5 Pillars

I was able to attend a great teleconference today on my lunch break (thanks to Debbie for covering for me). It was hosted by my favorite mentor, James A Ray. He talked about the 5 pillars of our life that are the foundation of our spiritual well being and all around happiness. The 5 pillars he spoke of are; financial, relational, intellectual/mental, physical, and spiritual. I want to give you a brief overview of what I learned about each of the pillars today.

#1 FINANCIAL: He began by explaining there is a common misconception about money. Have you ever heard the saying "Money is the root of all evil"? I have, but I never really knew where it came from until today. He explained that in the bible it actually says "The love of money is the root of all evil." Money is good and an important part of every body's well being as long as it does not rule them. He went on to explain that you have to love people and use money to help others, where we run into a problem is when people start loving money and using people. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense, most of the truly wealthy we "know" or see in the media do use money and love people. Think about Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, Jenny McCarthy, Robin Williams, Jim Cary. That is a few that I can think of off the top of my head.

#2 RELATIONAL: James Ray explains the most important relationship we have is the one we have with ourselves. We have to truly love, care about, and respect ourselves before we can have a genuinely loving and healthy relationship with anybody else. The expectations we set for ourselves will set a baseline for the people around us. If we hold ours in the highest regard and strive to always better ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally we can't help but be a better quality friend, which will grant us better relationships.

#3 INTELLECTUAL/MENTAL: Since I have been following James Ray's teachings I have heard him say "If your not growing, your dying." about 1000 times. He quotes this as a common law of quantum physics. We have to keep our mind sharp by learning and experiencing new things. He asks the question, "How do you use your marvelous mind?". If we are locked into a subconscious "hum" of getting up, going to work, coming home, watching tv, and going to bed everyday without challenging ourselves then we are not growing. We are not challenging ourselves to grow. Think about a common house plant, when it stops growing it begins to die, right? He states that we grow in direct proportion to the amount of resistance that we can withstand and disipate.

#4 PHYSICAL: When he speaks of physical he means everything in its physical form; our bodies, our cars, our homes, our vacations, our toys, etc... Of course the most important is our body. Many religions view our body as our temple. In order to take the best care of our body we have to take care of our health first and fitness second. We need to nourish our bodies with healthy foods and lay off the junk. Our body is the vehicle that our spirit uses t get around and we need to keep it tuned up, like our favorite car. When we have good health the fitness follows. The other physical items are important too. We all need to have a nice place to live and a car to drive and vacations to create memories and experiences.

#5 SPIRITUAL: He says this is the hardest one to explain because it is different for everyone. He explains it as our 1 on 1 relationship with our creative source, or our connection to something bigger (God). If you pray in a closet a few times a day or if you go to church on Sunday it does not guarantee you more spirituality than your neighbor who does not go to church but is constantly talking to God. You have to make your own choice and be okay with it for yourself.

Once we have mastered these 5 key areas, we will have "HARMONIC WEALTH" as he calls it. Life will flow like a dance. A lot of people may read this and say this "sounds like a lot of work" and " I don't really have the time to do all this", but if you are serious about finding harmony in your life and having happy & fulfilling relationships with your friends and family you will find the time. Remember, "How do you use your marvelous mind?" Do you want to challenge yourself to be better or do you want to get caught up in the subconscious "hum" of a mindless routine? Quantum physics explains that everything is made up of 99.99999% energy, including our body. 1 cubic meter of energy is enough to boil every ocean on this planet. There is no way you can convince me that you do not have the energy to better yourself or read a book or bring your kids to the library. You have the energy, you are just choosing to waste it on the everyday mindless "hum". Choose to direct your energy for 1 hour each day on one of these 5 pillars and it will not take long for you to start seeing positive changes in your life.