In recent times I have increasingly consciously made time to stop and smell the roses.... yes that rose which goes by so many different names, yet still smells so sweet... The rose in bloom in my life at the moment is metaphysics or quantum physics, laws of attraction or manifesting or neuroplasticity.....and it that rose (or perhaps its smell) that has, in so many ways, made me wake up and smell the coffee....oooh and I do love coffee!!!! "Cogito Ergo Sum" I think therefore I am.... we have created our reality.... Our past consists of the stories we have told ourselves and internalized. In turn we also create our destiny. Our destiny is little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy: we become what we tell ourselves most often.... We spend our lives stuck in patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, We use our environment and the people around us to reaffirm our beliefs and create our reality according to our expectations. Our physiological bodies have biofeedback mechanisms and they in turn want the experiences (emotions and their resultant hormones) that they have become accustomed to and once again reaffirm our (own) world view. If we are expecting to be taken advantage of and abused, we will find the person or experience that will meet that expectation and we'll ignore all the nurturing, loving, caring people or experiences that could disabuse us of that world view! We LOVE habits and pattern!s If being a victim is our mindset, we will stay a victim and not look for (or see) any evidence to the contrary, because we are "blind" to it! We use the outer world to affirm our emotions, habits and patterns of belief.
It is so vital (please consider what the word VITAL means....) to become conscious of all our self-limiting and sabotaging thoughts. These thoughts in turn lead to emotions (because we hinge meaning and memory onto them), this in turn leads to habitual patterns of behaviour. Then we feel "stuck" and "trapped" and we don't know why! Habits = Addiction and become that Catch 22 that traps us in never moving forward and just repeating that same loop of behaviours day after day, year after year. We cannot separate our thinking, emotions and physiology. Once we put an emotion onto a thought, energy flows and then we react. We react not just at a behavioral level but at a cellular level, hormones are released, energy is released, we are turned on or off.....even our genes are! Sadly because we are brilliant and have an enormous brain, we can turn on the stress response by our thoughts alone... this can save us in times of life threatening disaster and danger but more often than not, it destroys us! When you turn on the stress response and can't turn it off it results in disease. We cannot live in a state of emergency for an extended period. It is a scientific fact that stress hormones down regulate genes and create disease! If you are unable to get past some traumatic event or emotion that keeps you trapped in the past, it's time you find the answers and get the necessary help and liberate yourself! You do not need to re-experience that event, you simply need to face-off against the thoughts, emotions and reactions attached to that event. You need to break the "addiction" of the memory and take away its power in the present. That luggage has become baggage that you are dragging through life (and we are not talking Louis Vuitton luggage here). You apply that cynicism, fear, bitterness, doubt and pessimism to the rest of your life. You have set that expectation, you have labelled, pigeon-holed and realized (made real) yourself and your destiny, based on an event in the past which you cannot change. The stress response that we have to danger and disaster is important in that it helps us survive life and death situations, it helps us learn from experience.... the problem creeps in (often insidiously) when we generalize this lesson and apply it to our entire life! Worse still is that the thoughts that lead to the emotions have a physiological response....stress hormones released and coursing through your blood stream, neurotransmitters flooding your nervous system, genes that get activated or de-activated (why are stressed people's immune systems suppressed and why are women with Compassion Fatigue more susceptible to developing breast cancer?). It is so important not to let any thought past your awareness that you do not want to experience (in your present reality)! I have a tatt. that translated from Sanskrit reads "I honour the divinity that resides in me". If God (or whatever you "name' your spirituality) resides or hides anywhere, surely it is within YOU. When you have self doubt and wonder when you fell from grace, SEARCH WITHIN! Self esteem is who you are (based on your self confidence and competence) BUT self worth is WHO you are and based on BEING authentic and living according to your own values and embracing your own divinity and power. When we feel stuck it is because we are incongruent and inauthentic .... we are not living up to what we need, want and desire from our lives. We are not living our life vision/ mission/ purpose! If we are not recognizing our own divinity/ uniqueness/ specialness we do not, indeed we cannot, feel fulfilled, happy, useful, worthy, necessary, purposeful, motivated and empowered....we just land up being a victim?! We forget we are the creators of our own destiny! I have a second tatt after a really ugly and prolonged divorce says "Serenity".... this alludes to the Serenity prayer. I have no problem with courage, and I am so open to embracing wisdom (love learning).... but accepting things that I cannot change is my personal issue! I wouldn't say I am a control freak but I do firmly believe there is a solution (if you search hard enough) to every problem..... the thing I have to learn though is that sometimes it is simply NOT my problem to solve!!!! It is not my responsibility to solve the problems of the universe!!!! As Dorothy Parker says : "See the happy moron, He doesn't give a damn, I wish I were a moron, My God! perhaps I am!"
I have also struggled with Gratitude and Forgiveness and these are two things I now focus on every single day because I recognize their power and how they impact my life and state of BEING. Both of these are important to getting rid of that baggage that becomes luggage!. I have realized that without forgiveness I give people or events power today, in this moment in my life, a power that is not deserved and earned. Only by forgiving can I move on and take back my power. I have also realized that the universe has in fact always taken care of me and I am in reality very blessed - bemoaning my life belittles and in fact nullifies all the gifts the universe has provided, that in turn disempowers me....keeps me an unappreciative, ungrateful, selfish, entitled victim of circumstance. As soon as I realize that I am master of my own destiny, director of my own movie, an innovator (not an imitator) then my life is lived by me (on my terms), it does not happen to me! You can choose to let go of past grievances and reinvent yourself, aligning your self with all things peaceful, positive, beautiful, compassionate, abundant and nurturing! The art of transformational change is in truly being PRESENT and at peace in the here and now. Where you place your attention you place your energy! Where focus goes energy flows and you need to consider what thoughts to fire to re-wire your mind that will create and pave the neural pathways which will become your yellow brick road to the destiny you want. Mentally rehearsing and visualizing who you want to be will actually create the mental circuits and neural pathways that hardware your destiny!
Investing in yourself is investing in your future. Meditation, mindfulness, therapy, counseling, soul searching.... whatever contemplation you take to bring you closer to yourself is not selfish or self-indulgent because you need to change yourself to make the world a better place!!!! A better place for you and for those around you! Greater consciousness leads to greater connectedness. If you are at peace and embody peace, you overcome and even transform everything that results in separation, disharmony and conflict (prejudice, distrust, intolerance, avoidance, selfishness etc). The values and principles we share creates unity and community - the change start with us .... You need to be the change you want to see, in order to change the world. Risk, daring, courage and persistence (not resistance) will change your world, and despite the fear, the discomfort, the anxiety and the pain associated with change (and stepping into the unknown) you will find the greatest enrichment, rewards, fulfillment and a life lived fully and without regrets.