And if you're not an expert, maybe you'd like to take a free or low-cost online course in something you're just interested in or to get certification or just to learn something new.
I read the most inspiring article in Women'sMemoirs about free and low-cost memoir writing classes. I am interested in that as I am in any kind of writing, but when I was checking out Universal Classes my world shifted. There are every kind of class you can think of from Home Business and Feng Shui to Become A Private Investigator and Energy Healing. Click on that link in the article and you will see that most run between $55 and $75 maximum. Of course, there's books to buy too.
Okay, in case you want totally free or lower cost courses here's some options:
Poynter News University is a mixed bag. Some courses are absolutely free, and some are expensive. You have to look carefully through the "self-directed" courses. Some of these are free, and you can enroll anytime and complete them at your own speed.
From Wikiversity is this link for online courses by subject.
Another from Wikiversity offers free classes at Hippo Campus. Classes are for self-improvement and not for certification or any kind of credit.
Elearners is a directory of 6,270 online college courses and training. Prices vary.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is one of over 200 open source free universities. Here is a listing of their online courses.
Many online choices at WorldWideLearn.
And there's more you can Google.
Writers, if your niche is writing about business, take more business classes, current ones. If it's health, why not take some alternative health or Reiki courses?
For all of you, it's a great time to increase your worldview and knowledge. We are learners all of our lives if we live right. Never let your curiousity wither.
And you don't even have to bring your lunch bucket.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
YES, WE ARE EVOLVING.
And we've got to get back to the garden. Tell someone you love them today, and have it not be someone who you've said it to before or whom you feel romantic feelings towards. How about the postal carrier who comes rain, snow, sleet or shine? Or the patient waitstaff person who brings your coffee with a smile each morning whether you are gruff with her or not? Give her a hug too while you're at it. People, lonely people, people who are alone in this world, go to the doctor just to be touched. That's not only sad, but when you think of how many loving people are in the world it is so shameful and senseless. Do something to change your world where you are standing today.
Why not put that boring old job you hate like the devil himself out of your life and break free today? You never thought it was your soul's mission or your true mission in life did you? Don't you have better things to do with your time?
We must be willing to make the changes necessary to follow our highest path--the one that brings us joy and uses our God-given talents and gifts. Today is the day to wake up to your destiny, even if it means giving up the corner office and the dental insurance. They don't really bring you bliss now do they?
What are you passionate about? What have you remained passionate about for most of your life? Follow that star. The sales team will manage without you. The store will stay open when you're gone. People will still pay tolls long after you leave that booth.
Sure you've got medical bills, credit card debt, debt from a period of unemployment or disability, a high mortgage, kids to put through college, and a car that needs replacing now. Commit. Stay open. Watch for signs and synchronicities. Coincidences are just miracles that God doesn't sign her name to.
Once we make the decision to fulfill our soul's mission on earth over all else doors open and opportunities present themselves. Go with the flow. Things fall in place and have a way of working out better than you could have ever imagined. No one is saying you will win the state lottery, but you may discover that you really can start a home business around some skill or talent that you think of as only a hobby. Many have found success doing so.
You will never be alone in your quest. Before you were born you chose the people and circumstances that waited for you here on earth to help you find your way to fulfill your purpose. You have spirit guides as well. Spiritual teachers, mentors and guides made up of departed loved ones, angels and other caring souls gather around a soul on a mission. Help will come from the spiritual dimension and you will recognize it.
But you must ask for this support. When you do ask, expect the most amazing "coincidences" to start happening. You will happen to sit next to somebody on a train or a plane who has a business selling exactly what it is you are doing in your basement as a hobby and is interested to see your work. You might pick up a book at exactly the right time in your journey that guides you to your next destination. There are many guides and signals along the path with a heart. Just be willing to be humble and to ask for help.
Pray and meditate. Don't let fear trap you and make you its captive. Then you will second guess all your growth and progress and be tempted to run back and see if they still need drivers down at the truck company or sales clerks at the store. Don't let fear drive you back after you have taken a big step forward. Trust the universe. Trust your intuition. Trust your abilities. If you can't have self-confidence, have God-confidence. "Ask and it shall be given to you."
The Dalai Lama says our purpose in life is to live in joy. Of course there will be joy when we all live in love. "All you need is love," those wise lads sang to us and changed our lives.
When we settle for less than joy, less than excitement about getting up in the morning to see what the day has in store, we aren't loving ourselves. "Follow your bliss," Joseph Campbell advised "and doors will open."
You can live with integrity, be your authentic self and never have to play any games, and speak only with your true voice. You won't be society's nine-to-five robot any longer. You will be a free spirit. We are all meant to be free. We are all meant to be creative. Everyone is creative and has gifts if they accept them and open themselves up to them.
We unlearn creativity as we go through life. Most people don't believe they are creative. We have more inhibitions. We ask fewer questions. We make less assumptions. We don't play or explore.
When was the last time you went with a child to look at the clouds? Did you see monkeys juggling pineapples? Walruses playing trombones? Elephants riding bicycles and wearing tiny hats? Or did it just look like rain?
We are born creative beings. Being creative is our nature.
Creativity's worst enemy is fear.
The universe is creative.
Forget every criticism you ever received. No longer give any importance to thoughtless remarks made over the years by parents, teachers and other adults when you were young and vulnerable. You may have been told that you should sing only in the shower by someone who was just trying to show how clever they were. Perhaps you really can be a fantastic singer if you let yourself sing from the heart.
Choices that come from our truth feel good. That's how we can tell when we are being authentic. When we are just going along, trying not to make waves or not offend anyone, keeping a low profile and our opinions and beliefs to ourselves, we are play-acting and just faking it, not really making it (Simon & Garfunkle).
Practice letting go. Get yourself some fingerpaints for starters and pretend you're four and no one has ever told you about colors clashing, going out of the lines, or making a mess. Just go wild and experiment and have fun with it. It's an exercise in freeing the creativity you have bottled up inside you because you didn't believe it was there.
Be playful. Be childlike. Don't play by the rules. You still have a sense of wonder. Use it. Right now look up at any object in the room. Now gaze at it and feel a sense of wonder about it. Then after a few minutes switch to another object. Try doing it to your hand or arm. Go outside and wonder at a flower or a tree.
Laugh a lot. Tell yourself jokes that only you would get. Laugh like crazy.
Be passionate in all things: eating, making love, gardening, washing dishes. Do it with gusto and verve.
Be mindful. Ask during the day, "Is this what I'm supposed to be doing?" Then wait for a reply. You'll lose interest and energy if you're not supposed to be doing what you're doing. You'll get them renewed if you are.
If you really dislike being creative and living in bliss, there are steps you can take to stop them:
1. Become a perfectionist.
2. Sell out and make your creations more palatable to the general public.
3. Imitate others.
4. Compare yourself to others.
5. Become inauthentic.
6. Most important, listen to that inner critic.
We all have an inner critic. The trick is learning to ignore it. Imagine it as your seventh grade English teacher, the one who gave you low grades on all your papers for spelling and grammar despite the fact that you wrote your little heart out. Think of knocking her block right off, horn-rimmed glasses and bun and fake pearl necklace and all. See her sitting on the floor with her face red from embarrassment. Bet she won't criticize your spelling again on what should have been an A paper.
So give yourself a real chance at this life. Do what it is that you were meant to do and find bliss, fulfillment, peace and love. Begin today.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
ABOUT ME
I believe that the only thing that can save humans and the planets, including this one, oh this precious Earth and all that we have put her through, is to find compassion in our universal heart. That will bring the insanity to a close. . We will be "back to the garden", as Joni Mitchell used to sing for all of us and many of us believed her.
This is a blog not meant for five-sensory humans after today, September 14, 2010. Some of the posts on here from before that date are meant for multisensory humans too, and you'll be able to clearly tell which ones. Multisensory humans is not my original concept. It's from a book that did a great deal to influence the positive spiritual view I take today of human beings and their future on this planet. The book is Seat of The Soul, by Gary Zukav, and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to believe in the evolution of our species to keep from going mad.
This book gave me hope that lasted years. I began to notice that our species was becoming multisensory and not just limited to five senses. People were trusting their intuitions, synchronicities and visions over rational, logical thinking. They were also becoming more concerned about their fellow passengers on this journey. We are starting to live in a more loving universe. Here's what the book says it is about:
"This is a book about authentic empowerment--the alignment of the personality with the soul--what that involves, how it happens, and what it creates. To understand these things requires an understanding of things that appear unusual to the five-sensory human, but they become natural once you understand evolution--that five-sensory perception is a journey leading to multisensory perception--and that you are not always meant to be five-sensory." (p.32)
I write this blog in the hope that it will add to our evolution, add to universal love, add to the love in your life. I pray you find enjoyment, refreshment, new avenues to explore, wonders to contemplate, organizations and people to lend a hand to, help with your writing and publishing, direction and guidance with life choices and decisions. I will do my very best to have it live up to this strong endorsement. I hope to get some multisensory guest host bloggers too. Or maybe one of you would like to switch from reader to writer. Let me know at:
msrefusenik@gmail.com. Let me know in the comments what you were glad to see in here, and what you could have done without. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Me: I have been a freelance writer and researcher for many years. I have been a writer since I was old enough to write cursive it seems to me. It is my gift, and I know it was given to me as part of my soul's mission on this planet. I call this place "Planet Earth: Bootcamp for Souls." Doesn't it seem that you're always learning some new lessons the hard way? I figured out that whatever character weaknesses, ego problems, negative fear-based traits I was suffering from, sure enough I would find myself landed in a Bootcamp class designed to help me work on it.
I'll give you an idea of how it worked for me. I used to have an Irish-descent, red-haired, too much beer and too many drugs, tot through forty-something bad temper. I could not keep from going into rants, fits, rages, throwing frenzies, name-calling and even on one occasion trying to choke the life out of an ex. I was a pistol and I was due any day to be locked up in the nuthouse, prison, jail or the undertaker's parlor. I took on bikers, men three times my size, packs of pitbulls, the arresting officers and the judge about to sentence me.
Then I began to notice it was putting me in a lot of shame, embarrassment and pain. I didn't feel good about me. I prayed to have it removed. I wrote about it in my journal. And you know what happened? I was drafted by Bootcamp for Souls into an advanced class on Anger Management. Suddenly the opportunities to go into white hot, frothing at the mouth rages multiplied instead of disappearing. I had to begin to learn to exercise self-control, an entire concept that was totally foreign to me. "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," was my motto. I didn't usually care what people thought or felt, and now I was trying to rein myself in and not show my shadow self.
The more I worked at it, with some successes here and there, the more challenges fell right into my path. Why did the AT&T operator have to take out her PMS on me when I was trying so hard? Then teller down at the bank could have broken the news politely instead of snottily announcing to half the bank that she wasn't going to be giving any money back on my deposit because of overdrafts. The doctor's office had no right to expect me to sit in that waiting room for over an hour. Every day new challenges, some new growth areas, and a few failures.
There were only open book tests, thank God. I knew what the answers should be. I had been taught them by frustrated adults all my untamed life. Now I had to crack the whip on myself.
Long story short. I miraculously succeeded thanks to that course. Today I don't know what it would take for me to fly into a death-hold choking manuever, or to tell a sweet, old librarian to go fuck herself because she couldn't find the book I reserved. I don't even know what would make me lose my temper at all and my computer has been hacked by the same 29-year-old ex-computer programmer who knows five code languages for the past 2-1/2 years. Right now, in fact, he has me locked out of my operating system. Fortunately, I can use Knoppix Linux Live CD. He is brutal in the way he hassels me, interferes with what I'm doing, gets me fired from jobs because he destroys my manuscripts, won't let me go online, etc., but the worst I do is write him nasty notes complete with some words I wouldn't want to send home to Mama. But I don't get into a victim role, throw the computer out a window, or scream at anybody convenient. I am the tamed shrew. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some of the things I have written:
Unofficial, incomplete: portfolio
Fiction & Poetry FanStory.com: Portfolio
Alternative Health Articles: AlignLife.com: AlignLife articles
My Other Blog: MsRefusenik Tells It All: Blog
Articles On An Online Writing Magazine: Suite 101.com
That's plenty for now. If you want to know how long I've been kicking around the Cyberland and what I've been up to just Google my name: MsRefusenik. There's plenty of information there that I wish no one had access to, but I did it and I should live with it.
This is a blog not meant for five-sensory humans after today, September 14, 2010. Some of the posts on here from before that date are meant for multisensory humans too, and you'll be able to clearly tell which ones. Multisensory humans is not my original concept. It's from a book that did a great deal to influence the positive spiritual view I take today of human beings and their future on this planet. The book is Seat of The Soul, by Gary Zukav, and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to believe in the evolution of our species to keep from going mad.
This book gave me hope that lasted years. I began to notice that our species was becoming multisensory and not just limited to five senses. People were trusting their intuitions, synchronicities and visions over rational, logical thinking. They were also becoming more concerned about their fellow passengers on this journey. We are starting to live in a more loving universe. Here's what the book says it is about:
"This is a book about authentic empowerment--the alignment of the personality with the soul--what that involves, how it happens, and what it creates. To understand these things requires an understanding of things that appear unusual to the five-sensory human, but they become natural once you understand evolution--that five-sensory perception is a journey leading to multisensory perception--and that you are not always meant to be five-sensory." (p.32)
I write this blog in the hope that it will add to our evolution, add to universal love, add to the love in your life. I pray you find enjoyment, refreshment, new avenues to explore, wonders to contemplate, organizations and people to lend a hand to, help with your writing and publishing, direction and guidance with life choices and decisions. I will do my very best to have it live up to this strong endorsement. I hope to get some multisensory guest host bloggers too. Or maybe one of you would like to switch from reader to writer. Let me know at:
msrefusenik@gmail.com. Let me know in the comments what you were glad to see in here, and what you could have done without. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Me: I have been a freelance writer and researcher for many years. I have been a writer since I was old enough to write cursive it seems to me. It is my gift, and I know it was given to me as part of my soul's mission on this planet. I call this place "Planet Earth: Bootcamp for Souls." Doesn't it seem that you're always learning some new lessons the hard way? I figured out that whatever character weaknesses, ego problems, negative fear-based traits I was suffering from, sure enough I would find myself landed in a Bootcamp class designed to help me work on it.
I'll give you an idea of how it worked for me. I used to have an Irish-descent, red-haired, too much beer and too many drugs, tot through forty-something bad temper. I could not keep from going into rants, fits, rages, throwing frenzies, name-calling and even on one occasion trying to choke the life out of an ex. I was a pistol and I was due any day to be locked up in the nuthouse, prison, jail or the undertaker's parlor. I took on bikers, men three times my size, packs of pitbulls, the arresting officers and the judge about to sentence me.
Then I began to notice it was putting me in a lot of shame, embarrassment and pain. I didn't feel good about me. I prayed to have it removed. I wrote about it in my journal. And you know what happened? I was drafted by Bootcamp for Souls into an advanced class on Anger Management. Suddenly the opportunities to go into white hot, frothing at the mouth rages multiplied instead of disappearing. I had to begin to learn to exercise self-control, an entire concept that was totally foreign to me. "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," was my motto. I didn't usually care what people thought or felt, and now I was trying to rein myself in and not show my shadow self.
The more I worked at it, with some successes here and there, the more challenges fell right into my path. Why did the AT&T operator have to take out her PMS on me when I was trying so hard? Then teller down at the bank could have broken the news politely instead of snottily announcing to half the bank that she wasn't going to be giving any money back on my deposit because of overdrafts. The doctor's office had no right to expect me to sit in that waiting room for over an hour. Every day new challenges, some new growth areas, and a few failures.
There were only open book tests, thank God. I knew what the answers should be. I had been taught them by frustrated adults all my untamed life. Now I had to crack the whip on myself.
Long story short. I miraculously succeeded thanks to that course. Today I don't know what it would take for me to fly into a death-hold choking manuever, or to tell a sweet, old librarian to go fuck herself because she couldn't find the book I reserved. I don't even know what would make me lose my temper at all and my computer has been hacked by the same 29-year-old ex-computer programmer who knows five code languages for the past 2-1/2 years. Right now, in fact, he has me locked out of my operating system. Fortunately, I can use Knoppix Linux Live CD. He is brutal in the way he hassels me, interferes with what I'm doing, gets me fired from jobs because he destroys my manuscripts, won't let me go online, etc., but the worst I do is write him nasty notes complete with some words I wouldn't want to send home to Mama. But I don't get into a victim role, throw the computer out a window, or scream at anybody convenient. I am the tamed shrew. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are some of the things I have written:
Unofficial, incomplete: portfolio
Fiction & Poetry FanStory.com: Portfolio
Alternative Health Articles: AlignLife.com: AlignLife articles
My Other Blog: MsRefusenik Tells It All: Blog
Articles On An Online Writing Magazine: Suite 101.com
That's plenty for now. If you want to know how long I've been kicking around the Cyberland and what I've been up to just Google my name: MsRefusenik. There's plenty of information there that I wish no one had access to, but I did it and I should live with it.
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