What we believe can be fickle and changing and based on concepts and conditioning. It is not reliable.
Knowing is innate in being. Awareness is synonymous with being. Tune into this level of self connection and lived understanding. This is beyond the need for any belief. It just is.
Sometimes ‘l’ can be: a protective parent part of us, or the hurt inner child part of us, or the school teacher/accountant/lawyer part of us, or the addict part of us, or the rebellious teenage part of us.
We have different experiences of what we take to be ourself all the time. We blend and are identified as one part or another at a time, often changing and conflicted.
Don’t just assume that any one part is who you are. Even the part/idea you see yourself as most of the time. We are much more than any part or collection of ideas, thoughts and memories that make up a person.
We are that which sees all parts and ideas come and go and yet remains unchanging.
When we dance, it is hard to feel sad. When we pump iron, it is hard to feel depressed and helpless. When we stretch and breathe yoga, it is hard to feel disconnected.
Use your body to help you with your feelings.
When you can’t seem to access your feelings, check in with your body. Does your chest feel tight? Do your shoulders feel tense? Is your jaw clenched, your breathing shallow or your brow furrowed? Do you have a ball in your stomach?
All our emotions are experienced in our body, whether we realise them or not.
Along with building awareness of my thought patterns, paying attention to my body and my senses is the best way I have found to build emotional intelligence and stability.
We often don’t recognise coping mechanisms that we are living through due to childhood trauma.
Trauma doesn’t have to be through a big incident, or even anything necessarily horrible. It is simply a part of life. It is unavoidable. Even being born is traumatic.
Even with good parents we will still have traumas happen. Something as little as having the blanket come off at night and getting too cold as a baby is traumatic. Or not being acknowledged or supported emotionally as a kid is a big one. Or an over protective, smothering parent can also generate a kind of trauma. The list goes on…
Don’t minimise your struggles. Don’t be a victim to them either, but learn to honour your healing process.
Often our behaviour changes due to our (conscious or unconscious) attachments, expectations, fears and ideas of self image.
There are different parts of us that come out at different times/with different people.
Begin to identify and learn to observe your different sub-personalities; how they think and how they act.
When we can observe our various parts/sub-personalities, we can step back and create space from automatically being blended with them and acting through them.
With space we can form a stability in our being, a consistency of self, a grounded-ness in authenticity.
There is only one reality, but there are billions of worlds.
How is the world seen in your perception? What do you focus on that forms a sense of how your world is?
Yes we need to acknowledge and take responsibility for what we need to improve, and at the same time, if we practise bringing our awareness to expand our recognition of beauty, goodness, gratitude, grace and trust in unfolding growth, our world can be a totally different place, even when nothing has seemingly changed on the external level.
Be conscious of how you are painting a picture and what picture you are creating.