Imagination

"...A wayfinder's Imagination doesn't dominate reality.  It feels into Oneness, falls in love with "what wants to happen," and gives itself to the vision created by that love..."  -- Martha Beck

Grasping

"...It's the emotional quality of gripping, clutching, and needing that bespeaks an underlying expectation of loss and deprivation, and causes us to create nightmares in the world of Form.  Desire without grasping is joyful and playful.  Hunger makes food more satisfying.  It's forcing ourselves to deny our hunger that will eventually make us ravenous and insatiable.  Without attachment we can receive the messages from the Energy Internet that tell us our needs will be met.  With that as our expectation, our actions bring wonderful abundance into the world of Form..."

--by Martha Beck, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World

The Shallow Part of Life

"...The real reason we feel so starved in the shallows is that we [as humans] aren't made to be satisfied with material possessions or with concepts of ourselves as famous, noble, smart, handsome, righteous, influential, blah, blah, blah.  What we really want is the peace of the Stargazer.  The irony is that this is already present in every single one of us, though it's obscured by the dense matter of our lives at their shallowest.  Clinging to the shallowest sphere of existence, losing touch with our cores, is the primary cause of all our unhappiness.  So why does almost everyone spend enormous energy doing it?

To avoid the ring of fire, that's why..."

--excerpted from Steering by Starlight, by Martha Beck

5 Ways To Be Just Yourself

1.  Think this:  You are good at your core.

2.  Find out who you really are, the one who does not need the audience, the one who loves cartoons, the one who like vanilla ice-cream, etc.

3.  Love yourself unconditionally, because there is nothing wrong with you at the core.

4.  Be independent.  The more independent you are, the more meaningful your relationships will be.

5.  Do a reality check.  Are they rejecting your core, or are they rejecting the pretend you?

Can Society Make You Happy?

It's so tempting to want to be accepted, especially by someone you admire or look up to, like a beautiful person or a person with an important job or someone who you think is tres cool.  I notice that when I feel this way, I don't like myself.  I see myself as inferior and I want to think of ways to make myself more attractive to others.  I wish I had a nice job so others will be impressed and look at me with approval and find me worthy of their company.  I think of ways to improve myself because I have to be good.

I have a cousin who is tall and smart and sort of an elite.  When she is nice to me, I feel fantastic.  So I ask myself...why can't I feel fantastic anyway, with or without her approval.  I guess that deep down I must be believing that I'm not good enough unless she pays attention to me even for just one minute.  So I dress a certain way and talk a certain way.  This gives me status, which I prize so much I guess, because I see how important those people are, in a class of their own.  And that's what I want for myself, if I have to admit it, because I think that that would make me finally a happy person.

Life, though, is difficult from that perspective, which is that I'm not good enough just by being my ordinary self, flawed at that because that's what human beings are.  The struggle for me is to know deeply that I am a good person, and that I'm good enough no matter what.  And anyone who does not love me is just mistaken.  That's okay too, because people are simply imperfect human beings.  I don't need to be wealthy and beautiful and smart to be a good person.  There are no requirements except that I've been born.

I know it's hard to be our own person because we want to be accepted by society.  Who wants to be an outcast?  Not me.  But when I really think about it, it is better for me to be alone if that's the price I pay to be just myself...no strings attached.  Reality is always better than the ideal.  If you strive for the ideal, you will get depressed.  It's better to be just you because you can never be like another person.  We're all different no matter how hard we try to be like someone else.

I'm a Late Bloomer in Life

I was exhilarated at finally realizing that my destiny is uniquely mine, and my purpose is as unique as my thumbprint, different from those of other human beings.  I understand that now.  I cannot possibly live the life of the majority or the chosen exactly as it is.  Fitting in seems so silly now.

The journey to the truth regarding my Self is a mysterious one.  Along the way I found golden nuggets of truth about love, responsibility, work, possibilities, desires, propensities, confidence, freedom, liberation, etc...that still shake me to my core.  I relish the moments of realizations with great satisfaction.  Life is a process and a work in progress.  I welcome the unknown parts of me, until such time when the truth is revealed.  I look forward to the journey with great anticipation...until the end of time.  This is my work.

--Pauline's thoughts on another milestone

Setting the Bar too High

I was feeling blah today, not quite sure what to do with myself or with the day that was extreme.  I looked over my journal to see what ideas to focus on, such as looking at the glass half full or reminding myself that I grew up in a dynastic family culture which was constraining, or maybe focus on the idea of being authentic.  Being authentic...hmmm...   How can I apply that to my day?  The more bad I felt just thinking about it.  I went outside and sat at my favorite corner of the fast food restaurant and opened my journal, pen in hand.  I kept looking at the words...being authentic.  I couldn't shake off the bad feeling.  I was struggling for almost an hour.  Finally, I gave up.  I told myself I would just sleep it off.  It would be nice to snuggle under the warm blanket, even though, at the back of my head, that it was a loser's job to do that.  As I started to pack my things, voila!  I was awake all of a sudden as if the burden was lifted off my shoulder.  I started feeling good and relaxed and energized.  I figured out what the problem was.  I was forcing myself to be authentic, when in fact, it doesn't happen all the time to human beings.  And I probably was already being authentic, so it was overkill.  I realized then that even with doing work with my Self, I was thinking too big instead of small.  I was getting carried away and going overboard and being too hard on myself, to the point of pressuring myself to be authentic, thus, feeling bad about it.  I sat some more, savoring the moment of joy and peace.  What a glorious day it turned out to be, as I enjoyed listening to the background music.

Please note that my behavior came from a subconscious thought (You have to be authentic all the time.)  I wasn't really fully aware that I was being too hard on myself.  I only knew that I was feeling bad and didn't know why.  I also knew at that moment that being authentic was a liberating idea.  But I did not understand that going overboard and setting the bar too high, even on such a noble thing as being authentic, can cause harm to the self.

So in general, setting the bar to high on relationships and life in general can cause too much anxiety and even depression or panic attacks.  Be kind to yourself, even if it were only yourself.  Perfectionism can cause emotional disturbances, and be aware that your feelings of perfectionism can be subconscious and therefore, hard to detect.  So again, don't be too hard on yourself.

How to Succeed in Therapy

Therapy most often is a process much like peeling an onion.  There are many layers of issues to peel and there are many levels of breakthroughs.  To get the most out of your therapy sessions, here are some tips:

• Pursue the truth with ardor.
• Who am I?
• Why can't I be myself?
• Question your behavior or beliefs that bother you.
•  What am I doing with my life?
• Tell the therapist your personal goals.
• I don't want to be a robot
• I want to be authentic
• I want to be confident
•  Be aware of your subconscious.
• I want to fit in
• I want to be liked
• I want to do what others are doing
• What do I like?
• Focus on one issue only and understand it fully until it's resolved completely.
• How do I react?
• How do I treat myself and others when I don't feel good about something?
• What images do you see in your mind?
• Ask for a treatment plan so your sessions are focused.
• Be conscientious and do the work after the session, review your notes.

Conditioning the Mind

The following definition is from Encyclopaedia Britannica:

conditioning, in physiology, a behavioral process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement, with reinforcement typically being a stimulus or reward for a desired response. Early in the 20th century, through the study of reflexes, physiologists in Russia, England, and the United States developed the procedures, observations, and definitions of conditioning. After the 1920s, psychologists turned their research to the nature and prerequisites of conditioning. 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/131552/conditioning

We all, I think, would want to change the way we behave at different stages of our lives.  Conditioning is a true and tried process, whereby you teach your brain to be or do whatever or however you want to change.  To begin the process, pick a goal.  This goal could be any goal, but a general one.  A good one to start with is:  to think positive.  This is a good goal to have, because then you can elevate your mood, or you can "feel good," or you can be more successful at work or school, etc.

The way to condition your mind can consist of the following steps:

1/  Make a list of things or experiences that make you happy.  For example:
        -Things that you love or that delight you, such as your favorite silk scarf, your favorite house clothes, or a wool scarf that keeps you so warm in the cold air, or a puppy, etc. 
        -Successful experiences...small ones, like when you finally perfected a recipe, or when you were able to find the perfect outfit, or when you heard beautiful poetry, or when you figured out how your fancy camera works, or when you so much enjoyed a sitting and sipping coffee at the corner cafe, etc.

2/  Every morning or whenever you have a moment of quiet time, even for only 10 minutes each time throughout the day...do this:  In your mind, visualize the favorite thing or successful experience on your list.  Hold the image in your head and notice how good it makes you feel.  Feel the warmth in your body as the energy travels from your feet all the way up to your cheeks.  Enjoy the movie in your head for as long as you can.  Do this regularly and daily.

3/  During your conditioning exercise, notice the happy image in your head, and then start doing affirmations.  For example:  That's so great!   I'm so lucky!     I'm so happy!

4/  You can also do conditioning when you are stressed out, frustrated or in a bad mood.  Stop for a few minutes and do the visualization and affirmations together.

This process really works and can boost your energy.  It worked for Pavlov's dog.  It has been proven scientifically.  So why shouldn't it work for us humans.  Conditioning the brain is so easy to do and so effective, it will change your life for the better.  It will open up your life, and you'll just know what to do to make your life even better and better.

Namaste.