Maria Nemeth - Mastering Lifes Energies: Simple Steps to a Luminous Life at Work and Play

Also by Maria Nemeth

The Energy of Money:
A Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment

Simple Steps to a Luminous Life
at Work and Play

Maria Nemeth, PhD

N EW W ORLD LIBRARY

N OVATO , C ALIFORNIA

Copyright 2007 by Maria Nemeth, PhD

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Edited by Yvette Bozzini
Text design and typography by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nemeth, Maria.
Mastering lifes energies : simple steps to a luminous life at work and play /
Maria Nemeth.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57731-531-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I.Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title.
BF637.S4N453 2007
158.1 dc22

2006038279

First printing, March 2007
ISBN-10: 1-57731-531-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-531-5
Printed in the United States on acid-free, partially recycled paper

New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.

Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to Aunt Gloria, Uncle Arnold, and my sister, Lisa.

INTRODUCTION
What is the question to which your life is the answer?

Are you willing to live your life with clarity,
focus, ease, and grace?

To have clarity in your life, you must first see
where clarity has been lacking.

Life is luminous when we create games worth playing
and goals worth playing for.

Realizing your dreams and ideas
in the physical world entails a border crossing.

Your Lifes Intentions are your blueprint for focused,
luminous action.

Gathering evidence for the conclusions you care
about makes your actions effective.

Shifting your attention focuses your efforts with ease,
not struggle.

You can direct the energies of money, time, physical vitality,
creativity, enjoyment, and relationship.

Maintain coherence by bringing everyday actions
into alignment with what is most important to you.

I dont believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

Joseph Campbell

W e all yearn to take ideas that excite us and accomplish them through action. We know, on some level, that the ideas we find the most exhilarating are an essential part of us; in a very real way, they are us.

The ideas, dreams, and goals that inspire us speak clearly of the contributions we are here to make that only we can make. Tuning in to them, we experience clarity and energy. Listening to them, we see inside us that which is already whole and complete, just waiting to be expressed.

Many times we lose sight of our goals and dreams. Or we spend years analyzing why things didnt turn out as planned or why our vision seems obscured. Some of us discovered that success isnt all its cracked up to be. We may have accomplished plenty, but were too exhausted or distracted to enjoy our lives.

I have experienced each of these things. I have also worked for more than twenty-five years with thousands of other people who have had similar experiences leaders, teachers, ministers, entrepreneurs, physicians, coaches, therapists, students, moms, dads, and friends. Every one of them wanted to know: What is the question to which my life is the answer?

Our lives are shaped by the questions that interest us. In this book we will explore these questions and ease our way into some answers. You will hear voices of those who have already begun applying the principles you are about to discover. But what you will mainly learn to hear is your own clear, brilliant, wise voice. As you do, you will connect or reconnect with the energy to live the life you were meant to live. You will gain the tools to bring the energies of money, time, physical vitality, creativity, enjoyment, and relationship to bear on what you truly want. You will learn to create miracles every day, at work and play.

Willa Cather, in her novel Death Comes for the Archbishop, speaks to this: Miracles... rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.

As you discover these methods and tools, you will learn to achieve clarity, strengthen focus, enjoy ease, and cultivate grace. You need only bring with you a desire to identify and attain your dreams and goals along with pen, paper, and a few three-by-five cards!

If you receive catalogs in the mail, as I do, you may have seen an advertisement for an unusual wake-up system. Its a globe sitting on a pedestal, and rather than giving forth an irritating buzz or the sound of music, it wakes you up with light. This light begins dim and then increases until it approximates the brightness the luminosity of sunlight. It is my hope that what you read here does the same for you. May you awaken to luminosity by mastering lifes energies, and may your eyes see and your ears hear what has been around you and within you always.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didnt do than by the ones you did do.

Mark Twain

T he Encarta Dictionary defines luminous as emitting or reflecting light, startlingly bright, inspiring, radiant, resplendent, stunning, splendid.

Our experience is luminous not when we are thinking about living our lives, but when we are fully engaged physically in reality. The experiences that reflect luminosity are those based on actions taken with clarity, focus, ease, and grace. By clarity, I mean seeing what is truly important and creating a game worth playing and goals worth playing for. By focus, I mean directing our energies and attention toward accomplishing what calls to our hearts. By ease, I mean venturing farther than we normally would in going for our dreams with a bit of elegance instead of struggle. Finally, grace means being consistently grateful and using spiritual principles so that we are ever aware that all is well.

Luminosity its worth emphasizing is clarity, focus, ease, and grace in action. It cant be invoked by psychological insight or analysis. Its fresh. Luminosity doesnt comb its hair but rather lets the winds of life blow freely through it.

My friend Aimee had a luminosity wake-up call while sitting over cappuccino and croissants with orange marmalade on her fortieth birthday.

I was in a local coffeehouse, sitting alone at my favorite table, reading one of those books that help you take stock of your life. One question stuck out: What do you want people to remember you for? Suddenly it dawned on me that I didnt know what people would say about me. And then I saw something I didnt like. Given what I focused on when I talk to my friends, theyd probably put the following on my tombstone: Here lies Aimee. She had issues. That definitely wasnt what I wanted to be there. I wanted something more.