No thought, good or bad, can truly define who we are.
We are more than our mind.
The experience of being able to observe our thoughts and our mind proves that who we really are cannot be narrating or viewing from inside the mind.
Practice observing automatic thought patterns, and look into them. Discern what is life enhancing and what isn’t.
We can’t stop thoughts from coming, but we can learn to choose what thoughts we are going to follow and use.
Stress and trauma has a way of taking us out of our bodies.
With this we often don’t know how to listen to how we feel or what our body needs.
Healing involves coming into our body, breath and our willingness to listen within to ourselves.
Yoga and other forms of body work have been proven as the most powerful way to come back into ourselves and into our wholeness.
When we can be consciously connected in our breath and embodied experience, we can be there for ourselves like no one else can.
When we don’t look closely at our patterns and our part in things, they have a way of repeating themselves until we listen.
If we are continuously in our mind, living for the moment ahead of us, or the future life we are creating, we miss the experience of life itself.
Life can only be in the present moment. It can only be right now and right where we are.
Of course it is important to have a vision and goals and to make plans. But to enjoy any achievement, we can only do so through being present.
How much do you live in your idea of things and of potentials, or of how you expect your life and relationships to be, and how much do you live in the reality of what is?
We often miss the aliveness of the simple things, like a daisy, because we label it with our mind and don’t take it in as a wonder and a mystery and a miracle of life. Reality is full of absolute magic, beyond the conceptual level of viewing.
Also, so often early in relationships we are not fully seeing the other person with all their human picture, we are seeing what we want to see or how we want them to be. We project our fantasy.
We can so easily dismiss the red flags, because they don’t fit with what our mind wants.
We can learn to be mindful of this. To listen to ourselves.
We can move in the direction of what we want.
We can focus on good additions and gain help to expand our ideas around more of them.
We can become more aware of how much we ruminate in our thoughts, in ways that are hard on ourselves and where we are stuck in judging ourselves for the things we are doing that we don’t want.
Where we place our attention and thinking is what we tend to create more of.
We can use the power of this more consciously.
When we are our integrity and we know our true self, we can observe the defensiveness of our ego.
The more we identify and practice observing our reactive, protective or insecure patterns, beliefs and thoughts, we learn to step back and sit in the deeper space of our being.
Our being; our conscious awareness, cannot ultimately be defined, even by our own thoughts, let alone anyone else’s. We are soooo much more than any thought we might have.
Resting in being, there is nothing to defend.
Anything we do to try and please others when it’s not our truth, in the end gives us exactly the opposite of what we want.. which is to be entirely true to our self, deeply authentic, within and without.
When we repress, suppress, deny or adjust our true heart, we not only move away from happiness, we actually generate suffering.
When it’s hard to be authentic, when we fear someone being angry, disapproving or rejecting, it is helpful to realise that real joy is when we know inside that we are in alignment with our integrity, truth and authentic being.
Sometimes we need to nod and smile and appease others as a conscious means to minimise reactivity or harm, if we can see that they aren’t able to take responsibility or hear us. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are being inauthentic. It means we are discerning about our relationships and choosing consciously how best to navigate them.
If we are in a close relationship where we don’t feel safe enough to be ourselves, it is really important to question if that relationship is what we are telling ourselves it is and if it might be in our best interest to step aside.
It might also be necessary to look at our past experiences around love, conditional love and how we were supported/unsupported/neglected/abused growing up. Often people pleasing is a learnt trauma response and needs to be reassured and worked with patiently.
We can anticipate, imagine and think about something as much as we like… it will never be the same as it is in reality.
Allow ourselves to trust life.
All the things we fear, are different in their experience than the way our mind anxiously projects.
We can only know our way through an experience when it is upon us. We can only walk through something in the present moment. And in the moment, it will be what it will be and we will do our best as we always do.
Find pockets of beauty scattered everywhere.
Pay attention to the smallest details. Look closer.
When we appreciate beauty often, we feel more love for life and we become more loving.
RATNA DYER 