Its always important to remember that our thoughts, words and actions have great “life” energy associated to them. This power can just as easily nourish us or poison us. Our brains are constantly and automatically evaluating the world around us. This can make it difficult to let go and simply trust in life.
Without our awareness, our brains have built numerous associations to situations, thoughts, words, etc.. These associations automatically “match” and make us feel a certain way. Sometimes these associations can get mapped incorrectly. For example, something that should make us feel good, actually makes us feel bad. When we repeat our patterns without awareness, we strengthen the association (and feeling) whether it is correct or not.
We can go back and remap our feelings correctly, but we have to accept working on ourselves. Usually there is something at the core, that is not always what it seems.
The Matching Game of our Brains
We associate almost everything we do, think or say to either something that brings us happiness or something that causes us pain. Its definitely not black and white as one or the other – there is a scale. Unfortunately, almost anything that requires change in our thinking or habits we associate with pain. We unconsciously do whatever we can to avoid change.
When we suffer, we become easily addicted to things that give us consistent, good feelings and sensations. On the contrary, anything that doesn’t align with our expectations, we judge as “bad or negative” even though it might be something “good” for us (providing learning or growth).
Not only do our brains thrive on pattern matching and quick judgements, we are trained to judge and label the things that happen. Society teaches us what is considered “normal” and what is “not normal”. Anything that doesn’t fit into our beliefs we tend to discriminate and judge harshly. We think that this “comfort-based” defense system keeps us safe and on the path to happiness. When in reality, its the opposite. Our comfort-based belief system is the exact thing that tricks us and keeps us from being truly happy.
Fear Based Thinking
We need to retrain ourselves to embrace what we fear so we can begin to learn from it and understand. When we do this, we begin to realize that what we feared really wasn’t as bad as we thought it was. Fear-based thinking negatively feeds our:
- Wrong perceptions
- Mental stories
- Past negative experiences
- Delusions
Don’t Believe Them
Our minds love to play out false stories in our head. These are the lies we convince ourselves as truth (mental fantasies). Our minds are addicted to stories and false hopes. Make a commitment NOT to listen to them. Your brain’s pattern matching process is hoping to find something to match and align to – even if it is negative. If it can find a match, it conserves lots of mental energy.
Try to simply observe your thoughts and mental stories without judgement and without believing them. Instead talk to your thoughts and emotions. It sounds strange, but we need to talk to ourselves (our mind). Tell your negative feelings and thoughts that you are here for them and will take care of them. These are the unresolved child within you crying out for attention.
We often will look for answers in entirely the wrong places. Why do we try to force and control our situations? We get so frustrated because things don’t work out the way we expect or want them to. When things don’t go our way, we try even harder to control our situation. Which will only lead to greater frustration and suffering. It becomes a vicious cycle of repeated, negative circumstances.
Remember that our attitude, thoughts and feelings create what we receive back from life (law of attraction). We need to learn to let go and to trust that life will bring the things we need in the right timing.
Viscous Circle of Unhappiness
I often see a good example of this in relationship coaching – especially when a person is determined in finding a new partner. The person typically begins searching and preparing for the other person in their thoughts and feelings.
They want someone because they feel alone or want someone to share good times with. Others believe they deserve it, so they begin to set expectations on life. It seems reasonable from their perspective but ultimately leads right back to frustration.
The person begins going out on dates, going out more often with friends and are open to the “searching” phase. They start off ok and have some fun, but then they begin to struggle with the people they meet. Next they begin even cycling through people to try and find the right person they feel they need, want or deserve.
Unfortunately, they keep searching but things just don’t work out for one reason or another. They begin to get frustrated and start to select less desirable people just because they are getting impatient and tired of searching. Sadly, they are missing one major fact staring them right in the face.
Neglecting The Relationship with Self
What is nearly impossible for people to see, is that the thoughts and feelings we have will not return what we really desire. We forget about the two relationships we need to focus on first.
- The relationship we need to repair in ourselves
- The relationship we need to build with life
If we do not trust life, how can we expect life to bring us what we want?
If we had the power of seeing into the future for the person seeking the relationship, we might see the relationship they were searching for will actually come 2 years from now, while they are on vacation in another country. The relationship will come when they learn to let go and simply be present in their own life.
But because they are trying to force the situation into their life that is not meant to be – it will not work out at this point. They get more frustrated, wondering why it’s not happening. Worse yet, they become angry with life.
This situation will almost always leads to bad decisions. Life might be actually blocking them, to give them time to work on themselves first. Often during this time, life is giving us signs that we ignore or don’t want to see.
Do You Love Yourself?
If you are not happy with and capable of loving yourself, you will not be happy with or capable of loving someone else (the mirror of life). Unfortunately, due to our natural defenses and deflection of focus on ourselves, we might completely ignore that important understanding. Let me repeat it a little differently to help with our defenses:
If you are not happy with yourself, you will not be happy with someone else.
When we begin to practice acceptance and observing life in our present moment, we soon begin having significant breakthroughs. Our new, “normal” pattern should seek out learning and growth within ourselves. Understanding and being compassionate of challenge or conflict. These are opportunities NOT obstacles to escape or run away from.
This new perspective and thinking will lead to positive change in our lives. Miracles and opportunities will begin to fill each of our days. We will begin to see a beauty in the world that we didn’t notice before. We begin eliminating all of our self-limiting thoughts, doubts and worries.
This is true freedom and power. This is where happiness and life both live. Ultimately, what people really desire.
Let Go and Trust Life
We need to learn how to let go of our control. We need to learn to surrender to God/Life/Love. To trust life more. Use whatever term your belief system needs to understand and accept without judging. We need to learn to invest in ourselves, take care of our families, and anchor our lives in the present moment. We need to focus on WHAT IS and not on what we think should be.
Trust life. Use the gift of the time that you have to learn, grow and accept “what is”.
Say out-loud tomorrow when you wake up, “Thank you for this amazing day! Please help me learn to trust Life more. Help me use my time today to learn, to grow and to accept whatever comes my way. Please help me be open and help me learn to accept myself.”
Wishing you peace and love,
Until next time…
– Greg
