Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know your purpose for existence? Wouldn’t it be great to know your true passion?

Before we go any further, let me share my definition of a passion with you: A true passion is something you are passionate about, like to do and which you have talent for. A true passion comes right out of your soul.

Every person has at least one passion in their life, even if they do not know it yet. My experience is that when you are living your passion things happen with ease. You enjoy what you are doing. You’re in flow. It’s like the universe is supporting you in every possible way and with every step you take. People who have turned their passion into their career are generally very happy people.

Surprisingly, many people do not know what their passion is and, as a result, are stuck in life. They do not like what they are doing and may stay in a job just for the money. My personal opinion is that no one will benefit if you stick to a job you do not like. If you are not passionate about what you do; chances are you are not very good at it as well. You may even hate doing it and the people you love may hate you too (for sticking to it).

How to find you passion? Finding your passion may be easier that you think. If you’re open to it and notice, life is giving you lots of clues. But it’s your task to watch out for them. In general:

Things you are passionate about go with ease, joy and fulfillment. They give you energy. Things you are not good at cause stress and resistance. You feel tired doing them.

If you want to find your passion, you need to watch out for these signals. Below are a couple of questions which may help you finding your passion:

• Are there any things you are particular good at? How do you feel when you do them? Do they go with ease?
• What classes did you enjoy in school? What classes did go with ease? Did you have to study hard?
• Do you have hobbies? Have you ever considered turning them into your profession? Can you make a living out of them?
• What kinds of people inspire you? What is their profession? Would you like to do this too?
• Do you like to work with people, in a team? Or do you prefer to work alone?
• Have you ever considered starting your own business?
• Would you like to do something complete different? Is it possible to retrain yourself?

The answer to these questions may give you a clue to what your passion is. It is usually helpful to spend some time alone contemplate, or meditate, about them. Spending some time in a natural environment is helpful too: Doing a little hike or walking along the beach. Being in nature helps to clear your mind and connects you to your inner being: your authentic self.

You may also want to consult a life coach. A good (life) coach can help you discover you passion and the things that are really important for you. Life coaching is especially helpful if you feel you are stuck in life.

It is important to note that coaches do not give advice. They will never tell you what to do. Instead they help you to discovery the answer from within. They help you look at your current situation; help you discovery what you would like to do; Identify and overcome your limitations; help you to see all the possibilities and finally help you set the right goals in your life.

Power vs. Force – The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior – David R. Hawkins

It is difficult to believe in Kinesiologic testing (Behavior Kinesiology or wider known as muscle testing) without seeing it with your own eyes. I’ve seen it work and it is fascinating. For example, questions like “Is artificial sweetener good for me?” can be answered by it.

But what if we can use Kinesiologic testing for a much wider range of applications? What if we can test someone’s level of consciousness? David Hawkins has found that, simply by testing the muscle response on a test person’s stretched arm, he can determine the truth or falsehood of any statement or supposed fact. This includes the test person’s level of consciousness as well. He can find out if that person is depressed or enlightened.

Not only can he get the level of consciousness from the test person, but he can get it from any other person (including people who lived long ago) organization, religion or country on this planet. Power vs. Force is the result of many years of research and thousands of tests, resulting in David Hawkins Map of Consciousness.

Now how can it be possible that one person’s test response can give an answer for someone else, even if they have never met, communicated or know each other? The stunning implication of David Hawkins research is that all human beings must be interlinked together.

Power vs. Force is one of the most fascination and thought provoking books I have ever read. Power vs. Force is the first of a trilogy which explores the whole human condition and consciousness. Highly recommended.

(David Hawkins – Link to Nightingale Conant Audio Programs)

Flow happens when I am working on something I really like to do: My passion or something that is very close to who I am. It does not happen all the time, but when it does I shift into overdrive. It’s like magic happening and a true peak experience.

When in flow, I am 100% focused and concentrated on what I’m doing, nothing and no one can disturb me. I’m living in the moment, in the now. Things go natural and with ease. Ideas get generated one after the other without any effort; I am not even thinking them, they seem to come to me. Nothing can go wrong. Time does no longer exist when in flow. No effort is necessary; It’s like the universe is supporting me in any way possible. My body and mind are perfectly aligned. Flow gives me energy.

Flow is a state that is very close to who we naturally are; our true, authentic self. Flow is a powerful state to be in. We feel very good when in flow and it is an indicator that what we’re doing is good for us. We should cherish it as flow is an indicator that we are on the right track; Fulfilling our destiny or purpose for existence.

Luckily most people have experienced the flow state, even for only once: It’s a true and powerful experience to have. It feels like being invincible. Athletes experience flow when they know they are winning; they simply know. They often call it The Zone. When in flow, they know nothing can go wrong and no one can beat them.

Wouldn’t it be nice to experience flow more often?

As explain above flow happens when we are doing things (and thinking thoughts) that are good for us. Our body and feelings are the perfect indicators for this. Our natural state is that of peace and joy. We experience resistance or stress when we move away from this. When there is much stress and internal resistance, things become more difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish. Stress is the opposite of flow. Stress makes you feel tired. Unfortunately, for most people, this is the dominant state they are in.

Never ignore flow and do not take it for granted. Listen to what your body is telling you. If you are experiencing flow, make an effort to remember what it was that brought you into this state. Keep a log an see if you can notice a pattern. A good chance that flow is directly linked to the things you are passionate about.

Concentrate on your passion(s) in life, spend more time with the people you love. Do more of the things you are good at and things you like to do. Do less of the things that give you stress; things you are not good at and you do not feel passionate about. This is the recipe for a better life. A life with more flow.

Isn’t it funny that in preparation for something relaxing or fun, like a vacation or a wedding, we usually experience a lot of stress and anxiety trying to reach this, “stress free”, goal?

When I used to go on a vacation the last couple of days at the office were always very stressful: Can I finish up everything on time? What will happen when I’m away? Can they handle it? What if something goes wrong? And how big is the mess when I’m back at the office?

Going on vacation meant making long stressful hours in the week before and after the vacation. The first couple of days of vacation always involved having headaches, being restless and other detox effects of the stress I was under. In between I had a couple of stress free weeks. But once back at work I immediately forgot the relaxed state I was in (and the vacation) and entered into that same old pattern of stress, which I was under almost the entire year.

Stress is so normal in our day-to-day lives that we consider it to be the norm, not the exception. We keep ourselves busy all the time and once we experience rest, we cannot cope with it as we are so addicted to stress.

We even look at relaxed and stress free people with some suspicion; something must be wrong with them. It is like an American, driving for the first time in England, thinking that all the other cars (who are approaching him on the same lane) are on the wrong side of the road!

Stress is not normal. In fact too much stress is very bad for us. Stress is the bodies fight or flight response which is useful if we are in a dangerous situation, but not all the time. Being in a constant state of stress can also lead to illnesses such as depression or heart disease.

If you look at nature, everything has its own pace and nothing is rushed. Animals wake up with the first sign of light and go to sleep when it is getting dark. Nothing is forced, everything is natural. That is why nature relaxes us so much; it is reminding us of our natural state.

People on the other hand have alienated themselves so much from nature that they consider stress the norm, especially in our, what we call, civilized society. We make long hours, live far away from nature, work in unnatural conditions, and are under a constant pressure to perform. We live in our minds instead of our bodies. We are bombarded with so much stimuli that we forgot to rely on the subtle signals that our bodies are telling us; Signals indicating that stress is not good for us.

Isn’t it time to break this cycle once and for all? Nature is our natural medicine to stress. I like being in nature as much as possible. Being in nature always brings me back to my natural, stress free, state. A state where I do not feel rushed or forced.

Meditation does the same thing. The beauty of mediation is that you can do it almost anywhere, anytime. You can meditate for 10 minutes, 20, 30 or longer. It is up to you. Even 5 minutes a day is effective. If you meditate on a regular basis, you build in a daily routine of sitting down and do nothing; Getting in touch with your feelings, not your mind. This may feel unnatural at first (especially if you are a busy person and full of stress) but after a while it feels very good and natural. It relaxes and rejuvenates.

Meditation can help reduce stress and anxiety, restoring the natural balance in body and mind. Since I meditate I experience less stress and can cope with almost anything in life. I am a more joyful, playful and happier person. Experience a stress free life with meditation.

If you are a regular visitor of this blog you may have noticed that I changed the design quite a bit. Reason for this is that I decided to use the Thesis WordPress theme from now on.

The beauty of WordPress, as a blogging platform, is that it is very easy to use and customizable (no coding experience necessary). Customizing can be done in two ways: Use plugins to add extra functionality and themes to make the blog look more visually attractive and to give it its own identity.

As you may know there a two kind of WordPress Themes available; free themes which can be downloaded and used without any charge and commercial themes like Thesis.

So why did I switch from my old free theme to Thesis and spend $87 for it? It wasn’t that I didn’t like the design of my old (free) theme anymore. In fact I did like it very much. But it was limiting me in a way that I could not make all the changes I thought were necessary. I also believed it was limiting SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a bit.

Before I bought the theme I did some research on the internet and found out that people who use Thesis theme were very enthusiastic about it. The Thesis theme is extremely flexible, good for SEO and support from DIY Themes (the theme creators) is very good as well. Thesis is more than just a WordPress theme. The creators refer to it as a framework, which can be customized in any way you like.

Customization can be done in two ways; Through the Thesis Options and Design screens in the WordPress admin pages and by adding code to the custom.css and custom_functions.php files. For example, the header image and menu navigator colors of this blog are things that have been customized. I had to put some code in the custom.css and custom_functions.php to make this work. I am not a programmer myself, but with the excellent Thesis resources and examples available, it was very easy to create my own style after a little practice. With the new version, Thesis 1.6, you can now change colors from within the Thesis menus without adding code to the custom.css file.

Be warned that Thesis is not a theme once you add it into your WordPress themes folder you are all set. You have to tweak it to make the best use of it. Of course, you can use thesis without putting some code into the custom.css and custom_functions.php files, but that will leave you with a rather dull theme. It will work and may even look better than most free themes available, but the real power of Thesis is in the customization. You need to put in some effort to make it work.

If tweaking is not for you, I think you are better off using another (free or commercial) WordPress theme. Or maybe use Artisteer, which is a WordPress theme generator. But if you are willing to put in some effort, there is currently no better WordPress theme available than Thesis.

I will continue tweaking this blog and use Thesis theme. So expect more changes in the future now I’ve got the hang of it. I love Thesis!

Something strange happened to me today. I was having lunch in a shopping mall with my wife Sigrid and daughter Rosanne, who is a 2 ½ year old toddler. Sigrid stepped out of the restaurant for a while to exchange some clothes she bought a couple of days earlier. During this time I was enjoying lunch and was chatting with Rosanne, who was seeing all kinds of interesting stuff through the windowpane; ranging from cars stopping at the traffic lights to a stair she was seeing. Did you know that stairs are very interesting when you are 2 ½ years old?

Sitting at the table next to us was a black man eating his lunch. I mention his skin color here as I’m wondering if this has anything to do with it. Suddenly (after the stair conversation with Rosanne), this man got up, very quickly, taking his tray with a full bottle of apple juice, and left. During all of this he bumped his tray at the buggy, dropping some napkins on the floor. This was a little strange; I remember thinking if we upset him in any way, but as we were only talking about cars and stairs, how was that possible?

Then this guy came back, upset and in a hurry, dumping his empty bottle of apple juice on my table and left; leaving me and some other guests in wonder.

So what happened? Why was this guy so angry at me? Did he knock over his apple juice in his hurry to get out? Was he having some sort of mental problem? Did he misunderstood the conversation I was having with Rosanne as some sort of racism at his expense? Did I upset him in another way? Did Rosanne remind him of his own daughter? I guess I will never know.

One thing I know is that his perception of this little incident was somewhat different of that what was actually taking place, or at least my version of it. He was very angry and obviously suffering a great deal.

Isn’t it strange that our minds sometimes interpret and filter situations, causing us to suffer and feel pain? Why was his perception so different from what I was experiencing? Was this guy expecting people to hurt him, and in expecting this, interpret every life situation accordingly? In other words: His pain and suffering was self-inflicted.

My expectation is that this incident ruined his day. He ruined it for himself with self-inflicted pain and suffering caused by a different perception of the situation. My day remained as good as it already was. It even gave me inspiration to write this article.