A Final Word…

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Hello Dearest Readers,

Today Marks the end of 1 full year of this blog.

When I first set out to do this blog, it came from a deep desire within me to help people in my life. In that passion, I found myself helping people when they didn’t want it 🙂

I quickly realized that if I didn’t have a good avenue to explore this longing, then I would annoy everyone I knew with unsolicited advice. Thus in a deep meditation one day, the idea just blossomed forth within me, to write a self help blog, and the title “Dear True Self” sprouted immediately after.

I made a commitment that day to do the blog 3x a week for a full year. Barring my trip away and being extremely ill over the holidays, I can say that I did that, 142 blog posts later.

Consistency is very important in any endeavour for me. Only by doing something consistently and for a decent enough length of time will you be able to see the fruits of your labour. For me, that means a minimum of 1 year commitment to any projects I set out to do.

I will not be continuing the blog anymore, as I think for me it has completed its full cycle. My creative energy and desire to help will be channeled into other projects that I have lined up for 2020.

I also toyed with deleting the blog after this year, but I think I will keep it up. It may still help people and some may choose to go back and re-read entries.

I hope that it has helped you in your journey this past year and that it may continue to point you in the right direction, the only direction – inward.

It has been a deep privilege and blessing to be able to live in a time where anyone can  use their skills to help others, and be received by so many. I am very honoured that so many have been helped by this blog.

I thank you from the deepest source of my being for being a part of this with me, regardless of how much or little you got out of it.

I wish you the deepest sense of involvement and highest level of experience life has to offer, and that you may be touched by the source of creation in this lifetime.

Namaskaram

With gratitude,

Your True Self

On Reflection

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

As the year is ending I find myself doing a lot of reflecting on it. Replaying old memories and wondering what I would do differently. Am I just living in the past or is there value in thinking about what I could do better in the future?

Sincerely,

Looking Back

Dear LB,

You are basically asking if there is value in learning from our mistakes. Although on the surface it might seem like the obvious answer is yes, it has its limitations.

First you must understand that when we say reflecting on the past or planning for the future, you are trapped in illusion. The past does not exist. The future does not exist. Only now exists.

This isn’t particularly useful information however, because in your experience, the past and future feel very real. So how can focusing on some fortune cookie philosophy like this possibly serve you?

The past is just memory. It does not exist here and now. You can only remember it, and poorly at that. The future is also just a play of memory. You are fantasizing about something based only on your past experiences. You cannot imagine something outside of your accumulated experience.

So whether we talk about future or past, it is all essentially memory at work. Please understand, memory has tremendous benefits.

If not for your memory, you would not know how to walk. You would not know how to speak, how to eat, how to drink, how to do anything! Imagine having to learn everything new every single time you had to do it. It would be a clumsy and torturous life.

Then does replaying old memories in order to learn from them make sense? Of course. Even if you don’t consciously do it, your body has memory, your cells have memory, your very DNA is memory. Whether you choose it or not, your system is constantly reflecting and learning from the past.

Reflecting has a huge significance in your physical, mental, psychological, and social aspects of life. But it has absolutely no significance existentially.

When I say existentially, I mean what are you experiencing right now? Not in merely a physical or mental or emotional way, but what is your experience of life? Can you ever experience the past? Can you ever experience the future?

You can only ever experience this moment. And this moment, no matter what you do in it, cannot be changed. It doesn’t matter how much you reflect on this moment, nothing can change it.

Your whole life experience is in reality only happening in this individual moment. Slice to slice, you are experiencing life. The only issue is you are trapped in the allure of memory and fantasy, but it is not real.

There is no harm in looking at the past or planning for the future. But you must understand that it is not existentially relevant at all. When it comes to your life, it is happening only now. Right now you may be thinking about the past or future, but you are not a time traveler. You cannot go anywhere but where you are now.

Reflect and prepare as needed to manage your situations in life. That is the sensible thing to do. Just recognize that those situations are not life itself. They are merely accessories to life.

Life is how beautiful, meaningful, or deep and total your experience is. That’s it. The only place to live life is in each individual moment.

People take life far too seriously. They put too much importance on their past experiences, playing them over and over. They put too much worry into their future, trying to guarantee an outcome when life has no such guarantees.

That’s part of the game of life, to learn and grow. It is unavoidable. But it’s not the main event! Stop taking it so damn seriously. Just give it the minimal attention it requires for you to live properly.

Put the majority of your attention and energy into the here and now. Where else can you possibly be except here and now? Become involved in the life that is happening within you and around you in this moment!

If you just flip the ratio so that more time is spent being present rather than in your memory and fantasy, you will see how quickly your life will transform.

Just think right now how many things are happening that are truly fantastic. You are breathing, the trees are breathing, a tremendous ball of fire is giving you energy constantly, the planet is traveling at unfathomable speeds without fail…

This moment is everything. It contains everything. Eternity is always there in a single drop, moment to moment. When this moment contains literally everything, it seems a bit stupid to be obsessed with the petty memories or fantasies you have.

Whatever you create up in your head can never come close to actual creation.

Your life is not some plan to be executed or some equation to be balanced. Keep your reflecting to where it matters, to play the game that the situations of life bring. Then get back to reality.

All that is worth remembering is this: Your life is now. Not in your reflections.

This moment is your life! How deep and full do you want that moment to be?

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Patterns

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I find I keep having the same thoughts over and over again. I also find I am repeating some of the same behaviours too and like I am stuck in a pattern. How do I change this?

Sincerely,

Pitter Pattern

Dear PP,

When you say you are stuck in patterns, essentially you are saying life has become repetitive. When life becomes repetitive, it is impossible to be receptive. Without receptivity, there really is no life.

So how to stop being repetitive? How to break patterns?

The first thing is recognizing the patterns. It seems at some level, you are doing this. That is fantastic!

The next thing is to understand why we created these patterns at all. If you observe nature, you will see, everything is happening in cycles. The earth around the sun, the trees shedding and growing, even the cellular functions in you are all following cycles or patterns.

The same is true for your thoughts, your emotions, your energies. It is not only the physiology that is like this. But why is it so?

Whenever you perform anything unconsciously, it will be cyclical in nature. That is the default state of existence. Things are always ebbing and flowing from one state to another. What you call as birth and death is simply a cycle, happening ad infinitum, to all things in this cosmos.

We may call it by different names – a flower blooming and wilting, rain pooling and evaporating, etc. But essentially there is only one cycle: birth and death.

This is the fundamental law all things in this universe follow. So when you move through life without consciousness, simply reacting to everything, of course you will be stuck in this pattern.

When I say you are reacting to everything, I don’t mean that you are getting upset about everything. I mean that you are not consciously choosing how you wish to be. You are not responding. Responding is the opposite of reacting.

You see, to be a human being means that you have the ability to think, feel, and act however you wish. If you don’t harness this, then you will be like every other creature, simply reacting to everything based on your programming.

But if you choose in any moment to respond, then the cycle is broken! It is really that simple.

The beautiful thing about all these patterns and cycles you are endlessly repeating is that you don’t actually have to do anything to stop them. If you simply just stop – stop feeding them, stop encouraging them, stop enabling them – they will slough off on their own.

All these patterns are only happening because you have left nature with no choice. You are a conscious human being, the very peak of evolution on this planet. But when you don’t exercise that consciousness, nature falls back on its cycles.

So the good news is this isn’t all that complicated. If you were someone who didn’t even know you were stuck in a pattern, it would be much harder to help you. But when you are aware that things are cyclical, all you have to do is stop and they go away.

Haven’t you noticed that these things take a tremendous amount of effort on your part to maintain? They may feel like they are running with a mind of their own, but it is only because of their momentum. If you just slow it down and stop it, it’s over. In that emptiness, you can choose what you want to do different, if anything.

The problem isn’t with the behaviour or the thoughts. The problem is they are repeating over and over and you want to be in control of them, not the other way around. Even if you have the same thoughts and behaviours, so long as you are the one choosing them, it’s not an issue.

The more conscious you become, the more these patterns will shed. The more conscious you become, the more aware you will be of how many patterns you are stuck in. Believe me, it is far more than you can imagine.

Just try it for even 1 hour – do everything consciously. It will be extremely difficult. When you can finally understand that the majority of your life is happening unconsciously, it will dawn on you that most of your life you are just running on auto pilot. You aren’t really living your life at all.

To be alive means that you are conscious, aware, involved. To break unconscious patterns, all you have to do is increase the effort into responding to life. Respond to everything. Everything is your responsibility.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Obligation

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I can’t help but feel that I am doing things for people in my life more out of a sense of obligation than genuine desire. Especially this time of year, buying gifts and spending time with everyone doesn’t feel like something I truly want to do. Rather, I feel if I don’t do it that it will cause a lot of drama and judgment from others. What should I do?

Sincerely,

Obligate Keeper

Dear OK,

If you do something in life because you feel you have no choice, that is the ultimate enslavement. Obligation is just another fancy word for this bondage. No matter how much you dress it up, chains of gold are still chains.

But I want you to understand that the two extremes you have cooked up in your mind don’t reflect reality. You think either you do it out of obligation or don’t do it at all. Tell me, is that really the dilemma? Are those your only two options?

If you do not wish to buy gifts or spend time with certain people, then that is your freedom. You can also buy gifts if you wish and spend time with people. That too is your freedom. But not matter what you choose, you must be willing to face the consequences of those actions.

If you just blindly stop what you feel obligated to do, with no communication, there will be consequences for sure. People won’t understand and will fill in that lack of understanding with their own assumptions.

And can you blame them? You used to be one way, now you are the opposite. It is unrealistic for you to expect them to understand when you give them no explanation.

This isn’t about obligation at all – this is about you avoiding your own discomfort. You want a way where you can just maintain all your relationships but behave completely opposite without any effort to explain. Time to get out of fantasy land!

It’s not such a dramatic situation really. Sure, some people may understand, some people won’t. But either way, it’s not the end of the world. People have more important things going on in their lives than you, believe me. You are not the centre of anyone’s universe.

Just act according to the individual situation. If you’ve decided you want to stop doing things out of obligation, then do so. But understand some people may get it immediately, some may get it after a conversation, some may never get it.

You can’t control how everyone else responds to your choices. But you can choose the kind of person you want to be. If you act according to your own sense of self, and include people, then you should be able to sleep well at night even if they don’t understand.

So take the drama out of it. You don’t want to do things out of obligation? Then don’t! It’s truly that simple. But respect that some people may need you to explain it to them.

Could you not sit down and talk with some of these people and tell them how you feel? Would not most of them understand and be okay with it?

Sure, the conversation may be awkward, but without that bit of friction you can’t grow. Whenever you feel discomfort in life, it is an indication you are pushing up against and old boundary. If you break through it, then you can transform. But if you feel that discomfort and decide to retreat, you will go on complaining and never change.

Right now you have become stagnant to avoid this discomfort. Repeating this nonsense has caught up with you so now you complain, blaming everyone else as though it’s their fault. Whether you feel obligated or any other emotion, how is the way you feel someone else’s fault?

Other people may be responsible for creating a certain situation around you. But no one else is ever responsible for the situation within you. Only you are responsible for that.

So drop this idea of obligation. It sounds like you want to change your old ways and live according to your truth – that’s good! Embrace it, include others, and accept what happens no matter how it happens. That is the recipe for managing a good life.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Activism

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I consider myself to be an activist. But I often find people are so hostile towards me and others like me. When I am only trying to help change things for the better, why is there such a negative response from people? Why is it so hard to convince them to join in on the fight?

Sincerely,

Pro Activist

Dear PA,

One important thing is you should never identify yourself as an activist. In fact, you should never identify yourself as any one particular group.

The reason I say this is because the moment you start saying “I am ____”, you immediately draw a boundary for yourself. You create walls around you and inevitably by deciding you are one thing, you close yourself off to other possibilities.

Are you capable of doing all the things an activist does without identifying as one, without needing the label? If you paint every day but don’t label yourself as a painter, does it make you any less of one?

I am not saying stop doing your activism. I am simply saying forget being an activist. Just do your activism. You will see, by dropping the identity, you allow room for others to enter your world.

But by labeling yourself as an activist, you are separating yourself from everyone else. You are declaring yourself an activist, and want others to wake up and join you. Can you really blame people for not wanting to suddenly drop everything they’ve known to join in?

Look at the amount of push back you’ve received. In many ways, it can be social suicide to take on the identity of an activist. The only people who you can associate with are other activists. But putting people in petri dishes will never change the world. It will only give you the illusion that things are better.

If you truly want people to join in, then the only way is to include them. If you try to conquer them via arguments and data and other things, it may work on a few. But if you include them, aim to understand what is in the way for them, and help them to overcome that – then you will see real progress.

It’s far easier to just vilify people. When someone doesn’t perform by your values, then they are wrong. Please see, by your standards, the entire world is failing. Not a single person has ever met your expectations. Are you really going to fix the entire world by fighting them?

It is more difficult, but more effective, to aim for individual change. Yes it takes longer. But the people who join in are not doing so out of pressure, or to please you, or out of fear, or some other negative motivation. They are doing so out of their own realization, their own compassion.

The world does not need more people with strong beliefs fighting everyone who doesn’t believe the same. History is built on the many corpses of such thinking. It doesn’t matter how morally correct your argument is. The same thinking that created this world’s problems will not fix it!

So let go of your beliefs in your righteous cause. Let go of this idea that you are in some war to fight others and win them over to your side.

First and foremost, lead by example. Share with others, include others. Practice compassion. Give people an opening into your way of thinking, don’t bludgeon them over the head with it.

Ultimately, it is true there are a lot of very serious problems facing the world today. I understand the sense of urgency and fervor with which activists fight. But it is misplaced. Put that same intensity into including others rather than fighting them. The time is dire for it!

It is important that people aim to make the world better for future generations. But you must find solutions that work in today’s world. You must find solutions that work for everyone, especially the people you see as against you. A solution that works for some and not all is no solution, it is injustice.

This world is not just for you and people who think like you. It is for everyone, even those who you don’t like. The world is full of people who don’t think the way you do. What to do with them, exile them all as wrong and work towards your solution? It is wishful thinking.

Transformation of the world won’t come through fighting. It will only come through inclusion. Don’t lose the activism spirit! Just put it in the right direction. The world needs people willing to act.

Don’t distract yourself with adversarial ideas. All that will happen is you will think you are making a difference, but you will push so many people away that one day they gather and fight back even harder.

Activism over being an activist! Inclusion over conquering! Change that, and all this hostility you feel will subside.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Hesitation

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Is it okay to hesitate or be cautious? I understand needing to be involved or open to life, but sometimes there are situations where we need to be careful. Isn’t it foolish to never exercise caution?

Sincerely,

Easy Does It

Dear EDI,

Is it foolish? Absolutely! But perhaps it’s time for some foolishness.

One of the biggest problems with people experiencing life is how damn serious they are about it all the time. If you learned to live life without fear of suffering, you would naturally be playful with it.

It happens to everyone. One day they are playing in the dirt, laughing, dancing, singing – then slowly over time they become hurt. Physically, mentally, emotionally, they experience pain and become cautious. Before they know it, they’ve become cautious just about everything.

Truly, when it comes down to it, how often is your life in serious danger? Is there a murdered constantly hunting you down? Is there a volcano about to erupt and destroy your home? Life or death situations are rare, few and far between. Yes, they can happen, but they do not make up the majority of most people’s lives.

But because of the pain you have experienced in life, the mind runs away with things and exaggerates. Things that are merely uncomfortable suddenly become a matter of life and death for you to avoid. If you hesitate around everything that makes you even slightly uncomfortable, you will never grow. This is a true tragedy.

Whether it’s right or wrong, things grow when the correct amount of resistance is there. When we feel resistance, it is a sign we have reached a boundary. Your choice now becomes to either retreat into the safety of that boundary, or to break it and expand.

If you become hesitant whenever you feel that resistance, how the heck are you supposed to grow in this life? The resistance, the discomfort, it is not there to make you suffer. Suffering is in your mind. It is just a signal, a sign that you are ready to break the old and being something new and unknown.

I’m not saying to throw caution to the wind. You don’t have to do some daredevil stunt in order to prove something to yourself. But just simply, in your day to day life, notice all the ways you hesitate to minor discomforts. Then try involving yourself and see if you grow.

So no need to be dramatic – there are plenty of opportunities even in your ordinary life to practice this. You don’t need to do anything new, just start with what you already have.

You see, you need to bring some awareness to the game you are playing with yourself. In order to avoid suffering, you are avoiding life altogether! But one day, there is something you cannot avoid, and it will claim you! At that moment, you will wish you had lived more deeply, not more cautiously.

At the end of the day, that is all this is about. How involved you are with life equals how alive you feel. Hesitation does not make for a meaningful life. Only experiencing things will make for meaning in your life.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Being Ignored

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Lately I feel like everyone is just ignoring me. People aren’t answering me when I reach out, or seem to be inattentive or uninterested when I speak. Is this all in my head? Am I doing something wrong?

Sincerely,

Ignorance Aint Bliss

Dear IAB,

Is it all in your head? Definitely! Everything is all in your head. But that isn’t a useful answer.

Right now, you are feeling ignored. That much is true. Your feelings are genuine and real, since you are experiencing them. But just because you feel you are being ignored does not mean others are actively ignoring you.

What are the odds that everyone is undergoing some secret conspiracy to ignore you? Let me tell you, everyone is not sitting around wondering,

“How can I ignore so and so today?”

You are never the center of anyone else’s thoughts. People are always the center of their own thoughts. Anything they are doing they are simply doing because of how it makes them feel.

That said, is it possible your behaviour might be creating a certain situation where you are more likely to be ignored? Sure, it is possible. But do not waste your time dwelling on how to get people to pay attention to you. This will backfire eventually because you are enslaved to what other people think of you. You can never keep that game up indefinitely.

It’s much better to focus on how you want your experience to be. You won’t be able to force other people to stop ignoring you. But whatever way people treat you, make the most of it. That is all you can ever do with life.

Right now you have drawn certain conclusions in your mind. You have read into the situation, and rather than getting clarity through understanding, you are just assuming the worst. It’s much easier to make assumptions because it lifts all responsibility from you.

If everyone is ignoring you, then you can feel like the victim. But if you seek to understand why they are ignoring you, then you will have the information you need to decide how to proceed.

Perhaps some people are going through something difficult, and don’t even realize what they are doing. Perhaps others are ignoring you because of some way you have hurt them. Perhaps some people no matter what you say will not give you an answer. There are as many possibilities as there are people.

If you can just admit that you don’t have any clue why you feel so ignored, then you will naturally seek answers. But if you just make assumptions, you will always be handcuffed.

I’m not saying you have to go to each and every person and find out why they are acting the way they are. But you must take responsibility and recognize that you don’t know what’s actually going on. Rather than trying to jump to conclusions with no information, start by admitting you need to know more.

After you admit that you don’t know the whole story, then you can decide. Case by case, you choose whether it’s worth it to pursue dialogue with each individual.

It’s important from here you don’t become attached to the outcome. You may not be satisfied with some of the responses you get. Closure is not a guarantee in life. Some things are just out of your hands.

But if you can accept that you feeling ignored is your responsibility, then at least you can regain control over yourself. How you feel should always be up to you, never to someone else.

So are they ignoring you or not? Such a question is not really worth the attention. Does it matter to you to find the truth? That is the question that should burn you up. Don’t live for what other people think of you. It’s just a trap. Focus on what’s going on within you, and things won’t look so hopeless.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Commercialism

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

It’s the holiday season but I’ve grown cynical over the years. There is so much commercialism and everything is so centered around buying as much crap as possible. I see so much selfishness as people splurge on useless items, but there are so many better uses for our money that can help others.

Why does this time of year have to be so commercial? Isn’t is supposed to be about giving?

Sincerely,

Aint Buyin It

Dear ABI,

The holidays are not the only time of year when there is commercialism. There is commercialism every day of the year. Our very society is built upon this. Is this a good or bad situation?

It’s really irrelevant either way. The reality is, the world has adopted this and is moving forward in this way. The only valuable question is, are you the kind of person that thinks by fixing the world you will be happy, or are you happy enough to work on things that you think need fixing?

If you want to dismantle capitalism and overthrow the system, that is up to you. I’m not saying this with any sort or sarcasm. If that is where you wish to put your energy, then you should do so.

If you want to join in on the capitalism, that is also up to you. Nothing wrong with that either, and you should feel free to do so.

But your judgment of others, is that really helping the situation? Is it helping you or anyone else live a better life?

Stop pointing the finger outside yourself and criticizing the world. If you want your world to change, it must come from within first. There can be no peace in society if there is no peace in individual people. Society is only an expression of who we are inside. Happy people make a happy situation. Miserable people…

If you go about trying to solve your inner emptiness by accumulating things outside of you – relationships, money, gifts, whatever – then you will find it is an endless pursuit. Everything will become stale after time, and you will keep having to raise the bar of accumulation to feel satisfied.

But when you reach your final breath in this life – you do know you have a finite amount of breaths right? It’s not coming as a shock to you? When you reach that breath, you will learn you can’t take any of this stuff with you. You can’t even take your body!

It all gets donated back to the earth. So you never truly own anything anyway. All you have is how beautiful was your experience in this short blip of time you call your life.

It is true, most people are just buying things this time of year. Whether for others or for themselves, that short burst of joy they receive is not going to make them happy in the long run.

If you use shopping for anyone as a way to feel better about yourself, then you will always be headed for disappointment.

If you want this to change in people, you must embody how you want the world to be. The change you are seeking is not in the so called commercially enslaved people – it is in you and with your judgment.

How many things can you do right now to help? You can donate your time, your money, your skills, your energy, your mind…any or all of these you can give to any project you feel is worth it.

When people see the way you are changing, you will find naturally that you attract new opportunities. More people that value what you are doing will appear, more ways to change the community around you will become apparent.

If you want the entire human civilization to change, it is going to take time. That is because you cannot change society with one sweeping brushstroke. You can only change individual people. But it only takes a few dedicated people to provide the opportunities for countless people to make those changes.

You also have no control over what people do. You can rant at them on social media, you can yell at them in the supermarket, you can tell them how and what they should or shouldn’t be buying, but no one will listen to you. People don’t want to be managed, they want to be included. How can you include them in this new world you envision if you judge them?

The only thing you can transform is yourself! So work on what matters to you. If commercialism truly bothers you that much, eliminate it from your life as much as possible, and see what happens in that space you create.

But don’t waste your time on all this judgment. Bah humbug is for fairy tales. You are living in the real world. You can actually make things happen, if you just understand the source and solution to all the problems you see is not out there, it is in you.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Manifesting

~ SE

Dear True Self,

I hear people talk about “power of positive thinking”. Is it really possible to have your thoughts manifest in the real world? Aren’t thoughts just in your head? It all sounds like nonsense to me.

Sincerely,

Manifest Destiny

Dear MD,

So there’s a lot of manifesting meditation that people like to do. The idea is that by sitting here thinking “I want money, I want money, I want money”, then money will come.

If you sit here thinking about what you want until you die, but do nothing, nothing will ever happen. In order for the right things to happen, you must do the right things. That is the fastest way.

Let’s say for a moment that thoughts can suddenly manifest your desires. If you choose to sit here only thinking about it, and never act on the opportunity, how will it ever come true? At some point, we all must act if we want to seize the moment.

So it is more useful to focus on conscious action. I say conscious action because that shows you are choosing how to respond to life. Without consciousness involved, you will simply be knee-jerk reacting to everything.

That said, I want you to understand the power of your thoughts. Do not dismiss them entirely, because in one way, they for sure are creating your reality. Your whole experience is happening within you.

Let’s say you are eating an apple. You see it, you smell it, you taste it, you touch it, you hear it’s crunch…But in actuality, you don’t experience the apple at all. You only experience the sensations within you. You see the image in your mind, your smell receptors trigger sensations in your mind…

In truth you never experience anything outside yourself. You only ever interpret it within yourself. That is all happening in your mind, in your thoughts.

So forget trying to manifest something outside yourself via thinking. For sure, your thoughts are creating your experience of life within yourself. And there is no other place where your life happens!

If right now, you have a nasty thought about someone and curse them, it may not mean they will suffer. But for sure, your nasty thoughts will make you suffer.

Alternatively, if you suddenly have pleasant thoughts about someone and bless them, it may not do anything to them. But for sure, your pleasant thoughts will make your experience of life more beautiful.

There is substantial medical evidence that tells you that when your system is in a state of joy or pleasantness, it runs at its best on all levels. When it is stressed, it runs worse.

If you keep your thoughts focused on productive things – what you can do, what you are grateful for, spreading pleasantness – then you will not only be healthier, but you will be happier!

If that isn’t reason enough to think positive, I don’t know what is!

But if you continue to think that your thoughts have absolutely no bearing on your life, you are delusional. Just try it for one day. Every person you meet, every meal you eat, every breath you take – do it all negatively. You don’t need to actually take any action with anyone, just in your thoughts be negative. See how that affects you.

Then another day, try the opposite. Think positive. Imagine that every single person you encounter, every experience you have, is accepting positivity from you, and radiate it. See how that affects you too.

I don’t think it takes a genius to realize the power of positive thinking in this way. You will also be surprised how life is sensitive to you. We have established for sure your thoughts affect you. But life will respond to you, it has no choice.

Everything in existence is always responding to everything else. Have you ever been around a toxic person? Without even thinking, your body responds, your emotions respond. You feel may feel unsafe or a need to leave that person. Please remember that everyone else feels the same way when you are negative around them.

We are all connected to everything. Even subtle things like our thoughts change our behaviour. Life is sensitive enough that it picks up on these subtle differences.

How you think does matter. It does manifest the world around you, just not in a prize/punishment way that most people believe. Every thought has a consequence, and that plays out one way or another.

Your positive thoughts will tend to have more positive consequences. Your negative ones will tend the other way. Is that really so hard to believe?

But even if you don’t want to believe any of that, there is no escaping that your thoughts for sure affect how you are. So be positive, simply because it’s more useful! What possible reason is there for you not to be?

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Simply Being

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I used to be so confused about my life: was I wasting my life working, then coming home, watching TV and crafting? Was my work worthwhile? Was crafting worthwhile? What was the point of my life? And I didn’t really have friends that I hung out with outside of work, and felt like this reflected on my friendable-ness (def: the ability to make friendships). I used to worry that I didn’t know my purpose in life, and would drive myself crazy thinking about how I had to find it, even though I didn’t have any particular desire I wanted to fulfill. Eventually I turned towards spiritual teaching, and my mindset changed a lot. Over the last few years, I’ve found that even though many elements in my life haven’t changed (I still work the same job, craft when I come home, and haven’t gone out with friends for a long time), but my questions about self worth and purpose has died down. I find myself really enjoying my day-to-day life, and just get involved in whatever projects or activities that peak my interest at the time.
But every once in a while, I read something, or watch a video, that speaks to how the whole universe is contained within yourself, or how some people can access a different dimension of life. Like Buddha, Jesus, Osho… the list goes on. Then I wonder for a short period: am I just living the good life? Is it enough to notice what emotions or reactions occur when external situations happen, and see how I’m creating my own experience of the situation? Or is there more to this whole “universe contained within yourself” and I’m not even looking in the right direction to ever access these other dimensions? And what are these dimensions anyway?
And after having thought them, I go back to a quieter mind, which questions less and just makes the best of what happens during my day.

Hoping It’s Enough

Dear HIE,

Do not underestimate the value of living a good life. Is this not what every single life form on the planet is trying to do? It is a huge blessing.

It sounds like you have found a way to be content with whatever life brings you. You have not changed the external situation much, but inside, you are practicing being fine just the way things are.

Still, you are speaking to a longing within you for something else. “Is this all there is to life” you ask, merely managing the various dramas that come from our work and relationships?

This longing is life. Do not mistake it for anything less. Life is always pushing past what is comfortable, trying to transform into the next possibility. No matter how content you become with the external situation, still something will always long for more within you.

You have learned a very valuable lesson, in that no matter how much you change the external situation, it won’t matter unless you turn inward. And you are doing it! It is only because of this that you feel content, even after bouts of confusion or questioning.

Continue to enjoy your life. You are not in some trap of thinking “If only I get ____ , then I will be happy!” You are happy of your own nature. You are establishing simply being. Because of this foundation, whatever happens, you make growth out of it. Most people do not learn this their whole lives.

Many people think that first they must figure out the external. First, I will get financially stable. Then, I will get a stable relationship. Then, I will get some stable skills. On and on like this they keep going, all in the pursuit of simply being able to be here and be happy.

You must establish yourself first. Being comes before activity, not the other way around. Activity is a means for you to learn how to simply be. This is all there is to life: Can you simply be here, and whether something happens or nothing happens, are you perfectly fine?

If you can keep on the trajectory you are on, then nothing can be denied to you. All those questions about accessing different dimensions of experience…that will only come when you are receptive. If you are simply able to sit here and accept and use whatever life brings you, for sure you are receptive.

If something like that is to happen for you, just keep doing what you are doing. Without thought of reward or experiencing something different, simply just be here, content with what life brings.

So don’t worry about all these stories of different dimensions of life. That is all they are to you anyway, stories. Right now, if I tell you that the true nature of the universe is 12 god with 23 heads each smiling unimaginable colored beams of eternal radiance on you, what use is that to you?

How will any of that help you if you cannot experience it? What you know for sure right now is that the path you are on is working – your life is going well, and from an inside out way. Just keep that spirit alive, nurture it. Live your best life!

The whole idea that your experience of life can happen externally is a fallacy. Your experience is only happening within you. Forget what happens outside. Manage it however you wish, but paying attention to how you respond is everything. How you respond to life determines your experience of life, doesn’t it?

So when it comes down to it, the only direction you can ever go to access anything is within. Even if you do something external, like a prayer or a practice or whatever, the feelings and experiences only happen within you. Never forget this: Your entire life is only happening within you.

Take a look at who you were before – repetitively living life, not seeing any meaning to it all. Take a look at who you are now – same repetitive stuff, only now you are suddenly okay with it! Clearly, it was you who changed, not the outside. Once in a while, you long for something deeper, that is good. It means you won’t stagnate.

The point of your life is just to be. You are here, be whichever way you wish. Establish who you are, like a rich soil. Then you will see, things will grow when it is their time. That is all that is meant by these different dimensions of experience.

Don’t concern yourself with how to force a flower to grow. Just continue to establish the best conditions for growth. Establish yourself. Simply be okay, no matter what. You are on the right track.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Escape

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I’m starting to feel really cynical about people and the world. I’m getting tired of the rat race. People seem to be so superficial and complain about everything. Sometimes I feel like it would be better to go escape somewhere and live alone in the woods in order for me to be happy. Is it worth it being in society? Or am I right to want to leave it all behind?

Sincerely,

Out of the Woods

Dear OOTW,

Did someone force you into the career you have? Into the relationships you have?

First off, you must stop pointing the finger outside of yourself. Blaming others, your career, anything external for how you feel inside is a fallacy. Worse than that, it’s is unproductive and gets you nowhere.

All that happens when you blame the outside for how you are inside is that you will complain a lot and romanticize better scenarios. But if you get those better scenarios, will that cure your cynicism? Will it suddenly make you at ease and content?

Whether you go live in the forest alone or whether you stay in your life surrounded by others, you will take your nonsense with you. It doesn’t get left behind. That is because your nonsense is within you. You can’t escape it by going somewhere else.

Let’s say you go live that dream scenario out in the woods. After how long will you suddenly become bored? Dissatisfied? How long will it take before you create drama with whatever is around you?

You see, if you cannot be happy with the way things are now, then what makes you think suddenly you will be happy with some other thing? You can make a misery or a ecstasy out of any situation in life.

Your career could be the most amazing thing in your life if you wished. The people you know, no matter how annoying they may seem to you, they could help create the maximum growth in you. When you conclude that you don’t want to be where you are because it isn’t ideal, you will miss every opportunity.

You may not be able to have some perfect fantasy life right in this moment. External things always take a lot of cooperation to happen the way you wish. But inside yourself, any situation can be wonderful, if you only change your perspective.

Am I saying you should stay at some job you hate, forcing yourself to love it? Am I saying you should stay around toxic or abusive people? No, all I am saying is that you cannot control what happens to you in this life, only what you make of it.

Which way would you rather be: That you need everything around you to be perfect in order to be happy, or no matter what is around you, you are always perfectly fine?

So trying to escape from whatever situation you are in may provide some temporary relief. But over time, that luster will wear off.

That said, there are many benefits to being alone and being in nature. That longing within you is not merely about escape. There is substantial medical evidence to show you that sitting alone in stillness and being around nature is healthy for your body and mind.

However, you must make yourself in such a way that you can channel that sort of balance wherever you are. Think about how ridiculous it is to spend 99% of your time in stressful situations and then spend 1% of your time in situations that are good for you, using that as some sort of recharge. It won’t be effective in the long run and you will always burn out in the end.

So if you decide to take that step into the woods for some time or spend more time alone, don’t just treat it as a one off and don’t resign yourself to it forever as though it will solve your problems. Learn to bring that peace that you feel into every moment of your life.

Focus on all that nonsense within you that prevents you from being at ease at work or with people. Instead of blaming them, start to look within at how you compulsively react. You will see just shifting the responsibility back to yourself will open up possibilities you never saw before.

Escape is not a solution. It is just a temporary fix. That vacation mentality of recharging will not work for you in this life. Make every day you are alive the most it can be. Don’t live for an escape from life! Live to live life!

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Planning

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How can I plan better for my life, both in short term and long term? I find myself making a lot of mistakes and feel like I’m taking steps backwards.

Sincerely,

Man With No Plan

Dear MWNP,

Planning is one of the greatest illusions of security that we cling to. We think that by planning properly, we can either guarantee an outcome or avoid unwanted outcomes. But the reality is, there are no guarantees, and there is no such thing as security in life.

The past can never predict the future. It doesn’t matter how many models and data you have, it is not a guarantee. Even if you bounce a ball 10,000 times, and each time it hits the floor and comes back to you, it doesn’t mean the next time it will do the same. It could go sideways, to the moon, turn into a snake and slither away…! You have no way of truly knowing.

Now of course, all this sounds far fetched. You’re not going to go jump off a rooftop thinking there’s a chance of flight based on this logic. Odds are overwhelmingly that you will fall to your demise.

So why am I talking such nonsense? I am merely attempting to point out to you the limitations of planning. If you think planning is somehow a guarantee in life, you have forgotten it’s limitations. When you forget the limitations of something and act as though it’s a sure thing, you are headed for suffering.

Never fool yourself into believing that you can pin down life and make it behave the way you want. When it comes to the external, you need the cooperation of so many variables to make things happen. Plan all you want, but in the end, things will land where they land. Life will not let you get away with forcing your ideas upon it.

If you rely too much on your planning, you will become extremely narrow minded. Constantly trying to jam the square peg into the round hole, unable to see the stupidity in it. If you make up your mind before something even happens, how will you ever be able to adapt?

You must always act as the situation demands. The situation is always changing, different moment to moment. If you have some 10 point plan and just try to barrel through executing it regardless of the cost, you will wind up causing a lot of damage in the process. In the end you still may fail miserably!

But if you instead learn to look at each situation on it’s own and act sensibly, you will see there are always countless opportunities. With a one track mind, you will see only obstacles – with an open one, you will see possibilities.

So don’t let planning overtake your sense. Don’t let it narrow your mind and your scope. The plan isn’t what’s important. What’s important is your trajectory.

Stay on target. If you cling too hard to your plans, even when they aren’t working, you will miss. If you throw away your plans at the first sign of trouble, you will never get there either.

It is important to have a steady focus and work towards it however the situation demands. You want a plan that will work in all situations – no such plan exists, for anything.

Whether it’s short term or long term, whatever your vision is, you must work intelligently, or at the very least, with intelligent people!

So maybe you’re confused. Should I have a plan or not?!

First, you must stay absolutely focused on where you are going. Keep your heading straight and true.

Then, be willing to get there however unexpected the journey becomes. As long as you keep focused on where you are going, no matter what life throws at you, you will use it for your vision.

Lastly, go in with some semblance of a plan if you wish – the more complex the vision, the more planning will be necessary. Just don’t be too attached to it. Be willing to rewrite it constantly, shift it, throw it out even!

What I am saying is, the only plan you need in life is this: whatever life gives me, I will use it.

If you make that the foundation of your action, then it doesn’t matter what you do. Plan or no plan, whatever happens you will make the most of it.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Pleasure

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I know that it’s more important to love what you are doing than do only things you love. But is it wrong to put our attention on things that are enjoyable? We only have this one life, isn’t it better to only do the things we enjoy?

Sincerely,

Doing What I Love

Dear DWIL,

Is it wrong? It’s not about right or wrong, it’s only about what works for your life. If you can go about life only doing the things you prefer doing, and it works for you, then who is anyone to tell you otherwise?

The issue is that you know that it does not work. There is nothing wrong with pleasure seeking, the only issue is that it is fleeting. Pleasure won’t make your life, it won’t break your life. It is all in how you use it.

Every moment of your life, anything you do or don’t do, everything is a possibility. Whether you sit silently or are dancing like a madman, each is capable of transforming you. Existence is such that no matter what you do, you can use it to break past your current limitations. Nothing is kept from you.

But still, we can make a heaven out of hell and a hell out of heaven. That is the power of your mind. It doesn’t matter what is happening around you or what you are doing – within you, you can make the experience however you wish.

So it does not matter if you seek pleasure or not. The only issue is that if you believe that something external will somehow fix your internal, you are fooling yourself. Such a mentality will only cause you to avoid life.

Why can you not find pleasure in just about anything? It can be the most pleasurable experience to even sit and do nothing! You are built in such a way that you can go through any experience however you wish. Would you not always choose pleasure within? Forget the external!

Perhaps right now you don’t have the capability, the talent, to find pleasure in life in every moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

If you go about life thinking one thing is more pleasurable and another thing is less pleasurable, you are always headed for struggle. Don’t divide your life in two all the time. This is your life. You are right, you only have one to live.

So just move past that dualistic thinking. You have this moment, enjoy it, whatever it is! Do not compare it to another moment, do not wish it were different. Don’t lose yourself in memory or fantasy.

The moment you start comparing and fantasizing, suffering is inevitable. It takes consciousness to be able to sit in any moment and simply be okay with whatever is happening. Then life becomes insanely pleasurable.

You see, your pleasure isn’t coming because you found something enjoyable to do. Pleasure is a consequence of having no preference. This moment, unedited, is more than enough for you.

Short term joy may come from pleasure seeking. But eventually, you grow tired and need to chase something else to give you your fix. Avoiding life and trying to only do what makes you feel good is the very nature of addiction. Do not confuse it for pleasure.

However, pleasure should absolutely be seeped into your experience. Just don’t hinge your pleasure on what the experience is. When you live life pleasurably, it becomes much easier, much more beautiful, much more magical.

You don’t always have to rake yourself over the hot coals to realize truth or be conscious in life. You can always do it enjoyably. But I assure you, no matter how many ways you try to convince yourself otherwise, there is no external way to go to make you happy. The only way out is in.

Pleasure, pain – it is all up to you. That is total freedom. It is not in any one else’s hands unless you put it there. Take it back into yours, and practice living each moment as is, without preference. That is all pleasure truly is.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Exaggeration

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Life seems so burdensome lately. I am really struggling and every little thing becomes more and more stressful. Peace, joy, being conscious, it all seems so unattainable. How are we supposed to become so zen like when there is so much suffering happening all the time? I can’t just shrug it all off that easily!

Sincerely,

All Piling Up

Dear APU,

You must understand the difference between what is pain and what is suffering. Without this, you will endlessly create problems for yourself.

I know that life may seem quite difficult. Who knows what you are going through except you? So this isn’t to diminish how challenging it all feels right now.

But I want you to understand that exaggeration is not your friend. It will only lead you to extremes and you will fail to see all the possibilities that are ways out of your situation, or even just the ways to make peace if there is no way out.

When I say exaggeration, I simply mean a failure to see things as they are.

Pain is natural. It is simply a signal to indicate that something is harmful for you. It is a survival mechanism, and it is a good thing you have it. But suffering is not something that can happen to you. Suffering is something you create within yourself.

Let’s say I take twenty people, including you. Each one I give a little pinprick. Some people will just feel a small pinch, others will feel a sharp pain, others will feel traumatized. But everyone will feel that they were pricked.

So the external things that happen we will always have some physiological response to. Whether it’s our bodies or our minds or our emotions, there will be a response. But after that response, our own experiences and preferences decide how big or little of a deal it is.

It is not healthy to ignore it entirely. You will only suppress what happened to sabotage you later. It is also not healthy to raise the pain to suffering. This will ensure that you walk gun-shy, guarded, always afraid to involve yourself in life. Once that happens, forget living a joyful life.

So whether you exaggerate it to higher than it is or lower than it is, both are distortions of the experience. Simply experience it as is. Whether you go through something pleasant or unpleasant, just see it as it is, without distorting it.

Your desire to exaggerate essentially comes from your preferences. You like this place, but you don’t like that place. Soon you will start favoring this place over that one, and eventually you will never go anywhere else.

If you start dividing your life like this, unwilling to go through whatever is happening, then you will become all mixed up and feel victimized every time anything unpleasant happens. You cannot live life by avoiding it.

So am I telling you to chase the unpleasant? No, I am just saying that whatever is happening now, go through it well. Even if someone around you is being a monster, they truly only can determine how unpleasant the situation is. How you are within yourself is entirely in your hands.

Just start shifting your perspective. For example, catch yourself when going through a challenging moment, and try to observe all the ways you are exaggerating the situation. See if you can scale it down a step or two.

Continue working like this, to just see the moment the way it is, without distorting it up or down.

I understand it feels like you can’t just shrug it all off. I understand that it truly feels like the suffering is happening to you. But let me put it this way – if the suffering is happening to you, it means there is no hope. Your life is entirely at the mercy of others.

But if the suffering is your exaggeration, your creation, your making – then you can unmake it. That means you can create the life you want within. That means you have the power, and no one else.

So what is more useful to you – blaming the situation and people around you for your suffering, or taking responsibility for it?

Exaggeration may make the good moments feel temporarily better, but it will make every little inconvenience feel like the end of the world over time. Work on scaling back those feelings and seeing things as they are.

Yes, that may mean that those overly good moments will not happen as often. But also the miserable moments won’t happen as often either.

And as you become more balanced in your perception of life, you will find that you won’t be chasing some punctuated moments of joy. Instead, that balance will reveal how fantastic life is when you just see it as is, and it won’t be fleeting.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Satisfaction

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a hard time being satisfied with what I have. This isn’t the same as being grateful – I am very grateful for what I have, but still I keep on dreaming of more things. Is it wrong to want more? If we are satisfied with what we have won’t we just get stagnant?

Sincerely,

I Can’t Get No

Dear ICGN,

Is it wrong to want more? No. Is it wrong to want less? No. This isn’t about right or wrong. If you go on thinking that by fixing the outside the inside will somehow get fixed, then you are always going to struggle.

Have you noticed that people can make misery out of anything and everything? Whether you get more money, a partner, a better job, a better vehicle…Have you not been able to suffer those things too? So clearly, the issue is with you, not with what life gives you.

There is nothing wrong with having desires in life. Desire is life. Life is always looking to expand beyond it’s current limitations. The issue is when you start to believe that “If only ____ happens, then I will be satisfied”.

You cannot become satisfied with life by seeking to obtain some goal or ambition or possession. Such endeavors will never satisfy you. You’re not looking for the next thing and the next thing with your desire – you are looking to become infinite in nature. You get what you want, then you want something better, then something better, on and on it goes. You clearly need something boundless to satisfy your desire!

But you try to get to infinity by counting 1+1+1….you’re never going to get there. By using the limited ways you know, you can never reach something that is unlimited.

Take a look closely and see – all your desires only come from what you already know. They never come from what you don’t know. But only the unknown can offer you something beyond your current experience.

If you want something truly unique and transcendent to happen in your life, so that you can move beyond the endless carrot on a stick game of satisfaction, then you have to experience something that is boundless.

For that to happen, you need to drop the idea that achieving some goal will satisfy you. That obtaining something new in your life will fulfill you.

It’s like you’ve never eaten a carrot before, but you have eaten many cucumbers. You think if you just eat enough cucumbers, you will eventually know what a carrot is and be satisfied. Seems ridiculous right?

In the same way, you cannot fulfill your ultimate desire by asking for something a little better than what you already have. You will only ever ask for what you think is possible. That means you are limiting yourself.

So what to do? You can never be satisfied, but you shouldn’t stagnate and do nothing, you’re supposed to touch something  boundless, but have no way to do it…Seems pretty annoying and hopeless.

The thing is, life isn’t a vending machine for you to put in a quarter and receive your reward. Life is just happening the way it is, and that is no small happening. So instead of worrying about what to do in order to be satisfied, instead be satisfied with what you are doing.

Throw yourself into whatever is going on right now. Be totally connected with what you currently are experiencing. Whatever way life happens, it should be more than fine for you! That is the only way to transcend this endless game of dissatisfaction.

What happens externally may determine the quality of your relationships, your work, and other matters. But what happens within you is solely determined by you. Don’t let what happens outside determine how satisfied you are inside.

Seeking things to satisfy you is an endless job. It is just a cycle you keep on repeating. What you acquire may change, but it is the same cyclical game until death. Don’t be fooled by it.

You are alive and here, and can experience life however you wish. You have ultimate freedom to explore each moment. Each moment is full of possibility. Connect with that, break the cycle. Satisfaction? It won’t even be a question anymore.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Communication

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How can I better communicate with people? I find myself often being misunderstood or misinterpreted.

Sincerely,

Communication Breakdown

Dear CB,

See you are asking about two separate things and thinking they are related. You being misunderstood or misinterpreted is not about communication. I know that may seem incorrect at first glance, but I want you to look closely at it.

Communication and understanding are different issues fundamentally. I want you to ask yourself, when speaking with another, what is within your control and what isn’t?

The way you communicate is within your control. But they way they communicate, that is not within your control. The way you understand, that is also in your control. But whether they understand you or not, that can never be in your control.

You may be an expert communicator. You may have a PhD in communication and another PhD in language, but it doesn’t matter. Even if you say something as clearly as possible, how it is interpreted is never in your hands.

People carry a volume of memory with them wherever they go. Based on that, they interpret everything. So you may say the word “flower” with love, but to them it conjures an image of past heartbreak. There is no way to control how they will hear what you say.

One person may understand what you meant, another may not. That is the way it goes. Because if it went any other way, then things would truly be a disaster. I want you to imagine a world where you could say or do something in a particular way and it guaranteed the result you wanted.

Initially that may sound fantastic. But the truth is, it is the very definition of manipulation. So when you communicate with the expectation of the other person responding a specific way, even if that specific way is a response of understanding, you are being manipulative.

So does that mean you should not even bother, or who cares how you communicate? Not exactly, no. All I am saying is that you cannot operate in life based on fulfilling expectations. That will always lead to disaster. Just live life as involved and fully as you can, and see what happens.

So yes, you should strive to communicate as best as possible. Not because you desire understanding, but simply because communicating well will be better for you. Being clear in how you express yourself will mean better well being for you, won’t it? Or in other words, if you go on communicating in confusing ways, confusion within is inevitable.

Communicate well – do everything well! Why would you want to live any other way? Do the best you can in whatever moment, because then your life and the lives of others around you will be more pleasant.

You cannot approach life with a one size fits all policy. There is no one way to communicate that will work for everyone. If you are speaking with a large group of people, then you must assess what is the optimal way for the most people and communicate accordingly. If it is one to one, then you must speak according to that situation’s specific criteria.

Let go of this idea of how to best communicate or be a better communicator. All that will happen is you will stand there while the other person speaks and already you will be making up what to say next before they have finished. You won’t really hear what they are saying.

Instead, approach each instance as fresh. If you start a conversation with someone, don’t premeditate what to say. Simply listen. Truly listen. Then, respond to what they just said. This is the way life functions. Based on this moment, everything is responding.

You must do the same. Based on how this moment is, so too you must respond accordingly. Maybe in one moment it is appropriate to speak passionately. Maybe in another it is appropriate to say nothing at all.

But both are ways of communicating. However, unless you learn to be present and listen to what is happening in each moment, communication will not happen. And then you have guaranteed misunderstanding.

Take some time to devote more attention to the moment. Truly seek to understand the moment as it is before you communicate. Don’t communicate and then hope to be understood.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Doing the Right Thing

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

How do we know what the right thing to do is in the moment? It’s easier to see after the fact always, but how can I act in the right way immediately?

Sincerely,

The Right Stuff

Dear TRS,

The right thing…the wrong thing…no such thing.

Do not try to do the right thing in life. The most horrendous things on this planet where all done by people who believed they were doing the most right thing.

Right now, all you can do is the best you can do. That’s it. Is it right or wrong? That’s irrelevant. If you go on judging the actions of the past based on how things are today, it’s easy to assign blame or credit. Leave the past in the past!

Let me ask you a question: Have you ever done something for no reason whatsoever?

Right now you do things if they are right. You avoid things that are wrong. But you’ve decided what’s right or wrong only based on your own experiences, prejudices, and opinions. You created this morality, it is not some cosmic law.

I want you to try doing something for simply no reason at all. Resign yourself to it. Just decide. The more pointless and innocuous it seems, the better. But be unwavering in your decision – do it fully, with absolute involvement, for not other reason than you have decided to do it.

Let’s give an example if you are struggling – go outside and pick up every single leaf you see. Why? For absolutely no reason. But do it as though it is the most important thing in the world. Do it with full devotion to the process. Every time you pick up a leaf, give that moment your undivided attention.

You may feel stupid. This may seem like a waste of time, and you would be right it is a waste. But you also waste your life by being indecisive and worrying about what is the right or wrong thing to do.

You can spend your entire life debating what is right and what is wrong and you still won’t be any closer to a definitive conclusion when you reach your deathbed. For thousands of years philosophers have been trying to answer this question and have not succeeded, but you’re going to somehow figure it out now?

The reason it can’t be figured out is because there is no answer. Right or wrong does not matter! What matters is how intense and beautiful your experience of life is, and you are missing it worrying about morality.

Should you do the right thing? I say to hell with it, do whatever you want – just do it well, do it joyfully, do it beautifully! That is all that truly matters.

You may look back at an action and see that maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. Maybe there was a better way. But is it a mistake if taking that action enriched your life and the life around you?

It does not matter what you do in this life. Only how you do it. Don’t draw lines of right or wrong and debate them endlessly – all that will happen in your attempt to live life right is that you will not live at all.

Focus on the quality of your life and those around you. Make each moment magical and beautiful, like you did when you were a child. Stop being so bloody serious about everything!

It may seem foolish to just do things for no reason, but think of it as a tool. Because you are doing something that truly doesn’t matter, like picking up those leaves, then there is no trap of worrying about how right or wrong it is. You are just free to do it however you wish. That is truly liberating.

In this liberation from your morality, you can involve yourself totally in the act. There is nothing to consider, no consequence to worry about! You can just play, have fun, do it joyfully, peacefully, however you want! In fact, you can even experiment with doing it miserably! See for yourself how that feels and whether it’s worth doing!

Life is ticking away. In the end you won’t care about whether you did the right thing. You will care only about how intense and involved your life was. Don’t handcuff yourself with morality. Learn the simple joy of doing something for no other reason than you are here and alive and free.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Working Hard

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Dear True Self,

How important is it to work hard in life? I feel like a lot of us are toiling away but we don’t often see the rewards from it. More and more emphasis is put on working hard in society lately.

Sincerely,

Working Hard or Hardly Working

Dear WHOHW,

It seems like the more successful you are in this world, the more stressed you must seem. If the boss of a company is not completely overworked and exhausted, they are not doing a good job! We wear our stress like a badge of honour.

Working hard is not necessary in life. There is nothing wrong with working hard, but if you are doing the wrong things, will it work out for you?

Let’s say you and I both decide to bike 10 km. You get on your bike and don’t bother to check the gear, and find yourself struggling. But you just keep on putting more and more hard work into it, and with great difficulty, you finish your 10km. You look at me see I have not broken a sweat, and now you feel resentful.

In life, no matter what you choose to do, you can get there any way you wish. But the ride will be a lot more enjoyable if you do things as efficiently as possible. There is no requirement of working hard.

All things in this universe are functioning like this. They follow the path of least resistance. I’m not saying you should avoid things that make you uncomfortable, I am simply saying that especially when life brings you something challenging, you don’t need to make it worse by doing it a difficult way.

Your life is brief and you have a finite amount of energy. If you had an infinite amount of energy and lived for longer then maybe you could waste time doing things inefficiently. But it is important that in your life, you do things with as much grace and ease as possible.

There is copious scientific evidence today that says when you are at ease or joyful, your system at all levels functions at its best. Conversely, the more stressed you are the worse everything becomes. If you are stressed and have diabetes, the diabetes is worse. If you are stressed and have a headache, the headache is worse.

Don’t be fooled and sucked into the game of working hard. First, establish a certain level of ease and joy within you, so that you navigate life well. Then when it comes time to do the work, it’s more important to be focused, consistent, and efficient, than it is to work hard. So work on those qualities instead.

If all you do is work hard, you will just burn yourself out. You work hard for what? For money, for a promotion, for your family? Essentially, the only reason you work at all is towards your well-being. Sacrificing your well being to gain well being makes no sense. It’s like draining a well and expecting the act of draining it to somehow fill it.

When well-being is all you are after, don’t make it into an afterthought. Establish it first within yourself, then act in the world. Don’t act first and expect it to come later as a reward – life does not behave that way.

The only danger is in becoming stagnant and lazy – don’t use what I have said as an excuse to do nothing. You must be absolutely unwavering in your involvement in life. How involved you are is how alive you are. This is just about using your involvement the right way, so that you are not wasting your energy and instead are feeling more fulfilled in every moment.

So don’t work hard. But whatever you work at, do it joyfully, with ease, and do it well. Hard work is not a requirement for any of that.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.

On Trust

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Dear True Self,

How can I better learn to trust myself? I often second guess or look to others but people are always speaking about trusting your inner voice. How do I know that inner voice is worth trusting?

Sincerely,

Trust or Bust

Dear TOB,

If you are starting to hear voices inside you, then it’s best you don’t listen to them! Inside you there should only be you. If there’s more than one voice in there, then you are need of special help, aren’t you?

Today there are a lot of nice catch phrases that people pass as philosophy for their lives. Love yourself, be in the moment, trust your inner voice – I want you to understand that there is no philosophy you can ever hold that will work for life.

Life cannot be pinned down into some catch phrase. It is too grand, too complex, to awesome. Because you are afraid of how boundless it is, you want to sum it up to feel safe. But I promise you, nothing will work.

When you speak of trusting yourself, you could mean trying to remove doubt. But doubt is a good thing because it will lead you to question. When you question, you will seek truth. But if you let that doubt become crippling and prevent you from seeking, then only is it a problem.

You don’t want to doubt or to seek? So you look for some voice to help you. If you think that some guiding inner voice is there that will tell you how to live all the time, we best lobotomize you now.

Are you so easily willing to give up your freedom of thought? What separates you from every other creature on this planet is the amazing intellect you have. It is time you learned to use it for your own well being.

Your heart is not speaking to you, your kidney’s aren’t speaking to you, your kneecaps aren’t speaking to you – do you hear how silly it sounds? You just have you in there! No other inner voice.

There is intelligence within you, that is for sure. That intelligence is what you count on and use to help you explore life. The only issue is that you think intelligence means solely logically, rationally thought.

There is intelligence in every cell of your body. Each part of you carries tremendous memory. Even a single molecule of DNA holds vastly more information than your brain. The source of creation is in each atom of your being.

But right now you don’t have access to it, it doesn’t speak your language, so now you start talking about trusting inner voices. It’s not going to suddenly start speaking to you in your mother tongue or drawing you maps or paths to follow. But still, you must come in touch with it, because that intelligence is functioning at a higher capacity than your thought ever can.

All you have to do is realize your thought is not the way to that source. Stop putting so much importance on what you think, what you prefer, all your conclusions. See this creation as it is, beyond your narrow judgments.

Right now, so many things are functioning without your maintenance and interference. Galaxies are spinning, stars are forming, rivers are running – everything in the cosmos is just working like clockwork.

Similarly, your very being is running like clockwork. And on top of that, it’s doing it in spite of you! So there’s no need to look for some inner voice or magical or divine guidance. It’s already guiding you and working phenomenally.

Simply, observe life. Intelligence is about more than just your thought. Intelligence is not just in the cosmos. Intelligence is the cosmos. Everything is functioning with tremendous intelligence.

If you want to know how to handle external things in life, then you must observe and make decisions accordingly. If you want to know how to handle your inner experience of life, you must observe what is happening within.

What I am saying is that there is nothing to trust or not trust. Whether you trust in your intelligence of this creation or not, it will function. Maybe life doesn’t always go according to how you wish it too – that’s different. We cannot control the external.

You’d make better use of your time learning to accept life the way it is and make the most of it rather than trying to trust each moment or find out how to trust some imaginary voice.

If you just can see that your life is precious – that this moment is rare and unique and a gift. If you can see that the next moment is not promised to you. If you can appreciate how the most important thing in your life right now is that you are alive and conscious – then questions like trust don’t matter.

All that matters is life is here, now! Whatever this moment is, how is your experience of it? The great news is, how you experience life is always entirely up to you. Whether this moment is good or bad is just a story you tell yourself. The moment is here, and you can explore it willingly or unwillingly.

So don’t worry about trusting this or that. A wise person will make the most of every moment of their lives. If you can learn this now instead of on your death bed, you are truly one of the fortunate ones. How your experience of life is – that is always up to you.

With gratitude,

Your True Self

Click here if you have a question to ask Your True Self. All questions are anonymous and may be published unless specified otherwise.