Beyond Brushstrokes
By Maria Victoria Rufino
Some individuals appear to breeze through life effortlessly. Things seem to fall into place at the right time. Observers would say that they have a charmed life.
The insightful person sees challenges and opportunities — instead of problems and obstacles. His perception is keen and he is able to turn difficult situations around.
On another level, he is able to feel a sense of peace and balance.
Here are some sensible and spiritual concepts that are keys to a charmed life.
1) Assess your life. Eliminate what is not useful. Dream. Author Victoria Moran remarked, “Live splendidly.”
2) Resolve the conflict between heart and intellect. Society demands that we should be guided by logic. However, our instincts tell us to follow our hearts. The heart has an agenda of its own.
3) Shine. Allow other people to shine. Share the limelight. Remember that “shine” time is cyclical.
4) Give up the “mountain.” Get rid of the issues, psychological blocks and fears that compromise the mountain and burdens in our lives.
5) Be discreet, Practice the art of restraint. Protect and conserve your power, “Become the sun” and be less the satellite.
6) Change with the seasons. Be in harmony with nature and flow with the current. Live each day to the fullest.
7) Learn the essence of selective complication. Eliminate possessions and things that rob you of energy. This concept also applies to people who drain you of emotional and material resources.
8) Follow the universal laws of life. Aldous Huxley refers to the laws in his book, Perennial Philosophy. They comprise the ageless wisdom that is part of every culture.
9) The law of Karma. “What you do comes back to you.”
“No action is lost.” Nothing that we do is insignificant. A small act could have a ripple effect.
“Few events are random.”
“Thoughts create circumstances.” Our thoughts lay the foundation for the future.
“Hate destroys the one who has it…. Righteous indignation can be hostility parading as virtue.” The Italian poet Dante Alighieri referred to hate as “the first level of hell.”
We are all connected. The law of connectivity means that we are important parts of a greater organism — the universe. Men are linked to one another, to life and nature. What we do affects the whole.
Francis Thompson wrote, “Thou canst disturb a flower without troubling a star.”
Happiness comes from within. We cannot seek happiness and completion from someone else. Outer circumstances cannot make us happy.
Love is an act of the will. Not the emotion.
10) Acknowledge and be grateful for blessings.
11) Cooperate with benevolence. Look for the good in yourself and around you.
12) Seek balance between home and work, family and friends. Interior pursuits are as important as exterior endeavors.
13) Be true to yourself.
14) Grow through the hard times. During periods of reversal of fortune, financial depression, or personal crisis, think of life as cycle. Difficulties are transient, not permanent. Life has rhythmic cyclic patterns. Seek support from others and take action to survive the change.
15) Build soul equity. The soul is the inner, animating essence. It needs trials and tedium in order to grow. One should learn, grow expand the capacity to know and experience life. One should remember the lessons and apply that knowledge to future situations.
16) Trust your instincts.
17) Accept things as they are. Happiness can be classified into two:
Getting what you want. Wanting what you get.
A charmed life unfolds slowly.
It is the result of making changes in one’s ways of seeing, doing, accepting and appreciating things. It means making wise choices for improvement in one’s environment.
Maria Victoria Rufino is an artist, writer and businesswoman. She is president and executive producer of Maverick Productions.
