CHANGE, FOR OUR OWN PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ( Part 2 )

FORWARD THINKING

Following on from my last posting, I need to emphasize one thing here:
Making the effort to get back to your 'self' - is not a backward step!
If we hadn’t experienced what we went through so far, we wouldn’t now know how awful those events could feel and so we wouldn’t now see the choice of changing how we live our life to make it feel better.
When we feel bad about ourselves or have memories of particularly distressing life events, part of how we feel is a result of the fact that we were not taught how to really ‘care’ about ourselves, nor how to value ourselves. That’s because the people whom we were ‘brought up with’ weren’t taught those things either.
And we don’t need to think we’ve wasted our past. No need to punish ourselves for falling into this conditioning trap. No need to judge ourselves - nor to judge those we might feel we want to blame for how we’ve ended up. These people were similarly conditioned by their predecessors. They were a result of their own conditioning which would be individual to them.

So what do we do? Well, initially, look at our conditioned life, observe all the aspects of it from different angles and then be determined to begin the process of our personal internal change. This is true Personal Development.

Our current way of thinking is a result of how we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by lots of external forces in our past.

‘From Now’ is all that matters. We can’t change what has already happened to us, nor can we change what we previously thought and did. But we can change how we proceed in the future….from now on.

Forward Thinking, that’s what it’s about…… looking to your future, which by changing, little by little, conditioned habits of how you consider things and how you think of yourself in your life. It’s about responding consciously, gently, instead of violently with emotional outbursts. This gives you a different ‘feeling’ about yourself, giving you more comfort of mind and a feeling of ‘freedom’. Freedom from the dogma of others. Freedom from the judgements and labels others have foisted upon you. And, as you master the method of making these changes, the better feeling grows. You literally become your own Master. How will that feel?

I like to call this process Mindful Rejuvenation.
Once activated within us, it sets us on a different track of living - a different lifestyle, if you like. A more caring one.

Mindful Rejuvenation

One of the things that our conditioning has done to us is to de-sensitise us from our true feelings and senses.
Because we would do anything to feel accepted as a child we would often ‘do as we were told’ by those controlling us, sometimes to the detriment of what we really felt.
Often, those older people would take out their own frustrations(angry/abusive/controlling thoughts) on us so we learned to react in ways that kept us ‘safe’ or ‘acceptable’ e.g. cowering or making ourselves ’less than’ so that we kept ‘out of the way’. Often leaving us feeling our own thoughts had no worth. That we had no worth. That we still have no worth. That we are not important.

Often, we became so fearful of ‘doing the wrong thing’ (by thinking our own thoughts) that we just complied and ignored our own internal feelings and senses (thoughts). It was the start of the blanking off of our caring incoming thought stream.

So this process I call Mindful Rejuvenation is all about restarting the process of listening to what we feel is the best, most caring, most honest way to go forward, sometimes regardless of what others may be saying. It’s about realising that our own thoughts are important enough to consider them and putting the thoughts into action. It also needs to be about not reacting emotionally to what is happening on the outside, to what others might be saying or doing, because we are not trying to change anyone else here, only ourselves. It’s impossible to change anyone else anyhow so don’t even go there! Maybe we have to say “No!” and mean it, using a degree of courage to express ourselves.
Present a different way…..then leave it to them to choose. Allowing others to have free choice is vital to your own development. (Wanting others to see your point of view can lead to frustration when it doesn’t happen. Frustration (anger at not getting our own way) is just another of those upsetting emotions that we don’t want any more!

The feeling of ‘rejuvenation’ is a lightness that comes about when we realise that WE ARE IMPORTANT IN OUR OWN RIGHT, regardless of what someone might have said about us when we were young ones. We begin to value ourselves.

Also, all of this ‘negative stuff’ you are carrying isn’t YOU. That’s just like a cloak you wear. All those reactions, feelings and emotions, all those labels you or others attached to you, these are not you. You’ve accepted them all and you just ‘think’ it’s you. The real human being underneath is a clear-seeing living entity that can use un-adulterated thoughts being received from your inner intelligence source in a good way.
OUR THOUGHTS ARE INDIVIDUAL TO US AND THEY ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE THEY ARE OF BENEFIT TO OUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION AS A BEING.
You most certainly are IMPORTANT. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.