Changing a Mind - Personal Practice

I had been so hurt by a friend that I didn’t even realize I had shut down and wouldn’t let that kind of friendship in my life.

At the realization of this I took notice of my past behavior.  I was shocked at how I had treated others in order to protect myself from that type of pain.

Sure there had been times when I felt the pain, but I would push it back down.  

I thought I had overcome it because it didn’t bother me.  I had become a master at turning the feelings off.  I thought I was “letting it go”.

I thought I could be what I called a “bigger person” about the circumstance that led to my hurt.  I thought I was “forgiving”.

I was “letting it go” and I was “forgiving”, I still am.  But now I choose to allow myself to feel the pain and I choose to acknowledge that it hurts to be mistreated emotionally by someone.

I realized I was in hiding from my emotions.  I decided to come out of that hiding almost a year ago.  I decided to allow myself to be sad and upset over the hurt I experienced.

I noticed my decisions up to that point had been based on protecting myself and to not allow a friendship that close.

I realized that I was in circumstance that would not work for me because of my protective behavior.

I made changes over a four month timeframe to allow more time for me to spend with “me”.  

I then went through the pain of discovering and discussing how circumstance had shaped me over the past five years.  I put the work into taking down the walls.  I opened up to the possibility of friendship and found it!  But, opening up is not as easy as I thought it would be!

I’m still afraid of the pain of the hurt caused in the past.  At times the pain still feels fresh when I reflect upon it in a moment of fear in this new engagement of friendship.  But now, I talk about it with my friend.

My friend is patient and listens to me.  I have time to work through my hurt and move forward because of this patience.  There is no pressure to be someplace faster than I need to be and I don’t feel the need to placate to keep the peace.  

I no longer feel the need to hide!

Changing a Mind - Yoga Lesson

You may not realize it, but someone may be placating you.  

When trying to use force to make a point or change another person’s perspective on something, you may loose the opportunity.

Taking your time and allowing the other person to say their peace may win you their respect and sway their thought process.

Pressing a point may cost you the opportunity to make a valid or important transition.

Take time to listen!

Self Discipline - Personal Practice

I use to spend a lot of time debating with myself over whether I should do something or other or not.  I would make myself sick with guilt if I didn’t do the “thing” I committed to myself I would do.  

I practiced Self Discipline in a very unconstructive fashion.  I would beat myself up and consider myself a failure if I didn’t follow through.  

The fear of feeling this way pushed me to my edge and then over many times.

I had all these rules to keep myself happy all the time.  Or a version of what I thought happiness was.  

For instance, I would say to myself if I do this “thing” then I can relax and be happy and everyone around me will be happy too.  Then I would run myself ragged trying to do too many “things” in order to achieve happiness and give happiness.  The problem was that I always had too many “things” to do.

Then I started to realize that there is a process to achieving “something” and I may not always like the process and that it’s okay to not like it or to be unhappy sometimes while working on “something”.

I recognized that there is a Self Discipline attached to many of the “things” I do and achievement is my reward, even if it is small.

Then I started to ask myself questions the same way I would ask a friend questions who felt imprisoned by the “things” they wanted to accomplish.  I asked myself simple questions like: 

Will I feel a sense of accomplishment upon completing this thing?

Will there be long term benefits that I feel is worth the effort now?

Do I have to do this?  Do I want to do this?

Is this what I really want to do, or is this something I feel “I have” to do for someone else or to fit in to society?

Sometimes surprisingly enough the answer was “No” to some of these questions.

What freedom!  Some of the “things” I felt I needed to do all of a sudden I didn’t feel so imprisoned by anymore.  I stopped making myself miserable, or at least I recognized if I was making myself miserable, in attempt to provide happiness to others.

Taking away the rules and structure and breaking down my “thing” to its basic foundation of “Is it good for me” clarified Self Discipline and has made the Journey much more rewarding.

So ask yourself.  Is it good for me?

Self Discipline - Yoga Lesson

When you don’t feel like following through.  When you want to put it off till another day or take a break.  

This is when your Self Discipline kicks in.  

Self Discipline is when you push yourself to get up and take the initiative for your own benefit, for the reward of knowing you accomplished something when you really didn’t want to.

When you can become your own advocate and listen to the positive reinforcement from within, you are practicing Self Discipline.

Often it can be a short lived aggravation or pain, but the benefits you know far outweigh the discomfort you feel in the short term.

This is pushing your edge!  This is making it happen!

Not all moments are a joy in our practice, but the benefits of our hard work in those difficult moments should be.

Be aware of where you are in your practice.

The Small Things - Personal Practice

I’ve spent a lifetime looking toward the future and all the things that will make me happy once I achieve them.  The funny thing was that once I achieved that next best thing, it didn’t make me happy.

I could never understand why.

How could I achieve such great things and be so accomplished and never be happy?

Simple, I achieved so much to make others happy and to do what I thought I should do to be happy.  I also had trained myself to look past the here and now and to look only at the future.  So once I achieved that future moment, it ended up in a “here and now” and I didn’t know how to be happy in the here and now.

I had to change that.  I had to learn how to let go of all the expectations and the future vision of my self.  I had to re-train myself to be in the here and now and “enjoy it!”

What a task I had put before myself!  It seemed so simple at the onset.  I thought that I could live in the here and now and let go of expectations easily.  

Well, here I am nearly four years later and just getting to the point where I understand what it means to stop living in the future.  It’s been a lot of practice and it’s taken a lot of self awareness that I haven’t liked very much honestly.  But I’m here!  

The funny thing is I’m not here really.  I still am a creature of habit.  I still want to envision the future and escape out of the here an now and believe happiness lies elsewhere, especially when I realize how human I am as well as how human others are.

It’s somehow a comfort to me to envision how “I will be” or how the “situation will be” once this event or that thing is achieved.  I get caught in the clouds and shut down from reality when I feel lost.

Then I remember, I’m here and it’s now.  I must practice being and letting go.  I don’t predict the future or control it.  My happiness does not lie there, it lies here.  

It’s all the small moments that make up my journey.

Happiness lies in this moment and I choose to be in it.

The Small Things - Yoga Lesson

When you place all your focus on the “Big Picture” and reaching an end goal you may find yourself getting annoyed and impatient with all the small things that lead you to your end goal.

Are you happy when you reach the end goal?

Often it is hard to enjoy reaching a goal when you have trained yourself to look at the big picture.  When you train yourself to think “I’ll be happy when…” you may find yourself wondering why you can’t find the happiness you thought you’d achieve by reaching the end result.

Start practicing letting go of the annoyance and impatience with the small steps and notice them for what they are.  The joy is in the journey and the “Small Things” are the journey.

The journey takes many twists and turns.  You never know for sure what is around one of those twists or turns so stay in the here and now and find success and reward in each moment.

It’s all about the small things!