Tag Archives: Self

I Dream My World

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For the last nine months, I have been an 8th grade special education teacher.  My experience has been another excursion into immense self-growth.

Exhaustion was my primary characteristic during this time.  I was falling asleep while standing exhausted, not thinking clearly exhausted, forgetting things exhausted, and coming home and immediately lying down and going to sleep exhausted.  When I work, I tend to put my all into it.   I don’t have boundaries because I like to do good work.  It’s like cleaning house or doing yardwork.  Once I start, I see so much that needs to and can be accomplished.  When administrators see that a worker bee is competent and reliable, more work is given.  At the end of each 9+ hour day, for which I was not compensated over 6.5 hours, I had no energy or inclination to handle the affairs of my personal life.

I got caught up in the external.  I didn’t have time to exercise, do yoga, meditate, or otherwise work on my inner and physical selves.  Every single thought and action was focused on situations and circumstances beyond my personal being.  I got carried away – again – and became upset when I felt unappreciated, unsupported, and disrespected.  I began to feel resentful and trapped.  My perceptions reflected this state of mind.  I saw other staff members treated unfairly.  Maybe their fates would be mine.

I began to live in fear, which caused me to relinquish my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual stability to a misguided belief that someone external to me controlled my life.

Maybe people like me who allow work to run over our lives are actually running from our lives.  Maybe work is an excuse, an escape.  I don’t want to accept this, because – truly – it’s not how I want to live.  But why do I continue to repeat this pattern?  How is it that others maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life?  They don’t become hooked on the what ifs.  What if I don’t meet my deadlines?  What if I take a day off?  For some reason, balanced people choose self and somehow manage to remain employed.  Could it be that others pick up on their sense of self-worth and reflect it back to them?

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Are You on a Treadmill?

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Sometimes we get on a treadmill and can’t imagine how to get off.  We don’t even know that we should get off.  A lot of it has to do with our family/religious/societal conditioning.  Most of us are not living according to our own true nature.  We have incorporated time-honored tenets into our day-to-day living:

  • “You don’t get anything worth having without struggle and hard work.”
  • “You always need to be busy and productive.  Doing nothing is unproductive and will lead to ruin and disaster.”
  • “Taking time for and giving to yourself is selfish.  You must always be doing something that gives to others and puts something back into society.”

Most of us have never been taught to look within and discover ourselves, to discover our needs and desires separate from those imposed upon us by our parents, our neighborhood and community, our ethnicity, our church, and any other status external to our own individualized inner being, which is the essence of who and what we are.

At a very young age, we are given a plan that is responsive to entities outside of ourselves: go to school, mind (or kiss up to) the teacher, and make good grades in order to go to college and get a good job.  The instinctual reliance by children on their intuition and on their feelings is gradually replaced by the need to please, to fit in, or to accomplish.  Always becoming, never just being.  Knowledge is for the purpose of becoming a lawyer, a doctor, something more than the parents, something to give the child the “advantages” of life.

Knowledge is not advocated simply for the sake of knowing and learning to be more aware of where and what you are right now.  Knowledge is not taught as a way to productively and consciously manipulate a universe that consistently responds to our every nuance.

Societal circumstances cause many adults to relinquish their dreams and give into a conditioned reality.  It becomes too hard to “fight the power.”  Many parents are trying to grow up themselves.  Not being taught to search within for answers, some turn to alcohol, drugs, sex, work, and dependencies on other people to find solace and satisfaction.  This behavior is then passed on to the next generation until someone decides to stop the cycle and find another way.

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Experiencing Illusion

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My meditation this morning focused on seeing light everywhere.  I was trying to reconcile this statement with my not wanting to be around negative people.  Why do I not see their light?  Why can I not disregard what I see and hear?  Why is my light not bright enough to dispel darkness?  I decided that I’m just not “there” yet.

Towards the end of my meditation, I perceived that negativity is an illusion.  It seems real.  However, as I grow and begin to reflect upon my inner self that is externally expressing, the illusions begin to disappear.  My ego mind may decide not to be around someone or to eat harmful substances.  It may want to be around light or peace or joy or to be more happy and less angry.

In reality, I am coming into awareness of and in accordance with my True Self.  All else – judgment, categorizing perception – is fading away.  I exist.  I observe.  I am beginning to realize that I am not hurting anyone, nor are they hurting me.  Whatever is going on is a perception formulated through the prism of my mind and that of another.  Each and every one of us exists within our own personal reality, which is within a larger Reality.  We are seeing and experiencing what we are ready and able to see and experience.

My feeling that I am around negativity is actually an attachment to what is not real at this point.  It is me not yet being able to express my truest Self, my authentic Self and, therefore, remaining in darkness because my material mind says that I must be attached to my loved ones, my job, my house, my whatever, instead of simply existing in the Essence that expresses itself as form and substance, but is itself not.

All that I hold dear – abundance, health, security, love – is already me, is already available at all times to me.  It does not come and go or diminish or increase.  Therefore, I don’t need to hold onto what or who I think will give these to me.  I don’t need to believe that I am the provider of these to others.  They have already what they hold dear.  If others express anger towards me because of what they perceive that I am not giving to them, I don’t need to feel guilty or match their emotion. I need simply to become aware that they are experiencing an illusion.  They are not aware of the infinity that is instantly and constantly available to them and so they must project that feeling of lack outward.

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Love Yourself First

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Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.  You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.  Lucille Ball

Layer by layer, I removed all I thought I was, all I thought I had to be, and in the moment I was left standing naked and vulnerable without identities and labels, I remembered . . . I AM THAT I AM.  Lenita Vangellis

I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.  Rita Mae Brown

Live your dreams, not because of what it will prove or get you, but because that is all you want to do.  People’s opinions don’t matter.  Shannon L. Alder

It is not that Spirit produces or heals or corrects matter or the physical universe, but that we rise higher in consciousness to where there is less matter and, therefore, less discord, inharmony, disease, or lack.  Joel Goldsmith

Those who wish to sing always find a song.  Swedish Proverb

Is the Core of Your Being Strong?

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Is THIS – whatever you are doing, whoever and whatever you are around – is THIS taking you in the direction that you want to go?  Is THIS moving you towards who and what you want to be and do?

My swim coach pointed out a curve in my back in both my backstroke and freestyle.  In order to move more fluidly, more efficiently through the water, my back needs to be flat like a table.  She suggested that one way to achieve a level back is to hold in my stomach.  It is very challenging to hold in my stomach while I’m swimming.  Another coach suggested that I lie on the floor, notice what muscles are utilized to flatten my back, and transfer that knowledge and feeling to my body position while swimming.  Both coaches advise pelvic tilts, sucking in the gut, and squeezing the glutes.

The purpose of these techniques is to develop a strong core.  If I strengthen my core, it will take less effort to make my back level and my body straight.  If I have correct body position, I move more efficiently through the water.

This is also true in life.  What is your core?  Is your core strong?  Do you value yourself?  Do you think you are worthy?  If you don’t think that you are worthy, then you attract others who think accordingly.  If you don’t respect yourself, you draw into your life disrespect.  If you don’t have a strong core, life is choppy and hard to get through.  It takes much effort to get through each day.

Your unworthiness is reflected in others who also see themselves in you.  You are mirrors for each other.  Some express their reflections by trying to exercise control in order to elevate themselves.   A battle then ensues.  Each combats the self-image they see in the other.  Each attempts to fight or fend off the other when the true “enemy” is the self.  The core needs strengthening.

If you think you are worthy, then you attract people and circumstances that reflect that worthiness, that strength in you.  A person who thinks they are unworthy has to defend, justify, and explain themselves.  Shondra Rhimes said that she used to make excuses for saying no.  “No I can’t because . . .”  Now, she says, “No, I can’t do that right now” and lets that statement stand by itself.  And she keeps repeating it for those who don’t get it.  “I’m sorry.  I can’t do that right now.”  And that’s all that she has to say because she knows that she doesn’t have to justify her decision.  It always comes back to self.  Your self-worth.  What is your value, your strength?

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Behold! The Thing Greater Than Myself

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I told a friend that I have to testify about all that God has done for me.  He said, correcting me, “You mean all that you have done for yourself,” as if to say, “You don’t believe in yourself.  You believe in an external (e.g., nonexistent) entity.”  I explained my belief in the Indescribable Energy, Force, Spirit, That Which is Unnamable, that I call God.  Even though my view of God is unlimited, I use that term because that is the name given to the Presence by the people who raised me.

I read to my friend the part of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho in which the boy realized that the soul of God was his soul.  Therefore, he was able to perform miracles.  Similarly, I use separation terminology to express my realization that I am part of a greater something.  I am a drop of water in an ocean. I am a particle of sand within an infinite beach.  The drop is still the ocean, as the sand is the beach.  Because I am aware of who and what I am, I can freely use “God” and not diminish myself.

I understand what I mean when I say “what God has done for me.”  It is an easy and simplistic way of saying that, as I grow in awareness and understanding of that which is greater than me, I manifest the harmonious conditions that are Reality.

It is a luxury to believe that success and achievement are solely a result of one’s own actions and abilities, when such things can be gone in an instant.  Throughout the natural world, people have believed that they are self-sufficient and superior when, in fact, their physical ownership and dominion was and is often a result of conquests, colonization, and elimination, or because they accommodated and acquiesced to those who wield power and might.  There can never be enough money and power for those who derive fulfillment from foundations of sand.  Why else do those who have much continue to seek more?  Such desire is neverending.

I will go one step further and state my belief that life is eternal and that human incarnation repeatedly occurs.  We live the effects of causes created in past embodiments and are constantly creating causes that will have future effects.  Unfortunately, with little or no memory of our pre-birth selves, we experience each life anew, believing that our prosperity or indigence is totally the result of our own efforts or lack thereof.  If the former, we are prone to believe in ourselves as stand-alone islands, solely empowered by our personal strengths, capabilities, and external connections.

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Love Yourself

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I love me natasha deviantart

The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself.  And if you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must.  Diane von Furstenberg

Saying no can be the ultimate self-care.  Claudia Black

You yourselves are your last hope.  Possessing The Secret of Joy by Alice Walker

Somewhere within us there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.  Elizabeth Gilbert

My family asked me why I was wasting a college degree and why I spent my 401k to move to an island. I didn’t have a straight answer for them, but I did know that I worked harder than I ever had for six years of my life, for almost twelve hours each day and put up with a lack of appreciation for what I did.  So it was okay if I took some time to do nothing. You don’t have to be achieving scientific discovery every day. It’s okay to take time to simply be and to experience life.   From a post in Tiny Buddha

Self-Cherishing

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One of the lessons in Charles Fillmore’s book “Keep a True Lent” states: “I . . . use a portion of my zeal in establishing God’s kingdom within me.  I do not put all my enthusiasm into helping others; my own unfoldment is of great importance to me.  I love to aid my brother, but I do not allow that idea to rob me of the power to demonstrate Truth for myself.”

According to my 2004 journal, I used to be The Helper.  Even while taking care of my  mother who had Alzheimer’s, I was The Fixer at work, a mentor to young cousins, a mediator for warring couples, the person to whom others brought their vents, dramas, and traumas.  I ran errands for a friend whose husband had a massive heart attack.  My own life was full of stress and unhappiness.

A friend asked, “Why do you get so involved in other people’s lives?”  Especially at work, she thought I consistently tried to solve deficiencies that were not my responsibility.  Why didn’t I put my energies towards resolving my own issues and becoming what I want to be instead of focusing on external conditions?

I began to look at family and societal patterns.  Most of the women I knew growing up were self-sacrificial.  My role models helped others to the point of sacrifice.  It’s what a woman did.  It was the right thing to do.  I didn’t see women treating themselves to personal joys.  The female was expected to care for someone other than herself.  Happiness was dependent upon bringing joy to husbands, children, other family members, and the church. The focus was always on the external.  It was selfish to do for self.  Joy and satisfaction came from doing for others.  This was an obligation.  My childhood prayer was “God loves the cheerful giver.”

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Wake Up To Who You Are

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Slow down and everything that you are chasing will come around and catch you.  John de Paula

When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.  Miguel Ruiz

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.  Pema Chodron

Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.  Alan Watts

We shouldn’t let another define our sense of self and worth, for this places us into the role of the lesser or the victim.  When we play that role, then obviously we will attract or sustain relationships that will mutually fulfill that role.  Patsie Smith

Reflect Upon Life by Knowing Self

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The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom first ordered well their own states.  Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families.  Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons.  Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.  Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts.  Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge.  Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.   Confucius in the Great Learning.

For the first time I noticed – as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next – that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting.  I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still.  My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized.  And I could accept this.  It was all right. (It was daylight that brought my protest: “No! No! No! My suffering does matter.  I want to live!  I can’t help but mix my life with that of the universe.  Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness – how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view I have of things?  This peephole is all I’ve got!”).  I mumbled words of Muslim prayer and went back to sleep.  Life of Pi (Novel by Yann Martel)

Attack the evil that is within yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others.  Confucius

When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him.  When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.  Confucius

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to see and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.  Rumi