A matter of choices...

Today a friend came to me and told me she was not feeling well, she told me that when she looks around her, she sees people who do so well whatever it is they do and who seem so smart and comfortable, whereas on the other hand, she felt so uncertain that it was making her wish she could be like all these people she sees. Be anyone but herself.

She then explained how helpless that thought makes her feel and so when she is facing her challenges and she feels very alone surrounded by uncertainty. This made me think of my own moments where in front of a challenge I wonder if I can do it or not, fear quickly comes in and whispers "maybe you won’t be able do it", and as that uncomfortable shiver shakes me, before it goes on any longer, the practical part of my mind asks "so, what are you going to do?" and whatever the situation, wherever it is you find yourself in your life, the options to answer that question seem to be always the same:

Option 1: Give up, there's a high chance you wont make it, you don’t know what you are getting yourself into, it might only make things worse, it would require a lot of effort, you don’t have what it takes, etc.

Option 2: Just do it, what's the worse that can happen? you will never know if you don’t try, you may as well go for it and fail trying or accomplish it with flying colors, it may be fun, there's a high chance you'll learn a lot and you will never wonder "what if?".

As I reflected on this ,I came to the realization that I always take the second option, and looking back: 99.9%  it was the best thing to do and that lead me to several great opportunities and instances I would have never had, had I not chose to Not give up.

I decided to share this realization with my friend who was glad to learn she is not the only person in the world who feels that way and we both agreed on the fact that every single moment like this, is a moment that defines us and defines the direction our lives take.

So rather than staying in an uncertainty state when the question comes, the choice is completely yours, and only you will be responsible for that decision and all it brings. If you can handle that awareness, means you are ready to make your own decision and move ahead.

Beware that option number two in most cases means that you will be challenged on the way, there might be plenty of moments when you doubt yourself and the same question comes up and you must once more re-commit to your choice, or of course, change your mind. If you decide to stay firm on your decision and keep on trying, those challenges will be pushed away and will be fewer and fewer as you move along and into new ways of experiencing yourself and your own life.

There are no bad or good choices, there are choices with results and its up to us to use them in our favor or against us. I encourage you to find your strength and trust yourself. As I said to my friend; the only difference between us all lies in the trust and thus the choices we make. Some give up and their lives turn in one direction, some decide to try and their lives take another direction.

As on pretty much everything...the choice remains solely yours.

Much light and love on whichever choice you decide to make.

When the grass is greener on the other side...

Greetings my dear friends, visitors and residents of The Light Planet! I hope you are all well in every possible level.


Recently on a trip to Paris, in the middle of a friends reunion, everyone was asking me how things are going here in Los Angeles, and how life is in general. They all seemed fascinated with the idea of the American Dream and the life in this side of the world. During a brief moment of silence most of them stood looking up as if to some invisible point on the horizon, yearning to be in L.A. and one of them broke the silence with a toast to Los Angeles, to which we all joined.

As this unfolded in front of my eyes, I sensed a bit of irony seeing how all this Parisians who, live and experience on a daily basis one of the most beautiful cities in the world, were yearning to be in Los Angeles. I instantly remembered having experienced the exact same reaction when I told my friends in Los Angeles that I was traveling to Paris; they were all yearning to be in Paris.

Right after this, I suddenly felt conscious of the phrase: “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

I found myself witnessing a perfect example of such phrase.
Those who are here yearn to be there, those who are there yearn to be here. And so we are constantly yearning to be "on the other side", having all that which we don’t have and so we forget to touch base with all that which we do have but start taking for granted.

When we are not able to appreciate what we have, we slowly stop seeing all that which is good in our life, we lose perspective and get into the game of looking for validation elsewhere, to be told that “everything is OK” and we feel the need to feed off of external elements that can help us feel that we are indeed “well positioned” in life.

We fail to remember that everything is well in the universe, in its own balance even when we might find it hard to understand and that if we really need to touch base with the essence of the life we’ve created; a simple inventory of the big and small things we can easily identify becomes the fastest reconnection and the only compass we need to put us back in track.

Let’s maintain and walk barefoot over our own grass, let’s appreciate and enjoy it for it’s the only one we have, let’s turn it into the garden of our dreams and then there wont be any garden "on the other side" that we fancy more than our own.

Right & Wrong

Recently a good friend of mine told me what she announced as a horrible deed she had committed, before she told me; she was already warning me that she would never do it again and I could feel how worried and confused she was.

While she was telling me her story, there were moments where she admitted that the whole experience had been enjoyable but she kept on saying she “knew” it was “WRONG”

But according to WHO was this experience WRONG? This reminded me of all the pre-conceptions, judgments and beliefs we carry around, and they are not even ours! We have inherited so much of this baggage from what we have been taught and told. Very few people actually endorse their own beliefs and live according to them because they have decided to do so.

But what happens with the rest? The rest just accepts them and tries to live up to them at the best of their abilities, but isn’t that exactly the kind of pattern, the kind of attitude and conformism that creates the increasingly high rates of unhappiness and depression in the world today?

The experience my friend shared with me, was by far one of the best things that could have happened to her, why? Because for the first time in her entire life, she dared to leave absolutely all of the pre-conceptions, judgments and inherited beliefs she was carrying around and surrendered completely to herself, she embraced self-trust and gave a massive step towards her own growth and evolution. For the first time, her own voice was ‘speaking’ lauder than everyone else’s!

Unfortunately, my poor friend soon enough put back on her backpack full of everything she had just summed the courage to leave behind, even if for a moment. And she felt the heavy weight of the backpack once more, suddenly her recent experience was now looked at through judgment-full eyes and her worse fears came over her. She felt bad, she felt worthless and utterly confused.

Soon she will realize that this experience is something she will remember as the first big leap on the way to hearing her own voice, to finally be herself despite the world.

How heavy is your backpack today?
How much of the contents are truly yours?
Whose voice speaks lauder?
Whose voice are you listening to?

This, being YOUR life, the only life you truly own; shouldn’t it be your own voice the one to lead you?

As far as I am concerned; I am going to let my voice scream out laud so I may never fail to hear it!

Alone or By Yourself?!

Greetings my dear friends! Welcome once again to The Planet Light!

In the southern emisphere we are enjoying summer and vacations time, free time, beaches, sun, fun, time to release all the tensions we have accumulated during the year gone, whether due to our job or studies. Many of you may be wondering what to do with this time, if you don’t have a plan already.

Surely all of you have a long list of pending things, all of those things you have been wanting and meaning to do but you have not had the time to, nevertheless, I imagine that very few of you have added "Spend some time on my own" to the list. This is probably because 'Loneliness' is not very much appreciated, many actually fear it and run away from it, however Loneliness can be very beneficial if we take it in moderation.

To spend a reasonable quantity of time on your won, whether it is to think, clear up your mind, get away from the noise and the influences around us, maybe to simply enjoy a beautiful day in the open, to do nothing at all and just enjoy BEING here and now. This is something we should all be capable of doing. Being with yourself is not really being 'Alone', you can have hundreds of people around and still feel alone. Taking some time by yourself benefits your internal communication, your capacity to to listen to yourself, to your feelings, heart and body, all of which are always sending signals, but we hardly ever hear them because we are always distracted or busy with something else.

The time spent on your own can bring wonderful moments, moments of clarity, brilliance, answers to questions you kept unanswered, and ultimately; the satisfaction of knowing that you are capable of creating an internal dialogue and be with yourself without despair and without feeling depressed. A wise one said: "The only person who stays with you for the rest of your life is yourself", hence the relationship with ourselves should be the best kept relationship of all.

When we speak about Loneliness, like many other things in this world, the reaction will be directly linked to a matter of concepts. What does it mean for you to be Alone?, is it perhaps the same as being on your own?. Personally, I think we are never really 'Alone', whether we notice it, whether we see it (or want to see it) or not, there is always someone ready and willing to listen to us, to be there for us. We can alone due to many factors, situations and we might perceive it as something negative, but we are never truly alone. However, from my perspective, 'on your own' is more of a choice, its to decide to be with yourself or spend some time on your own for whatever reason, and we might perceive it in a positive way, as the desire of being with yourself and be willing to appreciate it.

I invite you all to consider Loneliness for a moment, as to identify what sort of definition we have given it within ourselves and our lives, identify is we perceive this definitions are 'negative' or 'postive'.

Finaly, let's not forget that nothing is really 'postive' or 'negative', everything just IS, and its us who are used to catalog everything that comes to us, to put labels and judge. Perhaps we could experiment to acept that everything is in a pure and neutral state, treat things as row material, give it shape with our best intentions and see what we are capable of create.

I send you all big warm hugs and we will meet again soon!

Light, Camera, Action!

My dear friends, welcome once more to The Light Planet!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year celebration to give the warmest welcome to the starting year.

As a new year starts we renew our expectations and create new ideals about life and about ourselves. We wish to start the year well and so the first days we endeavour to be “better”, hoping to keep our renewed attitude during the rest of the year.

But many times our endeavours do not succeed, as the time goes by we tend to forget about our new year resolutions and we fall back to the same old routine, that which we promise ourselves we would change, that which we feel should be the reflexion of the path we want to follow, yes, that one which never really supports the vision of the life we wish to create.

At which point do we let go of that happy vision of ourselves?, what makes us forget out resolutions?, can we stop it?

If we are able to find the answers to the first and second questions, then we have already half the way in. It is important to identify the source of any action that creates a reaction within us. Each and every one of us is responsible and owner of him/herself, and therefore, the only Director of one’s life. The Director that is capable of change the script at his wish and desire, the one who plays in the constant search for characters and tools to recreate the situations he crafts in his mind, with which he can give birth to his master piece.

Just like this movie director, we are able to modify anything we wish or need to change. We can not change others, for each is owner of him/herself, but we can definitely change our attitude towards them, which modifies the dynamic of the interaction with others creating a new way of communicating and completely changing the outcome of our actions without trying to change them.

If we are not happy with the script, let’s change it, let’s give it a new sense, let’s change the characters if necessary, let’s play! Keep in mind that nothing else directs your life, not the stars, not the movement of the planets either, for that job is entirely yours and so your will shall overcome.

So, are you ready? Light, Camera, Action!