A Bad Habit
Being Hard On Ourselves
One of the key components of human consciousness that most of us need to address and change is our tendency to be hard on ourselves. We do this in ways that are both overt and subtle, and half the work sometimes is recognizing that we are doing it at all. For example, if we find it difficult to graciously accept compliments, this is probably a sign that we tend to be hard on ourselves. Other ways in which we express this tendency include never feeling satisfied with a job well done, always wanting to be and do better, and getting mad at ourselves for getting sick. Getting mad at ourselves at all indicates that we need to rescue ourselves from our learned ability to be unkind to ourselves.
In essence, when we are hard on ourselves, we send our bodies the message that we are not good enough. Whenever we do this, we do damage that will need to be addressed later, and we sap our systems of much-needed energy. Being hard on ourselves is a waste of precious time and energy that we could use in positive ways. To begin to understand how this works, we can think about times when someone made us feel that we weren’t good enough. Even just thinking about it will create an effect in our bodies that doesn’t feel good. We may be used to the feeling, but when we really tune into it, we instinctively know that it is not good for us on any level.
Like any bad habit, being hard on ourselves can be a challenging one to release, but the more we feel the burden it places on us, the more motivated we will be to change. At first, just noticing when we are doing it and how it makes us feel is enough. As our awareness increases, our innate impulse toward health and well-being will be activated, moving us out of danger and into a more positive and more natural relationship with ourselves.
Changing the Way We Relate
Making Over Our Partners
A relationship, in the truest sense of the word, means relating to another. Usually when we say that we relate to someone, it is because we’ve found common ground. But part of relating is finding ways to make ideas that seem different come together. So often when we choose relationships, we try to fit another person into our predetermined ideal. When they don’t fit perfectly, we may try to make them over, creating our own vision from the raw material they’ve brought. But unless someone asks for guidance and direction, entering into a relationship with someone we want to change is dishonest. Then our relationship becomes with someone we’ve imagined, and anytime our partner steps outside of that imaginary projection, we will be disappointed. An honest relationship is one in which we accept each other as whole individuals, and find a way to share our life experiences together. Then, whenever we want, we can choose as a couple to give the relationship a makeover by renewing the way we interact.
By wanting to give another person a makeover, we are basically saying we don’t accept them for who they are. If we take a moment to imagine the roles reversed, we can get a sense of how it would feel if our beloved only committed to us because they thought we were, or would become, someone else entirely. In such an environment, we are not relating to each other from a real place, and we are keeping ourselves from being able to learn and grow from the different viewpoints that our partners offer.
If we feel that a change is needed in our relationship, the only makeover that we truly have the power to make is on ourselves. By accepting our partners for exactly who they are—the ideal and the not-so-ideal—we will create an energetic shift in our relationships, and we may find ourselves really appreciating our partners for the first time. Working from within, we determine how we relate to the people and the world around us, and when we can accept it and embrace it all, without conditions, we make every act of relating a positive one.
I act and speak with a pure heart.
John Randolph Price
In 563BC, Siddhartha Gautama came forth to become Buddha, the Enlightened one. He believed in universal good will expressed from a heart of love "that knows no anger, that knows no ill will."
Gautama understood that lack, limitation, disease, and death are but illusions, not created by God, therefore not real. His Eightfold Path to freedom encompassed right belief, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right thought, and right meditation.
He said, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure heart, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him."
Imagine
Neale Donald Walsch
Imagination is your greatest gift. Do not be afraid to use it.
Imagine yourself as being okay right now. Totally okay. Imagine yourself as Whole, Complete, and Perfect. With nothing to change, nothing to "improve."
Imagine your heart as being open again, your life as if it were starting over in the most important ways. Can you imagine this? Then you have just created Tomorrow.
The Way We See It
Steve Goodier
The eye doctor instructed her patient to read a chart on the wall. He looked at it and read, "A, B, F, N, L, and G."
The doctor turned the light back on and wrote in her notebook.
"How'd I do, Doc?" the patient wondered.
She replied, "Let's put it this way—they're numbers."
"But Doc," he argued, "this is the way I see it!"
Much of my happiness or unhappiness is a result of my perception. "This is the way I see it," I tell myself.
I see some problems as challenges that energize me to action and others as obstacles that stop further progress. It's just the way I see it.
And sometimes I see new situations as fun, and other times I see them as fearful.
The busyness of my life can be OK if I see it that way, or it can be a major source of stress. And an unexpected intrusion in my schedule can be an irritant or, if I see it that way, possibly the most important thing I could do that day.
Even an embarrassing mistake can be the beginning of a new learning or an occasion to berate myself. It's in the way I see it.
One of the greatest blocks to my happiness is forgetting that it is not always about what is happening to me—it's more about the way I see it.
Like Marcel Proust said, "The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." It's in the way we see it.
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