After reading The Tools by Barry Michels & Phil Stutz, I decided that I liked the idea of having tools to access in your mental tool shed that helped me move through the day. I am still practicing Bring It On, Active Love and Jeopardy. And I looked for more tools, which I found in their newer book, Coming Alive.
What makes these tools great, like the last ones, is the ease of implementation. Instantaneously, you can change your state by following simple steps. As the saying goes, it is simple and not easy. The hardest part of using these tools is remembering to use them. Each requires you to pause before responding or taking action. And that takes practice.
The tools in this book focus on becoming the best version of ourselves by tapping into our innate wisdom:
The belief that an invisible animating energy underlies our existence is
thousands of years old. Unlike our modern, mechanical notion of energy, which we understand via mathematics, this is a living energy that we feel inside us. In Eastern religions, this energy, or Life Force, is known variously as prana (in Indian philosophy and medicine), lung (in
Tibetan Buddhism), and chi (in Chinese philosophy and medicine). In the Old Testament, it was called ruach, the breath of God, which gave mankind not only life, but the spirit to evolve. (pg 11, Coming Alive)
By experiencing this energy deeply, we can come to see the Life Force around us expressed in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. They are the true forces that make life meaningful:
To put it simply, Truth reveals your path, Beauty inspires you to walk it, and Goodness enables you to spread virtue along the way. It is on this path that you gain the greatest reward: you know who you are and why you are here. Your soul finds its true place in the universe. (pg 230, Coming Alive)
Come Alive!