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Stop Wallowing and Wake Up!

9/2/2015

Can you remember what you were thinking when you got up this morning? Can you give a name to how you were feeling? Very few people can remember what they said and did the day before. Thoughts and feelings are conveniently shoved into the same mental and emotional library. We think and feel the same things over and over and never notice it.

This behavior is like a habit because we act without being consciously aware. Being a creature of habit is essentially being someone who is averse to change. Yet change is necessary if we are going to increase our consciousness. We cannot coast through life or hide behind "business as usual." Often others will call such behavior to our attention, but it is still hard to bring it into the light, so to speak.

We have to learn to be mindful of our thoughts and feelings because these are the geneses of our experiences. We cannot afford to pretend that our mechanical ways of dealing with life are harmless. It keeps us asleep, and it is imperative that we wake up.

Are you miserable? Wallowing in that misery, rehearsing all the things that brought those experiences to you will only bring more of the same. Be mindful. Examine your choices. Accept that change will not happen overnight. It will take as much time and energy to change your habits as it took to create them.

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Do You Understand What You Know?

8/19/2015

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It's pretty common for a person to mistake what they know for understanding. For many, the words understanding and knowledge are used interchangeably, as if they mean the same thing. But in truth these two terms are worlds apart. Let me give you an example.

I was living in Wyoming and decided I would like to learn to fly fish. I read all the books I could find on the types of flies that would be good lures at different times of the year and in different kinds of streams. I bought a reel, a fly rod, and a variety of dry and wet flies. I began honing my casting skills in my back yard. It was all in the wrist, the book said. After some rather embarrassing moments of digging the hook out of my shirt, my pants, and even my ear, I believed I had mastered the technique.

I had a friend who had been a big game guide for out-of-state hunters. I told him I planned to catch some trophy rainbow trout. He had the slightest hint of a smile and asked, "Mind if I go along?"

Confident, I replied, "Okay."

When the day of the fishing trip arrived, I stepped out my door fully equipped, looking like one of those fishermen on the cover of Field and Stream magazine. I had my lunch packed and had double-checked my gear before dropping by his house to pick him up. When I rang the door bell and he walked out with nothing but a T-shirt and jeans, I said, "Where's your pole, your lunch? What are you going to fish with?"

He pulled a ball of string out of his right front pocket and a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper out of the other. I didn't say anything, but I hoped he knew how much skill and technique was required to fish for trout. I liked Lyndon, and I didn't want to make him look bad, but hey, what could I do?

He said, "Can I borrow a hook?"

I asked, "What kind, a mayfly?"

He said, "No, just a hook. You know, just a plain old hook."

When we arrived at the stream, I was so anxious to get started that I didn't notice that Lyndon had slipped away. I had been fishing (more like fishing my flies out of the surrounding trees and my clothes) when a miracle happened. I hooked one! It was a beauty, only about 7 inches long, but in my mind, it was a trophy. I walked back to the car to see if I could locate Lyndon and show off my catch. There he was standing beside the car and on a log beside him was a beautiful rainbow trout about 18 inches long.

Before I could ask, he said, "Grasshopper."

And there, my friends, is the difference between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge alone can't make you a great fisherman. It is through the trial and error of experience that what you know becomes part of who you are. It's what makes it possible for you to catch a trophy rainbow trout with a string and a grasshopper.

Happy fishin'!

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Conquering Loneliness

8/13/2015

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Finding a significant other has become big business. Maybe you've noticed the commercials on TV that offer people, old and young alike, the opportunity to find that perfect soul mate. Finding someone "special" gives vent to the belief that states, "when I find my true partner, my loneliness will be over. My life will be full and fulfilled." But, if you are lonely, it's not caused by just being alone. The problem often lies in your inability to make a connection with something within you, rather than in bonding with someone in the world.

So, loneliness is not the result of not finding the right person "out there." Loneliness is a state of being that is caused by an inability to make a loving connection with part of yourself. In other words, this inner separation creates the vibration that spawns the experience of outer separation.

The companion you seek is not really a new person to be met, but a new depth within you to be discovered. The greater the degree of your awareness of this, the more power you will have to attract the perfect helpmate or draw supportive love from present relationships.

So if you are lonely, the place to start is not being on the lookout for that special person. The place to start is looking within for a new connection with yourself.

Over the years, I have observed a number of people, who after doing everything they could to find that special person, found them when they stopped looking. Why? Because, whether by accident or on purpose, they turned within and made peace with a long-ignored part of themselves. They found peace, and peace is just another name for God. Once they were in that state of being, the perfect person was drawn to them.

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Whose Fault Is It?

7/23/2015

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You are on this planet called Earth to learn that what you experience is your own fault. Taking responsibility is not easy because a person has to think outside the box, and it’s much more comfortable to use the learned emotion called blame.

Blaming other people for the experiences in your life feels good. The problem is that when you blame others, you lose the creative power you have to change what you create.

Give up the idea that there is such a thing as accidents. There are no accidents. Whatever you experience is created by you.

Remember, this is the planet of lesson, and You are both the teacher and the student.

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The Food of Impressions

7/2/2015

Are you getting the idea that you are not living in a world of conscious people, but rather experiencing the result of the interaction between their subpersonalities? Good!

Although the subpersonalities take turns using your body, they do not thrive on the same kind of food you do. They are energized and sustained by impressions.

For example, let's say that in a room full of people, there's an individual who is dominated by a subpersonality which has a need to feel superior. What kind of impression will feed it? Well, it will seek out a person dominated by a subpersonality which thrives on the impression that they are inferior. In this way the superior one is able to feed on the impression that they are better, and the inferior sub-personality will feed on the impression that the other person is better than they are. So, both the superior subpersonality and the inferior receive the impression they need to survive.

I have become more aware of my feelings when I am in a group. Who makes me comfortable? Why do some people bother me? Who do I spend time talking to? Who is it that I can hardly wait to get away from? I'm always asking myself these questions. Try it! Asking yourself these kinds of questions can expose the hidden agendas of your subpersonalities.

This exercise is just the beginning. To quote one of my favorite teachers, Maurice Nicole:

It's a marvelous thing to find you can move in new directions internally and escape from this spurious invention of yourself.

Just say to yourself: "Why am I always like this? Why do I always feel like this? Why, in short, am I always the same fixed person, with the same points of view, the same attitudes, the same little unpleasantness, the same judgments, the same dreariness, the same criticisms, the same thoughts, the same reactions?"

Now you know this is called: "The realization of one's mechanicalness," and this [is also] called: the first stage of Self-Remembering."

Why? Because it means that a person who begins to see internally his or her mechanicalness has already separated something from what they have taken themselves [to be].

The Grudge – No, Not The Movie!

6/10/2015

Letting go of a grudge you have against someone can be a knuckle-chewing challenge. It can block your peace of mind until you think you're actually being haunted. I finally decided that I had to let it go before I drove myself crazy with it. Deciding to let it go was a heck of a lot easier than actually letting it go, I have to admit. But, I found a method that worked for me, and I'd like to share it with you.

My first step was to convince myself that everyone is doing the best they can – at least based on the understanding they have at that moment. If your grudge is against your parents, this is especially meaningful! What I'm saying is that I had to give the person I had a grudge against the benefit of the doubt. I had to say: "What they did made perfect sense to them, even though it seems deliberately hurtful to me."

Think this first step might be a little too hard for you? Then try this. Reverse positions with the person or persons you have a grudge against. Think of something that you did in the past that made someone angry at you. Did your behavior make perfect sense to you at the time? Of course it did! Do you wish you had done something different? Probably, if you had time to think about it.

Can you see that what you were doing represented the right thing for you to do at that time? After all, you were giving expression to the level of understanding you possessed then. Maybe today you are a better, wiser, and more wonderful person. You might not respond the same way. Let's hope not. Let's hope you learned something from that experience.

The question you need to answer now is: Can you give the same kind of tolerance to the person or persons you hold a grudge against that you have just given to yourself?

Work with this question until even though you remember what happened, you cannot generate any feelings associated with the experience. When this happens, you are on your way to completely letting go of the grudge.

It's A Definite Maybe!

6/3/2015

I have a friend who always says, "It's a definite maybe" when I ask him a question that requires a decision.

But, you know what? The answer, "It’s a definite maybe" comes closer to a conscious approach to life than the extremes of answering either yes or no.

Why would I say this? Because there are no absolutes! Nothing is totally yes or totally no. Everything is both Yes and No!

People are not good or bad. They are both good and bad. The weather is not good or bad. Think about it! It rains on someone's picnic—bad, huh? And yet, the same rain ends another person's drought. Even YOU are not either good or bad! That's encouraging, isn't it? You're like everybody else—both good and bad.

Psychologists tell us that if you were brought up in the same environment as a serial killer, you would very likely have the same tendencies he does. If you look at this idea from the Yes and No attitude, you can see that this is a definite possibility. Scary, huh?

Little or no thought is required to live in the attitude of yes or no because it is a conditioned response—the response of a machine. Yes and No requires a moment of deliberate thought, and this is necessary to build a higher consciousness. It is also a big step in learning how to enjoy your life in spite of it all!

Polarity

5/25/2015

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When I found the Principle of Polarity, it helped me understand why I would get bored and how to turn boredom from a negative to a positive. Do I need to ask you if you ever get bored?

Let me share some ideas about the negative feeling called boredom.

First … It may shock you to know that boredom is a borrowed emotion. We learn boredom from our parents, and they learned it from their parents. So, when you are immersed in the feeling of boredom, I want you to try something that works like a charm for me.

Say to yourself, "I am feeling bored. This is one of those feelings I borrowed from those around me before I had the smarts to tell them to keep it to themselves." (I'm being nice!) You'll find that this simple exercise gives you the space you need to think about the feeling rather than becoming at one with it. In other words, you start to think about boredom rather than being bored.

Second …The Principle of Polarity can be used to break the hold that boredom has on you. You use this principle to overcome boredom by creating a challenge for yourself. Let's think about this. The distance between where you are and the goal you set for yourself creates polarity. That's why when you go to a prosperity seminar, they stress setting goals that stretch and challenge you. The greater the challenge, the greater the polarity, and the less space for boredom to set in. If your life is too predictable, this is what causes the onset of boredom.

Several years ago, my dentist, who had been practicing for 19 years, said the strangest and scariest thing to me. He said, "I am so bored that sometimes I think that if I have to look at another tooth, I'll throw up!" Now I think you'll agree, this is certainly a strange thing for a dentist to say. But why was it scary? Well, guess whose tooth he was working on? J At least he didn't throw up on me!

Later I discovered that he broke the spell boredom had on him by engaging the Principle of Polarity. How did he do this? He created the magnetic force associated with polarity by challenging himself. He went back to school to learn the technical skills necessary to incorporate advanced cosmetic dentistry into his practice.

I've touched briefly on the complex idea of the Principle of Polarity. If you want to look into the concept in more detail, our 5 CD audio book, "It's Your Move!" greatly expands this idea.

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Surfing The Rift

Learning to heal rifts or disagreements that pepper relationships of all kinds, including the one with yourself, that can make it difficult to move forward.

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John Dean Williamsen teaches about psychological balance and how to use your life experiences to achieve balance.

Surfing The Rift Blog by John Dean Williamsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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