Being More

I've been reading the book, "Notes To Myself" by Hugh Prather, and this quote really stuck out at me this morning.

As I look back on my life, one of the most constant and powerful things I have experienced within myself is the desire to be more than I am at the moment - an unwillingness to let myself remain where I am - a desire to do more, learn more, express more - a desire to grow, improve, accomplish, expand.

I used to interpret this inner push as meaning that there was some one thing out there I wanted to do or be or have. And I have spent too much of my life trying to find it. But now I know that this energy within me is seeking more than the mate or the profession or the religion, more even than pleasure or power or meaning. It is seeking out more of me; or better, it is, thank God, flushing out more of me.

But Wait - There's More

This week we've been reading short segments of an article about creating self worth through self awareness. Here is the last of it.

Important Points

• We are not yet emotionally grounded, because our subconscious is deciding for us, based on our beliefs that we created from childhood experiences. A great deal of our unhappiness comes from a 'brain set' that we created in our early childhood.
  
• We realize from our 'Observer Self' and meditation that we feel heavy inside. I created a metaphor that worked for me: My cages are within and I am not free. I learned that emotional freedom and inner peace is a process that does not happen by itself. We evolve into freedom, as we gradually set free all past influences that we interpreted as ours that really were distorted or belonged to someone else.
  
• My inner work required a willingness to go into my shadow. Going there means to become self-aware, to face the pain, the insight and growth it has to offer. It literally creates a wonderful space inside where before there was guilt, shame, anxiety and self-effacement.
  
• It takes no more time and money to "go there" than it does to pay emotionally and financially for the addictions we develop to food, TV, exercise, shopping, alcohol, relationships and diets.
  
• Learn the wisdom of your heart. Your heart constantly sends messages to your brain. Are you listening or do you listen only to ego?
  
• You can begin to literally feel 'space' opening inside. I began to feel lighter and develop clarity.
  
• You gain confidence as you discover more about yourself. As I had less drama, I was more willing to trust my own voice and take on a practice that fit me. I began to find my spirit.... the Source energy, which brings feelings of love with it, feelings that leave me in joy or peace. I judge less and appreciate more.
  

Unfortunately, the author's name was lost in the transition.
Sorry about that!

Self Awareness

This is more from the article I've been uploading in bits and pieces this week. This segment focuses on ways to feel good about who we are, and offers ideas on how self awareness can help with emotional healing. I thought might be helpful, so here it is:

If we are perpetually busy, our ego has a hold. We have less energy and may even feel totally drained. Our body is responding to our heavy emotional attachments: resentments, jealousy, anger, and envy. When we release these emotional attachments and our victim status, we naturally have more energy.

How do we do that?

1. Regularly observe your inner dialogue ... notice what makes you feel good, what makes you feel bad, identify where you feel that in your body through deep, relaxed breathing. You have heard the phrase, "What you resist, persists?" So, simply sit with it for a while. Then, let it go. This is a practice that we need to do regularly.
2. Only you can observe your mind and identify what thought, smell, color and touch, triggered your emotions. The very act of observation slowly closes down your ego and your fears diminish. You identify that you do have control and you can simply decide that you no longer need the drama in your life. As you cut emotional links you gain emotional composure and you reduce your needs.
3. Improve your inner dialogue ... this keeps us in the present. Once you identify where the negative feelings are coming from, you can change them or take a program to release your programmed beliefs.
4. Ask yourself if you offer joy and hope to others or idle gossip and misery? Genpo Roshi says that, "Participating in slander and gossip is a symptom of how inadequate we feel. If we truly felt whole ... we wouldn't need to fall into the trap of negative speech. When we see that our own true nature is not lacking in any way, we ultimately want to rejoice and celebrate other peoples' success and well-being."
5. How do we find our true nature, uncover our innate abilities and talents? Truly knowing our self-worth is often the answer to how we accept ourselves-even celebrate who we are.
   

Unfortunately, the author's name was lost in the transition.
Sorry about that!

Things I Have Learned

Here is an exerpt from an article I found online. It mirrors many of the things that I have also learned, and seemed appropriate for this project, and so here it is:

• Although you can be intelligent, competent and successful in many areas, you can also carry a negative self-image, frequently engage in negative self-talk, be perpetually busy, hold many fears, repeat failed relationships and have no focus.
  
• That although most of the world focuses on the intellect and our external world: this is only one reality. The other reality is our inner world that is driven by our hopes and dreams: our heart's desires. The inner you is activated by our own observation of it ... observation of your thoughts, your emotions and how that feels in your body. Our whole body is our subconscious and every cell holds memory. Each and every cell listens to what we say about ourselves. What do you say?
  
• We need to be patient. Our progress goes back and forth. Our inner vision begins to open, we have more energy and there is an inner space growing: it feels like freedom and strength with moments of inspiration.
  
• We accept concepts intellectually and it takes much longer for the concept to become real in your heart, so that we can live it naturally. If we rush our growth, it becomes empty, we become bored and listless since we are in unfamiliar territory and still identified with ego.
  

Unfortunately, the author's name was lost in the transition.
Sorry about that!

Taking Care Of Yourself

Taking care of yourself is letting your heart know that you are responding to its needs - the needs of your soul. It is self-development through self-awareness: wherever we find it. People and resources will come to you. Some will resonate with you and some will not. Trust your intuition.

• Use whatever form of meditation works for you. There are many techniques and resources available. (meditations)
• Make a decision to choose the feelings, thoughts and actions that take you to whom and where you want to be.
• Take time to learn what your purpose is. It will evolve over time and you may have more than one.
• Gift yourself with a reading escape, a dessert, enough time in your week to exercise.
• Do whatever it takes to get in touch with your true self. Find the resources to guide you to loving yourself unconditionally.
• Understand and experience our own divinity.
• Spend more time with groups that lift you, help you discover the meaning of living from our heart.
• Ask your self regularly if what you do is taking you in the direction you want to go. Our activities should support whom we are, where we want to be and what we want to do.
• Express love to others. Service to others may be the fastest way to be happy ... giving away what you want most.

Unfortunately, the author's name was lost in the transition.
Sorry about that!

Reclaiming Your Power

I found this article on Insecurity over at the Daily Om. It seemed appropriate to this project, because I have this idea that a person with a good sense of self-worth wouldn't be plagued by insecurities and self-doubt.

What I had hoped to find was something useful, new, thought provoking, or interesting -- maybe even a solution to my own issues of inadequacy and defeatism. I was disappointed. By itself, this article is just a lot of pretty words and nice talk. However, and this is why I'm posting it here, when I take it apart, piece by piece, I began to discover what my own ideas are.

So, here's the dissection - I'd love to read your thoughts on it as well.

• There is an innate awkwardness to being human.
  I love this sentence. It gives me a sigh of relief, a knowing that it's OK to be awkward and human, like I now have permission to be me, and I'm not alone in my imperfection and gracelessness.
• With each decision we make, there is the potential for self-doubt
  Yes, with each decision we make there IS the potential for self-doubt and that's because our decisions don't always take us where we want to go. Sometimes a decision is a good one - meaning that the results feel good, bring us what we want, or put us on a path that is rewarding and interesting.
  
  On the other hand, the decisions we make often take us into uncharted, uncomfortable, and even dangerous territory. If that happens too many times, we find ourselves unable to just "leap" into life without first testing the waters, creating a safety net, assembling our allies and helpers, talking endlessly about all the "what-ifs," and putting it off until either the decision is made FOR us, or the way is so obviously clear that failure is either inevitable or impossible.
• and it is this-self doubt that forms the root of insecurity—a complex emotion that is a mix of equal parts inadequacy, isolation, fear, and hopelessness.
  Actually, I'm not sure that insecurity is exactly that. I did an online search for synonyms and came up with the following from Thesaurus.com and I think it's more expressive of how I feel when I am experiencing self-doubt and insecurity:
  
  built upon sand, critical, crumbling, dangerous, defenseless, endangered, exposed, expugnable, fraught with danger, guardless, guideless, hanging by a thread, harborless, helpless, in danger, insecure, nightfoundered, not out of the wood, on slippery ground, on the brink, on the edge, on the rocks, on the verge of a precipice, on the verge of a volcano, on the wrong side of the wall, precarious, shaky, under fire, unprepared, unprotected, unsafe, unshielded, unstable, unsteady, untrustworthy, vulnerable.
  
  I especially like "nightfoundered." It brings up images of storms, and sinking ships, and lost at sea, along with an element of excitement and aliveness... life on the edge... where at least you tried - maybe you tried and failed - but at least you tried, at least you were on that ship, heading for that port in the storm, and maybe the furies will take pity on you... and will you be washed up on some exotic beach, in some totally new place, and how bad would that be really ...
  
  I like that image so much that I'm going to make it part of my self talk the next time I find myself in that insecure doubting anxious place... I'm just going to say - "Looks like I've nightfoundered! Toss all the excess baggage overboard!" And I think I'll need to do more than just say it... I think I'll have to go outside and yell it into the wind!
  
• Yet these feelings of insecurity that prevent us from fulfilling our potential by inducing us to abide by arbitrary self-limitations are nothing more than erroneous perceptions.
  Here is where I begin to disagree in a big way. If you grab a hot pan off the stove and burn your hand, that's not an erroneous perception. When you find yourself in one abusive relationship after another, or when every money making idea you have goes up in flames, when you decide to drink and drive and wreck your car.... Those are NOT erroneous perceptions. They are the results of decision making gone awry. When I decide to do X and ABCD and E falls on my head, and it's uncomfortable, and hurtful, and I'm reeling from it emotionally, that's NOT an erroneous perception. That's a life experience.
• We feel unconfident and unsure of ourselves because we judge ourselves to be so.
  I'll concede the point here. Yes, I do think that our stories about ourselves create who we are. If I am "nightfoundered" and the story I tell myself is that I'm alive, and resourceful, and that it was a whale of a storm, and thank God the lifeboats are intact, and immediately turn my mind to how to get off the rocks and on to shore - then I'm no longer paralyzed and lacking confidence. On the other hand, if I'm wringing my hands, and crying, and saying "why me" and "how could I be so stupid" and more of the same, then yes, the story is quite a bit different, and maybe I'll be staying on those rocks, or bobbing around in the icy dark for way a lot longer than I have to.
• Banishing insecurity is often simply a matter of challenging ourselves in order to prove that we are indeed intelligent and able.
  Yes, this is probably true. And it's way easier said than done. I don't especially like the flippant way this is tossed out - "simply a matter of..." Newly acquired insecurity might be simple - you get on a bicycle for the first time, and when you fall off, you "simply" get back on until you learn how to ride it. The more times you fall off, the less frightening it is, and pretty soon you've got bicycle riding mastered. On the other hand, deeply rooted insecurity has a long history of painful failure and humiliation fueling it. So, let's not call it a "simple" thing. Let's call brave and daring. I think it takes courage to put yourself on the line like that. Real courage.
• When we feel insecure, we not only perceive ourselves as incapable of meeting life’s challenges but also fraudulent and unworthy of true happiness.
  This is true for me, and I wonder why. Why would I tell myself that I'm fraudulent and unworthy of true happiness when I feel inadequate to the task of meeting the challenges of life?
• We move through life plagued by a sense that others have judged us and found that we are lacking.
  Yes. This is big. I don't even know what to say about it except that this is exactly how I feel much of the time. How to get over it? I don't know.
• As a result, we are robbed of our personal power and rendered unable to feel positive about the choices we make.
  And this is how give our power away. This is where we sell out. The opinions of others become more important than our opinions of ourselves. The needs of others become more important than our own. How other people see us becomes extremely important because it feels as if our very survival depends on their good opinion. So we base our decisions, we make choices, we do what we do in an attempt to control the people around us, to persuade them to think well of us. We hide who we really are, we forget who that even is because we focus and concentrate so hard on what we imagine to be "good" and "acceptable" in someone else's eyes.
• Everyone feels insecure from time to time
  OK... I agree that everyone has feelings of insecurity. I am pretty sure that every person you meet is struggling with self-doubt, worries about how their decisions will turn out, and might even be assuming a completely false identity in order to win YOUR approval. And that's something to think about, isn't it? Your false face meets their false face, assumptions are made, adjustments are done, and you lose even more of your self even as they lose more of themselves. Pretty soon nobody has any integrity, we're all running around trying to find approval in the pretend people we think we know but don't really know because they are pretending as well. WOW. That's a mind boggler isn't it?
• because each of us is born into the world with unique strengths.
  I know this is true... and yet... not really. It sounds true, but do I experience it as true? Do I even know what my own unique strengths are? I'm not sure I do. I'd probably have to ask someone... Wow! How's that for an "approval seeking" idea! What about you? What are your unique strengths?
• If you should find yourself with feelings of insecurity, however, endeavor to understand its source.
  This sounds like a good idea. Worth investigating.
• Perhaps you were repeatedly berated as a child
  We were all probably berated, humiliated, and possibly beaten or abandoned as children. I don't know a single person who didn't have a painful childhood. I actually have a theory that our painful childhood experiences give us tools and grit and that without them we might be weak and inept. Look at what happens if a baby eagle is not allowed the long and difficult process of pecking its way out of the egg - it dies.
• or seldom receive positive reinforcement in the present.
  Every person around you was humiliated at least once, berated a thousand times, put down, knocked down, slandered, and wrongly punished in those long difficult growing up years. So... be kind. Be kind to the people around you, and be kind to yourself. You are not "less than" and no one else is "more than" we are just how we are. And who we are is fine. Who we are is acceptable. And, actually, who we are is pretty amazing! You don't need someone else to give you positive reinforcement - you need to give it to yourself.
• A tendency to withdraw from risk or uncomfortable situations can amplify feelings of insecurity.
  I totally agree. So just get out there and do it. if you want to run with the big dogs, you have to get off the porch. If you want a life that's worth living, today is the day to get started.
  
  What's the worst that can happen? You'll fall on your ass? So what! That's how you learned to ride your bike. You'll fail miserably? OK... again, so what! Every one is bound to fail at any number of things. No one will like you? Oh come on... that's just silly. People love a loser because it makes them feel compassion, and people love a winner because it makes them feel hopeful, and people love you for your faults and your flaws more than your perfections because it makes you more human, more approachable, and more real. You'll lose everything? So, think about this. Eventually, at the end of this thing called life, you're going to "lose" everything anyway. Afraid of something different? I'm sure you can come up with your own "So what" answers.

There you have it. I've pretty much said everything I can think of. Here's the rest of it:

• When you have pinpointed the origin of your insecurity, focus on your abilities. The more you utilize your personal power—by taking risks, boldly facing challenges, and acting decisively—the stronger it will grow.
  
  Remember that insecurity is not objective. Rather, it is an emotional interpretation of your value unconsciously based on doubt, shame, and fear. As you overcome those underlying emotions through courageous action and copious self-love, you’ll discover that you are capable of achieving more than you ever thought possible.
  

Want to read the original article without my observations and comments? Here's a link: Insecurity - Reclaiming Your Power

Insecurity - Reclaiming Your Power

There is an innate awkwardness to being human. With each decision we make, there is the potential for self-doubt and it is this-self doubt that forms the root of insecurity—a complex emotion that is a mix of equal parts inadequacy, isolation, fear, and hopelessness. Yet these feelings of insecurity that prevent us from fulfilling our potential by inducing us to abide by arbitrary self-limitations are nothing more than erroneous perceptions. We feel unconfident and unsure of ourselves because we judge ourselves to be so. Banishing insecurity is often simply a matter of challenging ourselves in order to prove that we are indeed intelligent and able.

When we feel insecure, we not only perceive ourselves as incapable of meeting life’s challenges but also fraudulent and unworthy of true happiness. We move through life plagued by a sense that others have judged us and found that we are lacking. As a result, we are robbed of our personal power and rendered unable to feel positive about the choices we make. Everyone feels insecure from time to time because each of us is born into the world with unique strengths. If you should find yourself with feelings of insecurity, however, endeavor to understand its source. Perhaps you were repeatedly berated as a child or seldom receive positive reinforcement in the present. A tendency to withdraw from risk or uncomfortable situations can amplify feelings of insecurity. When you have pinpointed the origin of your insecurity, focus on your abilities. The more you utilize your personal power—by taking risks, boldly facing challenges, and acting decisively—the stronger it will grow.

Remember that insecurity is not objective. Rather, it is an emotional interpretation of your value unconsciously based on doubt, shame, and fear. As you overcome those underlying emotions through courageous action and copious self-love, you’ll discover that you are capable of achieving more than you ever thought possible.

Found at the Daily Om