Did you know that you have two different versions of your life?
Well, you do.
One of these versions is wide and expansive. It’s big and badass.
If this version of your life was a balloon, it would be one of those beautiful hot air balloons that sail across the landscape, captivating the hearts and minds of everyone who sees it.
The other version of your life is teeny tiny.
If this version was a balloon, it would be a deflated left-over from a birthday party, coated with crumbs and dirt.
In any given moment, your life is either a badass balloon or a deflated one.
And you have the power to choose which balloon you want your life to be.
My Two-Balloon Theory of Life was inspired by the books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, by Michael Newton.
Mr. Newton is a hypnotherapist who helped people quit smoking and useful things like that. Then people under hypnosis started talking about past lives and all kinds of other weird stuff he didn’t believe in at all.
But his hypnotized clients kept talking about their past lives. Eventually, they started talking about where they go in between lifetimes.
Dr. Newton has since become an expert on the subject, compiling tons of interviews with clients under hypnosis about what happens after each lifetime – where we go, what we do, what it looks like on the “other side.”
The big takeaway from his work is that we’re way more than we think we are.
Our souls are big and mighty, like a gorgeous hot air balloon. And each lifetime is a chance to know that bigness and mightiness in human form.
In one of Newton’s cases, his client had become selfish and self-absorbed in her previous life. In looking back on that lifetime with her spirit guides, they reminded her of one brief incident in which she had showed care and compassion to another human.
Yes, most of that lifetime she had been self-absorbed, but the guides pointed out that, in a brief moment of compassion, she had made some serious, badass progress.
Indeed, it was the most important incident of that lifetime.
From the hot-air-balloon perspective of our lives, the most important questions in any lifetime are: When have you been loving? To yourself? To others? When have you been courageous? When have you shown strength?
Groovy questions like that.
And then there’s the deflated balloon option.
This is the version of our lives that’s based on the small stories we tell about ourselves. This version often has a victim theme.
When we look back on our life from the deflated-balloon version, we shrink our magnificent beings into a tiny narrative, ignoring all the other awesome things we’ve done and become.
We’re free to stick to that deflated narrative, but we don’t have to.
We can remember our magnificence. We can remember to fly.
And we can remember all the times we’ve already flown – by being loving, brave, compassionate – in this lifetime.
I would highly recommend reading Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls to help you with this remembrance. It’s radically changed my perspective on life. In a good way.
And it’s totally compatible with a change your thinking, change your life philosophy.
Even if you’re skeptical about past lives, check it out.
After all, the author was once a skeptic as well.
And if you’re not a reader, or you don’t have time, at least you can remember that you’re a big, badass hot air balloon, not a crummy deflated leftover.
So let your big beautiful balloon fly!
How do you relate to the Two-Balloon Theory of life? Share your comments below!
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Hi Friends!
Z as always your illustrations are so wonderful! I hope you are making a children’s book for adults soon. But to the point, sometimes my balloon gets deflated by others belief in their illusions and I let myself get sucked in. Other times my balloon soars way high like right after meditation or just being in nature. The place in between is what I would like to ask about.
Being loving is tricky. There is gentle love for children and then there is tough love for more adult types. There is loving up close like my dear friends or loving from a distance those who choose to live deflated and want all people to be deflated. Would you both write more about what it means to be loving? (like I have to ask because ALL of what you write when we really look is about just that!) My day to day life gets kinda hairy at times knowing what to do in any particular situation. My rudder sometimes gets a kink in it and I go in a direction that makes me less than happy.
So please “might I have another”(said with a proper English accent)?
Much Love,
River
Hi River!
Yes, I have had some requests to make some sort of book with my cartoons. We shall see what happens with this. No plans as of yet, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be some in the future!
Hmmm. How to be happy?! This is a BIG question!!
Here are some things that come to mind:
Melissa have a daily practice of affirming things we are GOING to be grateful for in the future, as if they’re already true now. One of the things that I throw in there a lot is how happy I am. (Ie how happy I am in the future as if it’s true now, thus paving the way for me to be more happy in the future. Which quickly becomes my present.)
Another thing is to set the intention when I FIRST wake up that I’m going to have an AWESOME day. This also notches up the happy points on any given day.
Another thing is acceptance. Accepting each moment exactly as it is – even if it sucks – can take a lot of the sting out. Resistance is futile! And releasing resistance can, again, raise some notches on the happy meter.
Another thing: a big reason for not-happiness is often that I’m giving myself a hard time about something. So approving of myself right in the moment – “Z, you’re wonderful, and I love you” – can also go far to keeping the happy meter up.
Those are the first thoughts that come to mind!
Hopefully these will make you happy! 🙂
XOZ
So Z, do I read you right that happy = loving = happy? Where I am sitting just now, loving = happy. Not being love = Not happy. So I want to be more – love. Got any more thoughts?
hug ya right back,
River
Ah, that’s interesting! What an interesting mistake/assumption on my part.
Well. . . some of what I would say is still the same. I would start out the day making the intention to be more loving throughout the day. And I would add “being more loving” onto our daily practice of affirming things in the future as if they are already true now.
If I’m particularly challenged with someone, I often add them to my daily prayer practice. “I see you, I bless you, I release you” is a mantra I use when I’m letting go of difficult relationships and moving on. This allows me to more readily see them with the eyes of love.
Another thing I’ve done for anyone for whom I’m feeling less than loving is to pray for their highest good. That has provided some surprising shifts in my relationships with these people.
Oh, and imagining people as little kids is another great way to tap into a more loving place with them.
I also find that if I’m not sure how to act when I’m feeling less than loving, the best thing – if possible – is to remove myself from the situation and not come back until I can come from a more loving place.
Hopefully that’s a little bit closer to what you actually asked!! 🙂