If you have even a passing interest in personal development, you probably know meditation is one of the most highly recommended tools for improving your life. Well, there is a reason for the enthusiastic endorsements—it works. I have been meditating for years and it has changed my life for the better more than any other tool I have employed. I believe this is because it addresses the core issues that cause our suffering – our crazy minds and our deeply ingrained habitual reactions to the things happening outside of us. From these things spring forth all our issues.
Meditation can be tough because it forces us to face all the crap running through our minds all day and all the stuff we try to suppress and ignore. In that quiet time it may seem like your mind is racing a million miles per hour, but it is actually moving that fast all the time, we just do not realize it because we are usually moving just as fast on the outside or doing things that distract us. The benefits of meditation are numerous and I could not possibly list them all. The following are the most profound for me and if you are not meditating, I hope it will inspire you to start and if you are just starting, I hope it will inspire you to continue.
Helps You Respond and Not React
Unless you are living in a cave or a mountaintop somewhere, you will likely be assaulted with a million different things that have the potential to anger, frustrate, agitate, upset or downright infuriate you. The lack of control that we often have over our minds often leads us to react to all of these things rather than respond. Something happens, a feeling arises that consumes us and we just react. We are conditioned to think certain situations are supposed to elicit certain negative reactions and we just go with that. But, the wonderful truth is, we do not have to have these reactions. We are not required to act in this way, there is another way.
Meditation shows us this other way. When you learn to sit with your feelings and observe what is happening with you, you gain a greater awareness of what is going on, you gain better control over your thoughts and feelings – the bad stuff may not go away right away, but you learn to deal with it better. There is a space between the essence of you ,which is pure awareness, and your thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Meditating helps you reconnect with this space, it has always been there, we are just not aware of it.
When you strengthen this space, you will find yourself becoming more aware of what is going on with you. When something happens, you will be less likely to have that automatic reaction. You will think before you speak or act – maybe sometimes you will not, but that is okay too, happens to the best of us. You will be more likely to refrain from doing or saying things that are not in your best interest. You will be more aware that you have a choice in how you handle the situation.
Helps You Realize You Are Not Your Thoughts and Feelings
We are constantly feeling and thinking things and because of this, it is natural to attach to these entities, to believe they are a part of us. But, guess what? They are not. They are separate from you and they are constantly changing, constantly arising and passing away. Meditation helps you make this realization. Stilling your mind helps you see that these things are not you, they are just things you are experiencing in the moment.
When we grasp this concept, we avoid getting consumed by our negative thoughts and feelings, we know that they are going to pass and we do not get as heavily invested in them. We go into that wonderful space that I talked about before and we just observe what is going on, kind of like a third party. We see these things are not us, they are just something that we are experiencing in the moment. It will allow us to sit with them better. We may still feel like crap, but meditating can help us reduce or remove that extra layer of feeling upset simply because we are upset.
Helps With the Attraction Process
The key to attracting the things you want is feeling good – sounds overly simple, I know . But, I have come to realize this is the truth. Meditating helps you feel better. There may be some moments when you are not feeling so great but it is all part of the purging process that is making room for the good stuff. But, overall, it will make you feel good. You will feel less stressed, it will provide clarity and inspiration. It will give you ideas that will lead to inspired action, which helps you get more done with less effort and drudgery. By reducing the intensity of your negative feelings, it will reduce the impact they have on thwarting your attraction efforts.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Law of Attraction: 3 Tips for Raising Your Vibration
If you want to attract better circumstances into your life, you need to work on how you are feeling. Once I started really studying law of attraction and related subject matter, this simple truth became really obvious to me. When I really started to dissect the beliefs I held, my habits and behaviors, the state of my past experience made total sense to me. When I began to change these things, my outside experience changed. That was all the proof I needed that there is something to all of this. It takes some effort to change how we feel however. Most of the time, we are operating on autopilot, just reacting to everything outside of us. We are not checking in with ourselves, we are not engaging deliberately, we are not questioning our thoughts and behaviors, we are just existing in this state where we are not using our personal power to influence the course of events in our life. We will need to do things that help get us into a better state of mind mentally, that will help raise that core vibration that is the crux of the attraction process.
You will come across a million different techniques to accomplish these noble goals of feeling better and making the law of attraction work for you. I do not necessarily think one is better than the other or that there is one thing you MUST do; the strategies are just a means to an end, which is feeling better and helping you shift your attention towards what you want in life rather than your current bad circumstances or the things you do not want to happen. As long as something makes you feel better, it will work for you. The trick is finding things that resonate with you, that make you feel better, that help get you into the state where the creation process will work for you rather than against you.
I wanted to offer some suggestions that have worked for me. I highly recommend giving them a shot. If they do not do it for you, that is fine. The key is to find something that does do it for you because chances are you are engaging in this stuff because you want to make changes in your life and you are still lacking things you desire. We have been instilled with a lot of stuff that will keep us from this goal and we must work on overcoming that.
Thank the Universe For Fulfilling Your Wishes
When it comes to law of attraction, you hear a lot about acting as if , feeling as if you already have the things you want. This can be really, really, really, add a million more really’s, HARD. I know, I still struggle with this one. But, based on my experience, I can tell you with certainty it is necessary. If a feeling of ‘’I do not have this yet’’ is the predominant energy surrounding the things you want, you will continue to create a reality where they do not yet exist. Finding a way to get into this vibration is crucial for the attraction process.
I find writing a letter to the Universe thanking it for giving me all these things, even if they are not in my physical reality yet, works great for this. I enjoy physically writing things, I think it sets strong intentions. You can address it to God or whatever you prefer to call that mysterious, magical, wonderful creative force. Write in the present tense as if these things are already yours. I find this exercise gets me in that all important space of feeling good about these things, feeling as if they are already mine. Expressly say thank you for each thing, maybe express how having this thing now benefits you. Lately, I have been doing this almost every day, right when I wake up and it really puts me in a good space right at the start of the day. Approach the letter however feels good to you, because that is really all that matters.
Express Gratitude for What You Already Have
With all the focus on bringing things into our life that we do not already have, it can be very easy to overlook all the good things we already have. Our tendency to always focus on what is missing or what we do not like is very counterproductive to the attraction process. A feeling of gratitude makes us feel good and attracting is all about feeling good remember? Being happy with the things we already have helps bring us more things to be happy about.
If you are living the average middle class existence and you aspire to be wealthy, have a big house and a boat, that is great, nothing wrong with wanting a richer, fuller existence. But, do not overlook the great things you have now, which likely include a nice place to live, a car, ability to put food on the table, an internet connection that helps you connect to great sources of information, ability to pay your bills or at least most of them, a nice bed to sleep in. You may not be ecstatic about your current circumstances, but you probably do not have it too bad right at this moment.
There are lots of ways to express this gratitude, again I really like writing stuff down. Make a list of all the things you are grateful for, down to the smallest thing. Maybe you can write a general list every day or maybe you can make a list at the end of the day that focuses on the good things you experienced that day. You must find a way to increase your feelings of gratitude, it is a necessary component.
Meditate
Meditation helps with numerous things. By gaining better control of our minds, we gain a better sense of control over our feelings. A lot of stuff goes through our minds on a constant basis and a lot of it is not so great. We are thinking things that are making us feel badly. Now, being human you are not going to feel great every second. Even though you know LOA makes sense, you are going to have your moments when you worry, harbor doubt and focus on the bad stuff. By meditating, you are honing the ability to create that space between your awareness and your thoughts and feelings, which are just fleeting, temporary entities – they are not you. This helps lessen the intensity of these moments. You will not get as caught up in them. By reducing their power, you will reduce the negative impact they have on your life, namely blocking the things you want. The less powerful the crappy moments are, the less effect they will have on the attraction process.
You will come across a million different techniques to accomplish these noble goals of feeling better and making the law of attraction work for you. I do not necessarily think one is better than the other or that there is one thing you MUST do; the strategies are just a means to an end, which is feeling better and helping you shift your attention towards what you want in life rather than your current bad circumstances or the things you do not want to happen. As long as something makes you feel better, it will work for you. The trick is finding things that resonate with you, that make you feel better, that help get you into the state where the creation process will work for you rather than against you.
I wanted to offer some suggestions that have worked for me. I highly recommend giving them a shot. If they do not do it for you, that is fine. The key is to find something that does do it for you because chances are you are engaging in this stuff because you want to make changes in your life and you are still lacking things you desire. We have been instilled with a lot of stuff that will keep us from this goal and we must work on overcoming that.
Thank the Universe For Fulfilling Your Wishes
When it comes to law of attraction, you hear a lot about acting as if , feeling as if you already have the things you want. This can be really, really, really, add a million more really’s, HARD. I know, I still struggle with this one. But, based on my experience, I can tell you with certainty it is necessary. If a feeling of ‘’I do not have this yet’’ is the predominant energy surrounding the things you want, you will continue to create a reality where they do not yet exist. Finding a way to get into this vibration is crucial for the attraction process.
I find writing a letter to the Universe thanking it for giving me all these things, even if they are not in my physical reality yet, works great for this. I enjoy physically writing things, I think it sets strong intentions. You can address it to God or whatever you prefer to call that mysterious, magical, wonderful creative force. Write in the present tense as if these things are already yours. I find this exercise gets me in that all important space of feeling good about these things, feeling as if they are already mine. Expressly say thank you for each thing, maybe express how having this thing now benefits you. Lately, I have been doing this almost every day, right when I wake up and it really puts me in a good space right at the start of the day. Approach the letter however feels good to you, because that is really all that matters.
Express Gratitude for What You Already Have
With all the focus on bringing things into our life that we do not already have, it can be very easy to overlook all the good things we already have. Our tendency to always focus on what is missing or what we do not like is very counterproductive to the attraction process. A feeling of gratitude makes us feel good and attracting is all about feeling good remember? Being happy with the things we already have helps bring us more things to be happy about.
If you are living the average middle class existence and you aspire to be wealthy, have a big house and a boat, that is great, nothing wrong with wanting a richer, fuller existence. But, do not overlook the great things you have now, which likely include a nice place to live, a car, ability to put food on the table, an internet connection that helps you connect to great sources of information, ability to pay your bills or at least most of them, a nice bed to sleep in. You may not be ecstatic about your current circumstances, but you probably do not have it too bad right at this moment.
There are lots of ways to express this gratitude, again I really like writing stuff down. Make a list of all the things you are grateful for, down to the smallest thing. Maybe you can write a general list every day or maybe you can make a list at the end of the day that focuses on the good things you experienced that day. You must find a way to increase your feelings of gratitude, it is a necessary component.
Meditate
Meditation helps with numerous things. By gaining better control of our minds, we gain a better sense of control over our feelings. A lot of stuff goes through our minds on a constant basis and a lot of it is not so great. We are thinking things that are making us feel badly. Now, being human you are not going to feel great every second. Even though you know LOA makes sense, you are going to have your moments when you worry, harbor doubt and focus on the bad stuff. By meditating, you are honing the ability to create that space between your awareness and your thoughts and feelings, which are just fleeting, temporary entities – they are not you. This helps lessen the intensity of these moments. You will not get as caught up in them. By reducing their power, you will reduce the negative impact they have on your life, namely blocking the things you want. The less powerful the crappy moments are, the less effect they will have on the attraction process.
What You Want Likely Lies on the Other Side of an Uncomfortable Decision
Unless you were blessed to grow up around enlightened beings unrestrained by the limiting beliefs and ways of thinking that are instilled in most of us from the time we are very young, you are likely carrying around some crappy baggage that is preventing you from living the life you really want and being who you really want to be. Most of us have not been that lucky. This is not to pass judgment or to criticize our parents, religious institutions, society at large,etc…, but it is pretty obvious that conformity, mediocrity and not expecting much out of life is the pretty prevalent mode of operation.
We have been instilled with lots of ideas about how things should be, what is right or wrong, what life is supposed to be like, what we are supposed to want. These forces are very powerful and they have shaped who we are, what we believe and what our lives are like. If you are happy with all of that, then great; we all want different things and have different desires. But, if you are unhappy with who you are and your current experience, then it is time for some serious evaluation. You have a right to be happy and if the current party line is not working for you, you have every right to reject it. Most of the stuff is arbitrary anyway and is simply the results of someone else’s thinking and opinion. There is no reason you have to accept it and live by it if you do not want to.
Like I mentioned earlier though, these forces are pretty damn powerful. Even if you reject them, it can still be pretty scary to go against them. Even if you know it is all arbitrary, you may still feel like you are wrong somehow, that because everyone else believes certain things and acts a certain way, that must be the right or proper way. You are human and likely riddled with doubts, insecurity, fear and anxiety. This can make doing what we truly want one of the most uncomfortable experiences we endure. We are fighting against a lot of stuff, both internally and externally, that makes it all too easy to be comfortable and just stay where we are, that makes it all too easy to just maintain the status quo and try to convince ourselves we are happy with our current lot.
Taking full control of our lives and complete responsibility for how it unfolds is empowering and something few people really do. More often than not, we are not direct participants in our own life, we just take what comes at us. We blame other people and other things outside of us for the things that happen. We believe we cannot have or be certain things. Learning to overcome all of this and charge full speed ahead towards the things we want to do, be and have is likely not going to be easy. You will constantly be coming up against resistance, old programming, and other people’s pessimism, criticism and often well-meaning dashing of your hopes and dreams.
The things we truly want usually lie on the other side of an uncomfortable decision or in most instances, a series of uncomfortable decisions. Not already having these things is caused by us and us alone and getting them means overcoming all the junk that stands between us and our desires; this is not an easy task. You will need to shift from victim mode to taking full ownership of your life. You will need to work on yourself and face some hard, honest truths about your shortcomings and work on overcoming them. You will need to do some uncomfortable questioning and examination. You will need to work on your mental tools, such as learning to shift your attention to things conducive to getting what you want rather than things that will block them. You will need to learn to deal with other people who may not be so supportive of your goals or who do not accept this new you.
But, with all of that being said, the journey is awesome. Making a decision to really live the life you want and become the person you know you can be is one of the most worthwhile goals we can set out to achieve. You do not need to settle for just good enough. Life may be comfortable now, but is it the life you want? If not, find the courage to make the uncomfortable decisions that will get you where you want to be, it is worth it I promise.
We have been instilled with lots of ideas about how things should be, what is right or wrong, what life is supposed to be like, what we are supposed to want. These forces are very powerful and they have shaped who we are, what we believe and what our lives are like. If you are happy with all of that, then great; we all want different things and have different desires. But, if you are unhappy with who you are and your current experience, then it is time for some serious evaluation. You have a right to be happy and if the current party line is not working for you, you have every right to reject it. Most of the stuff is arbitrary anyway and is simply the results of someone else’s thinking and opinion. There is no reason you have to accept it and live by it if you do not want to.
Like I mentioned earlier though, these forces are pretty damn powerful. Even if you reject them, it can still be pretty scary to go against them. Even if you know it is all arbitrary, you may still feel like you are wrong somehow, that because everyone else believes certain things and acts a certain way, that must be the right or proper way. You are human and likely riddled with doubts, insecurity, fear and anxiety. This can make doing what we truly want one of the most uncomfortable experiences we endure. We are fighting against a lot of stuff, both internally and externally, that makes it all too easy to be comfortable and just stay where we are, that makes it all too easy to just maintain the status quo and try to convince ourselves we are happy with our current lot.
Taking full control of our lives and complete responsibility for how it unfolds is empowering and something few people really do. More often than not, we are not direct participants in our own life, we just take what comes at us. We blame other people and other things outside of us for the things that happen. We believe we cannot have or be certain things. Learning to overcome all of this and charge full speed ahead towards the things we want to do, be and have is likely not going to be easy. You will constantly be coming up against resistance, old programming, and other people’s pessimism, criticism and often well-meaning dashing of your hopes and dreams.
The things we truly want usually lie on the other side of an uncomfortable decision or in most instances, a series of uncomfortable decisions. Not already having these things is caused by us and us alone and getting them means overcoming all the junk that stands between us and our desires; this is not an easy task. You will need to shift from victim mode to taking full ownership of your life. You will need to work on yourself and face some hard, honest truths about your shortcomings and work on overcoming them. You will need to do some uncomfortable questioning and examination. You will need to work on your mental tools, such as learning to shift your attention to things conducive to getting what you want rather than things that will block them. You will need to learn to deal with other people who may not be so supportive of your goals or who do not accept this new you.
But, with all of that being said, the journey is awesome. Making a decision to really live the life you want and become the person you know you can be is one of the most worthwhile goals we can set out to achieve. You do not need to settle for just good enough. Life may be comfortable now, but is it the life you want? If not, find the courage to make the uncomfortable decisions that will get you where you want to be, it is worth it I promise.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Owning Our Choices When We Would Rather Make A Different One
Often times, we do things that we really do not want to do. On some level, we know we do not have to ,but we do them anyway --generally with the thought that we really do not have a choice. We deal with the circumstances, all the while thinking we do not have other options, that we must just put up with what is happening even though we do not like it.
In most cases, we are probably doing this because doing what we really want involves some level of discomfort on our part and lord knows we try to avoid uncomfortable situations at any cost. The thought of offending someone, hurting someone’s feelings, being honest about something we would rather not have people know, causing conflict or having other people think badly about us probably makes our stomachs flip a bit so we put ourselves in situations that we would rather not be in because the alternative of speaking up is just too unpleasant. Then we complain and get angry when we have to deal with these things.
Maybe it is the chatty co-worker who interferes with getting your work done, the neighbor who constantly asks you for favors without ever reciprocating, the mother who guilts you into participating in every event in your childrens’ school and you say yes every time, going to an event you really do not want to go to, the friend who you really do not want to be friends with anymore.…you get the point. I think we have all had the experience of dealing with situations we would rather not simply because the idea of being honest with other people is just too hard a pill to swallow.
If we believe that not speaking up and begrudgingly doing the things we do not want to do is the better option, the one that will cause less grief or strife, then that is fine. Sometimes, it may very well be. But in these circumstances, we have to own that we are making this choice. We have to admit that we are forgoing the other options and that we are choosing this course of action, even if it makes us less happy.
We need to quit complaining and placing the blame outside of ourselves. By owning these choices, it will make it a lot easier to deal with the circumstances we are placing ourselves in. When we own these choices, we will feel less angry at the other people because we will realize how we feel is no fault of theirs, it is our fault because we are the one making the decision to deal with the situation in the way that we are. No one is making us do anything, we are consciously choosing.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Law of Attraction: You Will Never Get What You ''Need"
If the idea that the way we think and feel creates a primary vibration that determines the experience we attract into our lives holds any merit, and from my experience it does, then certain types of thoughts and feelings are particularly detrimental to the creation process. Feeling like we ‘’need’’ something is never really a good feeling right? When we feel this way, we are putting a lot of focus on what is missing from our lives, all the bad things that will happen if we do not get it, how badly we feel because we do not have this thing yet. We feel desperate. None of this will help in the creation process. We will thwart it. We will continue to experience the reality of ‘’needing something’’, rather than the reality where this thing exists.
I have studied law of attraction extensively and I have adopted practices that help me apply it in my life and I have gotten some pretty awesome results. But, being far from an expert, I still have blocks around certain areas and I am acutely aware of various things I need to work on in myself. So, I get how hard this stuff can be to apply. I know how hard it is not to feel like we ‘’need’’ something when we really do truly need it.
Money illustrates this perfectly. I believe one of the reasons that this area is probably the hardest one to create manifestations is because there is a huge feeling of ‘’need’’ around money. It touches every aspect of our lives and not having it can create a lot of stress, anxiety and frustration. For example, we may make an intention to have a certain amount of money that is required by a certain date. Maybe you need to make rent or pay bills. When we first make our intention we feel great. Then, as each day passes without the money, we start to get a bit worried, right? We now only have X days left until we need this money and it still is not here. We begin a countdown.
We ‘’need’’ this money and not having it is making us feel really, really badly. We start feeling desperate and anxious and even though we have our moments when we are feeling good and we have faith, this feeling of ‘’need’’ becomes predominant. When we do this, we create a further state of ‘’need.’’ The only way we will get the money we need is when we stop feeling like we ‘’need’’ it. This is hard for our logical minds to accept and we defend our habitual reactions and think we have every right to feel this way. We ‘’need’’ this money and we do not have it, of course I am worried! Believe me, I get it, totally.
But, we always have a choice on how to view our circumstances and where we put our attention. We can make the choice to not focus on what we are lacking. This is not naïve or fanciful thinking, it is a necessary component to changing the circumstances. If you cannot pay your bills on time, giving all your energy and attention to it is not going to change that. I have been there and I know how sucky that stuff is. I definitely had my bad moments during these times, but I also made a huge effort to direct my thoughts and feelings in a different direction. And guess what? I attracted better financial circumstances through ways I could never have anticipated logically. I got caught up on my bills and my finances improved million-fold from what they were. I worked really hard on not feeling like I ‘’needed’’ that money, even though I really did.
The good news is, you just need to feel good more than you are feeling badly, so when you do have your moments, do not beat yourself up too much. As long as the scales are tipped in favor of feeling good more than you are not feeling good, you are moving in the right direction. No matter how badly you may feel like you ‘’need’’ something, whether it is money or a particular opportunity to pan out, do your best to detach. Need only creates more need.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
For Days When You Just Want to Punch Something (Or Someone)
We all have those days. Maybe we just woke up in a bad mood. Maybe something has been bothering us and it escalated to a new level. Maybe something did not go as planned or we were blindsided by some unexpected trouble. Maybe someone did or said something. We are not merely just in bad mood, we are in a REALLY bad mood. The kind of mood where things that merely annoy you on most days infuriate you; the kind of mood where anyone else who is in a good mood makes you want to punch them simply for this reason – I mean this mostly figuratively ;).
I found myself in one of those moods the other day. There had been some things bothering me recently but it was just one of those things where I felt badly from the second I woke up. It was instantaneous. I could tell I was going to have trouble shaking it off and I certainly did.
I know it is all perception and I can choose to feel better at any moment. Knowing this and doing it are very different things and my intellectual understanding was just not translating to my actions this particular day. Everything and everyone was just annoying me for no particular reason. But, through all of this, I was able to exert some degree of control. I was not totally lost to the feelings and I was still able to do some reflection and observation. The following things help me deal with these sorts of days and I hope they will help you too.
Know This Too Shall Pass
Intellectually, we know that nothing is permanent and our moods, feelings and emotions shift. But, when we are in the thick of bad ones, we get consumed by them. In that moment, they saturate our reality and we give up all our power to them. We are miserable in this moment and that is all we focus on. If we can train ourselves to remember this impermanence in the moment, something amazing happens. We may still feel all the bad feelings and our mood may not budge an inch, but the intensity may lessen. We still feel sucky but we know it will pass. Maybe in the next hour, maybe in the next few hours, maybe by tomorrow. Regardless, we know this is a fleeting moment, one of many. It may be one of the more unpleasant moments, but one that will not last forever. Reminding ourselves of the impermanence of everything helps create a space between the true you, which is pure consciousness and what we think and feel, which constantly fluctuates and shifts.
Forgive Yourself
As someone who places a high premium on self-improvement, I know I can be too hard on myself sometimes. I think when I first started this journey, I felt like I was going to become this perfect person with Buddha-like awareness and behavior. I would always feel good and I would be able to transcend all those yucky emotions. Yeah, not so much. If you relate to this, you have probably experienced feelings of guilt or being mad at yourself when you have days or moments like these. You think you are not advancing. You are annoyed you find yourself reacting with your old patterns and habits. All of this can make these ‘’I wanna punch someone’’ days more difficult to deal with. Not only are you feeling badly, but you have added an extra layer of negativity due to your anger and guilt for feeling badly.
Question and Observe
For most of us, we are on auto-pilot. We do not take the time to observe what we are thinking and feeling. We are just constantly reacting to everything outside of us instantaneously without a second thought. When we begin to cultivate awareness and actually pay attention, we can discover a goldmine of useful, potentially life-changing information. When we are having these bad moments, it is important to pay attention to what is happening. Just like the awareness of its impermanence, allowing yourself to really think about why you are feeling the way you feel will lighten the load a bit. Again, the mood may still persist, but armed with this information, you may find a way to get out of the funk sooner or resolve an issue contributing to it. This step may be uncomfortable because it may force us to look at things we tend to avoid paying attention to; it shines a light on things in ourselves we know are not serving us and that we probably need to work on changing. But, if you can sit with this discomfort, you will put yourself on a path to creating lasting changes in your life. Changes that will reduce days like this or help you deal more effectively with the ones that will likely happen again down the road.
I found myself in one of those moods the other day. There had been some things bothering me recently but it was just one of those things where I felt badly from the second I woke up. It was instantaneous. I could tell I was going to have trouble shaking it off and I certainly did.
I know it is all perception and I can choose to feel better at any moment. Knowing this and doing it are very different things and my intellectual understanding was just not translating to my actions this particular day. Everything and everyone was just annoying me for no particular reason. But, through all of this, I was able to exert some degree of control. I was not totally lost to the feelings and I was still able to do some reflection and observation. The following things help me deal with these sorts of days and I hope they will help you too.
Know This Too Shall Pass
Intellectually, we know that nothing is permanent and our moods, feelings and emotions shift. But, when we are in the thick of bad ones, we get consumed by them. In that moment, they saturate our reality and we give up all our power to them. We are miserable in this moment and that is all we focus on. If we can train ourselves to remember this impermanence in the moment, something amazing happens. We may still feel all the bad feelings and our mood may not budge an inch, but the intensity may lessen. We still feel sucky but we know it will pass. Maybe in the next hour, maybe in the next few hours, maybe by tomorrow. Regardless, we know this is a fleeting moment, one of many. It may be one of the more unpleasant moments, but one that will not last forever. Reminding ourselves of the impermanence of everything helps create a space between the true you, which is pure consciousness and what we think and feel, which constantly fluctuates and shifts.
Forgive Yourself
As someone who places a high premium on self-improvement, I know I can be too hard on myself sometimes. I think when I first started this journey, I felt like I was going to become this perfect person with Buddha-like awareness and behavior. I would always feel good and I would be able to transcend all those yucky emotions. Yeah, not so much. If you relate to this, you have probably experienced feelings of guilt or being mad at yourself when you have days or moments like these. You think you are not advancing. You are annoyed you find yourself reacting with your old patterns and habits. All of this can make these ‘’I wanna punch someone’’ days more difficult to deal with. Not only are you feeling badly, but you have added an extra layer of negativity due to your anger and guilt for feeling badly.
Question and Observe
For most of us, we are on auto-pilot. We do not take the time to observe what we are thinking and feeling. We are just constantly reacting to everything outside of us instantaneously without a second thought. When we begin to cultivate awareness and actually pay attention, we can discover a goldmine of useful, potentially life-changing information. When we are having these bad moments, it is important to pay attention to what is happening. Just like the awareness of its impermanence, allowing yourself to really think about why you are feeling the way you feel will lighten the load a bit. Again, the mood may still persist, but armed with this information, you may find a way to get out of the funk sooner or resolve an issue contributing to it. This step may be uncomfortable because it may force us to look at things we tend to avoid paying attention to; it shines a light on things in ourselves we know are not serving us and that we probably need to work on changing. But, if you can sit with this discomfort, you will put yourself on a path to creating lasting changes in your life. Changes that will reduce days like this or help you deal more effectively with the ones that will likely happen again down the road.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Don’t Blame Societal Pressure for Your Life Choices
As a result of someone else’s thinking and opinion, pretty firm ideas have been established regarding appropriate and proper ways to live, what is supposed to make us happy, what constitutes success, what constitutes a mature, adult life and what is ‘’normal.’’ These ideas permeate our consciousness over a very long period of time and they can be very strong forces. These forces can shape our life and if you are in full alignment with all of them, then you probably are not suffering any angst over how you are living your life and the choices you have made. Things are perfectly dandy for you.
But, for many of us, some aspects of our lives are probably not in line with what we really want but the pressure is strong and it led us to make certain decisions anyway. It leads us to conduct our daily lives in a way that really does not make us happy. At this point, one of two things occurs – we buck all of these arbitrary declarations and live our lives how we want or we continue to conform and blame societal pressure. I find that most of us choose the latter route. No doubt going the first route can be difficult and uncomfortable but it is always a choice and while it may be a very difficult or uncomfortable choice, that is not a valid reason for not making it.
There are a million examples of this but a few prominent ones come to mind. It seems these days, to be a good parent, which basically means mother, you must devote every waking second to the care, entertainment and enrichment of your child. All of their food must be organic and they need to be involved in 12 different activities, all nurturing a different aspect of their development. They are the center of the world and you should not care about anything else and if you do, you are selfish. I hear and see so many mothers complain about this current ideal, this ridiculous ‘’Supermom’’ image. So many perfectly good parents driving themselves crazy trying to live up to this near impossible ideal, suffering terrible guilt. I agree wholeheartedly that it is too much, but if you are not buying into all of this and you truly do not believe it necessary to raise a happy, healthy child, you can choose not to do all of these things. If the only thing driving you to this insane level of parenting is fear of judgment or criticism, you cannot blame anyone else but yourself. There are plenty of parents who have firmly said no to all of this and you can too. Yeah, other mothers are most definitely going to talk about you and judge you; we will never avoid the scrutiny of others. But if it is any consolation, their nasty words are just a way to soothe that part of them that is jealous they do not have the courage to make the same decision. This applies in all types of situations.
Our culture has a very firmly entrenched idea of success and it centers on having certain types of jobs, acquiring certain material goods and having a lot of money. This leads people into jobs they hate so that they can achieve a certain image and be viewed a certain way. It also leads people to emulate this life even when they cannot afford it. Again, I get the societal pressure can be strong, but you have to own that you are making the choices you are making because you feel pressure and you worry about what other people are thinking about you. No one forced you into getting a job you hate, marrying someone you really do not love, a huge mortgage when you would have been just as happy to rent or racking up credit card debt so that you appear to have more money than you actually do.
We spend so much time blaming societal expectations for the choices we make, how we live our life and it is just plain silly. We are only human and it is natural to feel doubt or insecurity, or lack confidence in certain areas of our life; we all suffer from that. This naturally makes it challenging to do our own thing and we can be very sensitive to the judgment and criticism of others. Going left when everyone else is going right is certainly difficult at times but we always have choices. People are always going to talk about other people, they will always have their opinions and fixed ideas. We cannot change that and we must accept that we may be the target of all the gossip and criticism at times. No one can make us do anything. Everything we are doing now is by choice. We cannot blame anyone else but ourselves for those choices. If you are used to blaming outside circumstances for your life, this type of statement probably angers you, but it should not. Isn’t it empowering to believe that you can take full responsibility for your life and that you are not obligated to live based on someone else’s expectations?
But, for many of us, some aspects of our lives are probably not in line with what we really want but the pressure is strong and it led us to make certain decisions anyway. It leads us to conduct our daily lives in a way that really does not make us happy. At this point, one of two things occurs – we buck all of these arbitrary declarations and live our lives how we want or we continue to conform and blame societal pressure. I find that most of us choose the latter route. No doubt going the first route can be difficult and uncomfortable but it is always a choice and while it may be a very difficult or uncomfortable choice, that is not a valid reason for not making it.
There are a million examples of this but a few prominent ones come to mind. It seems these days, to be a good parent, which basically means mother, you must devote every waking second to the care, entertainment and enrichment of your child. All of their food must be organic and they need to be involved in 12 different activities, all nurturing a different aspect of their development. They are the center of the world and you should not care about anything else and if you do, you are selfish. I hear and see so many mothers complain about this current ideal, this ridiculous ‘’Supermom’’ image. So many perfectly good parents driving themselves crazy trying to live up to this near impossible ideal, suffering terrible guilt. I agree wholeheartedly that it is too much, but if you are not buying into all of this and you truly do not believe it necessary to raise a happy, healthy child, you can choose not to do all of these things. If the only thing driving you to this insane level of parenting is fear of judgment or criticism, you cannot blame anyone else but yourself. There are plenty of parents who have firmly said no to all of this and you can too. Yeah, other mothers are most definitely going to talk about you and judge you; we will never avoid the scrutiny of others. But if it is any consolation, their nasty words are just a way to soothe that part of them that is jealous they do not have the courage to make the same decision. This applies in all types of situations.
Our culture has a very firmly entrenched idea of success and it centers on having certain types of jobs, acquiring certain material goods and having a lot of money. This leads people into jobs they hate so that they can achieve a certain image and be viewed a certain way. It also leads people to emulate this life even when they cannot afford it. Again, I get the societal pressure can be strong, but you have to own that you are making the choices you are making because you feel pressure and you worry about what other people are thinking about you. No one forced you into getting a job you hate, marrying someone you really do not love, a huge mortgage when you would have been just as happy to rent or racking up credit card debt so that you appear to have more money than you actually do.
We spend so much time blaming societal expectations for the choices we make, how we live our life and it is just plain silly. We are only human and it is natural to feel doubt or insecurity, or lack confidence in certain areas of our life; we all suffer from that. This naturally makes it challenging to do our own thing and we can be very sensitive to the judgment and criticism of others. Going left when everyone else is going right is certainly difficult at times but we always have choices. People are always going to talk about other people, they will always have their opinions and fixed ideas. We cannot change that and we must accept that we may be the target of all the gossip and criticism at times. No one can make us do anything. Everything we are doing now is by choice. We cannot blame anyone else but ourselves for those choices. If you are used to blaming outside circumstances for your life, this type of statement probably angers you, but it should not. Isn’t it empowering to believe that you can take full responsibility for your life and that you are not obligated to live based on someone else’s expectations?
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