This video is designed to encourage you and your unconscious mind to organize the pieces you have to create what you can envision regarding your life and your goals. Watch and listen, perhaps more than once, and you may notice shifts inside that will bring you closer to the good things that you can imagine.
The following video is the first in a planned series of Enrichment Meditations. Marmot Reflections is a meditation to help you relax and reflect by taking your senses and your imagination somewhere new. The star is a marmot in its habitat high in the Rocky Mountains on a windy summer day. This show combines images, video, generative suggestions, and beautiful music to encourage discovery and well-being. I don’t know what you might learn by entering the marmot’s world for a few minutes; so just watch, listen, experience, and enjoy!
By: Rich Liotta
Our senses are our connection to the world. They are the sum and substance of all individual and shared experience. They are necessary to our survival and effectiveness. They are also tools to be utilized to enhance our appreciation of all that surrounds us! 
One of the necessary steps to abundance is appreciation (see my previous article). Part of how we appreciate our experience is by paying attention to our sensory experience. Sensory experience can be visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or feelings, touch, taste, and smell. Are you fully using the gifts that you have in order to experience appreciation? Appreciate what is beautiful and what is appealing or interesting. What stimulates your mind to go in different directions? People have the capacity, which is not always helpful, to primarily live in their heads, live in the realm of words, live in the realm of concepts. While this may be gratifying at times because of their connections to experience it not the fundamental experience. Appreciation is not just thought, appreciation is perception.
Perception, through our senses, is important to differentiate from thought and language. Language is separate from our experience to one degree or another. Language is an abstraction. Language and thought are about what we perceive, sense, and experience. It is about understanding and communicating experience; it is not the experience. Language and thought are wonderful skills, to find meaning, draw conclusions, and to navigate our experience. Indeed it is another aspect of how we can appreciate, through the meanings we make; but that’s a topic for another time.
Because many of us are so in our heads, the value of perceiving all that our senses can offer is diminished. We need to notice things to appreciate them! This is sometimes easier said than done. We register consciously only a small percentage of what we perceive. We learn to filter; we learn what is important and tend to disregard the rest. To build appreciation it is critical to adjust our filters so we perceive more, what makes us feel good, and not just what we need to know to survive! You can limit yourself by what we expect, so look and listen for the unexpected. Look with new eyes, hear with openness, and consider the possibility that there is something here that you do not expect. You will be surprised how often things are not quite how you anticipated them to be! Definitely something worth appreciating!
Celebrate your senses. Celebrate the wealth all you can see, hear, and feel offers you everyday of your life. If you perceive beauty the appreciation will come. I invite you to consider all you can appreciate. When have you appreciated the subtle changes in a loved one’s facial expressions? When was the last time a piece of art or a landscape filled your heart with warmth? Remember when you heard that song and it stirred something in your soul? Is it the sound of rain, the wind, waves lapping on the shore, or something else that inspires you? Do you notice how your emotions feel in your body? When you are happy, enthusiastic, sad or joyful how does your body express the feeling? Do you appreciate about the experience of your body in motion as you walk, stretch, or participate in sports? Can you allow yourself to enjoy the feeling of petting your dog, the feel of a comforter or a well washed towel, or the touch of a lover or a friend? What feelings of touch nurture you? Can you let yourself really appreciate the taste of chocolate, your favorite meal, or the smell of pine needles or your favorite perfume? We are bodies in the world and our bodies are the portals for experiencing the world. Utilize it, enjoy it, cherish and appreciate all that is there for you.
In all likelihood reading the last paragraph triggered a variety of memories of the beauty of sensory experiences have had or can imagine. This illustrates another point, our sensory experiences are not just out there, they are inside of you. Because of how our minds work imagining sights, sounds, and feelings is often as powerful as being there. This ability opens the door to all kinds of possibilities to change our state and improve our lives. For instance visualizing feeling good and imagining the sensation of feeling good is infinitely more effective than just repeating to yourself, “I feel good, I feel good, really, I feel good…” Perceiving the outside world and your inner experiences with sensitivity and appreciation opens the door and invites abundance into your life.
Practice appreciating variation, beauty, novelty, color, pattern, rhythm, tone, sensations, flavors, scents, and feelings that your world offers you. Appreciation is opening up your perceptions. We have at least five senses and some would argue we have more than that. Noticing any sensory experience requires attention and awareness. What beauty can I see, hear, feel right now? What is the beauty in things that at first glance are not so beautiful? If something is not beautiful, what is it?-and is there something to appreciate anyway? Perception is a gift. Appreciation is an attitude and a way of being. Appreciation of our experience is a gateway to abundant living.
For myself, I appreciate all the ways that the people I encounter view their worlds, for better or worse. Each of us is an example of the unique and infinite variations that there are to be appreciated in the world. My love of art and photography are also my ways to remind myself of all there is in the world to appreciate. I love looking for the inner beauty, finding nature’s beauty, and seeing the details that others do not notice. That gives me a kick and it gives me a deep appreciation of experience and life. What does this for you?
By: Rich Liotta
Abundance is a hot topic these days. In one form or another it has always been around, though the way it is articulated changes. Justifiably so, plenty, prosperity, and a life full of good things is something we all want. We all want to manifest abundance in our personal worlds. Abundance is as much an attitude as it is something objectively identifiable. It is a feeling, a sense, a comfortableness with who we are and what we have. Paradoxically the sense of abundance often precedes getting the things we want. Abundance eludes the desperate and dissatisfied. Abundance is something you set the conditions for so you can welcome it when it arrives. Like a traveler it will find somewhere to go and the houses with a light on are more likely to be visited.
There are many paths to abundance and you have to find your own. Many ideas are out there to help, but watch out for grand promises and hype disguised as truth. In my experience working with people seeking change and a better life I have seen how they succeeded and how they failed. I am convinced that there are four practices necessary to manifest abundance in your life; reflection, appreciation, creation, and action. 
1-REFLECTION:
Reflection is underrated these days; our society seems anti reflection and introspection. We are always moving so fast being distracted, multitasking to the point of obliviousness to what matters. Instead of taking quiet time to ponder many fill their heads with anything they can to avoid the solitude of reflection and relevant thought. To me reflection is attending to my thoughts with generative intent, curiosity and wonder. Reflection at its best is open awareness with an expansive scope, rather than a limited range. It is letting thoughts come to mind lightly, considering useful ideas, and letting the others pass on through. What is valuable are the meanings I find, feel, see, and create. The attitudes of reflection are acceptance and anticipation. Knowing what I seek is within me somewhere to be discovered! Reflection is not ripping myself to shreds or depleting my energy by focusing on self criticism, regret, or doubt, let those pass on by.
All possibilities, ideas, plans, ambitions, and heartfelt motivation arise out of reflection; even if it just occurs unconsciously. What I advocate is conscious reflection, which will also naturally encourage the unconscious to keep working. It is power of both that leads to answers, solutions and revelation.
All too often we reflect on ourselves and our life only in times of crisis. When we realize something is not working in our life, such as when we lose a job or a relationship and wonder what’s next. It also happens when confronted with our mortality, such as during a medical crisis or even on our birthday. Reflection at those times can be amazingly productive and life changing once it evolves through panic and despair and toward acceptance and choices about what to do next.
But why wait to reflect? Considering where you are, where you’ve been, where you’re going, what you want, and who you are is valuable and necessary on the path to achieving abundance. Abundance is the product of personal growth; it is not something you’ll find on the shelf at your local supermarket!
2-APPRECIATION:
It often seems that we have to appreciate what we have before the universe offers more. Appreciation germinates a sense of abundance. Once you have let go of enough of the emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that have held you back; true appreciation can be yours. When you have come this far, you will have a greater sense of abundance than most people will ever achieve. What abundance has the universe offered you already? You have abundance when you have sense of gratitude for yourself as you are, including your gifts, your experiences, your wisdom, your hopes, and the struggles you have endured. Appreciation for what is creates the foundation upon which the house of your goals and desires is built.
There are least two very different parts to appreciation. First it just means acknowledging honestly what is right now. Reflection will help bring you here. Appreciation does not mean you have to be satisfied or happy about all that is now. It just means accepting, just for this moment, that this is how it is for better or worse. The second part of appreciation is noticing what is good in your life, what you have to be grateful for. It is appreciating the uniqueness of you and your experience in the world. It is also looking outside yourself and noticing beauty and patterns of interconnectedness. Like a child seeing everything with new and hungry eyes and feeling “It’s cool to be here in this amazing world.”
3-CREATION:
Reflection and appreciation free you. They allow your energy to thrive and your imagination to wonder. Each of us is evolving, growing, changing, and seeking, unless we suppress the urge (also see this article). We are naturally creative. A product of reflection and appreciation is a desire to create something new-so create! The good things that might be in your future are creative potentials; your dreams, your desires. All great things start in your mind, heart, or soul; it starts with you as an idea, a notion, a possibility. Picture it, feel it, hear it, touch it, taste it! Create what you want in your imagination. This is very powerful. The representation you create can be a driving force. How will you paint on the canvas of your life to make things even better than all those things you can appreciate now? What is the melody of your song? What is the texture of your tomorrow?
4-ACTION:
Creation without action is just fantasy. It may feel good, but it doesn’t last. At its extreme it can be a stagnant delusion, like waiting for Santa Claus in August. He’s not coming! It never ceases to amaze me the wonderful dreams people have that they never pursue. Create in imagination then take action to create what you can imagine. Believing something will happen alone will not make it happen! This is the fatal flaw in the law of attraction as some describe it. I believe that the universe rewards those that act in the world; especially if your intentions are benevolent. It does not seek out the dreamers who just sit on the couch imagining all that they want. Manifesting abundance takes action. Translate what your mental creations into action. Make choices, make a plan, take risks, and do something to go after what you want. It is then that amazing things can happen!
Tying it all together:
There are no magic wands. But there are processes at work that we experience as magical because we don’t understand them! Open yourself to those possibilities by embracing the mental, emotional, and spiritual tasks achieving abundance requires. It is a process with plenty of rewards along the way.
You need to feel abundance before you will manifest abundantly. There are four conditions toward abundance. Reflection is the first step. The second step is appreciation; it is here that feeling an attitude of abundance starts changing your life. The third step is creation, letting your creative energies flow imagining vividly what you want to create. Fourth, take action, do something to make your fantasies real!
It is critical that you don’t complete a step and say “all done.” You need to revisit each step regularly. For instance, practice appreciation then reflect again. Practice creation, appreciate what you have created, and reflect again. Take action, reflect on the results, appreciate what occurred, create some more based on what you learned, and take more action. With practice this becomes automatic, as you are capitalizing on your natural tendency to grow and actualize.
So one more time even more concisely, Practice reflection, practice appreciation, practice creation, take action, and repeat; and let your intuition be your guide. With all those pieces dancing in dynamic harmony abundance will come. Realistically, perhaps not for everyone, but it is your best shot! Take it.
By: Rich Liotta
Each of us is a wave, a changing, evolving, person maneuvering through life. Who you are includes an array of possibilities, and therefore choice, of what you could pursue or become. Designing your journey, consistent with your gifts, is surprisingly difficult sometimes. Many of us are good at getting in our own way or letting others misdirect us. Do you suppress your natural potential for growth and actualization?
A seed is a flower or a tree in potential. With nourishment and space it will become a rose or oak; the seed’s possibility, the expression of its essence. People are similar on a fundamental level. A natural evolutionary drive has contributed to the you that you are! Whether by genetics or spirit, or both, each of us has a direction we are compelled to go; but only if we allow it. I believe that this direction is usually for the good, our part of a grander plan perhaps (or so I like to believe).
Despite the natural potential that you have, congruent with who you are, many have another talent that is not as helpful. They do not allow it. Instead they bind who they are, and who they can be, in a variety of ways. Like the seed without enough soil, water, or sunshine; many fail to grow well. For many this is because they feel trapped, afraid, insecure, or just don’t know their own capabilities. But unlike the seed, you can be aware, change paths, and seek out the nurturance you need to thrive.
“Know thyself” is not just a scholarly euphemism! Knowing who you are and the nature of your energy is extraordinarily helpful in choosing your goals and dreams, and in realizing your direction. Few insights are as valuable in discovering your natural passion. With all that aligned effectiveness happens, the pursuit can be more effortless, the obstacles more surmountable, and the challenges more exciting!
Like the wave, you are in motion-cherish the ride. Like the seed you have a potential to realize; discover what that is for you now. Passion arises naturally and inevitability from a combination of action, self-awareness, congruence, choice, water, and sunshine. In sum, I propose that: Passionate living is adeptly riding the wave of who you are!
By: Rich Liotta
Delicate moments are wonderful fleeting instances that occur every day of our lives, if we notice them. The linguistic roots of the word “moment” come from the Latin “momentum,” which roughly means moving with power. This says something about moments, they occur in the context of our movement through time. They are snap shots in the ongoing course of events. They are only defined by the attention we direct toward them. Without perceiving moments they simply become part of the blur as we move on and on…
The moments of our lives are delicate by their very nature. All moments are delicate in that they are fleeting; quickly dissolving as a new Now emerges. But many moments are also delicate in the sense that they contain fine and subtle beauty if we choose to see, feel, or hear it. Even the most precious moments pass. Thankfully some of these delicate moments leave traces behind, a feeling, a memory, a knowing that enriches who we are. Though these moments are delicate, they are the substance of our lives.
To me part of enjoying and cherishing life is to notice the delicate moments that occur every day. Choosing to see the beauty, choosing to feel appreciation, choosing to feel connected, and choosing to feel gratitude-even if only for a delicate moment. There are details and subtleties in your life right now that are worthy of your attention. Some of these are deeply personal. The delicate moments we value are our own. Allow yourself, invite yourself, to notice.
I nurture these moments when feel as I do things; rather than just doing automatically. For instance I notice the delicate moments when I feel love as I kiss my wife on the forehead or when I feel joy at my dog’s happiness when I play with her. I also savor the moments I feel the satisfaction of completing a task and notice progress toward my goals. One of my passions
is capturing moments in nature by photographing moments of glorious beauty. The picture with this post was one such moment, delicate and fleeting, the seed parachute stuck on the flower blew away a few seconds are I clicked the shutter. Being able to do things and move forward automatically is useful sometimes, but there is a lot we don’t notice in that mode. Mindfully noticing and feeling delicate moments has rewards.
Your moments are your own, cherish and appreciate them. Allow the attitude of choosing to see, slowing down the momentum, and quieting inner voices, so you can feel and perceive the delicate moments. Delicate moments are wonderful fleeting instances that occur every day of our lives, but they only exist if we notice them. Notice them and you will feel better for sure.
Everything we do is goal directed, whether we are pursuing success, accomplishment, satisfaction, service, love, acceptance, or simply comfort and the absence of pain. Goals are always with us, whether consciously acknowledged or not. We seek them, achieve them, fail at them, savor victory, suffer disappointment, or retool to pursue a new choice. We each have a relationship with, or a way of relating to, our goals. Indeed our relationship to any particular goal we have may be different at different times. Some of the possible dynamics of our relationship with our goals will be explored here. Sometimes we run… is a metaphor that illustrates some of the ways we relate to our goals. What is your relationship like with your goals?
Sometimes we run away…
This is typically true when your goal is avoidance of pain, failure, or discomfort. Scurrying away from danger, real or imagined, is like chipmunks fleeing from the birdfeeder when the cat walks through the yard. Running away is certainly necessary sometimes, but when it is because of fear and anxiety the best you can expect to achieve is safety and comfort. At its extreme the only goal here is avoidance without hopes for the future to embrace. Most aspire for more than that, but many live in run away mode.
There is another run away mode. You know you want something, but you run away as you get close or when you make progress. This is most frustrating because you feel like you have two minds, one that approaches and one that is afraid or uncertain. In a way this is true, we often have two minds. Competing goals are a major challenge to change and growth. For instance, when you go for something your life inevitably changes and your comfort zone is disrupted. Your goal for comfort or safety may feel threatened; so you run away to the familiar. This pattern can be unconscious and messed up if another part of you really wants something! Being aware of this, knowing yourself, can help you choose and not just behave automatically. Consider why you run away sometimes.
Sometimes we run toward our goals…
This is the other side of the equation. To achieve, accomplish, or change you need to be running toward something! You may run toward your goals with determination, though you may have fear and doubt, you’re going for it anyway. You find the resources within to proceed with uncertainty. You find the courage and strength to not run away-back into your old shell. You are not behaving automatically, at least not yet, but consciously and with resolve. There are many ways to run toward your goals and the effort will pay off.
The magic comes when you run toward effortlessly. It can happen. Believe it! This may be with eagerness and fervor, doing everything you can to close that gap between where you are now and your goal. Perhaps for you the goal is always in sight, it is a part of you, and calls to you like a soul mate you are destined to meet. Or you may run with cool confidence and a steady stride conscious of challenges, believing that success is ahead!
Yes, sometimes we run…
Running away and running toward are the most basic types of relationships we have with our goals. How you relate to your goals determines, to a large extent, whether you will achieve them or not. There are more dynamics of our relationship with our goals that will be addressed is posts coming soon. Next time one of the most powerful and compelling ways to run will be presented.
By: Rich Liotta, Ph.D.
I believe that most people know more than they acknowledge or utilize
effectively in living their lives. This latent wisdom has been alluded to, partially, by various notions including “trust your gut” and “pay attention to your intuition.” It also appears in those moments when you just automatically respond to a situation successfully and later wonder, “How did I do that?” The fact is we often hide our latent wisdom from ourselves. We do not use the resources, skills, talents, and good judgment that we have learned in living our lives. We ignore our latent wisdom.
For example, if someone feels that they lack self-confidence they are most likely not tapping the knowledge they have inside most productively. Most people have had experiences where they behaved confidently, whether they acknowledged this to themselves or not. In this case the latent wisdom may be hidden in your experience. The first step is to discover memories of times where you behaved with confidence, certainty, and resolve (even if only briefly). Most people with low self-confidence can find such instances inside; and these examples must be acknowledged and recognized as the examples they are if they are to facilitate living more effectively now.
Our latent wisdom can be obscured by many things. Sometimes we focus on the counter-examples, those times when we did not behave confidently. So how we sort the data we have about ourselves is critical. Even the most confident people do not always behave confidently! Sometimes how we define or categorize our behavior to ourselves clouds the learning we could have taken from what we did, thought, or felt. We are left with a self-description, such as “I am not a confident person,” and forget the details of what we actually did. There are often lessens to be learned by remembering the details and considering other, kinder, interpretations. Often the conclusions we made about ourselves long ago are no longer valid; reexamine your assumptions and latent wisdom can emerge.
Latent wisdom is also often not noticed because people do not trust themselves, their perceptions, and their feelings. They may know but actively try to squelch the feeling. I have often seen this in people who rationalize being in a bad relationship. The failure to see the obvious, to miss the signs, and the failure to notice “the writing on the wall” often occurs in painful relationships. Here the latent wisdom that the other person will not change, for example, is hidden by our wish that things will change or that they will return to how they once seemed to be. Tenaciously holding onto to what we wish could be can distort reality and bury the wisdom within! The lies we tell ourselves, while well intended, mute the voice of reason and perspective. Look beyond that, hear your wise mind, and feel what you know and your latent wisdom can emerge.
Latent wisdom has many forms. It is usually expressed to consciousness by both a feeling and clarity of thought, though this may not be the only form it can take. Look for it inside yourself. Consider the fact that it is within you as you meditate, reflect, and discuss things with those close to you. Examine yourself from different perspectives. Consider whether your beliefs about yourself serve you. Consider what your feelings tell you and which passing thoughts may be worthy of attention. Shake the foundation, just a little, and be not surprised when latent wisdom reveals itself and becomes manifest wisdom.
By: Rich Liotta; Musings #2
Hope is the staircase upward to better and brighter times. It exists somewhere up there in the possibilities you can envision, with clarity perhaps or perhaps simply as an ill-defined beacon calling to you from out there.
Despair, on the other hand, is a spiral downward into darkness separating you from hope with every twist and turn.
Doubt is a precarious place, like a ledge in the limbo between the spiral and the stairs. To your left it takes you to the edge, overlooking the blackness, immobilized, still, scared, and silent. To your right doubt obscures the shimmering glow and energetic melodies of possibility.
Inherent in doubt are choices to be made. Feed it and it gets heavier till the burden becomes perpetual limbo or slips into despair. Or you can choose to move, to challenge it, and know that it does not serve you. Do that and hope will reveal itself like a wizard -dispelling doubt and despair and pointing the way.
So stand tall, look up, focus on the lights and songs of possibilities up there and in front of you, and take the stairs!
Enrichments Series, #2: Change Takes Self-Discipline!
By: Rich Liotta
Despite all the promises of ‘easy answers’ out there these days; self-improvement, personal growth, and changing behavior takes self-discipline.
In the picture Mia, our English Springer Spaniel, was given a sit-stay command so that I could take a picture of her in front of the daffodils. This was really not what she wanted to do. She wanted to play with her tennis ball, sniff the yard for furry visitors, chase birds, and romp. She also wanted to please me, I like to believe, or least get the chewy reward for a job well done. The effort she was exerting to sit and stay in the face of distractions and the desire to explore and play must have been enormous.
Just look at her face. Her determination and resolve are reflected in her
expression! I can only guess what she was thinking. Perhaps: “I will sit and stay, I can do it, I can, really.” “I did this in doggie class, it’s like that, I can do it here.” “I want that chewy if I do it just a little longer I’ll get it, I will.” “Don’t look at the birds, look at the camera, I can ignore the birds just a little longer, I persevere.” “I’m good and I’ll prove it! I have the power.” “If I do this maybe he’ll put the damn camera down and play!!” It is impossible to know for sure her strategy for success. But she succeeded, strutted pridefully to me and received a liver snap, a hug, and we played fetch again.
It occurs to me that self-discipline is like Mia’s sit-stay. What we want to do may be more involved, but perhaps not so much. A simple clear message to yourself is the start, such as “I will do it-now.” Make it an unequivocal, certain, statement of intention that you understand. If you can, conceive of your goal as congruent with your higher values or purpose. Know it can be accomplished. Know you are capable, remembering all the challenges you have overcome to get here in your life so far. Visualize a clear image of the outcome you are striving for, see it, taste it, feel the anticipatory satisfaction to your core. Appreciate that there will be time to play later after you complete this step toward your goal now. Self discipline takes effort, but it doesn’t have to be that hard with clarity of focus and the strength of resolve. If Mia can do it, so can you!
