“Ralph Button … New Beginnings”

Speech and Photos © RmfTop Ralph M Ferraro, 2012

Photo of Ralph taken by Derek Chen, a photographer colleague at Toastmasters

All other photographs taken by Ralph M. Ferraro

Last Monday, I gave a talk to the New York Leadership Roundtable of Toastmasters, entitled

 “Ralph Button … New Beginnings.”

I indicated that ‘New beginnings’ can mean – “already existing, newly discovered, experienced now… bringing into being.”[1]

Benjamin Button[2] experienced new beginnings in a physical dimension of being born old and growing progressively younger in body.

I asked the group to think about the possibility that in fact we are born “old,” i.e. old sentient beings that have much experience and knowledge within a young body.

Social Skills of an Infant

In a New York Times article, Natalie Angier indicated, “A baby is born knowing how to work the crowd … the extraordinary social skills of an infant are at the heart of what makes us human.”[1] It seems that newborns have a sense of life, love, and the importance of relationship. If this is so, why is the world chaotic and problematic at times? 

Problematic Patterns

Perhaps the problem exists in the patterns that we are taught by family, religions, and cultural institutions. Some of the patterns are psychopathic as evidenced by groups such as the Nazi. Most of the distorted patterns, however, may stem from lack of knowing the specialness of each person and valuing the unique talents that he or she possesses. The emphasis is on conforming for “good social order.” Many who teach or model patterns seem to lack faith that if they encourage persons to follow their desires and talents they would not be capable of achieving success.  They seemingly do not know how to guide and foster the development of artistic and creative abilities. They lead or teach from their own learned patterns not knowing that these patterns they are promoting do not encourage persons to be all they can be. They foster particular patterns out of fear or what Dr. Maslow(Maslow 2011) describes as being stuck trying to meet basic needs, rather than guiding our basic creative instincts. 

Patterns as layered fragments

Patterns that are geared primarily to basic needs lead to fragmented patterns of energy.

As layers of such patterns build upon each other, they create a disjointed flow of energy, not connected to our abilities or to our purpose. As the fragmented layers expand, our stress levels go up. As stress levels go up, the energy of our health, of our relationships, and of our general well being vibrates at a lower frequency, and we fail to function at the peak level of our being.

The Journey Inward - 

Meditation - quieting of the mind - creating space

We ask-- how can we reclaim the high energy levels of creativity and joy? I suggest that we journey inward, toward our inner self. Many writers from multiple disciplines-- spiritual, business, and science-- have indicated that meditation unleashes the power from within us. Meditation is breathing into life and creating a quiet space where we connect with two voices: the voice of our own internal guidance system(Hicks and Abraham 2009) and the voice with direct connection with Source Energy (God). These voices help us discover our desires.

Discovery of Desire and Emotional Guidance

Desires are expressions of our thinking energy and feeling energy. Desires  call us to a higher level of being. Desires help us discover both our gifts and our life purpose

 If we accept our mission, a mission that we created prior to becoming human on our planet The  paths we take  and the people we encounter will lead us to a joy-filled fulfillment of this mission. The next step is with faith to allow the talents and purpose to flow. All our life energies will work in harmony and synchronicity, creating beautiful realities for us and for those within our circles of experience.

Join me on the Journey !!!

I ask all of you who are listening, 
to journey inward, 
and get in touch 
with your inner thinking and feeling energies, and 
radiate the Gift and Joy of your being and becoming.

_________________
Citations
[1] “In a Helpless Baby, the Roots of Our Social Glue” Angier, Natalie, NY Times 03/02/09

[2] Dictionary on computer

[3] From the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

[4] Hicks, E. J. and Abraham (2009). The Vortex: Where the law of attraction assembles all cooperative relationships. New York City, Hay House.

            Discusses the Law of Attraction from the perspective of : Learning to attract Joyous Co-creators; The Perfect mate -- Getting one, Being one, Attracting one; Sexuality, Sensuality & the opinion of others; Parenting; Self-appreciation & "Magical Keys"; Transcript of included CD

[5] Maslow, A. H. (2011). Toward a psychology of being, Wilder Publications.