Category: David Reed Watson

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Believe in Yourself

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Believe in Yourself

Let me start off by saying this.. believing in yourself, and taking care of yourself first is not selfishness.

I remember years ago I was told that believing in yourself is not selfishness, it was hard to hear because the way I was raised was to put others before myself. As I’ve grown on my spiritual path I have adopted this philosophy of taking care of myself first… it was difficult at first but the more I practiced it the more I realized that by serving myself I was also serving others.

What do I mean by this?

When you start taking care of your own needs first, and you are honest about what you feel and who you truly are, you are going to weed out a lot of people in your life. That is ok. You can’t make everyone happy, nor should you want to. Eventually though you will find someone that is on the same vibration that you are, someone that believes in themselves as much as you believe in you. You’ve heard me talk before about ‘mirror’s’. When I talk about mirrors what I am talking about is this… when you look in the mirror you see yourself, if you look in the mirror and you see someone that is miserable, unhappy, insecure, etc., do you really think that you’re going to get back something else? Let me elaborate. You can’t have what you are not. It’s impossible. It might happen, yes, but it will be brief because the other person will eventually see your true colors. So, no matter what you want in this world you have to be honest with yourself and honest with the other person.

It’s a hard lesson, but a worthwhile one. I wouldn’t have who I have in my life now did I not look in the mirror and become who I truly am. I have who I have in my life now because I am reflecting who I am. I wrote a song called The Mirror of your Soul with D.N.A.. I wrote this song after dating a narcissist. I believe though that everything happens for a reason. Had I not have had this experience I never would have taken a look at who I really am. Everything happens for a reason… Everything.

What did I learn from this and how can it help you?

Take it from a guy that has taken the backseat in many relationships. I’m not blaming them, quite the contrary, I was to blame for all of them. Why? Because I wasn’t in the relationships for me, at first I was, but after a period of time I was in them for somebody else. It was either to please a family member or to prove to the other in the relationship that I could become what they needed me to be in order to make them happy. It’s a lose/lose situation because you can never make somebody else happy, that is their responsibility. Now, that doesn’t mean that you cannot add to another persons happiness, but you can not, and let me say this again… you can’t be responsible for somebody else’s happiness or unhappiness. It’s impossible. But I tried, and I failed many times. It was a pattern of mine to do everything in my power to make someone happy, to prove to them that I could do it. The pattern would last for about 3-5 years before I internally blew up. I would run away, I would start resenting them or I would go find somebody else, and the person I was with at the time would be left standing there dumbfounded not understanding what the hell was going on. They never knew because I would beat myself up inside, convincing myself that I could change for that person.

It wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles that all of this changed. I was forced to be alone. I forced myself for the most part. I recognized the patterns by learning more about myself. It took me being alone, with myself, to really look deep into who I really was and what I really wanted. Yes, I dated here and there, and sometimes I would fall back into the pattern, but this time it was different. I recognized the pattern. That was the key. Sometimes it would only take one date, sometimes a month, but I looked at what I wanted first. Was this person serving who I really wanted to be to the world? Were we both in alignment of what we both needed? How could I serve that person while also serving myself? Millions of questions would come up, and each time I would meditate on it to see if I was falling back into an old pattern or not.

Who are you seeing in the mirror? Who do you want to see in the mirror?

Start taking care of yourself and that reflection will change. Trust me.

Namaste,
David

What is Your Truth?

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The past is the past. Whatever happened then is no longer relevant in my life. I can say that with the utmost truth as if whatever happened in the past was a dream, a ‘story’, that I lived, or my perception of what I lived. My past ‘story’ is not my present truth.


When our truth starts to unfold there is no longer a need to validate our truth. Just living our truth is the only path. I’m not saying that whatever happened in my past didn’t affect me… not at all. What I’m saying is, that whatever happened in my past happened for a reason and that now I know fully in my heart that I am where I am supposed to be. Not physically. Mentally. Emotionally.


Everybody should do this.


Everybody should have the time to reflect on their past, understand our past, mourn our past, and then file it away with the rest of the history books only to reference it in conversation to help others move forward. It should never be taken off the shelf to claim victimhood. We are not victims and to live as a victim will never allow you to move forward.


Amongst my ‘readings’ (audiobooks) while on my Harley there were case studies after case studies where cancer survivors looked back at the profound changes that happened in their lives and that they will only talk about cancer in reference to the past and that most of them don’t even want to talk about it… not from fear that it will return, but because that is not their truth. And each one was grateful for the change in their lives. You would think that they would reference the experience as something horrible that has messed up their whole lives, but no… they were grateful that now they live their lives in such a profoundly different way that you would never know they had such a horrible dis-ease. I’ve never had cancer, nor would I want it, but the point was well taken.


Live your truth at all costs. Don’t let society, family, friends, or situations sway you from your truth. Give of yourself even when you think you are unable to and to always send love to everyone around you… and mean it.

Be Alert

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The world needs more lerts

That is one of my favorite sayings and a bumper sticker that I used to have eons ago.

Be alert for all of the opportunities that come up around us. Be aware and allow the world’s energy to flow around us and to not attach ourselves to unnecessary people or things. I know that in my past I would see something shiny and I would attach myself to it.

We are lightbulbs in a world of moths.

The moths being the mindless creatures that are looking for something outside of themselves.

Spoiler — There is nothing outside of ourselves.

Anything outside of ourselves is ‘perceived’. It’s made up from our conditioning over years of abuse, self-doubt, addiction… and the list goes on. I am determined to be a lightbulb and allowing my light to shine at all costs, even when I’m feeling like I don’t have any light to shine.

I was telling a dear friend this morning that I am studying along my journey, non-attachment. I am determined to ‘allow’ the Universe/God/Source to provide all that I need when I need it. Am I scared? Who wouldn’t be? All the demons and subconscious programming are full-on in my face as we speak, and yet I am determined to ‘allow’.

What do you want?

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In my line of work I get to talk to a lot of people and one thing I’ve noticed is that they all have a common theme; they all know what they don’t want, but they struggle with what they do want. I’m not saying this is a bad thing because we all have to find our way through life via trial and error. Not one of us on this planet wakes up at birth saying, “This is what I want to be, and this is who I will be.”

This dialog is an ever changing one when we are young. We might decide we want to be an Astronaut, Nurse, Doctor, Race Car Driver… and the list grows as we age and as we try different things. We go to college to study medicine only to find out that spinning records is much more fulfilling. Some of us get stuck doing something we don’t love for many years because of family obligation, or social acceptance. Breaking that cycle and really doing what you want is difficult and complicated.

It’s easy to say what you don’t want. It’s easy because you’ve either tried it or someone you know has tried and failed. Nobody wants a bad marriage. Nobody wants to get stuck in a job they don’t like, or a career that just gets them by. To finally sit down and decide what you do want can be depressing because it might seem impossible from where you are sitting right now. You might feel that you don’t deserve it, or you don’t have enough money, you’re not attractive enough, you’re too fat, etc. This dialog will never change until you change. Your circumstances aren’t going to magically disappear overnight. And they most definitely aren’t going to change if you’re stuck in the dialog of what you don’t want.

So Dave… how am I going to change this?

You can start by sitting down and writing down what you want.

If you write down that you want more money…. how much? What would it feel like to have that amount? What would you do with it? If it’s a new car… what color is it? What does it feel like to sit behind the wheel? Where would you drive it? Or maybe you just want to be happy. What would make you happy? What would it feel like to smile? When you are writing these things down, paint a picture in as much detail as you can. You can even create a vision board. Take some old magazines, cut out pictures that you like and paste them on your vision board. Prop the vision board up in front of your bed so that is the first thing you see when you wake up and then the last thing you see before you fall asleep.

Surround yourself with people you aspire to be like. I have a quote that I keep close to me at all times… “Attract what you expect. Reflect what you desire. Become what you respect. Mirror what you admire.” Surrounding yourself with people that you have nothing in common with, or that are negative does you no good whatsoever. Why are you with these people? What value do they have in your life? Is being around them helping you and them grow? If not, gently and with love… walk away.

Don’t tell the world what you want. Just do it. And by God, don’t post it on facebook!

A for sure way to stop you in your tracks is to tell the world what you want. What you are doing is inviting people to tell you that you can’t and that it’s impossible, or they’ve tried it and failed. You will get every excuse in the book and it will eventually wear you down and you’ll end up quitting yourself. I’m not suggesting that you don’t share what you want, but keep it to a small group of people that are inspiring you to do it. Start a meet up group of like minded people that will push you, and you in turn help them as well.

In summary, we live in a ‘Have – Do – Be’ world. If I have a great job, work hard, I will be happy. Unfortunately, we’ve been getting it all wrong. Turn that around to ‘Be-Do-Have’. If you are happy, and you are doing what you love you will have all that you desire…

So. Feel Good. Focus on right NOW. Focus on something, anything but the lack in your life.

Arthur the Stripper

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It seems like a million years ago now, but I remember how exciting the field that I fell into was when I first started.

Flashback to 1986 or so, I had just gotten out of what was to be my second enlistment in the Marines. I say ‘was to be’ because I never finished my second enlistment… hell, I had barely had a year in on my second tour. To keep it brief I had received a medical/honorable discharge after being hit by a car.

But this is not a story about my time in service, that I will tell you another time. This is a story about the career that chose me for close to 25 years. You might be thinking that I’m talking about music, or porn for that matter… not this time. This is talking about my career as a Graphic Designer, or whatever label you wish to call it now. It started out as Desktop Publisher which is just as foreign and confusing a name as ‘stripper’ is.

It started out as most careers start. I needed a job. I had dabbled in building houses for a short time until it got too cold (Cape Cod winters are pretty frigid). Then I worked as a line cook at a deli, Piccadilly Deli, to be exact. I was a Disc Jockey on a Classic Rock radio station (PIXY 103), and I was going to College. It’s amazing how much stamina we have in our youth. Sleep? Pffft. Over-rated.

By no means did I understand this statement when a college friend presented it to me…

“Hey Dave, we need help at Gnomon Copy.”

I looked at my friend with the most puzzling look and replied, “Copy? Do people make copies? Of what?”

That was the beginning. It was more out of curiosity than anything, but mostly it was because I needed cash. From copies, it went into paste-up, to computer design, labels, business cards… stuff like that. I won’t bore you with the details of my work life so I will narrow it down to just the highlights because I know in the back of your mind you are asking yourself…

“Who is Arthur the Stripper?”

One of my last jobs in Massachusetts was managing a copy shop on Main Street in Greenfield. As luck would have it I got fired (It wouldn’t be the last time either). Let’s just say that I have learned through all of my mistakes. Because Necessity is the Mother of Invention I decided to start my own design business. It was actually picking up traction when my partner decided that we were moving to Florida and because I wanted to honor my partners’ decision (we had only been married a month) and again that curiosity thing that I had mentioned above, had its grasp on me. We headed to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida where I was hired almost immediately at a print shop. I’m talking big Heidelberg 4-6 color printing presses. I was hired to help make the transition from paper to computer. For those of you that don’t know about the ‘olden days’, customers used to create their designs by pasting their pictures, text, etc. together on this blue-lined paper (the blue wouldn’t be picked up by the stat cameras when shot). You’re going to have to Google what that means. Ha!

My job, as I stated was to get the client to supply, on floppy discs, their documents, or I would sit with them to design their ads on the computer. Not an easy task. It’s like asking a baby to write out the formula for Newtons’ Law of Thermodynamics. Once I convinced these toddlers that I would make magic for them, they would eventually conform to this theory, which, as we see today… it worked. I would then print their design to film.

The old Linotronic 300, I believe that is what it was. When they first came out the film would stretch and the crop marks wouldn’t line up. You see we had to print out Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black or K as they called it (CMYK). I hope I’m not losing you here… I’m really trying to make a point of all of this nonsense.

Remember Arthur? The Stripper?

In the other room, we had these HUGE light tables with people hunched over them with little magnifying glass things called ‘loops’. Their job was to ‘strip’ the film together. They would do it by lining up the crop marks, shooting the film and then getting it ready for the big old printing presses.

Remember I said that the crop marks wouldn’t line up when I printed out the film from the computer? That is where Arthur steps in.

“You damned kids and your computers!”

It was on a daily basis that this old film stripper, Arthur, would come into the computer room yelling and screaming at me because the crop marks wouldn’t line up and he would have to spend extra time cutting the film apart to make it work. Arthur was ‘old school’. He was a stripper for the New York Times back in the ’50s and ’60s. Back when massive rooms were filled with these light tables and people hunched over them. A dead art now, long gone. Most of these people ended up embracing the computer world and leaving their loops behind.

I feel like Arthur now. I’m the ‘old school’ Graphic Designer and ‘those damned kids’ are now my competition. Most of my design friends are still plugging away, and some have faded away.

Arthur never embraced the computer world. He went into retirement and probably never looked at a computer nor a cellphone for that matter. As much as I feel like Arthur now I don’t have the option of retirement. Long gone are the long-lasting jobs. There is no more loyalty in the job market. We’ve turned our loyalty to the almighty dollar. Conform or die.

I don’t want to leave this on a sour note, I want to inspire. So, that being said, as you conform yourself throughout the years to come, ask yourself…

Is what you are doing serving humanity? Because if it is not, you are wasting your time. Maybe Arthur had it right after all.

 

Following your intuition

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I’ve written about this before in the past but as I learn more and more about our gut feelings, our intuition, I start to understand that following our thinking mind is the last thing we want to do.

Our thinking mind, our ego, is put in place to crunch numbers, to give us the tools for motor functions, such as limbs, speech, work tasks, etc. But what about the gut, and the heart? They have been doing research now that suggests that we have a second heart in our gut, per se, called the enteric nervous system. It is such a vast area equal to the heart and pretty much runs itself. So, when people tell you to follow your gut, it means a LOT more than you think.

I’ll leave you to look up the scientific information… I’m not here to convince you of that but I am here to tell you about my experience throughout the years.

A few weeks ago I was offered a gig back in California, it’s a one-off that might not amount to much more than doing the gig… well, at first I consulted a few of my intuitive friends to get their input that was very helpful but not essential because I had already made up my mind to go forward with it.