The Importance of Tools: Notice Your Needs & Build Your Dream Life
by Cassendre Xavier
I was thinking the other day about my Blackberry phone and how when I had it hooked up to the internet, I was able to email so much more conveniently and often, from bed. This allowed me to find good paying work from the comfort of a reclining position at all hours of the day and night.
I don’t have this feature now, no mobile internet, and only job search using a large and heavy laptop I can’t even use easily in bed.
I realized this when, two weeks after having purchased my first Kindle ebooks and being extremely eager to read them, I hadn’t done so at all. I, the very avid reader and book collector and major fan of the authors whose books I’d purchased, I hadn’t begun reading the books. I hadn’t begun to enjoy or make use of my purchases!
I realized this all had to do with the format of the tools I was using. If I were still using my Blackberry or other similar or different easy to hold instrument, I’d be much more content, productive, and financially comfortable.
This issue of tools goes beyond how one reads or works or email corresponds, but also how one is supported in their day to day lifestyle of eating, exercise, meditation and so forth.
For instance, I now live in a household wherein it is very difficult for me to stay on point with my raw vegan diet and lifestyle. It is a very strong culture of habit here to eat in ways that counteract and conflict with my ideas of what’s needed for health, wellbeing, and the prevention of dis-ease.
I often recall how I used to eat and exercise when I lived in a raw vegan/friendly household. Then, I was getting healthier and losing weight and feeling fantastic about myself and my dating life, which was excellent. I was and felt beautiful on many levels, spiritually and physically, internally and externally, to myself and to others who were compatible and peers with me, whose opinions I valued, and whom I sought to learn from, share mutual support, and be inspired by.
No, I live with people I love and whom I appreciate so much for their kindness, patience, and generosity, and I have much respect for them. However, I am also eating unhealthy food, I have gained weight to the point where I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been, and all my efforts to exercise or eat better seem to take so much energy for me to keep up. It feels like walking through water or going against the grain.
This has grown into my attracting and becoming involved with people who also aren’t being healthy.
I was spending time with a companion who ate very late at night, lying down in bed.
I realized that where I live and with whom I live has a very significant and powerful impact and role in the life I am able to create for myself.
Here is what I’ve learned so far:
You need tools to build your ideal life. Some of these tools are objects, like phones or computers or other tools of your particular trade or occupation, or however following your bliss looks to you in life, work, love, family, etc.
Here are some questions to consider as you start finding and providing for yourself the tools you’ll need to build the life of your dreams, or improve your already dreamy life!
What do you need to be able to do the things you need to do?
What kind of equipment (computer, different kind of musical or artistic instrument, recording or electronic equipment, etc., online support and accounts like Reverb Nation and Sonicbids for musicians or Etsy for craftspersuns and visual artists, etc.) will get that done?
What will make everything you need to do much easier to accomplish?
What are some activities you have long wanted to enjoy (exercise, sport, play, hobbies, new profession, occupation, community service, etc.) but haven’t.yet?
Why haven’t you done those things?
Could there be some physical objects, circumstances, or other tools keeping you from doing these things?
What are they?
Once you’ve determined what they are, you can start the process of acquiring, attracting, or manifesting them.
Your home and work environment are also “tools” that you need to have match your needs and be the best choices to provide the support you’ll need to build a better life.
What kind of home life makes you happiest?
Are you happiest living alone or with others? With friends, lover(s), family, co-parents, etc.?
Do you want or need to share food or have dinner together?
Do you want to live with people you can go exercising or playing sports with outside or do yoga or other indoor workouts together?
Do you want to live in an intentional community or household?
Would you be willing to relocate?
What kind of work environment do you want?
Do you want to have plants in your office or studio?
Do you want to have regular meetings with your co-workers, employer(s), employee(s), staff, band mates, editor, publisher, director, acting coach, etc.?
In short, figure out what you need in order to build your dream life.
You cannot serve two masters. You cannot live with meat eaters and expect to life a high raw or vegetarian/vegan lifestyle.
Even if you prefer to live alone, you will still need to set up for yourself a home, work, and community environment where you can have regular access to the food, equipment, and activities that serve your highest good.
May you find all the tools you need to enjoy your life.
Do not settle for or be inconvenience by the clunky laptop which keeps you from reading your favorite books or the unhealthy food that threatens your health and wellbeing.
We need you at your best and you deserve it the most, but you can’t do it without the right tools!
Best wishes to you!
A lifelong student of spirituality, Cassendre Xavier (aka Amethyste Rah, aka Amrita Waterfalls) has been working in the creative and healing multi-media arts since 1991. The founder and director of the Black Women’s Arts Festival (Est. 2003) and the Women’s Writing & Spoken Word Series (Est. 2002), she independently released 6 full-length recordings of original music described as “a cross between Tracy Chapman, Sade and Enya” (Steven M. Wilson, Borders Books). Her writing has been published nationally in various anthologies and periodicals including “When Falls the Coliseum: a Journal of American Culture or Lack Thereof” (ed. Stein/Free Reign Press) and she is the author of many books including “Expanding Your Capacity for Joy: A Raw Vegan Comfort Book, Sourcebook & Journal (ARtivist Publications). Cassendre received a $15,000 Leeway Transformation for her "work in art and social change." She is a Reiki and angel healer, and an ordained priestess of the creative and healing arts (September 19, 2010 Universal Life Church of Modesto California). Check out her 6 CDs at CD Baby: http://cdbaby.com/all/cassendre , 2 CDs on iTunes: http://tinyurl.com/CXiTunes, FREE! Guided Meditations by Amethyste Rah: http://tinyurl.com/CXMeditations, FREE! Wisdom Magazine articles: http://tinyurl.com/CXWisdom, FREE! Official YouTube Channel (with over 300 videos of music, spirituality, raw vegan food prep, poetry, humor, and product reviews): http://tinyurl.com/CXYouTube, Facebook: http://facebook.com/cassendrexavier,
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cassendrexavier.
.
Add Comment