As children of the human race, we become conditioned to our parents way of speaking, teaching, and tones...especially when directed at us! This begins emotional fear if we get yelled at, told what to do when we feel it's unfair, etc. Therefore, the words we term as harsh can remain in our memory, such as, "If you want something to cry about, I'll give you something to cry about!" We grow up feeling then that we are ashamed to cry as if it's a weak reaction to our true feelings. 

We are all experiencing the shift occurring right now, and this leads me into explaining that as we break free from these forms of conditioning, we must also realize it's not just the words of our parents as we were being raised, but the words of the American Dictionary that also formed meanings that associated our dialect and vocabulary to our understanding. Our minds instantly recognize a word for what we thought it to be, as it was handed down to us... however, this isn't necessarily true! 

Read the rest here:

http://preventdisease.com/news/14/031814_Conditional-Thought-Patterns-Begin-With-The-Word.shtml

As a cool winter breeze blows softly, the first warmth of the winter sun for the day warms me again. Birds sing from trees near and far. Frogs sing in the sunshine as the creek sparkles in the morning sun. From a nearby farm, a rooster crows. No human sounds can be heard at all. It is bliss.

Although change is a part of life, I say thanks for small consistencies too. The songs of the birds may change. Some birds move on, some stay all year around. The frogs too change their song, as the seasons change and different frogs share their joy through voice. But in general, the beauty of this place remains. The changes themselves actually add to the consistency of beauty.

Read the full writing... (inspirationandchai.com)

The imagination distorts reality. The mind believes all it imagines.

Reality is the pure experience of being within consciousness, it is the fullness of the now as it reveals itself as truth.

The mind cannot grasp reality. The fullness of truth must be felt within us as conscious knowing.

Truth will never be experienced in the mind. It cannot be believed into reality. It lies somewhere near the end of the minds journey and on the doorstep of the ever present now. Truth is found in accepting ourselves totally without question or judgment. It is knowing the knower as the known.

http://knowingwhispers.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-nature-of-true-reality.html

Let me begin by explaining what I mean by rhetoric, it has a few different definitions so I'd like to be clear here. In academics, it's often defined as skill or effective use of writing and speech, but that's not the type of rhetoric I'm talking about here. Another definition is "language that is intended to influence people and that may not be honest or reasonable", and this is the rhetoric I'm speaking of. Take a political party for instance, it's as if they've only got one brain to pass around between them and they all repeat the same lines, the same rhetoric, over and over.

So is rhetoric a "bad" thing? Not necessarily, but it generally shows a lack of real understanding. If you really understand what someone else has shared with you, you can apply your own unique perspective to it, you don't need to just repeat what the other person said. With a person who's really evolving, their understandings keep growing too. Their perspective gets bigger, so they don't just repeat the same things. They keep seeing life in new ways, and they keep expressing what they see in new ways. They may repeat the same general ideas, especially to people who don't understand them yet, but they don't just repeat the same rhetoric.

Mother Nature seems to already be one step ahead of human interference, corn rootworms are now largely resistant to the toxin in Bt corn. Despite people predicting this would happen from the very beginning, our industrialized system of agriculture chose to ignore warnings and followed their own greed and short-sightedness. Perhaps people will now rethink trying to alter the whole ecosystem to serve human convenience? From wired.com:

One of agricultural biotechnology’s great success stories may become a cautionary tale of how short-sighted mismanagement can squander the benefits of genetic modification.

After years of predicting it would happen — and after years of having their suggestions largely ignored by companies, farmers and regulators — scientists have documented the rapid evolution of corn rootworms that are resistant to Bt corn.

Until Bt corn was genetically altered to be poisonous to the pests, rootworms used to cause billions of dollars in damage to U.S. crops. Named for the pesticidal toxin-producing Bacillus thuringiensis gene it contains, Bt corn now accounts for three-quarters of the U.S. corn crop. The vulnerability of this corn could be disastrous for farmers and the environment.

Read the full article... (wired.com)

To move forward in life you must first accept the reality of what it is. To wish that things were different, or to pretend that they are, gets you nowhere. Today you have all the possibilities in front of you to move in the direction of your dreams.

Radical Acceptance says that life works better when you accept people for who they are, without judgment.  Once you have done that you can then act accordingly. What does that mean? 

Read the full article... (positive-thoughts.typepad.com)