Posts Tagged ‘self improvement’

#Life Taught Me What Is Real

Posted: March 26, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It is a sign of privilege to think that everything should go the way we want all the time.

It serves as both a compliment to and a reprimand of our upbringing. Any parent or legal guardian who is worth one’s salt wants their children to have a good life and a better life than they, the parent had, growing up.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

A byproduct of this in America over the past forty years has been helicopter parents, which evolved over the past twenty years into bulldozers parenting.

Life is only easy for the privileged, and that only applies to the external and material aspects of life. I have never met a rich person who didn’t have mental and emotional issues in spades. They were just able to throw money at the problems and use their money to create shields and masks for the public.

There is no escaping the yin yang.

There are ups and then there are downs. We wouldn’t know one without the other. We wouldn’t know sound without silence. We wouldn’t know darkness without light. And vice versa.

Frustrating isn’t nearly a good enough word to describe when a person has a vision for their life, they make the right choices to manifest that vision into reality, and then something(s) happen that interrupt their journey and block their path.

The Obstacle is The Way.

It sucks that we can’t always get what we want. Wouldn’t life be better that way?

It would certainly be easier and less stressful…but better? A life without challenges is…a better life? I don’t know about that one.

I know when I was younger; completely socially conditioned by mass media; completely identified with the thoughts and emotions instilled in me during my formative years by the for profit entertainment industry; that a life of fame, fortune, excitement and pleasure was the only life for me.

Then life happened. Real life. Not high school, homework, and hanging out with friends. Real life. Love, loss, triumph, tragedy, success, and failure…lots of failure.

Real life drove me to meditation, philosophy, drinking, journaling, sleeping in, reading, binge watching, weight training, hallucinogens, yoga, smoking, nature trail hikes…and an old enough age to see how cyclical, repetitive, and unique people and life can be regardless of technological advancement.

It’s all the same, only the names will change.

Real life taught me the interruptions from my childhood dreams weren’t interruptions. Real life taught me that the obstacles on my path weren’t obstacles. Real life taught me that hard times and challenges weren’t unfair or punishments.

Real life taught me those things are real life.

New #Meditation, New Me, Temporarily, For Now

Posted: March 19, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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I started meditation because it seemed like a natural extension of a yoga practice as well as a good cool down from the physical exercise that a yoga session can be. I was able to habitualize a regular meditation practice, years before I was able to habitualize a regular yoga practice.

I enjoy doing yoga. Especially after a weight training session or on a day that I don’t life weights. At the end of a yoga session I feel good. Often I feel better than I did before I started the session. But meditation, hits different for me.

I feel better during and after a meditation in deeper way than I do post yoga. Not better, just better for me. Better enough that my meditation practice stuck sooner.

I thank the Calm app for that. The guided meditations, to this day, remain the vehicle that has helped me arrive the most frequently, and consistently to consciousness and awareness of the space between stimulus and response.

I’m not describing the feeling adequately. That is the great thing about meditation and other spirituality practices; concepts beyond words.

On bad days, good days, and neutral days alike, when I’m able to break the cycle of thinking, break away from my identification with my thoughts or emotions or life situation, concentrate on my breath, and reach a place of inner stillness and awareness, even if it’s just for a couple of seconds…that’s the good stuff. That makes the practice worth it’s weight in gold.

That feeling makes me feel like I’ve shed my skin and become a new person on the spot. It feels like coming home again. It feels like putting on all of my most comfortable clothes. It feels like breathing again after being under water.

I certainly wish I was able to get to that place more consistently and for longer. But, we all need goals to chase. I am grateful for every micro second I have spent in the awareness of inner stillness. Just to be aware of it is a blessing for me. Then to feel it and know it, and to know myself for the first time. Tremendous feelings. Gratitude for sure.

Taking my meditation practice off of my cushion and into my daily life was a long delayed happening. For the longest time I just sat, focused on my breath a little, and thought with my eyes closed and a guided meditation playing in my earbuds.

To get into a true meditative state, or even a reasonable facsimile took a while for me. Many times now I simply settle for breath awareness, noticing I’m stuck in my head, or identifying with emotion, and coming back to the breath. Which is also a blessing for me.

Being able to notice I’m identified with my thoughts and being able to break free and come back to breath awareness makes me feel like a new person. I can simply remember the long period of my life where I was completely identified with my thoughts, my emotion and my life situation. The majority of people are.

I still get caught up. Meditation isn’t a magic bullet. But it is an aide. An aide for the mind. An aide for our emotions. An aid for our soul. An aide I am grateful for.

To Trust Oneself is to Live

Posted: March 14, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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How can we trust ourselves if we’ve made so many mistakes and/or repeated many of the same mistakes over a long period of time?

A simple question, without an easy answer. As is life.

It can be made more complicated after one begins their self improvement/personal development journey. Learning about concepts like imposter syndrome, self sabotage, the ego, the pain body, and our shadow self.

Psychology, philosophy, and spirituality can seem so overwhelming at times that many throw their hands up and dismiss them altogether. They throw the baby out with the bath water. Life can be hard and complicated enough. Life seems to get more difficult and complex with each passing year with more and more technological integration into daily life.

Self compassion is a good first step towards self trust. Self trust, seems to me, to be a middle ground, on the path towards self love.

Mistake repetition has been one of the most maddening aspects of life for me. No one’s fault but my own. Zero percent external blame. Not nature nor nurture. Yet I have repeated so many mistakes over the course of my life, it has been enough, at times; for me to throw my arms up in the air, say it is what it is, and live helpless and blameless to the whims of the universe.

But I choose not to. Repeatedly.

Self acceptance is a precursor to self compassion. I am not perfect. Nobody is. Don’t let the photo filters and video edits fool you, nobody is perfect, not even close.

The fact that so many humans feel the deep seeded need to portray a perfect image outward to people they don’t know and will never meet speaks volumes to how imperfect we all are.

Change is the only constant. Which means that there is a constant changing of variables happening, in every conceivable aspect of ourselves, and the world we are living in, that we can’t ever come close to always being right or doing the right thing. We can try. We have to try. What else is there? Giving up, doing nothing. I tried those. I found those to be mentally and emotionally cannibalistic paradigms.

So we start small. Very small. What’s below baby steps? That, there, do that. One at a time. We can identify what we have direct, immediate control of. Put all focus, energy, and effort towards those things. Then our circle of influence expands, by keeping small promises to ourselves. That is what Stephen Covey believed and preached, very successfully, for a very long time. I have found that paradigm to be true for me.

To learn to trust oneself begins with small steps but is no small undertaking. All big things have small beginnings. How we do the little things is how we do everything. From that point of view, trusting oneself truly is learning how to live.

Living for our Present & Future vs Our Past

Posted: March 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Living in the present moment sounds so simple, too simple perhaps. If it was easy for people to be present, rather than identified with their thoughts, emotions, and/or memories, the world we live in would be unrecognizable.

Our past makes us who we are. What led us to this very moment in time? Our past. For better and for worse. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our past choices became habits became patterns became the way we lived our lives. Many people live life unaware of this fact and even more are unaware that we can choose.

Meditation has been a life saver for me. Those close to me have heard me say that many times by now. Meditation helped me break the hold of identifying with my thoughts, my emotions, and as Eckhart Tolle says; my life situation.

We are not our thoughts, we are not our emotions, we are not our life situation.

What a wonderful concept. A moment of internal liberation. If only it was a one time, permanent fixing, magic pill, cure all. Meditation is not a magic cure all. Nothing is. The discovery that I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions, I am not my past trauma was the beginning of awareness.

Awareness is the way out. Becoming aware was the first step, of the first day, of the rest of my life.

Step by step, day by day. One thing at a time. One choice at a time. That is how we live in the present moment. That is how we live for our future self that we would like to become. That is how we separate ourselves from our past, our trauma, our inapplicable teachings, our perceptions that no longer serve us, our old ways of doing things.

It’s just like most things in life; simple NOT easy.

Sure we can try, but what happens if we fail? What happens if we don’t try? What happens if we succeed? What happens if we sabotage ourself? What happens if we give up? We happens if we achieve mastery? What happens if we try, try, try again and nothing external changes?

First, gratitude. Always, gratitude. Gratitude is gravity. Gratitude is glue. Gratitude is what you lay the foundation on top of.

Then…

Step by step, day by day. One thing at a time. One choice at a time. We choose, to do what we can, with what we have, to the extent we are capable of doing.

Change is hard, change is slow, change can be painful. If the opposite were true, the world we live in would be unrecognizable.

So we have to forgive ourself. We have to accept ourself. We have to love ourself. We have to support ourself. We have to cheer on ourself. We have to champion ourself. Life can be hard enough. Change is made harder if we are hard on ourself.

Simple NOT easy.

It can seem overwhelming. It can seem insurmountable. It can seem impossible. That’s why we do things of this nature;

Step by step, day by day. One thing at a time. One choice at a time. One breath at a time.We choose, to do what we can, with what we have, to the extent we are capable of doing.

That is how we live in the present moment. That is how we live for our future self that we would like to become. That is how we separate ourselves from our past, our trauma, our inapplicable teachings, our perceptions that no longer serve us, our old ways of doing things.

Simple NOT easy.

Worth a try.

We’re Not Done Until We’re Dead

Posted: February 27, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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We’re not done until we’re dead.

Done with what?

Our life’s work.

What is our life’s work?

What we spend our time doing.

Time, the one thing we can’t get back regardless of how rich or poor we are.

It is normal to spend the majority of one’s life just trying to survive as long as possible.

Human, animal, plant…survival and replication is the name of the game, the purpose of life.

But things have changed for some people in some parts of the world depending on external factors completely outside of their control that determine whether or not they can devote their waking hours to doing something that has come to be known as…thriving.

Not just surviving, but thriving.

Not just living moment to moment, minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year. But something the privileged say is greater than just going on until we can’t go on anymore.

Something greater than doing what I am capable of doing to live to see another day? Wonderful! I’m in, sign me up, mark me down, I love it, I want it. This means my all my necessities will be provided for me so I can focus completely on thriving right? Right?

No, I am still completely responsible for my own survival. But now, I have to choose to find, cultivate, and expend from within me an entire new being’s worth of focus, energy, effort, determination, and consistency to dedicate my life to something greater? Even though I still have to devote the majority of my waking hours to doing what I am capable of doing to make sure I don’t die homeless, starving, and dehydrated?

Luckily we can choose what to focus on. We can choose how to perceive things. We can choose how to feel. We can choose how to act and what to do.

Not by default though. After all, we would be urinating and defecating where we sit or stand without being potty trained. So we have to learn the theories, concepts, skills, tools, practices, habits, rituals and routines to develop and improve ourselves gradually, over time, patiently into a better more actualized version of ourselves.

How many steps is that? How many choices is that? How many days is that? How many years is that? What is the cost of that? Why is it up to me to do all that? Shouldn’t they be teaching us those things in school? Shouldn’t that be paid training on how to live rather than pay to play?

Luckily we can choose what to focus on. We can choose how to perceive things. We can choose how to feel. We can choose how to act and what to do.

I suppose trying to be a better person is a better use of leisure time than watching tv. But what about people who don’t have leisure time?

That’s out of my control or ability to influence. The best thing I can do is focus on improving myself without negatively impacting others. No harm, no foul. Becoming a better version of myself may even end up having a positive effect on the people around me. That is certainly a good thing. To positively impact the people, places, and things around us.

It would be nice to know why we have to discover this on our own and do it on our own when in America we are forced to spend the first quarter of our lives being educated. Educated in what? For what? Now I have to spend the rest of my life learning and applying knowledge that will actually benefit me pragmatically?

I thought I was done learning. I thought one day I would be done working.

We’re not done until we’re dead.

Done with what?

Our life’s work.

What is our life’s work?

What we spend our time doing.

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