mind, and then into your body and out?


Acceptance 
Do you accept your body?

Do you accept each and every part of you, from your mind to your feet? Or do you avoid thinking about it? And on the other end of the spectrum, are you in denial about your body?

Body image is a topic that has been prominent throughout history, exists in the present, and will continue to be a part of our lives in the future. It has to do with your view about your body, and what you think constructs a ‘perfect’ body, and finally, the difference between the two. 
We need to accept our body, as it is a part of us. The most important thing when you look at it should not be, ‘Does it adhere to the standards of beauty in society today?’. The correct question to ask yourself is- ‘Is my body healthy? Is it happy?’

Societal standards for beauty and physicality have become an amalgamation of manipulation and facade. We need to ask ourselves- What is Beautiful?
In my opinion, difference and diversity is beautiful, health is beautiful and joy is beautiful!

Spend some time with your body, listen to it, and check if it is healthy and happy. If it is, do not torture it, and let it remain happy, and let yourself be included in its joy.

Appreciation

Finally, do you love your body?

Your body lets you do so many things. It is the monitor to the CPU that is your mind! It is the facilitator of your thoughts and dreams. It certainly loves you, but do you love it?

Acknowledge your unique beauty, and acknowledge what makes you different. Because what makes you different is what makes you, YOU.

When we accept and love our bodies, there is an immediate ‘click’ that we feel inside. Like the sound a key makes when it hits the right spot in the key hole, you feel like you have opened yourself up to a host of new possibilities and opportunities. If you love your body, it will give you so much in return.

So there it is! Connect, interact and listen to your body. Let it flow naturally and understand what it needs, and what it can give to you!


Kass Thomas






#kassthomas #7steps #createanewreality #life #change #choice #empoweringpeople  #communication #betterlife #newreality #body