by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 16, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Since a lot of people say that this world is not a safe place to live in, last week I examined if this world really is that unsafe and the humans living in it are really that bad, the way we view them a lot of times. This week I would like to break away from examining another belief and instead would like to examine what ‘practicing mindfulness’ looks like.
I am really fond of attending mindfulness related workshops that are sometimes offered for free at my workplace and I happened to recently attend one of these workshops where the lady who was presenting was promoting mindfulness and was presenting all the research that has been done in the last 40 – 50 years to show how truly helpful mindfulness is if one takes the time to practice it. At the end of her presentation during Q&A, one guy asked her ‘the question’ which I think is on everyone’s minds – everyone who is interested in the topic of mindfulness and wants to benefit from it, however, is clueless on what the heck mindfulness really is and how exactly to practice it. But the interesting thing that I noticed from this presentation and a lot of other similar presentations which I have attended over the years on this topic is that most people who are presenting on the topic of mindfulness do an amazing job at presenting, however, a lot of times when asked this question about ‘how to actually practice mindfulness’ in a real situation at work or in personal life, they tend to falter. And this presenter that I just mentioned above was no different. So I am going to take a stab at it and will try to break down mindfulness the way I understand it and if anything I say resonates with you, you are welcome to try to use in your own life and if it doesn’t, simply discard it – your choice!
So before we being to even understand ‘how’ to practice mindfulness, let’s first try to understand what mindfulness really means and in what ways can it help as we navigate through our lives. Here is how I understand mindfulness – to me, mindfulness is NOT about getting rid of all the negative thoughts that our minds create so often. I believe mindfulness is about understanding my own self better, my own beliefs which create the thoughts that I think and my actions that are a direct result of these thoughts. And when I become more mindful, what really happens is that I begin to understand the kinds of thoughts my mind creates in any given situation and also understand the kind of re-action that I could have in that situation as a result of these thoughts. And because a human mind thinks repetitive thoughts almost 95% of the time (maybe even more), I, the owner of my mind, continues to repeat the actions (re-action) over and over again until either I realize that this is happening or life becomes full of stress and anxiety and maybe even depressive and then I have to take the time to understand what’s causing me all this misery. But on the other hand, if I learn to be more mindful, when I come across another situation which triggers my mind to create similar thoughts, now that I understand the ‘thought-re-action’ phenomenon, I realize that I have a choice whether or not to re-act (repeat my actions) the same way as the last time around. And the way I would practice it is by first accepting and being ok with the fact that my mind is creating all these negative thoughts and then realizing that I have a choice whether or not I want to believe my thoughts. And when I understand that, I allow myself the space to choose to let go of my negative thoughts and because I choose to let them go, I end up acting differently this time around. And because I acted differently this time around, everything and everyone around me will act differently also and amazingly they will also receive that space to choose whether to re-act or change their actions this time around!!
Alright, let’s try to understand this through an example. Because a lot of us work in corporate jobs and therefore work in teams, I would like you to imagine that you are part of one of those teams where you and your colleagues are working hard to implement a project. There are timelines associated with tasks and a strict deadline with regards to the implementation of this project. And even though all team members in the team work well together, there are a couple of folks who seem to have issues all the time with not just other team members but with you as well. So every time you receive an email from these 2 people or are face to face in meetings discussing something, all you can think about are the things you will write or say to these people in response to their emails or words. And in practicing this approach, what your mind is really trying to do is to defend you from the negative things that these people can say or write.
So, let’s see how we can try to practice mindfulness in this situation. Let’s imagine that you just received an email from one of them saying that a task you were responsible for wasn’t executed well and your boss and all other project team members are copied on that email. So if you are not mindful you will be furious when you read that email and will want to re-act by responding to that email immediately! And if you choose to respond to that email in that state of anger and frustration, you may end up saying/writing things that you may regret later on and it will never end your perpetual frustration at work because at the end of the day the truth is that you have to work with these people! But if you are mindful, you already know the kind of people they are and you expect that kind of behavior from them and because you expect that behavior, you can choose to NOT engage with this person and NOT re-act when you see that email. Instead you still get angry but you choose to respond once you have had a chance to cool off your own anger. This will allow you the space to NOT re-act but to respond instead. And this is the key difference when you practice mindfulness. You respond to situations and/or people and not re-act to them. And that right there reduces your stress levels because you break the vicious cycle of acting the same way every time and in response, the situations/people respond differently to you!
Additionally, if you become really good at practicing mindfulness, people like these and their behaviors become a source of entertainment instead of frustration for you! And the people who you thought were responsible for all the work related stress become more bearable now that you have changed your perspective not just on them but have understood the basic truth about where the stress is coming from – your own re-actions!! I know this may appear like a difficult way of functioning in life because obviously each one of us have egos that would tell us to ‘stick it back to them’ but trust me, practicing mindfulness brings so much peace to you that it simply outweighs the need to prove others wrong and point their mistakes because mindfulness allows you to focus on yourself instead of others 🙂
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 9, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined if ‘worrying’ about the things that your mind has identified as ‘problems’ actually helps to stay safe from these problems or it creates more ‘problems’ for you. This week, since a lot of people say that this world is not a safe place to live in, I would like to examine if this world really is that unsafe and the humans living in it are really that bad, the way we view them a lot of times.
Belief: The world that we live in is not safe and the people who live in it are not good.
This one cracks me up each time I come across a human who says this or something similar to this which is – I don’t like what’s going on in this world and the people who live in it. Really! If you don’t like this world and the people who live in it, why did you choose to bring your own kids into this world? Why did you choose to give birth to these tiny humans who will learn all about this world from you and since you think this world is not a safe place, they will learn that too and go on to live a life which may be very similar to your own. What will you tell your kids when they ask you why you brought them into this world knowing that this world is unsafe? What will you tell them about the humans who you think are not good? What exactly will you tell them as part of the growing up process because they will ask you all those questions? And if you don’t answer their questions, they will come up with their own answers. Have you ever thought about that?
You know folks, the one thing I have come to understand is that in order to create the life that you want, it’s you who decides whether this world is a safe place or not, not the media or your peers or family members or anyone else for that matter because apparently there are a lot of things/people/opinions who influence how we choose to view this world. And once you have decided how you want to view this world, you will find out that your life will reflect exactly that until you take the time to review and change your perception about this world! So, if you are that person who thinks that this world is an unsafe place and the people who live in it are not nice, that’s exactly what you will encounter in your life! And I don’t believe the reason is that you attract the unsafe situations or bad people (law of attraction) just because you perceive this world and people as bad. The way I understand it is because this is your perception of the world, your mind now knows exactly what kind of situations and people to focus on and pay attention to. So if you think this world and the people who live in it are not safe, your mind will always find such unsafe situations and bad people to justify your perceptions. And even though you may come across situations that are positive or people who are really nice, your mind will still try to find the unsafe and bad in both because this is how a human mind works! And because your mind would continue to find the negative and bad and ugly, its belief that this world is unsafe and full of bad people will keep getting reinforced until you the owner of the mind takes the time to consciously review and change this belief.
Let’s take an example to understand this better. And what could be a better example than raising a spirited (strong willed) child since we are raising a generation full of such kids. So, imagine that you have one of these very strong willed kids who keeps you on your toes all the time, who observes, analyzes and evaluates everything before they get down to doing anything even playing with kids at a park, who questions everything you ask them to do, who wants to be in-charge of all decisions not just related to him but to you as well, who takes a lot of time to adjust to new surroundings and new people etc. So, is this exactly your kid that I just described here :-)? If yes, have you ever noticed that every word that I just used to describe this kid is negative. However, let’s see if we can find the positive in all the negative. So a kid who is very active is a healthy kid and I think being grateful for a healthy kid is what any parent could do. A kid who observes, analyzes and evaluates everything before they get down to doing anything will not run away with strangers when they are offered treats or will have fewer accidents if they are playing in a park because they are cautious. A kid who questions everything you ask them to do is going to be an adult with their own mind and can’t be easily preyed upon or victimized by others. A kid who wants to make his own decisions will be a leader who will lead people or companies into making those decisions. A kid who takes a lot of time to adjust to new surroundings will have much fewer friends but the ones he will have will be the ones he will love to be friends with forever. And I can go on and on and on here.
Folks, because a human mind always categorizes everything into good or bad, negative or positive, beautiful or ugly etc., it always tries to bucket every situation or person or event into good or bad, negative or positive, beautiful or ugly. But if you are conscious enough, you can choose to see the good in the bad, the positive in the negative, and the beautiful in the ugly just like if you have a baby and even though she may not be the cutest baby around, she is still the cutest baby in the world for you because that’s how you choose to view her. That’s what I am talking about here.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Sep 2, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back. Last week I examined ‘problems’ and how humans go about defining these problems and if these problems are actually ‘real’ the way our mind makes us believe they are. This week, I would like to continue on the topic of problems and would like to examine if ‘worrying’ about these problems actually helps us to stay safe from these problems.
Belief: If I don’t worry about these problems, I won’t be able to fix them and I won’t be safe anymore!
When a human mind identifies problems, worrying about these problems happens to be a natural response by our mind. And worrying really is the mind’s attempt to try to solve all these problems that it has identified in the first place. And the way our mind does that is by creating many fearful thoughts about the worst case scenarios that could be the outcomes of these problems. And because most human beings live unconscious lives, what they don’t realize is that all this fearful thinking is just that – fearful thinking and it has nothing to do with reality. It has nothing to do with reality because most times, maybe 99% of the times, when we are faced with a problem, it generally resolves itself over time because we may either change our perspective on it and don’t see it as a problem anymore or, we find creative ways to deal with it. But because we don’t know the fact about our minds which is that its real job is to create thoughts most of which are deep rooted in fear, we take these fearful thoughts very seriously and even though the problem that was identified by our mind was minuscule, it ends up becoming a mountain until our mind shifts attention to the next problem. And this cycle continues until you the owner of the mind really takes the time to learn and understand the true nature of mind and the way it functions in your own life. If you have gotten lost in this explanation, let me use a very simple yet very profound example to better explain.
Let’s imagine that your spouse comes home from work around a certain time every weekday. However, one day, he is late by an hour and even though you are trying your best to reach his cellphone, he is not picking up or maybe the call is being directly routed to his voicemail. So in this scenario, have you ever noticed that the first thoughts that your mind will almost instantly begin to create are completely rooted in fear. At this point, your very first thought may be that your husband is in a car accident and something bad has happened to him which is why he is not even answering his phone. And the reason why your mind creates this fearful thought is because of the underlying belief that when responsible people suddenly become unreachable, they must be in deep trouble. And your mind creates this belief because maybe you know a person who knows another person who was in a car accident and this is what unfolded for him and his wife. On the other hand, you may have received messages via advertising/marketing from the various media sources that when responsible people don’t respond timely, you should assume that they are in deep trouble. But when your husband finally arrives home safely, you realize that nothing bad ever happened to him. It was just that he was stuck in very bad traffic and the cellphone battery died on him or he put his phone on mute and saw your 100 missed calls as he was just entering the front door of your home! So, what was really just a technological glitch, became an amazing source of anxiety for you in just a matter of few minutes!! And your mind just took you on a very fearful ride which in reality may never ever become true for you in this life, yet, you already started to plan the rest of your life without your dear husband 🙂
And folks this is just one tiny example of how we live our lives most of the times. Lost in fearful thinking! All our mind thinks most of the times is what could go wrong, what is that bad thing that could happen next, which is that person who can say something bad to you and ruin your day etc. etc. But if you have ever paid close attention to your thinking, you will also realize another thing that the thoughts that your mind creates are almost always repetitive. What that means is that in a certain situation such as the one we looked at above, your mind will most definitely create the exact same thoughts each time you are faced with the exact same situation…until you begin to really understand this is how your mind works. And once you do, this provides you with an opportunity to shift your attention from your mind’s fearful thinking to the present moment. But keep in mind that even when you are aware of all the tricks your mind plays, its you who will have to make a choice to let go of the negative and fearful thinking and shift your attention. And yes its not easy and you need lots of practice and patience to be able to implement this in our own life, however, the very first step forward is realizing and understanding how your mind works. Also, be very kind to yourself and try not to judge yourself when you begin to realize the kind of crap that your mind generates because this is how most human minds operate although the degree by which a human mind creates this fearful thinking may vary from human to human. More on this next time 🙂
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Aug 26, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back. A couple of weeks ago I examined the feeling of Love and how it gives meaning to our lives when we are feeling this feeling and makes life a little easier to live. This week I would like to examine ‘problems’, how humans define problems and if these problems are actually ‘real’, the way our mind makes us believe they are.
Belief: I have so many problems in my life. I don’t know how to get rid of them to become happy and peaceful.
Here is my understanding of how most humans define ‘problems’. But before I even try to define what a problem is, I would like to take you guys back to the very basics of how a human mind operates. Have you have ever noticed that a human mind maintains 2 columns in its mental notebook – one column is for things/people/events that the mind tags as ‘good’ and the other column is for things/people/events that are tagged as ‘bad’ by our mind. In addition to maintaining these 2 columns, our mind also has a layer of ‘expectations’ where it only expects to encounter the things/people/events that it has tagged as ‘good’ and any thing or person or event which does not fall within this category of ‘good’ is treated by the mind with suspicion and fear and is therefore called a ‘problem’ which needs to be fixed or solved. And because a human mind generally has a much longer list of ‘bad’ things/persons/events, therefore, the list of ‘problems’ that we have in our lives appear to be very long also. So, before I philosophize any further let’s look at this through an example.
Let’s take an example from our professional life. Let’s imagine that you are one of those folks who have been ambitious with regards to your career and wanted to rise in your career, however, you had a very rocky start to your career where you could hardly even manage to find ‘a job’ let alone a ‘good job’. So this was the first ‘problem’ that you encountered in your career which is that you were unable to find yourself ‘a good job’. But now that you have ‘a job’, you work very hard and hope that the executives in your department notice your hard work and promote you sooner rather than later and if that happens, you will be able to define your ‘job’ as a ‘good job’. However, this doesn’t happen either and your executives don’t notice your hard work and as a result don’t promote you. So this becomes the second ‘problem’. By this time you may be frustrated enough that you start looking for another job, however, since you didn’t get promoted, you are unable to secure that next level job that you think you absolutely deserve and this becomes the third ‘problem’. And honestly, I can go on and on and on here but the point I am trying to make is that because from the get-go you tagged each situation that you encountered as ‘bad’ and therefore a ‘problem’, your mind went into overdrive and started to find ways to fix and solve that problem. And on top of that because you continued to tag subsequent situations as ‘bad’ also, your mind just never lost track of the ‘problems’ that it needed to fix and solve. But have you ever thought may be (just may be) that on this journey which you defined as full of problems, the Universe was actually trying to help you see this another amazing opportunity or guide you towards using this other amazing skill that you have within you which you never paid attention to. But because you had a very specific plan in your mind about how your life should unfold, you never even entertained the idea that may be this is a signal from the Universe that you are supposed to do something else in your life instead of what you are trying so very hard to achieve and accomplish. I know all this very well folks because this example is very similar to my own story 🙂 and when I finally woke up to the fact that this Universe is actually asking me use the amazing skills I have within me is the day I started to write this blog! I don’t know if there is anything that comes out of this blog for me but what I know for sure is that because I think and feel everything so very deeply and have spent years paying attention to my thoughts and the beliefs behind those thoughts, I now have an amazing understanding of how human mind works and I love to share that understanding with other people because I have also come to understand that even though we are separate human beings living separate lives, our minds have very similar beliefs and thinking as a result of these beliefs. And this is the reason when I share anything in this blog, it comes directly from my heart to yours 🙂 with the hope that anyone who is reading can view their situation/life from another perspective. And honestly, as I too learn and create new beliefs, I read my own blog from time to time to remind myself of these different perspectives :-)..And I know very well that it’s not easy to un-learn old beliefs but I choose to live a life which is not full of fear and I commend anyone who tries to do the same thing.
You know folks we all create plans about how our lives should unfold and what should happen, when it should happen and how it should happen. And I don’t think there is anything wrong in creating those plans as long as we can remember that the plans we create are created by our very limited human mind and but when it comes to living life as a human on Earth, there is something far far greater than a human mind which some people call fate, some call destiny, others call it God, I call it Universe. But because we can’t see this God or Universe, we don’t completely trust in it. And because we don’t completely trust in it is the reason why our mind creates all these plans in the first place because if we actually trusted in the Universe or God we would know that we are already being helped and taken care of even when the things/persons/events appear to be ‘a problem’. And so if we can only learn to consciously ‘not tag’ everything that we didn’t expect to happen as a ‘problem’ and instead view it as an opportunity to learn and grow, life will become so much simpler. If we can only access all this wisdom while we are going through the ‘problems’ instead of looking back and realizing, our lives would be so much peaceful.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Aug 12, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined what ‘Fear’ really is, what it feels like in the mind and body and the harm it can do in your life if you don’t take the time to identify, examine and learn to manage it. This week on the other hand, I want to talk about ‘Love’ because this is the feeling that gives meaning to our lives and makes it worth living!
Belief: Love can’t solve all the world problems. They are way too big for love’s reach!
Are you that person who thinks love is good and important but it can’t solve all the very complicated world problems? I am that person too to some extent, however, as I learn to love myself and everyone around me more and more each day, I am beginning to realize that maybe we can solve all world problems just through love. Let’s explore if/how we can actually apply the ‘love balm’ in any situation.
But before we begin, let’s first try to understand LOVE…what does this word mean to you? I want you to pay attention to the thoughts your mind creates when you think about love. Imagine what you feel in your body when you think about this beautiful feeling of love. Do certain people come to your mind? Are you imagining your parents, your spouse, your kids or other close family members and friends? Are you imagining being in certain serene locations that you think create the feeling of love in you? Are you imagining doing what you love to do – your passion? This is exactly what comes to my mind and maybe the minds of most or all humans when they try to imagine that feeling of love. But have you ever noticed that this feeling of love towards certain people, your passion, certain places; it’s all your choice! It’s you choice because you are consciously choosing to love all these people or things because you want to. You choose to love your parents because they gave birth to you. You choose to love your passion because that’s what makes you happy. You choose to love your spouse because you want to spend your life with them. You choose to love your kids because you brought them into this world. However sometimes, instead of choosing to love these people or things, some of us choose to ‘not love’ them and there could be a variety of reasons behind that. But the point that I am trying to make is that we always ‘choose’ love over any other negative emotion like fear and even though love may not come to us naturally in certain situations or around certain people but we always have a choice where we can choose love.
So if love really is a choice, then anyone can choose love in any situation? Right? So, let’s explore at least one of those situations that we encounter so very frequently in our personal lives. Let’s take an example which is so simple yet so very profound which will help illustrate that we can actually choose love over anger or fear or any other negative emotion in a difficult situation. And what could be a more difficult situation than the one where your kid is in the middle of a really bad tantrum. So, let’s imagine your kid just went into a massive tantrum over something. It doesn’t quite matter if this ‘something’ is trivial or much bigger than trivial. The point is that since your kid just went into a big tantrum mode where they are kicking and screaming and yelling and crying – all at the same time and God forbid if this happens at a public place, you as a parent is mortified!! You are mortified because your efforts to try to reason with your kid is going absolutely nowhere, yet, you are in the middle of this situation and each person passing by is looking at you like your kid is the only kid in the world who throws a tantrum :-). At this point, even though you are trying to show as much patience as possible and are trying to stay as calm as possible, chances are, in less than 5 minutes you will start to get very angry yourself and start your own tantrum. And if this happens, instead of getting better, the situation will actually get a lot worse because now there are 2 people throwing a tantrum :-). So this is that perfect time when you have an opportunity to choose love over fear. When you choose fear, as I already pointed above, you will get into that tantrum mode yourself. However, if you choose love, it will on the other hand allow you as a parent to view your child as a child who is trying to express themselves because they don’t quite know how to yet. It will help you remember that even though the situation looks bad, it quite isn’t that bad and so your own flight or fight mode is not triggered. Being able to choose love may help also to bring the intensity of the tantrum down and allow the kid to feel like they are not a bad person for not being able to control their own emotions and this love approach may end up being be a win-win for both parents and kids. And once the storm has passed, you can then talk some reason into your kid about what happened.
I know some of you may be rolling your eyes and making your faces right now because of this ‘love balm’ approach but you have to try it to believe it! Just reading my blog won’t do the trick :-). You may not be able to reach for that feeling of love every time but whenever you are actually able to choose love over fear, you will feel so good about yourself and your life!
Let’s take another example of people who commit crimes in this world. I know this could be a very sensitive topic for folks who themselves have fallen victims to various crimes committed by other humans. But have you guys ever wondered that with all the variety of punishments and jails and prisons and other equally bad things that we have created as part of our justice systems to prevent crime from happening, this crime should have been a thing of the past by now. But that is so far away from what reality today is. So, if fear and fearful techniques is not an incentive enough to stop a human being from committing this crime, I think maybe it’s time to now review our fearful techniques and update and upgrade them so that we look at the committers of crime from a perspective of love rather than fear. I know very well this is a very hard concept but don’t you think it’s worth looking into because of where the human race is headed?
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
by Shikha Rastogi | Aug 5, 2016 | Beliefs, Perspective
Hi everyone, welcome back! Last week I examined what ‘perfection’ really means and the beliefs and thinking that accompany the need to be perfect or have a perfect life. This week I would like to examine ‘Fear’, what it really is, what it feels like in the mind and body and the harm it can do in your life if you don’t take the time to identify, examine and learn to manage it.
Belief: If only I didn’t feel so much fear, I could do so much more with my life!
Not sure how many of you have noticed my url for this blog ‘loveyourfear.com’. The reason why I chose this name is because as a human race we suffer so much from fear. We suffer because fear diminishes our capacity to feel any other emotion, except fear itself! We are fearful of pretty much everything and everyone in this age of competition. We try so hard to prove our worth to everyone around us and to ourselves. And we try to prove our worth because deep inside we don’t feel worthy yet and we think if we do this and achieve that and accomplish that and make others happy and do some charity, we will be able to feel that elusive feeling of ‘being worthy’ in this world which is crowded with too many humans. And in this process of living, this fear that I am talking about may show up almost anywhere, anytime – as we try to accomplish all that I just mentioned or if we tried but failed or so many times we still keep feeling this fear even after we have accomplished and achieved because now we fear losing it all! And interestingly, this is how most humans have been living their lives in this new age! And this fear is not just restricted to adults anymore, it’s penetrated the lives of our kids as well. They learn to live in fear from us because fear has become part of our parenting style. And this is why as a society, we are more and more in need of psychologists and psycho-therapists. This is why, even though as a society we have achieved and accomplished so much more than all of our previous generations combined, we have amassed so much more wealth, we have become so much more technologically advanced, we have created products that can provide so much comfort and safety, science has advanced the life span of humans in so many part of the world, yet, we are not nearly as ‘fearless’ as we had hoped we would be when we started down this path. Fear ‘appears to be’ the biggest block in living and experiencing our lives fully while we are here on earth UNTIL we change our perspective on fear.
Personally, the biggest lesson I have learned from spending many years living a life of anxiety is that you have to view fear from another perspective – a perspective of love rather than fear. You have to learn to be fearless in the face of fear itself and instead view it as an opportunity to learn something more about your subconscious and therefore grow even more as a human being. You have to learn to identify whenever fear presents itself in your mind through negative thoughts, you have to learn to not just feel this fear but also have the courage to be at peace with the fact that you are feeling this fear. You have to learn to continue to do what you are very afraid of doing or trying or just being in this world even though you are feeling this enormous fear inside your mind and body. And when you are able to do all of this, listen closely, because fear will have a message for you. It will show you the mirror exactly where you need to grow in your life but are very afraid to. Folks, what I have learned and still continue to learn each day is that there is a very important reason for fear to be present in your life. Most importantly, fear tries to raise your consciousness level that you are currently at. It teaches you to believe in yourself, to never doubt yourself, to love and value yourself, to become the person you are meant to be in this lifetime!! I truly believe it!
Living in fear not only causes us emotional and physical pain and discomfort, it also robs a human from experiencing their own life! A human being who lives in a constant state of anxiety, experiences that state because of fear. And this fear comes from the thoughts that our minds create, although, there are some human beings who have developed the ability to see through the dark veil of fear. They can really tell the difference between when they are feeling ‘real’ fear and their bodies as a result should get into the fight or flight mode versus when that fear really is ‘false evidence appearing real’. If this is the kind of fear you feel in your own life, have you ever taken the time to wonder and ponder? I know it’s an amazingly difficult and uncomfortable thing to do. I know because I have done it and still do it when I feel my favorite friend fear and honestly yes it’s been so very painful and uncomfortable but it has taught me my biggest lesson in this life – there is no need to fear this fear. It’s just an emotion which needs your love and attention and once it has that, it will go back to where it came from. But in order to do what I and some of you who already do this in your own life, it requires amazing amounts of courage because this really is my own mess that I am trying to look at and not someone else’s which is so very easy to look at and judge and preach upon. But only when you gather the courage to finally start looking at your own mess is when you actually find that there is really a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. And you also realize that this light was there all along but instead of looking at this beautiful bright light, you had your eyes closed this entire time that you were moving through the tunnel that represents your life!! And you had your eyes closed this entire time because you didn’t really want to acknowledge that you and everyone around you is a part of this beautiful and powerful Universe! And because you are part of this Universe, you are already equipped with everything you need to live your best life this time around :)..You are just afraid to accept that…more on this sometime 🙂
There is a meditation that I frequently do to accept and let go of fear from my own life. Once I sit down to meditate, I imagine I am a small child, maybe 3-4 years old who is very scared. I imagine I am hugging this child and kissing it and telling it that it’s safe and it’s always going to be ok no matter what happens in life. And I just continue to sit and feel everything that is brought up for me in that moment…Make your own version and give it a try. It’s an amazingly powerful meditation.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
