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By openjar, July 28, 2011 12:20 am

“You are beautiful the way you are. It is fantastic that you keep imagining yourself being even more beautiful! Your ambition is a good thing, so keep imagining yourself being ever more beautiful, and life being ever more joyful. BUT remember to see how beautiful you are right now. You see, you are in the process of going from one beautiful experience to something even better, and then something even better yet!! It is a joyous journey, and you can love every minute of it.”

I said that to a client this evening. The message was for both myself and my client, and it was channeled with a great amount of energy and feeling, so the words hit me with particular strength. Had someone given me the same advice just a week ago I might have said, “ya, ya, I know.” I’ve been cultivating gratitude for years, and trying to summon all the appreciation I can for a journey that can (at times) test my patience to the extreme.

But I’ve finally had enough lightbulbs turn on above my head for me to see the biggest ramification this statement has for me. I’m certain this will apply to many others besides myself.

The VAST majority of self-critising thoughts that arise in my head come down to the comparison I make between where I am right now, and what I know I’m capable of. It’s the gap between my potential and what I am that hurts. But of course we never reach our full potential, because it expands before we reach it.

What’s so damaging is that I’m subconsciously measuring myself against a meaningless, and unattainable benchmark. The impact it has had on my self esteem is significant, but that’s not even the worst of it. What’s worse is the natural impulse to defend why I don’t always do the best I’m capable of. That is, the impulse to make excuses, which is really the same thing as telling myself I’m powerless and incapable of creating my own experiences.

I know very well how unhealthy excuse-making is, but the impulse was hard to release without awareness of where it was coming from. The best I could do was catch myself in the moment I was tempted to make an excuse, and re-direct my thoughts. Altering ones thoughts is just damage-control though. Until we change the energy that gives rise to those thoughts, we haven’t really changed.

So the long and short of it is this: Comparing yourself to a potential you’ll never reach will result in telling yourself you can’t change your experiences, which in turn will make you resistant to ANY conscious changes in your life.

Ha! No wonder I’ve been feeling like I’m on the brink of what may be my biggest transformation yet! It seems I have just found my achilles heel, along with the solution to it!

So, stop trying to reach your full potential! (lol. Is that counter-intuitive or what?) Love where you’re at and look forward to the future. It really is as simple as that.

Cheers,
Tara.

ps. “Wait a sec,” you say. “What exactly are you saying caused your excuses, in this case?” Well, if you care for technical details (personally, I love them), here they are. Because the critisism was totally unjustified, I rightfully felt a rejection of it from the very core of my being. Instead of understanding that my whole perspective was flawed, and thus letting go of the critisism, some part of me continued to believe that the critisism had some validity. Yet I still wanted to reject the critisism… so I became defensive.

Our pettiest thoughts (the ones people like to label as “ego”) are always just skewed interpretations of messages from our wiser self. If we’re too closed-minded to get what our wiser self is saying, we’ll at least hear our ego’s interpretation –which might not be so pretty. Ego thoughts, such as excuses, won’t stop until we have a little aha! moment and finally get the message from our wiser self.

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By openjar, July 17, 2011 10:34 pm

Narrowing Your Options is a Terrible Ideas
“What do I do?”
“How do I get there?”
“Which do I choose?”

We spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy trying to narrow down our options. We even consider it to be a necessary part of planning ahead. We think the future is somehow in jeopardy if we don’t pick the right option today.

Holy crap is that line of thinking unhealthy! There’s zillions of reasons why it’s self-destructive to narrow our options, and I’m not even going to touch them right now. All I’m going to say is try going the other way for a while. Widen your options as much as possible and see how fantastic it is.

There’s two scenarios that can result when we narrow our options to the extreme.

If you feel like none of your options are good, I’m willing to bet you’re a chronic Path Narrower. You’ve been fretting over what to do and narrowing your options for so long the path you’re trying to walk is like a tightrope. You absolutely must convince yourself of 2 things. One, there’s multiple solutions to every problem, even if you can’t see them. Two, some (if not all) of the options you see could actually work. They’re not as bad as they look.

If you feel overwhelmed by your decision because all of your options look pretty decent, then you’ve got to stop thinking there’s only one right decision. I assure you, any road you take will get you there in the end. Just pick one. Pick the easiest, pick the funnest, pick the cheapest, pick the sexiest, or flip a coin. I don’t care how you choose, just choose. The only wrong choice is standing there biting your lip and going no where. Should new options pop up, be delighted! Tell yourself, “see, there really are endless solutions to every problem! Yippeeeee…!”

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By openjar, July 17, 2011 10:16 pm

Never Compromise
There’s never a need to compromise. If you like Option A and B, take both! Why choose? So what if you can’t imagine how you’ll ever achieve both at once. The “how” isn’t your job. Your job as a conscious being and powerful creator is to choose “what” you want.
Infact, the more we think about how things will happen, the harder it is for things to fall into place on their own.

If you want to spend your days weaving baskets and yet maintain the standard of living you have as a lawyer, then choose that! Decide that it will happen someday and imagine how it’ll feel. Just DON’T get hung up on where the money will come from, because that’s a “how.”

If you want to get your way, but you want other people to be happy too, then choose “everyone will be happy.” If you choose compromise instead, what you’re choosing is “so long as no one’s totally miserable, that’s okay.” Why on earth would you choose that as your goal?? Anything less than happy is less than what you should be aiming for. Just make your choice, open your mind to new ideas, and let things unfold.

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By openjar, July 17, 2011 9:40 pm

Nobody Thinks of New Ideas
Ever analysed a problem to death, sure you’d find some kind of satisfying answer eventually? We know we’re not getting anywhere, but do it anyway. Partly because we don’t know what else to do, and partly because on rare occassions it seeems to work.

In truth, all new ideas start out as energy perceived by our intuition. Ideas don’t originate in your head. They aren’t even your ideas, or anyone else’s! They’re just energy.

Only after your brain receives and processes new energy can a new thought occur to you. By mulling a problem over and over, you’re creating more and more of the same energy –nothing new at all!

When you listen to a friend, you stop talking. If you want to hear new ideas, you have to stop thinking –if only for a moment.

When you take some quiet time to listen, do tell yourself you’re listening. If you tell yourself you’re “not thinking,” it’s gonna be agony.

If your brain keeps chattering, then at least disassociate with it. Tell yourself it’s just neurons firing in your head out of habit, it’s not YOU thinking that nonsense. With practice, it gets easier to ignore the thoughts. (The reasons for chattering, uncontrollable thoughts can be numerous and many more blog posts.)

Don’t expect to feel like anything is happening during your quiet moments. It may take a while for your brain to finish connecting all the dots.

Finally, take note of this example. Let’s just say you spent last week deep in thought on some troubling issue. Then on Sunday, you have some quiet time and your brain receives some great new energy. You’re thinking of the subject on Tuesday when… aha! A light bulb turns on! But the aha! moment did not result from endless thinking!! It resulted from the questions you asked yourself last week and the answer you received on Sunday. You could’ve spent a total of a few minutes thinking about the issue instead of hours. Imagine the stress you’d have saved yourself!

The more you get it through your head that thinking doesn’t result in new ideas, the easier it’ll be to end habits of circular thinking.

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By openjar, July 17, 2011 8:54 pm

Make Your Dream a Good One!
One of the many reasons people may struggle to achieve their dreams is that the dream they’re wishing for (and throwing their energy into) is based on superficial wants, rather than true desires.

As you know, if you put enough energy into what you want (or think you want), you’ll create it. It’s true, but there’s a catch. If you fixate on a dream that goes against your inner wisdom, the larger (and wiser!) part of you will usually veto it. Let’s say your thoughts are puting energy into one thing, while your soul is putting energy into something else. Guess what? Your soul wins.

Of course, the wiser part of you may decide it’s time your silly physical self learned a lesson. Uh oh! No veto will save you this time! “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it!”

If you’re not getting the things you want in life, it’s really, really worth doing some serious self-reflection on what you want and why. Whatever answers come up, consider them and ask more questions. Don’t judge yourself, just be honest and dig deep.