JohnKowalsky.com
A Self Evolving Site
Dreams
Viva La Resolution!
Jan 3rd
Hello, and welcome to a brand new year! Every year, around this time, everyone is expected to have their new year’s resolution. I’ve had the typical ones in the past: lose weight, exercise more, blah, blah… but this year, I’ve decided to step it up a notch, and stretch myself farther than ever before.
This year I want to say yes to the opportunities that Life presents. No more waiting for things to happen to me, no more passing up on things because I’m in fear that I might miss out on something else. I want to jump in the River and be in the Flow this year. I want to follow my heart and live as One with everything. I want to practice “You are Me also” in everything I do. I want to experience more in this single year than I have in all my previous 26 years of life.
What is this going to entail for me?
I’m going to have to stop living in fear, and begin living in love (not just in word, but in actual deed as well). No more worrying about things that ultimately don’t matter like food, clothing, and shelter. If I want to do something, then I want to do it this year! No more talking about it, or daydreaming the thing to death. It’s great to have dreams, but I’ve evolved to the point where I’m ready to create reality out of my dreams.
And what about you, dear Reader? What will your year be like? Will you end up in the same place, having gone nowhere and done nothing?
I often joke with my friend that there’s no way 2009 can be worse than 2008 (I went through a lot of painful growing), but it could be, if I don’t use what I’ve learned from 2008.
Ultimately it was 2008 that inspired me to live my 2009 in such a way. As a celebration of making it out of 2008 alive. And I hope I’m still celebrating living in 2010, but I’m not worried about it if I’m not 
Whatever you’ve decided 2009 will look like, I hope you that you make it a beautiful reality. Don’t just wait for Prince Charming to come swoop you off your feet this year, become a Princess first, if you want a Prince. (and vice versa for all you guys out there, if you want the girl of your dreams than first become the man of hers)
Love you all, and as always, think about it!
Juice Feast Day 2
Nov 12th
For all of you following along at home, I thought I’d explain a bit more about the juice feast, in case you aren’t familiar with it.
Juice feasting is really pretty simple in form… You make and consume 4-6qts of raw, fresh fruit and vegetable juices. With at least 2 qts being dark greens like spinach, kale, parsley, dandelion, and the like. Depending on your blood sugar level you can have more or less fruit juice. Seeing as I’m not a diabetic, I can have plenty of fruit juice as long as I get my 2 qts of greens.
That’s pretty much it. A typical juice feast lasts 92 days, with others lasting 60, 45, or 30 days. I’ve yet to decide which if any of those I’ll be doing. I may only last a week, maybe two. We’ll see… I’ve been practicing procrastination with this one, and I’m interested to see how long I can put off eating solid food.
I have to say that it is quite the mind teaser. I am reminded once again how addictive food can be. Even just the act of eating is a strong habit to break. You wake up and eat your breakfast while watching the news or reading the paper, you eat your lunch around the table with co-workers, or reading your book, and you eat your dinner with family or friends, all the while snacking in between or later that night while you watch tv or a movie. Am I coming off a bit obsessed? Sorry bout that, I’m sure the cravings will pass.
I have been craving chicken wings for the last two days though, which is weird because I wouldn’t normally eat them on my mostly raw vegan diet anyway. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll go into why I switched to raw foods in the first place.
Today I had:
2 qts watermelon, lime juice
3 qts green juice (spinach, cucumber, carrot, celery, parsley, and a red bell pepper today)
1 qt orange juice
I weighed 174 lbs today, which brings weight loss to 2 lbs so far as I started out yesterday at 176 lbs. I’ve felt good all day. High energy, good spirits. I slept about 9.5 hrs last night, which is more than usual for me. I usually get about 7 hours of sleep. My dreams were quite vivid, which I’ve also heard is usual for a juice feast. My skin’s been a little drier than usual, especially on my hands.
Well that’s all for today, stay tuned
Who Are You In Your Head?
Nov 3rd
In light of the recent holiday (Halloween), where you got to dress up and go masquerading around as whoever you pleased, I’ve been thinking about how we often wish we could be someone else.
I recently wrote about the importance of beliefs, and today’s topic is a big one: Other people tend to see you, as you see yourself.
Try this out, just for fun, and see if it doesn’t help you. Find a character from a movie, someone that you can watch and listen to. Pick somebody who has what you want in your life (whether it be success, confidence, integrity, money… whatever). Then Study this character… memorize the way they walk and move, the way they talk. Their facial expressions and body language.
Then for five minutes a day, when you’re alone, in front of the mirror, Be that person. Talk like them, move like them, act like them. Really make the character your own. See yourself in their location, see the people that would be surrounding this person, and pretend that they are surrounding you. Interact with these imaginary people… what would you say? what would you talk about as this new you?
Change the way you see yourself for the better. When you’re in that situation where you would normally freeze up and go into failure mode, ask yourself, “what would (your character’s name here) do?”
I’ll let you in on another little secret I’ve found: You’re brain can’t tell the difference between something you imagine happens and what really happens.
Both things are equally real to your brain. Take dreams for example. If something happens in a dream, like a friend dying, or you getting a promotion… when you wake up, supposing you’ve remembered your dream, then your brain treats those memories as actually having happened. So you wake from the dream of your friend dying with a pounding heart and an aching chest, just as you would have if your friend had actually died. And you wake from the promotion dream with the same exhilaration and expectation of a person who actually did just get a promotion.
Take Advantage Of Your Imagination
Use this to your advantage… don’t wait for a good dream that you actually remember when you wake up. Make up your own dreams while you’re already awake. It’s how we learned as kids too. We called it make believe, or pretending. See yourself as the best you possible. And when you need some help, switch into your alter ego and pretend, until you’re no longer pretending.
How Championships Are Won
Oct 20th
Like many of you folks out there, I tend to watch what happens in baseball when October comes around. Last night the young, never-done-anything-before Tampa Bay Rays defeated the big, bad Boston Red Sox. The series was a classic David and Goliath match-up, even though Tampa Bay had a better record almost all season long. The series was great, and I won’t bore you with the details. I went to bed last night, not thinking about the game at all, but apparently my subconscious had other ideas.
I dreamt baseball last night… Not Major League, going to the World Series baseball, but Little League. Somehow I was coaching this Little League team, and my old basketball coach was helping me out. Now he didn’t know much about baseball, since he was a basketball coach so I found myself coaching him as well. In between defensive drills and batting practice, I would send little coaching nuggets out to him and the players. Most of these nuggets I can’t remember because it was a dream, but the last one I had I do remember. It stuck in my head so much that I woke up from the dream, and after using the bathroom, stumbled back into my room and wrote it down in the dark.
My Coach and I were having practice and something happened, I can’t remember exactly what. Maybe the kids just weren’t getting what I was trying to teach them, or they didn’t want to practice or something like that. I just remember feeling frustrated with the team in my dream. They just didn’t understand!
So I called the team over and had them all take a knee, where I launched into what might have been the greatest inspirational speech of all time, but I only remember the last part, so I guess we’ll never know. The words, This Is How Championships Are Won! came out of my mouth. The dream quickly ended after that, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about those words and what they mean. I came to realize that even though it was a silly dream, filled with delusions of grandeur, there was a lot of truth to it.
When I told the kids, this is how championships are won, I remember I was trying to impress upon them the importance of practice and groundwork. The game between The Rays and The Red Sox was decided long before last night, it was won back in spring training, and all through the regular season.
Just like sports, business events and everyday life things are decided long before they arrive too. It’s the person who has spent everyday practicing and building habits of success that ends up taking the prize home nine times out of ten. So ask yourself, have you been practicing? And what kind of practice has it been? Do you see yourself winning the big game, or getting that new job or promotion? Or like the kids in my dream, would you rather go home and play video games?
Stay tuned as we look at some things we can do this week to practice success!
