On Problem Solving

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Life lately has been very challenging. There are so many problems that pop up in work, friendships, my love life…I often don’t feel smart enough to handle all the problems. I feel like I say or do the wrong thing. How do I become a better problem solver?

Sincerely,

Problem Child

Dear PC,

Believe me when I tell you that even the smartest people in your life say and do the “wrong” things and can be bad at solving problems. It is not going to help you to compare yourself to others. This is not about your skill level at problem solving compared to someone else.

There is no point in getting better at solving problems if you keep on creating them. Your whole life will just be one problem after another. Even if you solve every single one, this is no way to live and will drain you. You need to shift your focus inward, not outward.

The reality is there are no problems. There are only opportunities. You must start making this distinction in your life, otherwise only one outcome is inevitable: you will be the biggest problem in your own life.

Too many people are the biggest problem in their own life. Their own mind, their own body, their own emotions, everything about them is not working for them! You cannot control what goes on around you 100%. You never can. If everything around you is not working the way you want, at least you should!

Don’t be part of the problem in your life. Be the solution.

Let’s say you have a fight with your partner. You can either treat this as an opportunity to learn and grow with each other, or you can try to solve the surface level problem – whatever you were fighting about.

How many times in your life have you had a quarrel with someone and you can’t even remember what it was about? If you continue to just deal with the tip of the iceberg, when the full glacier reveals itself to you, you will feel daunted. In this example, if you don’t learn to better communicate, you cannot grow as a couple. Forget the content of the quarrel. Get to the root of the issue: learn to see life as opportunity.

At the smallest sign of inconvenience or discomfort in life you have learned to treat it as a problem. You are treating existence as though in this moment, one tiny challenge you face means your life is imperfect. Your life is fine the way it is. The outside world does not need you to fix it until you first work on yourself.

Everything in this existence is keeping you here – the air, the planet, your very body and mind, all here, functioning! This is not something you should take for granted. With this great gift, you choose to waste your time looking at things as problems?

If you truly understood that your time here is ever so brief, you would not hesitate to learn and grow. You would strive to make each moment as beautiful as you can for yourself and those around you. If you view life from this lens, it does not matter if a problem comes your way or a gift comes your way – you will see it all as a great gift and make the most out of what you are given.

From this space of willingness to learn and grow, tell me, do I need to tell you to be smarter? Or to be a better problem solver? You will naturally strive to seize opportunities, especially in challenging times. In other words, you will act with common sense. What you can do you will do, and what you cannot alone do you will seek help for.

See, it is not a matter of your skill with problems. Getting better at solving problems will not make your life more beautiful in the long run. You are only practicing seeing life as a problem this way, and you will just keep seeing more and more until your whole life is problem. See life as a precious gift. Use this gift to grow in each moment.

So don’t get in the way of your own ultimate happiness by focusing on your surroundings and tinkering with them. If you do this and expect your inner nature to change, you are wasting time. None of the outside belongs to you. Only what you have inside is yours, and only for a flicker of time.

You stop being the problem in your life. Practice learning and growing. That is the only solution.

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 Routines

~ SE ~ 1 Comment

Dear True Self,

I have a hard time sticking to a routine. Is there really a benefit to it though? Shouldn’t we be living spontaneously in the moment as you say? Routines just feel so dull and I can never keep up with them.

Sincerely,

Routine Angst

Dear RA,

If you do anything repetitively without being involved in it consciously, it will become boring and dull. People love routines because they build good habits. I am here to tell you that there is no such thing as good habits. All habits are not good. It means you are living unconsciously.

Take a look at something you do almost everyday, like washing your hands. How involved are you in this process? When you were a small child and you first learned to do it, it was very exciting. But now, you’ve done it so many times it has lost its luster. You just do it without any awareness, on autopilot.

To coast through life on autopilot will just equal lost time. You may as well be asleep, or dead! If you’re not involved and aware it equals not being alive in your experience. In your last moments on this planet, you will wish you had been absolutely involved and aware in every precious moment you are given.

You are not asking about routines. What you are truly lacking is consistency and discipline.

It does not matter what you do. What matters is how you do it. You could be doing something exhilarating but if you are bored and uninvolved what use is it to your life? So it is not about being spontaneous or otherwise. Whatever life has given you or you have chosen to do is not the concern. You must make the most out of whatever situation you are in. You cannot do that without involvement. You cannot learn to be involved without consistency and discipline.

The things you do the most every day you take for granted, yet they make up the majority of your life. They have become so dull and repetitive you just try to get through them as quickly as possible. See, you are already practicing consistency and discipline but in the wrong direction – towards dullness and uninvolvement. When you compulsively work on autopilot, this is the inevitable outcome, always. You’re a master of bringing dullness into life.

So we must change the direction from compulsiveness to conscious choice. This will bring the vibrancy and beauty back to life. From here, above all, this means that you must be consistent. This requires discipline.

When I say you need to be consistent I don’t mean you need to repeat your routines over and over. I mean the quality of your action must be consistent.

For example, if you are making your bed, then every time you make your bed you should be consistent. Can you do it thoroughly, precisely? Can you do it with absolute attention and focus? Above all, can you do it joyfully? After all, this is your life! You must at least try.

If you are not disciplined and decide one day it’s okay to be consistent and another day it’s okay to not be, then this is meaningless. If you want success in your life, both internally and externally, be consistent in your approach. Do it with 100% involvement.

Do not seek routines. This is the sign of someone who is looking to coast through life without being involved. It’s not that the routines are bad. They provide structure. Structure is good, but it’s best when you are consciously making it the way you want. Why compulsively make it dull and boring when you can consciously make any experience into one of pleasantness?

Turn everyday repetitive tasks into a meditation. Do this through consistent, disciplined involvement. It will transform your life.

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

On Expectations

~ SE ~ 1 Comment

Dear True Self,

How do I know when the right time to take action is? Sometimes I feel like I am just waiting for the right moment and then the moment passes me by. Other times I try to rush acting and it doesn’t pan out the way I hoped. How do I strike when the iron is hot so to speak?

With gratitude,

Wrong Time Right Place

Dear WTRP,

This isn’t about timing at all. The right time is always now. The problem is you have too many expectations.

Expectations are the source of all the let down you feel in life. It’s not about having high expectations or low expectations. The fact that you have them at all means sometimes they will be met, and sometimes they will not. There are too many variables for you to always control an outcome, so to expect an outcome is only playing dice with your dreams.

“But True Self, isn’t having no expectations a sort of expectation in itself?”

I’m not aiming to engage in some semantic or philosophical debate with you here – this is about what experientially works for you or doesn’t.

Having high expectations will make you feel lousy when they are not met. Having low expectations will leave you feeling okay when they are not met, but you won’t ever dream big. Neither of these are real solutions. Neither will satisfy you. That leaves only the option of no expectations.

No expectations does not mean no plan. It does not mean no desire. It does not mean no goal. It just means that where you place your devotion has shifted. Rather than being obsessed with the outcome, just be here with the process. Devote yourself to it.

Let’s put it this way: Who will cook a better meal for you, a chef who is devoted to every step of the process or one who is only concerned with the outcome being exactly as they want?

The chef who is devoted to the process will naturally and joyfully make corrections as he or she goes. The one who is only interested in the outcome will try to force the issue even if it is not working out.

It is like this you are sitting and waiting for the “right moment”. If you were truly paying attention to life, you would see that there are always any number of amazing possibilities unfolding around you. Even in times where you don’t get what you thought you wanted, if you just shift your attention to the process that is happening – you will see so many countless opportunities. In an existence like this, where you have infinite choices, how can any moment be wrong or right? It is just up to you to put your attention to what is happening right now, rather than where you think things should be.

“But True Self, how can I have a goal and then at the same time not expect it to be achieved? That is surely dooming me to failure or inaction!”

Your problem is you think that not achieving your goal is somehow a failure. But you know what, I will even give you that fact – yes you failed. You will fail many times in life. You will fail more times than you ever succeed by your standards. But failure is your greatest, most unrelenting guru. Failure teaches you more than success ever will.

If failure helps you learn, then what does it matter if you don’t achieve the goal the way you thought it would happen? Along the way, if you are wise, you will learn and grow. This is the true achievement. It’s not about the ends. It’s about the means. The journey is the destination.

If you endlessly go on in life chasing the carrot on the stick, you are as silly as the donkey not realizing that he can never catch it. Anything he catches will only be temporary and again he will look for the next carrot.

But if you just enjoy the ride and the smell of the carrot…that’s the real ticket to your ultimate nature. That’s the secret of timing: There’s no better time than now.

It is not contradictory to have no expectations and still to dream big. Dream big! Please, dream a dream so big that it can’t even be accomplished in ten lifetimes. Don’t let that stop you. Do the process and work towards that dream – but realize along the way that the result never mattered anyway. It was just the catalyst for you to live your life and be involved. In the end, you will only really be concerned with how involved you were with living life to the fullest.

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 Karma

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Why is it that bad things happen to good people? Shouldn’t there be some sort of karma for all the injustice in the world?

Sincerely,

Karma Chameleon

Dear KC,

You might as well ask me why the universe is the way it is. I didn’t make it! It is the way it is.

The word Karma has been reduced to a soundbite in the west. It does not mean what you think it means. You are not asking about karma, but about justice and fairness. Punishment and reward. Karma is not these things, and the universe does not operate based on your ideas of what should be rewarded or punished.

Karma simply means action. It is cause and effect. For every action in this universe, there is a reaction. This is just the nature of life.

When we talk about your karma, or your neighbour’s karma, we are not saying if you do nice things that you will will the lottery. We are saying that karma is yours. It is entirely your doing. Your action.

It is like this: If you say something nice to someone, that action has an effect on that person. Then that person will act in a particular way, and their actions will effect others. But it is not just external. In order for you to say something nice, you will have generated a sort of pleasant chemistry within you. Karma always works this way, as a double pointed arrow towards its target and the archer.

But it’s not just for pleasant things – if you do something unpleasant, you will definitely create an unpleasant environment around you and within you. This is why karma has become misunderstood as having “good” or “bad” varieties. There are no varieties, there is only karma.

You are the one who is arbitrarily deciding what is good and what is bad. In the grand scheme of the universe, it is insignificant what your ideas of good and bad are. It does not matter if you have an opinion or preference on what is fair or unfair. It won’t change the way the stars are born and die or the way galaxies spin or otherwise. Karma is behaving just as life intended and finding it’s own equilibrium.

In this way, there is a system of fairness. How much more fair could it be? You do unpleasant things, and you feel it within you as well. But maybe you’re wondering why nasty people have more than you – more luck, more money, more whatever. You need to understand that you can never know what it is like to be someone else and in their shoes. You have no idea all the ways they are poisoning and torturing themselves. And whether they know of this or not too is irrelevant – it is happening within them with or without their approval, because every action must have a consequence. This is the way of creation.

It is a very unfulfilling life if you look at what other people have and start deciding who deserves more or less. Your existence is not going to be made more beautiful by comparing yourself to others and becoming judge, jury, and executioner.

Though there are many injustices in this world, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the system that exists. There is absolutely nothing wrong with life. For every problem that humanity has created, there are a myriad solutions. Life would truly be cruel and unfair if there were no solutions and we were just drenched in suffering. But if you understand that karma means there is no good or bad – you will see that the suffering has been largely our doing. This is the price of our freedom, our free will. The ability to choose both pleasant and unpleasant things. It wouldn’t be freedom otherwise.

So what to take from all this? It’s time to stop looking at things so black and white. Stop imposing your morality on everything. Just see things the way they are. Sometimes, good people do bad things and sometimes bad people do good things.

The next time you are looking at your neighbour and judging them, practice seeing the actual reality, without exaggerating it or diminishing it. Just see it for what it is: karma. Not good or bad. Just karma.

Or in other words, you reap what you sow.

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 Openness

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I often feel closed off to new ideas or changes in my life. Even though logically I know the changes or new experiences might be good for me, I just find myself refusing to explore them at all because I am already too busy and tired. How do I find the energy to add things to my life when I’m already so stressed and stretched thin?

Sincerely,

Out with the New

Dear OWTN,

Have you ever seen a person juggle? It’s quite a feat. There are some jugglers out there who not only can juggle six or seven or more balls, but they sometimes even juggle dangerous items like knives or flaming torches.

How is this possible? Were they just born with the ability to juggle so effortlessly? You know the answer – they of course started practicing with 1 ball. Then they added another. Then another. Then another. Then there is just a flow and each has it’s own space to be up or down. It almost needs no managing for the juggler, only attention to the current ball.

You want to add new things to your life but you have had no practice even with one ball. You just have been going about life unconsciously not even knowing you are a juggler. You were able to manage for quite some time – the human being is an amazing creature that can handle a lot. But now you are at your so called limit. Even to add one more thing will be a disaster. The new thing could even be something wonderful like a vacation, but it will just be one more thing to manage for you.

Yet the desire to juggle more is still there in you. You long for new experiences and new things, but every fibre of your being screams for you to stop as you are stretched too thin. How to reconcile this?

You see both are true. It is true, you have too many things to manage. It is also true that you will never stop longing for more.

I am not here to tell you what to add or subtract from your life so that you can juggle the most important balls – that is up to you. Every human being has the freedom to choose how to spend their time on this planet. What you need is to understand that denying yourself even the possibility of exploring new things will only leave you feeling unsatisfied and resentful at what you are currently juggling – even if what you are currently juggling is things you are “supposed” to care about, like work or friends or family.

Or put another way: You are practicing growing resentful at the things you have chosen to focus on in your life.

New possibilities are always unfolding in your life. Every moment that has ever existed or will ever exist in this universe is unique. No two are alike. Take a moment to really let that sink in. Every single moment has never happened before and never will again. The very nature of existence is to be new and unfolding. To deny this basic fundamental way that life is will never sit right with you.

You must understand that there is a difference between exploring what is possible and actual taking action to do it. You have already decided and declared:

“I am too busy! I have no time or energy for anything else!”

With this closed mind, heart, and being, what opportunity is there for you? Every moment could be something beautiful but you have already decided it must be the way it has always been for you. This is not only stupid, it is never going to happen. This moment is unique. You must accept this and be open to it.

Internally, first practice moving through your day to day life with a willingness and openness. Externally, after you have explored it, then decide if it’s worth adding to your pile or not. But if you never even try to consider what life is bringing you in this moment…well, each moment will keep going by until you are at your last. If you don’t understand the importance of being open now, I promise you in your last moment you will get it crystal clear. There is no time to waste.

Don’t simply decide that action is not possible in your life. Don’t decide that you can’t handle any more. It’s not about what you can or can’t handle. Just be open to exploring. Have this curiosity and sense of wonder about life! There is so much to be gained from merely exploring all the new things life brings you each day. Even if you never act on any of them, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t at least explore life with that openness, you will just feed your resentment.

Closed minds can never see anything new. It is like this you are moving through life. Open up, and see all life has to offer you. Trust me when I say it’s enough to merely see all life has to offer, even if you never juggle any 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 Technology

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Everywhere I look I see people faces down, staring at their cell phones. Have we lost a sense of community? Technology has connected us in more ways than ever before but I can’t help but feel like it hasn’t brought us any closer. Is technology dooming us? What can we do to get back that community feel and slow down all this technological obsession?

Sincerely,

Techno Illogical

Dear TI,

Technology is not the problem. The problem is the user.

Look around at all the technological advancements we have. We have an answer for almost every single problem on the planet. This is a wonderful possibility.

Yet it seems there are more problems than ever. If that wasn’t enough, we can’t even solve basic issues – feeding, clothing, housing…so many millions of people are living without a shred of dignity or a chance of a life without pain or misery. You talk about community building? Well it’s time to do something about it.

It is so easy to blame technology. When books became widespread after the invention of the printing press, they were to blame for the worlds problems. Then it was radio. Then it was television. Then it was video games…Do you see where this is going? We cannot keep passing the buck. After all, it was us who made these things. Time to look at the inventors, not the invention.

If you do not use all the comfort and convenience technology has brought into your life to do some real meaningful change to yourself and the world around you, then what is the point? Now is the time, more than ever, to pursue your consciousness and not more comfort. More comfort will not make your life more beautiful. Only you can make your life more beautiful.

There must be a shift within you – from outside to inside. Without this, I am telling you unequivocally: It doesn’t matter what the hell you accumulate in your life, you will not even be able to find peace of mind, let alone joy or happiness or the true nature of existence.

As for slowing things down – you can not stop technology from advancing. The nature of a human being is to endlessly expand. Technology will only get more and more sophisticated as time goes on, and exponentially so. If human consciousness does not do the same, then we have some tough times ahead of us. What I am saying again and again to you is to stop looking outside yourself. A human being is actually more complex than any piece of technology that exists, but you don’t know even a small fraction of what it can do. If you knew even this small fraction, you would act to build a better experience for yourself and those around you, without hesitation.

Exude what technology can never even approximate. Work on making yourself into a more loving, caring, kind human being. People will naturally flock to you and the community you are complaining doesn’t exist will happen with such ease. This is the crux of the issue right here – The only way out of your problems is to turn inward. Yes, humans are obsessed with technology. We cannot rid ourselves of that obsession. But at least be obsessed with the best technology that exists: you.

If we continue to use the same thought process we had when we created all these problems in the world to solve those same problems, all we will do is create more problems. So many people are turning to technological advancement to create better and better tools to tackle so many issues. But the problems are not technological in nature – they are social, they are political even – most of all they are individual.

An inward turned person will always seek the betterment of themselves and those around them. An intelligent person who is turned inward will be able to use these magnificent tools we have to accomplish this. The time has come to stop blaming whatever is convenient. Make the most of your life the way it is now! More is possible now than has ever been possible in human history. That is no small thing.

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 Gratitude

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a hard time being thankful for what I have. I keep feeling jealous I will lose what I have or envious of what others have. In moments like this it’s really hard to be grateful for anything. How can I become more grateful?

Sincerely,

Often Ungrateful

Dear OU,

You can never outrun your desires. If you can take conscious reign over the desire within you, then jealousy and envy won’t even be an issue. Gratitude is no remedy for anything. Gratitude is simply a doorway to the reverence that comes when you see your life for the desire it truly is.

Desire is not something separate from your life. Desire is life. I’m not speaking of lust or greed or other human inventions. Desire is simply the longing for the next, the calling to expand. The issue is no goal will ever satisfy you.

Let’s say you have an apartment. Then you see your friend bought a townhouse and you love it. Now you want a townhouse. So you buy one. Then you see your friend bought a 2 storey house. Now you want that, so you get it. Then this friend gets a summer home…you can see the problem.

It is only natural to want to expand. Every sapling longs to become a tree. Every tree longs to become a forest. Every forest longs to cover the whole earth. All life is like this, endlessly seeking to expand. Nature does this while finding an equilibrium with everything else, as should you.

So how to satiate desire? It is so strong that every single atom in your entire being longs for infinite evolution. No one thing will satisfy. Only everything will do.

The sooner you accept this, the easier it will become. When you want everything, it is a bit silly to look over at your neighbour and what they have to satisfy you. You know full well you will just look at someone else the minute you have what you thought you wanted. Like a dog chasing it’s tail, you will just go in circles looking outside yourself and trying to catch something that you ironically already have within.

So how to get everything then if that’s all that will satiate desire? It’s not about getting anything. It’s just about understanding what an unstoppable force your life is. It wants to continually push past it’s limitations and evolve endlessly. It won’t settle for anything else. If you do not give in to it, you will feel all kinds of idiotic things, from pain to misery to suffering to whatever.

Since you cannot control what goes on outside of you, turning inward is the only way. You have infinite potential within you. It is the only thing in this life that is 100% in your power to direct. Others may not cooperate, but at least you should cooperate! It’s time to explore that infinite potential, because even though what you could become and do in this life is boundless, your time on this earth is not.

And this is where gratitude comes in. Your time on this earth is precious. It is so brief. And the more you enjoy it, the shorter it will feel. Look at your life now – whatever your age, does it not feel like it went by in a flash? Only if you are miserable is life a long drawn out experience.

Gratitude only comes when you admit where you are at. The very first thing is to admit that you are not satisfied. That your life is not the way you want it. That desire is perpetually moving you to the next possibility. Once you can admit that, then you can start looking at your life and being grateful. Otherwise you will only be faking it. It’s not enough to mindlessly tell yourself to count all your blessings. It must be genuine for it to mean anything.

When you truly drench yourself in your desire to expand endlessly, you will see that you are not satisfied with the way things are. You will feel such gratitude for all you have, but you will also see how much more work needs to be done within yourself and finally start working towards it. What is the point in all this gratitude if it does not stir something within you to create your life in the most beautiful way you can?

Envy and jealousy are just excuses. Gratitude is not a panacea to cure them. Just admit that you want your life to be more than it is. Anyway it is operating in that way, you just have to accept it.

Stop looking at your neighbour! Start looking within! The gratitude is not out there, it is in you. Life is within you. You only need to turn your focus from out to in, and you will see how easily gratitude comes and blossoms into sublime reverence.

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 Help

~ SE ~ 1 Comment

Dear True Self,

I have a hard time asking for help. I feel like it’s seen as a sign of weakness in today’s society to ask for help in any realm – be it for your own health, work, relationships…

I do think that people need to learn to fend for themselves in life as to not become needy, but is it so wrong to need help every once in a while?

Sincerely,

Asking for Help About Asking for Help

Dear AFHAAFH,

This is not truly a matter of asking for help. In fact, there is often even no need to ask.

I will put it simply: What makes you think you are not constantly receiving help right now?

Could you even be here to ask this question if any number of things weren’t helping you right now? The trees are giving you air to breathe. The sun is providing you energy. The planet itself is supporting you. But we need not get so abstract nature oriented.

In society, you have so many things helping you – laws, roads, schools, doctors, electricity, running water…and this is barely even scratching the surface of all the ways you are being helped.

The idea that you are alone in this universe to fend for yourself is really a fallacy. There may be times in your life where your survival is at stake – in those situations, it may feel like you are alone to fend for yourself. Most of us in this part of the world however do not have to worry about intense survival situations like that very often.

The truth is though, whether in survival mode or not – every single atom in this existence is responding to you. This is the only way it can be. You may not be experiencing it, but it is happening in every moment. You are getting help from all of creation at all times. Otherwise you could not exist.

Your perspective has become skewed – our culture and society has created a competitive atmosphere, so you may feel like everything has to be accomplished by your hard work and your doing alone. It is true that life is your making, your action. But as soon as you act, so many things both in your perception and not in your perception move to assist you.

This isn’t a question of asking for help – it’s a question of receiving it. Can you be 100% receptive and involved in all the ways life is supporting you right now?

Can you sit here and just breathe, fully participating in that act? If you do, you will understand that your respiratory system isn’t just in your chest, but is also in the trees.

Can you sit here and openly, consciously, be totally receptive to drinking a glass of water? Or eating your lunch?

The problem is not in being too proud or ashamed to ask for help – you already are receiving help whether you are proud or ashamed or otherwise! But you are cherry picking what you will receive and want you won’t receive. If you totally surrender to the fact that everything is here supporting you, then all that’s missing is your conscious involvement in that process.

It is a two way street however. As a person, you are constantly giving your life to those around you as well. The only question is, what is the quality of interaction you are giving to everything and everyone else?

If you are conscious, you will make sure you are always creating the most helpful, loving, pleasant experience to share with the world. No action is even needed to share it. Simply by being that way, given practice, you will exude it. The same way that tree takes in your carbon dioxide and gives you oxygen, you take in the help and exude your pleasantness. The world needs more pleasant people. To be happy of your own nature is the greatest help and gift you can give to others.

Put another way, the best way to get help for yourself is to give. Ask yourself what you can give back to life, because it is constantly giving to you. The more of yourself you give, the more receptive you become. An empty glass is the best vessel to receive water, not a full one.

It doesn’t matter how much help you ask for in life if you aren’t receptive to it. Surrender to all the ways life is supporting you. Give back the best of yourself to those around you, emptying yourself in the process. You will be surprised how much help comes flooding in the more empty you become.

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 Cravings

~ SE ~ 1 Comment

Dear True Self,

Though I’ve been trying to follow a better diet this year, I’ve been finding that I have cravings. Even though it’s been some time since I’ve had some of these foods and there’s not addiction here, I find myself just wanting them anyway. What is the nature of cravings and how do I overcome it?

Sincerely,

Stark Craving Mad

Dear SCM,

Food cravings are just one aspect of something else at play within you: Compulsion.

Most people only eat to appease their sense of taste – or to satisfy an addiction. Since you have claimed it is not the latter, lets speak of the former.

Taste is an immediate sensation. You have a grain of sugar touch your tongue and immediately the sweetness receptors will become active. It is this instant gratification that you have come to know and love. It isn’t even really the flavor itself. It is the prompt satisfaction you gain from such a small thing that you are truly craving. You don’t have to work at it – just eat some candy and feel good. But this isn’t good for your body, only to temporarily satisfy the mind. Nothing temporary will every satisfy you in the long run.

There really is nothing wrong with eating things that you love. I’m not saying that the simple pleasure of eating cotton candy at a carnival is a small thing. It isn’t. Simple things like this can make a life more beautiful. The problem for you is you are doing things in the wrong order.

As long as you have a physical body, it needs sustenance. Your physical body, when you really think about it, is just food. You assimilated it into you. What you eat becomes the cells of your body. You know this, but underestimate its importance. You must put the right food, in the right amounts, at the proper times, into your system so that your body can function with ease. There is no avoiding this as long as you live.

But that is not your baseline. You don’t eat as a means of creating a healthy body. You eat to satisfy cravings. First establish the baseline. Eat properly.

Now with this stable foundation established, if once in a while you want to enjoy some candy or whatever, why is there a problem? It is just an extra treat, a little experience for you to have. Because you have built this strong foundation, the choice to have a treat here or there won’t drain you drastically. But when cravings are the main way your body is getting what it needs – then it has to do the best it can with the poor choices you are making, since that is all it’s getting to run your system.

If you compulsively act in life, reaching for the chocolate, or your cell phone, or whatever else – you are not in control of your being. You are just letting yourself run on autopilot, but you’re not doing so in a way that is useful to your health and well being. You are doing things that are depleting to you.

So the key to ending cravings is to bring more conscious choice into what you do. This doesn’t mean proudly proclaiming,

“I am a free human being and I can eat what I want! I choose to have this doughnut!”

No, it means that if you choose to have that doughnut, you choose it knowing full well there are consequences to that action. That is the opposite of compulsion. If you are truly eating with consciousness, you will naturally make sure you have your baseline before you reach for the treats, and not the other way around.

Even if you start to eat more consciously, you will find you still have cravings for some time. As you practice being more and more conscious with your food, these cravings will subside. It will take time. You have spent your entire life eating compulsively for the tongue and not for the body. Your being needs to readjust and learn that your focus has shifted towards health first and pleasing the tongue second.

Next time you find yourself craving something, honestly ask yourself if you have given your body what it needs lately and can afford this craving. If the answer is no, then continue to work on yourself. Integrity and discipline are good tools to overcome compulsion. So is being honest with yourself.

Good luck with your cravings. Believe me when I say you will enjoy them exponentially more when they are no longer cravings but are conscious choices.

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 Loneliness

~ SE ~ 2 Comments

Dear True Self,

Lately I’ve been feeling very lonely. It’s so hard to find a partner for me and I’m getting tired of the rejection and awful partners. But I look around and everyone seems to be in relationships. Being single sucks and I am so sick and tired of feeling so alone. What can I do to find the right person?

Sincerely,

Alone and Lonely

Dear AAL,

You have perhaps watched too many hollywood movies. I’m not here to appease you with the idea that there is “the right person” out there for you. There is only one right person in your life, and it is not out there, it is in here: it is you.

Now, I know what you’re thinking:

“Yeah yeah yeah blah blah be a light unto yourself, but I still want to find a companion!”

I can see the usual “go within” answer won’t suffice you today. You see, the survival mechanism is a strong one. For 12 or 13 years, it means nothing. Then POOF! One day some hormones kick in and now companionship is all you desire. Then 30 or so years later POOF! The hormones go away and suddenly it’s not all that important anymore.

I’m saying don’t let a temporary shift in chemicals in your system determine what is the most important thing in your life.  The fact that you are alive and conscious will always take your #1 spot. If you don’t believe me, then hold your breath for a few minutes. I will come and place your soul mate in front of you and ask you,

“Do you want to breathe or have your soul mate?”

To explore what it means for you to unfurl into a full fledged life – this is the true desire of every human being. Nothing else will satisfy you. Go ahead, even ask people who have found their “soul mates” – they will tell you there are some things even their soul mate can never provide for them. No one person, or two, or two hundred, can give you everything that you need and want in this life. Only you have the capability to to do that.

You see, loneliness is just an unfortunate polarity you have fallen into. The other end of the spectrum is Aloneness. What is the difference?

Loneliness is negative state. When you are lonely, all you do is look outside of yourself to find someone to whisk you out of your unhappiness. It is like this that you look for someone, with your begging bowl. All you will ever get is charity.

Someone else can never make you happy. Even if an external circumstance brings you joy, the joy is only manufactured within you. If you understand this one small thing, that your happiness is your making, your life can truly begin to blossom.

Aloneness is the other side of this coin. It is a quality of being. When you are comfortable being by yourself, when you truly see that in this existence, your life is up to you and you alone – something magical happens. In taking this full responsibility for who you are and your life, you start to see how everything is connected to you and you are connected to everything else.

How can you even exist without the oxygen from the plants? How can they exist without what you exhale? How could you be standing here without this planet spinning? Everything in this existence is in exactly the right place and is responding to you in every moment. Not a moment goes by in this existence where it isn’t supporting you. Yet you want one more thing to happen to you…why? Because other people have found someone so you need to as well? It’s time to stop this ridiculous outside in approach to life.

There is no such thing as being alone. There is only feeling lonely. Some people are surrounded by people and feel lonely. Others are completely by themselves and in their Aloneness feel one with everything.

If you continue to live your life thinking someone on a horse wearing shiny armour will come and save you from your lonely life, I have bad news for you. Because even if they come, after some time, you will be lonely again, even if they stick around.

Stop waiting for something else to happen to you. Make life your happening.

See, the problem is you only want to love one person. Why can’t you love all people? Why are you stopping at one or two or three? I’m not talking about sexuality. I’m talking about feeling love for others. Feeling love for every person, every blade of grass, every drop of rain!

Most people on this planet are suffering a deep illusion. This “I want MY partner and MY kids and MY house and MY…”

Nothing belongs to you. You don’t get to take anything with you to the grave. Even your body is on loan. And especially people do not belong to you! They belong only to themselves. The idea that someone is yours is only a lie.

Though I’ve been brutally honest with you, I truly feel for your loneliness. Often when people become depressed they will feel exquisitely lonely. It breaks my heart to see people like this. It doesn’t really help to tell you that you are one with this whole creation if you are not experiencing it.

What I am trying to show you is that you need to first shatter your illusion of finding “the one”. The one has always been with you, because it is you. So this is what I suggest you do:

Practice loving yourself. Treat yourself the way you want your soul mate to treat you. Become your own soul mate.

If a partner is meant for you in this life, they will see the exuberant person you are and want to bask in it. In fact, many will be attracted to it. Nothing can stop people from being drawn to a person who loves themselves. I’m not talking about some arrogance or bravado. Even when I say “love yourself” it is a bit of a misnomer. Because the reality is, you are love. Be this love. Love yourself. Say it however you want. But practice it.

Too many people are waiting around for this one or that one to complete their lives. Don’t fall for that same trap. You already are complete. If even you can’t stand being with you, it’s not the time to look for a partner. It’s the time to go inward.

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 Positivity

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

People often say “just be positive” but I feel like this is some idealistic and naive way of thinking. Often so called positive people I meet cannot hear anything other than what fits into their worldview. They operate as though they have blinders on just repeating their mantra to be positive.

Isn’t it just avoiding the truth to see only the good? I look around and see there’s a lot of problems and I can’t just turn a blind eye to it.

Sincerely,

Glass Half Whatever

Dear GHW,

Optimism. Pessimism. The problem is there are too many “isms” in the world for people to hide behind. You have no use for either of these two extremes.

Above all, balance is important in this existence. If the body is not balanced, you feel it. If the mind is not balanced, you dwell on thoughts. If the emotions are not balanced, you have mood swings. Without balance, nothing within you can function easily. The same is true for things outside of you. All life naturally finds balance and in this ease expresses itself. The moon is not frantically trying to decide whether orbiting the Earth is positive or negative. It has just fallen into the ease of it.

Do not get caught too much by the trap of duality.

Let’s say you’re a glass half full kind of person. Seeing only the good in everything. This is actually a pretty happy way to live. Positivity has an effect on your chemistry and can make your internal experience more beautiful.

Now let’s look at the glass half empty. Only seeing the problem in everything. This can inspire you to find solutions. The negativity however will have an effect on your internal experience. It will most definitely cause stress, cynicism, and entitlement.

Comparing these two, it is clear that optimism is just better for your balance, but worse for taking action. But whether you have positive or negative thoughts, they will only become your bondage if you don’t see the whole picture. Chains made of gold are still chains. Why are you arguing over which chains people should prefer to enslave themselves with?

You see, being pleasant within yourself doesn’t require positivity. Seeking solutions to the problems of the world doesn’t require negativity. Both of these things are crutches for you to maintain your drama.

You have been given a precious gift – your life. Yet you keep wasting it trying to judge whether it’s half full or not. It’s not about full or empty, positive or negative – it’s understanding the glass is a beautiful gift for you. It’s about gratitude and making the most of whatever you’ve been given. After all, this life you have is only temporary. I promise you at the end of it that you won’t be worrying about positivity or negativity, you will only wonder if you did what you truly wanted in this life.

Stop seeing everything as a problem or nothing as a problem. This game keeps you from not only having a good internal experience, but also from helping those around you.

Gratitude is a doorway to transcending this duality. You don’t have to ignore all the injustices in the world to see the good. Just be grateful for your life. The air you breathe, the sunlight that fuels you, the food that becomes you…these are not small things to dismiss. They are your everything. Once you have established gratitude, it will blossom into reverence. When that happens, you will be beyond duality and naturally exude a certain level of pleasantness. You will also naturally take action to help those around you without hesitation.

This dance between optimism and pessimism is crippling you.

Time to wake up! Your life is now, the glass is yours – but only for a brief time.

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 The Golden Rule

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

What is the key to knowing what’s right and what’s wrong in this world? I feel like people don’t follow that golden rule – do unto others as you would have done to you. Why does such a simple thing elude so many? Why can’t we all just get along? Morality shouldn’t be this hard.

Sincerely,

The Golden Rule Keeper

Dear TGRK,

Throw your morality out the window. You do not need it. Take a look at the world around you – everyone has some claim to their morality. They all think they are correct and that their morality is the one true morality. Yet is the world a more peaceful, loving, or joyful place from morality? It may have brought some sense of safety or comfort, but it has never brought a more beautiful experience to individual beings, and it never will.

Morality is just an excuse for you to point your finger at those around you. Look at where morality stems from: comparison. It is a way to feel good about yourself at the expense of others.

“I know I am good person because I have a moral code. Look at this person, and this person, and that person…tsk, how immoral they are! At least I am better. If only they were like me”

I hope you are hearing how condescending and immature this self talk is. This is exactly what you are doing with your so called morality – judging others so you may feel better about yourself.

It would be one thing if we could claim morality worked the way you are doing it. But not only has it not made other people around you moral, but it hasn’t even made you moral! At least it should work for one of the two, then we could claim 50% effectiveness. But morality serves nobody.

Let’s take a look at your golden rule:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

First of all, where did you get this silly idea that everyone wants to be treated as you do? For example, perhaps you really like to hug people. Should you go around hugging everyone, no matter how they feel about it? Just because you want to be treated that way is no reason to treat everyone that way. It is a self-centered and inaccurate worldview.

If you want to follow some arbitrary rules for how to treat people, then at least you should treat people the way they want to be treated. But some people do not even know how they want to be treated! Some are suffering in ways you can’t imagine and will only accept more suffering. Is this how to treat them?

This is why I tell you to throw your morality out the window. You were right about one thing, it really isn’t that hard to figure out how to treat people. It’s actually deceptively simple:

Just be happy.

You see, when you are happy of your own nature, and not because of external circumstance – if you can just be here right now happy to be alive – then I don’t need to tell you a damn thing about how to do what’s right. If you are happy, do I need to tell you don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t mistreat others?

When you are unhappy, you only look for what others can do for you. When you are happy, that is the only time you are genuinely capable of truly giving others what they need. When happy, you don’t need a damn thing from anyone. This is the best space to act from in life, because you will just naturally give with no strings attached. Morality is not needed when you are happy of your own nature. Common sense will actually become common in your experience.

People do not want to believe that the answer to their problems and the world’s problems is to become more pleasant themselves. How could life be so simple? How could it be that if you just work on your own happiness that it can help everyone else?

You see, right now you are trying to make everyone else in the world the way you want them, but you haven’t even made yourself the way you want! What kind of authority do you have to tell others what is best?

First work on yourself. There will be no peace in the world until you as an individual have peace within. No matter what we try to create in terms of technologies or systems, if people don’t learn to turn inward, we will continue making the same stupid mistakes over and over. The time has come to just be happy. The next time you start comparing everyone around you to some moral code, practice being happy instead. I promise you, it is a doorway – a beautiful doorway – that can lead you to places you never knew possible.

Be grateful that the answer to your problems is just for you to have a wonderful life. Only when you have turned inward do you have any right to help people see what is right for them.

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 Judgment

~ SE ~ 1 Comment

Dear True Self,

I can be a very judgmental person…I often just look at people and in my mind I am thinking,

“Why can’t they just do things this way or that way?”

“Why doesn’t this person just do this in life, then their life would be better”

“This person is so awful, they should really change their behaviour”

And so on.

How can I stop being so judgmental? I feel cursed because I do see that the solution to people’s problems is so easy, but is it not my place to say something even if I’m right?

Sincerely,

Judge Mental

Dear JM,

Ah yes, one of the biggest pitfalls of an intelligent person – judgment. I don’t mean to say you are intelligent as a compliment. In fact, your intelligence is not working for you, it is working against you. It is so easy to point the finger out at everyone and everything else and decide,

“You are wrong, I am right! If only everyone did things MY way, then life would be better!”

Let’s get one thing perfectly clear – you need some humility.

First of all, you don’t know the whole story. You look at things from one angle and decide you have all the answers. This is the hallmark of delusion, not clarity.

Secondly, when you judge someone, it doesn’t change who they are. It only changes who you are. Now you are judgmental. Is this really how you want to be?

A genuinely curious person would seek to understand the other, not decide who they are. Never assume that you know what is best for someone else. Only they know that, even if their actions don’t reflect it. It is only through listening to them and understanding them that you can help them take the action they desire. Don’t try to force them to live life your way! How would you like it if someone managed you like that? Has that ever worked for anyone? Surely at least one person in that situation is never happy.

I however do not like dealing in negative solutions. What I mean by that is telling you to not judge someone is not a solution at all. If it was that easy, you’d be doing it. So you need a different way. Lucky for you, that way is actually quite wonderful.

When you were a child, did you ever have to go somewhere with your parents – like one of their friend’s homes – and at the end of the night they would take what seemed like an eternity to get from the door to their car? Chatting the whole way, stopping at the door, taking eons just to leave…or at least have you observed this with other children?

What does the child do in this situation? At first they will probably try to get attention from the adult – but eventually, when they accept they aren’t going anywhere, they will start to make a game out of the situation. Even in the smallest ways they will make any situation into a game.

While standing at the door, they will be bored out of their mind. Picture them leaning against the door head slumped, eyes completely disinterested…but they will be doing something. Maybe they are tracing the frame of the door with their hands or counting all the bumps on the ceiling or trying not to step on any lines in the tiles…but they will make a game out of it.

You see, you have lost this sense of playfulness. A child intuitively knows that this creation is there for them to enjoy and play with – so they do that at EVERY available opportunity. They don’t have to think about it, they just do it. Especially when they are bored they will make a game…isn’t that the most important time for play?

So the solution to judgmental attitude is not to “stop being judgmental”. The solution is to play more. Plain and simple. The reason for this is when you are playing, you are not judging. You are totally free, liberated from the chains of the mind. You are dancing, singing, laughing, jumping, running, anything! But you are too involved in the joy of life in that moment to be spending it on the content of your mind.

I don’t mean play as in toying with life. You are not toying with other people, their thoughts, their emotions, their situations, and then getting some sadistic enjoyment from it. This isn’t about controlling the situation around you, it’s about your internal being.

When you play, you are just creating a certain attitude of playfulness within. The chemistry of joy and exuberance will burst forth within you. Just as the child can’t control when they get to leave that doorway and finally go home, you too are just learning to accept life where it is. From that acceptance, existence is your playground. You make the most of it.

From a place of judgment, misery is all that occurs. The difference between you and the child is that you don’t have to act bored and disinterested. With your maturity and capability, you can truly enjoy life as it is. How can you be bored with a creation that is this intricate? You don’t have a judgment problem, you have a boredom problem.

So stop pointing the finger outward due to boredom. Don’t make up petty creations in your mind that you think are explanations for everything. This is the way you delude yourself. Turn inward, make yourself pleasant. See this existence for what it is –  your playground. Play it with grace and humility and then I will ask you if you’re feeling judgmental. You’ll laugh at me for asking such a foolish question as you are dancing, twirling free in this 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 Luck

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I am a hard worker. I try to put my my best effort into all things I do, but I look around and still don’t feel successful. So many other people seem to have all the luck in work and relationships, like they have it all figured out. How is it that even though I work harder that they wind up with more than me? Why is it that some people are luckier than others?

Sincerely,

Unlucky in Life

Dear UIL,

It is easy to sit in your little world and look around at others and think you know everything about them. The truth is, you have no idea whether they work harder than you, work smarter than you, are luckier than you, are more priviliged than you…you are just assuming what is convenient for your narrative. It’s easy for you to assume that you are somehow being given the short end of the stick. That way you can just blame it on god, fate, luck, or whatever you want to call it.

That famous song is true you know:

“You can’t always get what you want”

But you always have the capability to make yourself the way you want. Right now, you’ve made yourself into an unlucky one so that you don’t have to ever do anything about it. You can sit here, claim you are unlucky, and remain in hardship. This is not an intelligent or useful way to live your life, yet most people are like this.

If you don’t pay attention to the way life is and functions, then it is only natural to start feeling like a victim when things don’t work out. But if you are smart, you will pay attention and see that life doesn’t work on a merit or reward based system. Society may have fooled you into thinking it does, but there are any number of people out there in the world who pull longer hours than you and will never earn what you earn in one year in their entire lifetime. There is no merit system to life.

Life only works in this way: where you put your attention, that is where life grows.

If you continue putting your attention into your story of being unlucky, I guarantee you every single day that passes you will start to see more and more how unlucky you are.

But if you just instead see each moment as an opportunity to grow, to learn, to change – then you are behaving like all life does. Every piece of life is built like this, to keep on evolving endlessly. You are no different. When you start to accept excuses for the way your life is instead of seeking to expand to the next possibility, you will only find yourself in a miserable life.

Take this being unlucky story that you’re playing over and over in your head – how does that serve you? Does it help you to grow in any way? Does it help you to change or evolve to a more beautiful life for yourself? What happens to things in this world that don’t want to grow? Do they not just wither and die? You cannot avoid the simple truth that all life wants to always move to the next possibility. Just as food gives its life to become you, so do you constantly seek to create a better life for yourself at all moments.

Let’s say you reach your so called success. What then? Will you be satisfied there? No, you will only want to set another target and go reach that. Then another, and another, and another. On and on you will go like this. It is unavoidable.

So it’s time to stop blaming luck for your lot in life. Maybe you are working super hard but just not working in an efficient or results producing manner. The only way for you to create the life you want is to admit that it is not the way you want it right now. Only then will you naturally seek to evolve it into something more beautiful for yourself.

Luck has nothing to do with it. Your life is your making. If you do the same thing over and over expecting different results, well you know what that means.

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 Stagnancy

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have a bad habit of staying too long in situations in life that I know I don’t truly want. Whether it’s a job or relationship or otherwise, I feel I have a tendency to just stagnate. Sometimes it will be years and years of me just feeling stuck in the same patterns.

What is the nature of my stagnancy? It feels so hard sometimes to break the cycle, and even if I do it just slips back into the stagnancy at the first chance it gets.

Sincerely,

Stuck in a rut

Dear SIAT,

Stagnancy is one of the hardest traps life has to offer. It can often feel like there are many pitfalls and traps along the way in your life, but stagnancy is truly a crippling one. Why? Stagnancy breeds ignorance and inaction – a really powerful and unfortunate combination. You no longer seek to know anything and you don’t do anything about it.

The only way out of stagnancy is action.

Imagine that your mind is like a pool of water – a vast lake surrounded by a beautiful forest and mountainous area. There are three states this lake can be in:

When the lake is totally still and clean, if you look in, what do you see? Your reflection of course. But look a bit longer and you will see the depths below to the bottom. Look a bit longer and you will even see the sky and stars reflected from above. When the pool is like this, you see everything – above, below, within, and beyond.

Now let’s say you drop a stone into the lake – what happens to the image? It becomes distorted. Though you can make out shapes – perhaps even recognize some of them – a lot will just blend into one another, and you will not see the whole picture. Only a misshapen view of it. This is where most people exist in life – in this turbulence and agitation. Your thoughts are the stones in the lake of the mind that disturb the clarity and stillness.

Where you are at is another state. Imagine that a big oil company has decided to back up a truck of theirs near your lake. They then proceed to dump oil into your lake until the whole lake is now black and thick. What do you see now when you look in? Well, it will actually appear on the surface to be quite still. Drop a rock (or thought) in, and it doesn’t really disturb the lake – it just kind of gets absorbed and sinks. You may even be able to see some reflection of yourself in it, but it won’t be accurate – it will be darker than normal. This is the danger of stagnancy. Because anything that goes on now in your lake of the mind gets slowed and absorbed, it can almost feel easy or peaceful, but inside you know it is not natural and you have been polluted. You know this because nothing is alive anymore in your lake. Everything is dead. Still, but dead.

If you want to clear up this polluted mess, you can’t just wait it out. In the second stage that we can call agitation, at least if you sit in silence long enough, thoughts will settle and clarity will arise. But in the stagnant state – waiting it out won’t help because that truck is still dumping oil in. You have to take action to stop the polluting. But even if you stop that, your lake will not just become clear over time. It will settle and settle further and further. Time without effort will only make it harder to clear it.

So you must also clean up the mess. To do this requires action.

First, figure out what the truck is that is polluting your mind – you will find it’s not just one thing, but probably many. It could be your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health – but you must get help to break these patterns. Doing it alone will not work, as it has not worked until now. Find someone who will help you create and maintain good healthy routines.

Then take action – Start doing things in your life that you have been putting off. Start doing the things you wish you were doing. If you don’t like your job, find some work you can do in this life that you do enjoy. If you don’t like your relationships, try working on them or finding deeper relationships.

Stagnancy is not an easy thing to get out of, but once you get out of it, it is much easier to keep life moving in the right direction. You have just been putting all your energy into polluting your lake and wallowing in it – time to clean up, stop polluting, and move towards ultimate clarity. The road will take time. You may become discouraged now and again. Make sure you have the support of people to help you through to a place where you can be fine on your own. As always, your true self is always with 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 Clarity

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I often feel like I only see the black or white of things. Sometimes I will talk myself out of making decisions simply because I assume the worst case scenario is the only possible outcome. For example, a friend and I have not contacted each other in a while so I assume they just don’t care about the friendship anymore. How do I stop this extreme way of thinking and see things clearly?

Sincerely,

At the edge of the extremes

Dear ATEOFTE,

You are not seeing the absolute worst case scenario – you are only seeing one possible scenario which you do not prefer. Perhaps in your mind this friend not caring about the relationship anymore is the worst case for you – but it could always be far, far worse. But also, it could be far, far better than you can possibly imagine as well. Or it could be something quite innocuous, barely worth stressing about.

You see, to look at life from only one viewpoint, one solidified conclusion – this is one of the most crippling habits people have that prevents them from clarity.

Is it not true in any given situation that there are countless possibilities? Sure, there may be some things you cannot do. For example you cannot read your friend’s mind. But the options before you are limitless in how you either want to take action or not take action. Don’t limit yourself to an all or nothing perspective.

There is an ancient story about three blind men and an elephant…

Three blind men were standing near an elephant. The first man touches the elephant’s trunk and says,

“I know what an elephant is! It is long and tubular, strong and flexible!”

The second man touches the elephant’s tail and says,

“You fool. That’s not an elephant! An elephant is small and thin and agile!”

The third man touches the elephant’s tusk and says,

“You are both complete idiots! An elephant is hard as a rock, yet smooth and sharp!”

If you only ever look at life from one angle, that is all you will ever see.

First admit that you do not see the whole picture. This is the only way to break this pattern. If any of those blind men had just admitted they don’t know the whole story, they might have kept feeling the rest of the elephant. Your life is that elephant. Stop thinking you know the whole story when you’ve barely touched a fraction of an eyelash of the elephant that is your life!

When you are in a situation and you find yourself jumping to extreme conclusions, remind yourself that conclusions do not bring clarity – only confusion brings clarity.

Confusion is the basis of all clarity – if you can just admit that you are not certain and do not have all the information, you will naturally seek solutions. If you just admit to yourself that you don’t know what’s going on with your friend, you will only naturally try to discover why, or make peace with not pursuing the relationship further. Any choice you make is fine, but not if you draw a conclusion first. Nothing in this universe can be pinned down to one single explanation. Life is so much more complex and tremendous than that, and thank goodness it is.

But if you choose to draw a conclusion instead, you will just operate with a whole lot of confidence, even if you are dead wrong. Confidence is no substitute for clarity.

The more you practice admitting that you don’t have the whole story, the clearer your life will become. The only question you have to ask yourself is do you just want to be viewed as knowing what you’re talking about, or do you actually want to know what you’re talking about.

Confidence or clarity – you decide.

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 Relationships

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Lately my partner and I have not been clicking. We sometimes bicker, are often short with each other, or even have full blown arguments. The reason for the argument always seems so stupid after the fact. But in the moment I find I am just so enraged! It just feels like we don’t understand each other anymore. I’m tired of the way it is but I don’t want to leave the relationship yet. What can we do to get back to the way things were? We used to get along so well.

Sincerely,

Wishing the fighting would stop

Dear WTFWS,

First come to terms with this – There is no going back to the way things were. Ever. Not in any situation.

You both may have fell in love with each other for a variety of reasons. Physical attraction, chemistry, emotional and mental similarities, financial reasons – there are always some factors as to why two people seek a relationship with one another.

The way relationships have evolved in the western world has become almost like a checklist:

“Does he/she meet all my criteria?”

Certain body type? check.

Certain intelligence? check.

Certain humour? check.

This isn’t to ridicule what you are looking for in a partner. But this approach will only ever lead to disappointment. When you think only of what the other person can give you and never of what you can give, you are headed for failure.

Life does not behave like a checklist. Life is always a complete exchange between you and everything around you. You give. They give. This is the only way for harmony.

You give, they don’t give? This is not great, but at least you are open and can choose to leave.

You don’t give, they give? This is not great, but at least they are open and can choose to leave.

But you don’t give AND they don’t give? This is no good. This is where you are at.

You have both stopped giving something very important to this relationship: your attention.

Let’s just take a step back for a moment.

Relationships are always like this: if at any moment one person does not feel like they are getting what they need, they will withdraw. You may have spent 30 years together or 30 days. It does not matter. It is only natural. No one ever owes you anything and there are no guarantees in this life, especially when it comes to other people.

The moment you fail to meet someone’s criteria, they will make it known. If they are wise and considerate, they will express their frustration calmly and work on moving forward together. If they are largely reactionary, then they will bicker and argue, play passive-aggressive, or manipulate you. This is what is happening to your relationship. Just pure reactivity will not work. Especially if BOTH partners are this way.

See at the beginning, this sort of reactivity worked because there was some chemistry involved. There was also a genuine desire to get to know the other person. But over time, things settle a bit and the curiosity goes away. You think you know the other person 100%. You so badly want the other person to fit into your idea of what you want for your life. You see what you want to see and just assume that they are “perfect for you” – meaning they will never change. You pinned them down as if it’s a done deal!

“I’ve found my soul mate”, you’ll say.

This is just a story you tell yourself to feel safe. This idea of just reaching a moment where you’ve made it and never need to work at your relationship again is only in fairy tales. No happily ever after. Only happily always practicing.

If you want there to be a certain ease in a relationship, then you must accept that you are part of something that is bigger than you. Two people have come together to integrate their lives in a way that is bigger than themselves. This is the essence of what a relationship is. If you came to the relationship merely to have the other person make you happy, that is not their responsibility, nor are they capable of this.

It is so easy to blame the other person for your unhappiness. There are countless people on this planet; you can just keep flitting from one relationship to another if you wish. But you cannot run from the fact that you are in charge of your own happiness.

When you were first getting to know each other, with such true curiosity and love did you pay attention to them! How deeply you would look into their eyes and how open were your ears to what they were saying? Where has this gone? The person you are with is never done growing and changing. Never stop getting to know them. Give them your full attention. Don’t decide who they are. Enjoy the privilege of being a part of their constant growth.

What does it mean to pay attention like this? It was natural in the beginning, but now it will take work. You need to listen to them. You need to talk to them. You need to be honest with them. You need to treat them with respect and kindness. You both need to learn how to communicate with each other. To communicate well and kindly to each other is a skill that needs to be honed. Sit down together and come up with ways you can communicate, especially in hard times. Take conscious control of this process and you will start to see that challenging moments are where you both grow the most.

Assume you know very little about your partner. Then the longing to know them will naturally rise within you. Anyway, it’s the truth whether you accept it or not. You could spend ten lifetimes with them and you would never know even a fraction of who they are. This is the beauty of your relationship. What you are going through right now is an opportunity to get to know them again. All they require is your full attention.

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 the Mind

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I find myself often very trapped by my thoughts. I tend to either dwell on the past or fixate on the future. For example, I will replay old events in my head, how I could have done them differently. Or I will just think about the future and practice conversations or situations in my head but they are never exactly as imagine them to be.

It’s starting to become clear that this constant chatter of the mind is preventing me from enjoying life. What can I do to shut my mind up?

Sincerely,

Too Many Thoughts

Dear TMT,

Your mind is not your enemy. If it was, then perhaps we should remove some pieces of it. That will certainly shut up the chatter will it not? But that is no solution. The real issue is that your mind is not doing what you want. Your mind is in the driver’s seat of the car.

Let’s take a look at what you call as past and what you call as future. You may have heard many wise people say “Be in the moment” or “Live now” or other such catchphrases. But the reality is, there is no other place you can be. There is only now. No need to try to “be” here. You already are here in the moment. Just start acting like it.

You see, there is no past and there is no future. I don’t mean this as some fortune cookie wisdom. What you call as past is only an accumulation of memory. What you call as future is only predictions based on what you accumulated, or in other words, imagination and fantasy. What you call as your life is what is happening right here right now. Maybe right now you are imagining about the future or dwelling on the past. But it doesn’t mean that there is any such thing as past or future. Only memory, only imagination. Don’t spend your whole life in an illusion. Wake up to the now.

How to wake up and start acting like you are here in the now?

Most of your life you have only experienced things through your senses. What you see, taste, hear, smell, and touch is your entire body of memory. But the truth is, you are digesting all of reality in more than these five ways. There is a mechanism within you that is beyond these five senses – this is consciousness. For now, for where you are at, consciousness merely means practicing paying attention to the here and now.

Go for a walk. Spend time paying attention. Pay attention to a leaf. To a drop of dew. To the wind. To the sunlight. To the worms and birds. Just practicing being present in the now. Take your time. There is no hurry. If you really give sufficient attention, you will see that everything in this universe is constructed with the utmost attention to detail. Such that if you spent a lifetime trying to understand that leaf or worm, you wouldn’t even scratch the surface. Creation spent a whole lot of attention on you. Time you paid some attention to creation, and not the petty creations of your mind.

What you will find is that your mind will compulsively wander as you do this. This is normal. It is the nature of the mind to wander. But the more attention you pay, the more you will notice the mind is just doing it’s own thing. You will identify less and less with the mind, which is only capable of memory and imagination. You will then begin to identify with the experience of now. It takes practice.

As you practice, your mind will start to change seats in the car. Right now, it’s the driver. In fact, a bad driver who doesn’t follow your directions and goes full throttle to the gas, never braking. Often it may crash and injure you. But there are other seats in the car. You cannot kick the mind out entirely. But it can change seats. It will move to the passenger seat and try to give you navigation instructions. Then it may move to the backseat and ask,

“Are we there yet?”

But there are more and more backseats – it’s a big car. More like a bus. As you practice paying attention, not only will your mind become sharper and clearer, but it will start to go more into the background. Now you are driving, and it is in the back, just enjoying the ride. If this happens, where you can create a certain distance between you and your mind, you will see how silly it was that it was ever even in control. The mind is desperately trying to get to the backseat of your bus. Stop dragging it to the foreground, or it will clamour like a monkey at you.

I know I am describing the mind as an annoying child on a long road trip, but don’t underestimate the beauty of the mind. If you want to live in the physical world then you need a mind. There is no other way. This mind is the most sophisticated processing computer on the planet. It took millions of years for life to manifest into your intelligence. Stop letting it enslave you and start using it to create a beautiful experience for yourself. Experience does not happen in the memory of the past or the fantasy of the future. It is only in practicing paying absolute attention to the here and now that it will yield for you. But you must practice. It takes time.

Start small, pay attention to the little things. Don’t look for anything. Just look.

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 Not Knowing

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I have been finding lately at work that people do not respect or listen to my opinions or suggestions. Even though I have spent many years in my field of study and have earned my certifications, people don’t really seem to value what I have to say on the very topics I am an expert on. A lot of problems at work would be solved if they just listened to someone who knows more than them. Why do people have such resistance to my expertise?

Sincerely,

The Ignored Expert

Dear TIE,

If one person doesn’t listen to you, you can usually blame them. Maybe they are just an idiot.

If two people don’t listen to you, maybe those two people are just idiots.

When the majority of people are not listening to you, perhaps it’s time to realize you are the idiot.

First of all shed your arrogance. Simply going to school, getting a degree, or even spending some time in a work force does not make you an expert. Time spent in a field may give you a vast wealth of information and tools. But only when you consciously employ this information and these tools in ways that work for yourself and those around you will you be an expert. There are too many so called experts out there who refuse to learn. Don’t be an expert. Be better.

People often fail to realize the most fundamental reasons their profession even exists.

Chefs who don’t realize that they are in the business of giving people life. Food after all becomes you.

Teachers who don’t realize that children do not listen to you, they observe you. These teachers often behave quite crankily and stressed out and wonder why the atmosphere in their classroom is the same.

I can give you endless examples. Show me a profession, I will show you the vast majority do not understand the most basic aspects that govern what they do. But they have an immense amount of information accumulated. I hate to break it to you, but in this day and age if I want information, I can just ask Google. It knows more than you ever will.

Experts are just people who think they know what’s best for everyone. Few are ever willing to learn or grow. Unwillingness to change and a wealth of accumulated information can give people a lot of undeserved confidence and entitlement. You will see they almost always blame their peers or their customers for why they are unhappy at their job.

Why are you so fragile that you can’t admit that when something doesn’t work, you need to look at it more closely?

What is wrong with admitting you don’t know as much as you think you do? You can spend your whole life studying a single grain of rice and never know it in it’s entirety. There is no ceiling to knowledge. There are no experts.

If you can admit these simple things, then you will start to naturally look for solutions. You will start seeking, researching, experimenting – all in order to gain actual experience. You will then employ what you experience in a real way. But if you’ve already made up your mind that you know better than everyone else and everything has to function exactly as you have in your mind, people won’t listen. So maybe you just keep talking louder and louder, until you’re shouting at them to listen to you. This is not a solution. It’s just insecurity.

You will never be able to make your external surroundings operate 100% the way you want them to. Never. You only have the power to make sure that you are operating 100% how you want to.

So stop blaming everyone else. Take this as a beautiful opportunity to learn and grow. Ask your colleagues why they don’t heed your advice. Is it your approach? Is it the solutions you are offering? Are you not seeing a bigger picture that they are, so they dismiss you outright?

You will never know until you admit you don’t know.

Enjoy and cherish each person who does not listen to you. It is a clear, obvious signal that you have more to learn. They are giving you a great gift, to expand beyond your current understanding. Take it with grace and reverence. Humility will take you farther than any other attribute in any work you do.

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 Fear

~ SE ~ 2 Comments

Dear True Self,

I suffer from anxiety. I often get very afraid of how things will turn out and it prevents me from taking action in my life. I even find that at times I might say something just to please someone even if it’s not how I really feel or what I really wanted to say. Anxiety is so crippling and I hate the idea of taking medications. I want a solution, not something to mask it. How can I stop being so afraid and overcome my fears?

Sincerely,

Afraid and Anxious

 

Dear AAA,

So many people suffer from anxiety. If you look at society, it is rapidly increasing as a diagnosis in people, especially in the west. More and more people are taking medication for this. But as you said, the medicine is only a mask, not the solution.

Have you ever cooked something in your home, opened the oven door, then a few moments later….

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!

The alarm goes off. So what do you do? You run over to the alarm and turn it off. But you probably need to realize your oven needs cleaning.

Taking medication for anxiety and other such diseases in today’s society often means just turning off the alarm, which is the signal your body is sending you to take care of your mental health. If you just ignore the signal, the gunk will build up inside of you, just as it does in that oven, and the signal will just go off more and more often.

But you’ve discovered a solution! Just take out the batteries from the alarm! No more beeping! This is essentially what signal inhibiting medication is accomplishing. Though it may give you a reprieve from the loud beeping, it will not give you a way to improve your mental health or to be rid of the fear.

I don’t say this to shame people who are on medication. If it helps them, then I am all for it. But treat it as a life preserver – it will help you stay afloat. While afloat, use the help to find a solution so you don’t need to be medicated endlessly.

Let’s take a look at how your anxiety functionally works.

Anxiety is like a roller coaster ride. You are slowly climbing up the roller coaster, and enjoying the view as you go. But as you get higher and higher, you get more and more tense, as you know an equally large fall is about to come. And at the top, right before the fall – that is the hardest part, as you can see exactly how steep it is. But now it’s too late, you can’t get off. In order to avoid this cycle, you will say or do almost anything as you mentioned, but avoiding will not solve your problem.

First you must realize, there is no such thing as fear.

That’s not super useful, but I say it so you can understand a fundamental truth about existence: All your emotions are merely energy, they just have a chemical basis. This includes fear. All energy is just LIFE energy manifesting in countless ways. If you are willing to practice, you can transform even fear into joy, happiness, pleasure…whatever you want. But how to do that, especially when you feel crippled by anxiety?

Right now, you are compulsively reacting with fear – that same intensity you put into compulsively reacting, if you just consciously turn it around into joy or pleasantness, it too will blossom with the same intensity. The only reason fear has taken such a hold of you is that you have practiced it much more than joy.

People often don’t want to believe that life is simple. It truly is. You want to be happy? Just practice it! You see, you have two clear choices:

React to life and your survival mechanism will dictate everything, mainly from a place of fear,

OR

Respond to life consciously, the way you want to.

Yes, it will be difficult at first. I said it’s simple, but it’s not always easy. But you must start to practice. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting even in spite of fear. You do not need to go headfirst into your fears to conquer them. You can, nothing wrong with doing it that way – but this way can be painful. If you just find the courage to smile when afraid, be grateful for what you have, forgive yourself…things will turn around. At first, it will take a moment. The fear may have a stranglehold – but if you just keep consciously choosing to be pleasant, or to handle the fear with some amount of grace, eventually it will turn around, and start moving in a more useful direction for you.

Your fear serves no one, least of all you. If it rears its head, don’t give it so much importance. Simply treat it like a smoke alarm, reminding you to clean your oven. The way to clean it is to smile and practice your joy and pleasantness. You need it most of all in moments like that.

There are many other things that can help you of course. A practice that helps bring calm, stillness, and peace to the mind needs to become a daily occurrence in people’s lives. We live in a society that is always flooring the gas pedal. Without a daily stillness practice, no amount of “trying to be happy” will help you. In spite of all I just said, you will struggle a lot when afraid to choose pleasantness.

Meditation and yoga asanas (postures) are a tried and tested way to calm the mind. Not only that, a daily practice will monumentally increase your capability in handling stress and bring a sense of ease to life.

It may not be what you wanted to hear, but the gist of it is this:

Your mind is not taking instructions from you. If you want it to start, then you have to consciously, patiently, in as many moments as you can remember to, practice choosing joy. Choosing the way you want your inner world to be.

The mind is a wonderful servant and a terrible master. Take the reins.

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.