Tag: sad

On Control

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Sometimes I tend to get too worked up and excited about things. How can I better control myself?

Sincerely,

Losing Control

Dear LC,

If god appeared before you right now and granted you a wish, would you wish for more control or would you wish to have more excitement about life?

I want you to understand only people who are afraid of suffering ask to restrict and limit things. Those who want to live should seek to expand their life.

Now perhaps when you get excited, later on you have a mood swing. You go from excited to burnt out or happy to sad. That’s different. That is because you are living with unawareness. Whenever you do things unconsciously, things become cyclical.

You shouldn’t seek to limit your experience of life. How involved you are, how enthusiastic you are – that determines how alive you feel, doesn’t it? Or put differently, the more uninvolved and reserved you approach life, the less meaningful the experience.

Rather than seek ways to control yourself, seek ways to enhance your capability. Seek ways to make your thought and emotion more balanced. If you improve your capability, then you can be as enthusiastic as you wish. But if you work on control, you will just wind yourself up tight.

Have you ever noticed the more you try to control your excitement, the more it builds up pressure? If you don’t express it in that moment, it will come out in some other way, perhaps as anger or sadness. So control isn’t even a solution because you still will have the same issue you are trying to avoid. It just adds to the problem.

Did you come here to this earth to live or not? That is the real question. If you came here to live, then you must live. You must explore life fully and totally.

Yes, that may mean taking risks. It may mean that you burn out here and there. But trying to control your whole life and living piece by piece is truly a tragedy. It will be a wasted life that you will regret in the end.

Better to live enthusiastically and suffer those consequences here and there than to live reserved. You can always be observant and pay attention to your own life. You can learn to look within.

So what, you were enthusiastic today but tomorrow you were sensitive and in tears! At least now you know you went past your capability and can expand that. But if you never push to that boundary, you will never learn and will regress.

Control is an absolute and utter illusion. You cannot control anything! The more you try to control yourself, the more out of control you will become.

Do not be so afraid to live your life. It doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter if you get hurt here or there. I am saying that anyway if you do get hurt, control will not help. It will make your hurt even worse.

Conscious involvement, your enthusiasm – it needs to grow! It needs to flourish and face it’s frictions and become deeper and more resilient. So seek ways to make yourself more capable and balanced within, and not at the expense of your involvement and enthusiasm. You need not shut off your enthusiasm to do 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 Consequences

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Whenever a question is asked you often speak about going inward, not outward. That’s all fine, but what about managing the external? How does one create a pleasant atmosphere for themselves, one where they can thrive? Surely the external matters to some extent.

Sincerely,

Inside Looking Out

Dear ILO,

People feel like managing their external situation is some big undertaking. Is your life truly so complex?

What is it you are trying to manage – work, a relationship, a family, a home? Every other insect, bird, fish, or animal on this planet does the same damn things without nearly as much fuss. It’s not actually such a big deal.

Perhaps you want a certain level of these things. You have set some standards for these things – but that is your business. Your standard of these things could be anywhere, but you fixed them in such a way that they are difficult.

But let’s just humour you for a moment. Let’s say you get a genie and he grants you wishes. You wish for what? Money, promotion, bigger house, better car, better marriage…? He grants you all these wishes and more.

For how long will you be satisfied? A day? A week? A month? At some point, will you not become dissatisfied?

You keep thinking that by fixing the outside you’re going to fix the inside. This has never worked for anyone and will never work for anyone. Just take a look at the world. Haven’t we tried solving almost every problem by fixing the outside. If we fix the outside anymore than we already have there won’t be a planet left pretty soon!

You want pleasant surroundings you say. Your external experience is simply a reflection of your inner experience, isn’t it? Perhaps you disagree, that it is only because of something someone else did that you are the way you are. Let’s take a look at this. Are you a victim or are you in charge?

Have you ever been in a situation where everyone was happy and joyful but you were miserable? The external situation was perfect, but it doesn’t matter because you were feeling cranky that day.

Or perhaps a day where you were feeling fantastic, and all of your friends and family were having problems. You were able to continue feeling great and unaffected by their nonsense.

My point is that if you do not have peace in yourself, you will not have peace in your surroundings. It doesn’t matter how conducive the situation is to your growth, if you are not receptive, it doesn’t matter.

Letting the outside situation dictate how you are inside is absolute enslavement. If you had a remote control that controlled your experience of life, but then you hand it over to me, isn’t that slavery? Now I am in total control over how you are within. I decide if you are happy or sad or whatever. Anxiety and stress is natural in such a situation.

You cannot decide how the external goes. It is always out of your control. Only according to your intelligence and capability can you manage it to some extent. You can even manage it well. But never exactly the way you want 100% of the time.

At least the inside must be 100% in your control. Why give other people the power over you that they can decide how you feel inside? Why are you giving the remote that is in your hands to every last stranger you encounter?

Individual people must manage themselves. It is the only thing that they can manage. If this one thing sinks into you, that you are responsible for your own experience, then you will see your surroundings will get better.

Let’s say for example you are at work and someone is particularly miserable that day. Tell me, do you want to be around this person? Please understand that everyone else feels the exact same way about you.

Focus on making yourself into the highest expression of your life that you can. Be such a way that everyone that meets you is better for encountering you. Then your situation will transform. But if you think that by fixing someone or something else that you will transform, think again.

You said that to some extent the external matters. Yes, it does. To some extent it does matter. But not in the way you think. It’s not that you will be happy if only the outside was different.

This is all you need to know about perfectly managing any situation you are in:

Do whatever you want. It doesn’t even matter if it is something “good” or something “bad”. But you must do it fully, involved in it totally. No matter what the consequences of those actions, be willing to accept them and include them absolutely.

It’s simple, but not easy. Every action has an effect. That is the way of this cosmos. Nothing is exempt from it. So your actions have consequences. If you are willing to accept the consequences and not be in denial or run from them, then truly, you can do whatever you want.

But if you want to do whatever you want but then cry or get angry when it doesn’t give you exactly what you imagined, you will suffer.

A wise person will understand that when they don’t know the full depth and breath of the consequences of an action they may take, it is best to walk a little bit more gently.

So don’t fixate too much on the outside – act, accept the consequences whatever they are. The real solution to the outside is inside. You waste your life by thinking it can ever be the other way around.

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 Suffering

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Why is there suffering? What is the point? Why couldn’t existence have no suffering?

Sincerely,

Enough Suffering Already

Dear ESA,

Pain exists. Not suffering.

Why do I say this? Suffering is entirely something you made up. Pain exists for sure. But suffering is not real.

Obviously it feels real for you and many others. We have all experienced suffering. You might think I am just arguing semantics, but it is deeper than that.

There are some things in life that are beyond your control. Anything external, anything that happens to you, this is always a question mark. So many variables determine what life hands you.

But what you make out of it, that is always entirely up to you, is it not?

So pain is an inevitability. Sometimes, it is just going to happen. No one goes their whole life without experiencing pain. But suffering is entirely an interpretation.

Is an interpretation the truth? Is it reality? No, an interpretation is how you choose to see something. You see it through your lens, your filters, your judgments. It has no basis in reality whatsoever.

So why waste time asking such a question like what is the point of suffering? You created it! Just stop doing it!

You see, you need to learn to see life just as it is, beyond your prejudices and judgments. You see pain as bad. You think it has no use. So then, you suffer.

You are afraid of pain, so you walk more cautiously, more hesitantly, but you can never avoid pain forever. You act as though all this caution will guarantee you safety, but in the end, you wind up getting hurt sooner or later. This isn’t some sad hopeless fate, it is just reality.

When things have the proper amount of friction and struggle, they grow stronger. Too little struggle, too much struggle, both are death sentences. If life is to thrive, pain is a great tool.

Understand that pain is not as bad as you think it is. I’m not talking about taking pain and embracing it like a sadist. No, I am simply saying that pain has a function. If you didn’t feel pain, you would just pull of your whole body piece by piece. Just look at your fingernails for example. Any body part that you don’t feel pain, you are willing to drop it like a piece of clothing; it’s of no consequence to you.

So pain serves a purpose: to make you appreciate the value of your body for self preservation. It’s simply a signal. There’s nothing good or bad about it, it’s just serving a function, to help you survive.

So maybe you should ask me, why is there pain at all? Can’t we just all grow without it? Well brother, I didn’t make this universe, that’s just the way it is. You may as well ask why we breathe air instead of fire.

But at least I can say suffering is totally pointless and within your capacity to end. Suffering is just an exaggeration. It comes from a deep lack of awareness and consciousness.

If you were aware that your body is a gift, and that you are mortal, you wouldn’t need to suffer when you feel pain. But because your mortality has not sunk into yet, every moment you walk as though you have time to waste.

Tell me, did you come with some guarantee for how long you will live? Is there any sticker on you that says your expiry date?

Yet you walk around as though you will die of old age in some cushy peaceful way, as though it’s guaranteed. Now, every time pain comes, a very real and jarring reminder of your mortality sinks in. So you suffer simply because you are avoiding the truth about your life: that it is ever so brief and precious.

I don’t say this to scare you. All things die. Death is not the worst thing that can happen. It is only because of death that so many things are created in this existence. Nothing is ever wasted in this cosmos. All death is a transition point from one expression of life to another.

But imagine if you lived forever. That would truly be terrible. What would be the point? No, death is the only thing that makes you seek in this life, to make you explore your ultimate nature, to knock some sense into you! Pain? that’s just a small little reminder once in a while for you. Accept it in this way, to help you grow, and it goes from suffering to blessing.

So whatever life brings you, weather its pain or its protection, you accept it with grace and humility. It’s no small thing to be alive and here right now. If you are wise, you will take pain and grow with no hesitation. You don’t need to seek it, but when it comes, make the most of it.

But if you are wanting to avoid life, then suffering is unavoidable. If you think you can go about life endlessly seeing things through your psychological ideas of good and bad (and that includes this stupid idea of pain being bad) well, you will suffer for sure.

Try to move beyond your preferences. Try to stop labeling everything as good and bad, raising things on pedestals, looking down on other things. Just simply observe life as it is.

See the use in everything and everyone. You will see, nothing in this creation is a mistake or out of place. You will see, suffering has always been a creation of your mind. Because of your fixation on the petty creations of your mind, you have been missing out on this boundless creation happening in every moment.

So why does this existence have suffering? Quite simply it doesn’t. The existence with no suffering you wish existed already exists. You just keep creating suffering for yourself when there’s no need. Time to end that silly game, no?

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 Humility

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

There is a lot of talk these days about self esteem, self confidence, self love. How important are these qualities? Is high esteem or low esteem better?

Sincerely,

Running out of Esteem

Dear ROOE,

I would say too many people think way too damn highly of themselves. I would also say too many people think way too damn lowly of themselves. Neither of these are going to work for your life.

You think you are god’s special little child and the savior of this planet, you are going to wind up saying and doing a whole lot of stupid things aren’t you?

Similarly, you think you are worthless, and what are you capable of? Only misery for yourself. What you believe psychologically has no relevance in reality.

When we talk about self worth, we are really talking about what you believe about yourself. You are not seeing yourself just the way you are. If you did, you would naturally love yourself, and all of creation. There would be no need for self-worth because you would see the worth of all of existence, including you.

But now instead, you are seeing yourself as a distorted image, through the filter of your identity, then drawing all kinds of conclusions about life.

Whether it’s a good distortion or a bad distortion is a stupid argument; would you rather see things through a clean window or a smudged window? “No, but this smudge is so pretty….” Do you see how silly it sounds?

You want clarity in your life, then a clean window is best to look through. But every time you make up some nonsense about who you are, you obscure what you see.

I want you to understand that there is a difference between what you psychologically decide about your life and what existentially is true. Truth requires no support from you. It exists whether you think it does or not.

But your self worth, self esteem, self confidence, self love! These things require so much maintenance from you. They are not existentially true, nor relevant.

As a coping mechanism, because life has become too stressful or too challenging, people start talking about all kinds of ways to boost the self. Or, they go the other way. Life has ground them too much into a pulp and so now they think poorly of themselves.

But what is the existential truth? The truth is, you can take a single drop of rain and spend your whole life, even 10,000 lifetimes studying it. But will you ever know it in it’s entirety?

When existence is like this, that even the tiniest aspects of creation can be infinitely delved into, what makes you think that you are worthy of high self worth? Everything in this creation is infinitely unknowable.

Also, what makes you think you are worthy of low self worth? Did creation somehow mess up with you, and you are the one mistake that doesn’t have infinite potential?

Stop fixating so much on what you think of yourself. It is a trap. A giant trap that will keep you from experiencing life right now the way it is, beyond good and bad, beyond your likes and dislikes. Just life, as it is, unsullied by your opinion.

If you want to know that single drop of rain, you must be willing to see it fresh. But if you go to that drop of rain with all your ideas about it, it will be impossible for you to know it. Only by admitting that what you know is far far less than what you don’t know will you be able to learn something new.

What I am trying to say is that what you think you know about this universe is so little. It is not even a drop in the bucket. To say that would be giving it too much value. You know damn near nothing. Your unknowing is boundless. But what you know can only ever be limited.

If you stop identifying with what you think you know, and instead start identifying with your boundless nature, life will open up for you in a fantastic way. You will start seeing everything just as it is, as unlimited possibility, potential. You sense of wonder will expand. Your experience of life will be more profound.

But how is your nature boundless? One thing is your physical body is only a small fraction of who you are. In fact, you are mostly held together by empty space. Just like this cosmos, over 99% of you is emptiness, unknowable.

When it comes to identifying with this aspect of yourself, the emptiness, the boundless, that which is not physical but is the vast majority of who you are – you cannot go with silly ideas about yourself one way or the other. Good or bad, high or low, what you think of yourself is not going to help you.

You must go with humility. Because if you even touched this aspect of yourself for a second, you would realize that this creation is up to far more than you can imagine. Your business is not to fix this existence by giving yourself high or low self worth. This existence does not need your fixing.

Your business is just to humble yourself. Not because you should fear god or pray for answers or some other such thing. Drop all your ideas. Just humble yourself because this creation is so vast, so complex, so intricate! To even be here is a beautiful mystery and blessing.

Humility is the obvious path when you do not know something and want to know. You don’t know something, but you start boasting you do. You don’t know something, but you start playing the victim. Now do you see that this is not about your self-worth?

Humility has become a corrupted word today, because people think it means to put yourself down. I am saying humility is just about recognizing the truth – that you are a tiny tiny tiny fraction of a sliver of a drop in this cosmos.

If you want to understand life the way it is, start with yourself! Live with humility, because in reality you are barely a speck. That truth should not shackle you or make you feel bad. If how small your place and time in this universe fully penetrates you, it will be utterly liberating. Existence will have no choice but to flood into you, opening doors you never knew about.

Practice humility. Treat each moment as something precious and larger than who you are. Anyway that is the truth. You will get it, if not now, for sure your last moment you will understand how precious life is. But what a waste when you can know it now.

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 Numbness

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

Lately I’ve been having  a hard time being present or involved in anything. I feel kind of numb to it all, and whether something is happy or sad I just don’t seem to give a crap. Is something wrong with me?

Sincerely,

Numb-er One

Dear N1,

Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing is right with you. This isn’t a question of right or wrong. This is a matter of the life within you growing or not, and it can’t grow if you are numb.

You feel numb to this existence, an existence that is bursting with ecstasy in every moment. That’s not wrong or right, it’s just unfortunate. Your experience of life could be so much more than it is.

Now how can you know that this existence is bursting at the seams, full of wonder? Is it all just some fairy tale?

I want you to think back to a moment when you felt absolutely ecstatic about anything. For sure you felt this way at least once as a child, eating your first ice cream or petting your first animal or something. I want you to recall how intense that bliss was, so pure and unbridled.

Where was this joy coming from? Where did it happen, where was it created? Only within you. You were the maker of that experience. Something external came and triggered you maybe, but in the end, you manufactured the experience.

What if I told you every moment of your life could be like this? Maybe you won’t believe me, but what if I told you at least the majority of your life could feel like that?

I want you to understand that nothing in your experience is happening outside of you. It is all only happening within you. If you hear something, the sound doesn’t exist outside of you as far as you are concerned. The only reason you even know it’s there is because the hair in your ears vibrate sympathetically and your mind fills in the rest.

You create the sound inside you. Like this, everything you digest through your senses, you create it inside you. The whole existence is only inside of you!

Why does any of this matter? Well, it is important you understand that your experience is 100% in your hands. If you are making your whole reality, then you can for sure make it a more beautiful one.

What life gives you, that’s not up to you. But how that experience is for you, that is all your making.

Maybe you are lousy at making things into a good experience at this age. Too many times you have been burdened by life and now you only feel something good if something tremendous happens to you.

But you are capable of being however you wish to be in this moment. Tell me, if every day you practiced being grateful when someone did something that bothered you, do you not believe in time that you would become a more grateful person? Do you not think that eventually you would learn to be more patient, accepting, unmoved by others?

You have not practiced how you want to be. I’m not asking you who you want to be, what you want to do with your life. Only how you want to be when you do it.

Ultimately, we all want the same thing: for our experience of life to be meaningful, the highest level of beauty. But everyday you just move through life waiting for it to happen to you. Of course eventually life will become numb.

You must involve yourself in life with absolute intensity. Right now, one common thing for all people is they are capable of feeling intense emotion. We have all felt it, either in anger or sadness or joy or whatever.

If you want this numbness to go away, you must start to dive back into life. The little experiences you must look at with the intensity of a child seeing it for the first time. Start with the things you actually appreciate.

Practice this every time you see a leaf, a bird, someone you love, sunshine, a gift, whatever makes you feel pleasant, start there and dive in more intensely. Allow yourself to grow that pleasantness into higher and higher levels. A thought into a smile into a grin into laughter into tears and beyond!

You see, you have been practicing keeping life at bay for so long. You have been practicing dialing down your intensity, because you are afraid of being hurt. I am saying that this road will for sure only lead to one thing, regret. Regret will hurt more than any hurt you are currently avoiding.

So start practicing the opposite of numbness – being intensely involved in small things. The truth is they are not small things. You may take them for granted, but they matter to you.

If tomorrow you woke up and couldn’t see, suddenly your eyes would matter.

If tomorrow you woke up and someone you loved was gone, suddenly they would matter.

If I told you that you won’t wake up tomorrow! Suddenly, everything would matter.

If you behaved like this, that it was the last time you would experience this moment, what would you do?

You cannot change this moment, it is the way it is. But how you experience that moment, if it’s going to be your last, you would want to make it the damn most beautiful thing no matter what it was, wouldn’t you?

So remember that this life you have and take for granted is temporary. All the things in your life you have allowed yourself to become numb to, remember they are temporary.

If you want your numbness to go, it’s time to practice living life full on. Dive into this moment and all the little moments that make up your life. Make your intensity of emotion so free that even looking at a bumblebee brings you tears of joy.

That is the intensity of life you are aiming for. That is what the existence is already vibrating at. Just dial yourself up to match it and you will see it was all in your hands all along.

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 Rejection

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

I get rejected a lot, be it in social situations or romantic relationships. I don’t take rejection well and it’s affecting my mood, self worth, and I’m becoming more and more depressed and angry every time I face rejection. How can I stop feeling so rejected, and even better, how can I be more accepted?

Sincerely,

Rejected and Dejected

Dear RAD,

Absolutely no one is rejecting you. You are getting this silly notion that when things don’t go the way you desire, that you have been rejected. No, it’s just that there is no plan you can ever have that guarantees what you want.

Has there ever been a moment in your life where you could control all the variables and ensure the outcome you wanted? Even up until the last minute, even if it ultimately wound up going your way, it was never a for sure thing, was it?

Additionally, I want you to take a look at your behaviour. If you treat others in such a way that you ensure the outcome you want, that is the definition of manipulation. Is this truly how you wish to be, a manipulative person?

You see the real issue here is that whether you receive acceptance or rejection, if you behaved in a manipulative way to get it, then it will always turn sour over time.

When you put your happiness in other people’s control, you are enslaving yourself. You want the attention of the person you admire or that man or woman you are attracted to. So they accept you and you feel great, they reject you and you feel lousy, but both ways you are a slave, aren’t you? You gave them total control over how you feel.

I am saying why are you putting your self worth, your self esteem, your very happiness into the hands of what you cannot control? Why would you give that power to someone else when you are the only one who can make that happen for you?

This endless cycle of acceptance and rejection will slowly eat away at you. Even if you received acceptance more than rejection, you would still be a prisoner, only the bars are made of gold. It’s not much of a difference, believe me. The moment you realize you are trapped, you will want out.

Take back your power. More importantly, take responsibility for your own life. Do not give anyone or anything else the privilege of deciding your worth, your mood, your being.

Make it so you are who you are by your design, by your choice! Make it so no matter what life gives you, you take it and you grow. This is the only way out of your enslavement.

I could sit here preaching to you about self acceptance and self love, but I am telling you even that is not necessary. If you are committed to your own growth, anyway you will wind up accepting and loving more and more as you grow. You do not need to work on it.

What you do need to work on is being committed to being conscious, taking accountability for the way you are!

If you ask that person out and they say no, you grow!

If you ask that person out and they say yes, you grow!

If you ask them out and they spit at you, laugh at you, cry, embrace you, run away…it doesn’t matter what they do, you grow!

This isn’t just some hallmark card philosophy, if someone rejects you it truly is a gift! It is a clear sign to move in a different direction, instead of wasting more of your precious life.

And if they accept you, it is not the end of the road for you! You have not made it and there’s no where to go. It is only the beginning. Do you see how it is all a gift if you stop wanting one outcome over the other?

If you make your life like this, that your commitment is unwavering, you won’t have to work on taking rejection better, or being more accepted or being more accepting. You will realize quite quickly that only by accepting all that life brings can you grow most quickly.

Once you start practicing accepting life the way it is, the acceptance goes both ways. As you accept life, you accept yourself, you accept others. Acceptance grows within you. Because it is not dependent on the situation or other people, it is stable.

I want you to understand that in this moment, everything in your experience is accepting you. It is welcoming you, it is cradling you in it’s lap. If the sun didn’t do this, if the sky didn’t do this, if the earth didn’t do this, where would you be?

Everything in this cosmos has included you, and yet you see it as rejection. You are totally included in this universe, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Stop focusing so much on the dramas of life and start to identify with the life process that is pouring into you in every moment.

Don’t waste your life caught in this game of acceptance and rejection! It is a losing battle either way. You may fool yourself from time to time, but overall you will feel unsatisfied, even if you get everything you ever desired.

Instead just be with this moment, the way it is. Don’t see things as bad or good, acceptance or rejection, up or down, easy or difficult! Just every moment for what it is:

Opportunity. Possibility. Unlimited potential.

That is the truth of your nature, of the power that you are giving away. Switch your narrative and stop worrying so damn much what other people think. Just take whatever they give you with grace and humility.

Life is your making.

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 Joy

~ SE ~ Leave a comment

Dear True Self,

You’ve said before the importance of being joyful and how it is generated from within, not dependent on outside circumstances. But sometimes life can be very challenging and it is so hard to be joyful. It feels forced, almost obscene, to be smiling when you’re in pain or hurting. I don’t think joy is an appropriate reaction to when you’re being abused or mistreated. How can being joyful even be possible in times like that?

Sincerely,

Joy Vey

Dear JV,

Joy will never happen as a reaction to an unpleasant situation. This is because reactions by their very nature are situation dependent.

The issue is right now your emotions are not happening when you want them to, nor the way you want them to, isn’t it? If you had the skill to choose how you wanted to be, no matter the situation, the choice is obvious – you would only want the most pleasant experience within.

But you have not developed such a skill. You are not a conscious being. Maybe from time to time you are living more consciously. Perhaps you are growing, and each day living a bit less reactive, a bit less compulsive. But believe me when I say the vast majority of the planet, including you, is not even conscious a fraction of a percent of the day.

Do you disagree? Surely you must be at least 50% conscious? Or maybe you aren’t so arrogant, surely you are at least 1% or 2% conscious?

Let’s say you are walking through a restaurant. Tell me, from the time it takes to walk through the door to sit at your table, how much of your experience is conscious? Are you consciously deciding to listen to the sounds of the kitchen? To smell the food as it cooks? To actively see everything in your vision from the periphery to what’s in front of you? Of course not, your mind is stuck on some past memory or future fantasy.

You are not consciously doing almost any of it. But I guarantee that your body and mind are recording everything. They are experiencing every little disturbance around you and digesting it through your senses. Whether you like it or not, almost all of your experience is unconscious.

The solution is not to somehow become less sensitive. This will not serve you, it will only make you dull. The solution is to be less reactive, and you decide what sticks and what goes through you. That way you will have the capacity to handle the totality of life with exuberance.

So now you find yourself in a pleasant situation. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the wind is gentle, people smile at you, suddenly you feel so joyful! Just like that your body and mind have digested your world and you react appropriately, with joy.

Then later you find yourself in an unpleasant situation. The clouds are gray, the traffic is roaring, people frown at you, suddenly you feel irritable. In the same way, the body and mind digest your world and you react appropriately, with unpleasantness.

Do you want to keep living like this, a slave to the external? Because if so, then you will be a slave to your compulsiveness, to your reactions. Happiness will never be in your hands, and will always be fleeting.

This is not about faking joy. This is not about forcing happiness. You are right, trying to live like this will not work. It is totally inappropriate.

This is about responding with joy, not reacting with joy. This an important distinction.

If something unpleasant happens, you will almost guaranteed react unpleasantly. You’ve already reacted, you cannot change that. But you can now choose to respond to this reaction with joy.

I’m not saying be happy about what’s happening, to become sadistic and enjoy whatever torturous thing you are going through. This isn’t about what has happened to you. What has happened has happened. You must live out the consequences.

I am saying can you live with these consequences, can you live with this moment the way it is, and be joyful, no matter what way it is? Can you drop your endless criteria for every moment and just be happy to be here, to be alive?

Shift your focus from the external drama to your internal world. Something unpleasant happened, okay. Now will you make the most of it? Accept that it happened, and turn it into the soil needed for growth. Then till that soil joyfully.

Don’t sit there saying “Okay, this will pass and become something good, I just have to get through it…” What is happening is not good or bad. It just is. If you wait for it to pass into something better, that better thing will just pass too and you will repeat this cycle over and over.

Stop paying attention to the detail of the situation. Just look at it like this, and this alone:

It is up to you if you want to grow or not, and up to you if you want to grow joyfully or not.

This is the only choice. But I promise you, one way or another, life will make you grow. You cannot avoid it.

This isn’t just about when you’re miserable. Even when you are experiencing something pleasant, you must recognize that it too is just a reaction and something you must take the reins on.

What I mean by this is that if you are happy when something good happens and unhappy when something bad happens, then both situations are a prison. One is not better than the other just because you felt better in one.

Your reactive behavior is the prison! One’s bars are made of gold, the other iron, but only a fool would place himself in either. You must strive to be free from it.

So when I tell you to practice joy, that life truly is as simple as being happy, what I mean isn’t that you lie to yourself with a stupid grin saying everything is fine when clearly inside you do not feel that way.

What I am saying is that you need to learn how to respond with joy. You need to continually practice responding to both pleasant and unpleasant situations the way you want.

My wish is that life is in your hands and you become free from the bonds of reactivity.

So why joy? If all you must do is practice responding, can’t you choose to respond any way you wish? Won’t that be just as good?

It’s true, you can. If you really want to choose to be angry, or sad, or any other way, that is your freedom. Go ahead and choose it!

But trust me, eventually you will laugh at yourself when you realize that raking yourself over the coals was never necessary, you could have anyway done any situation joyfully.

Practicing responding in spite of your reacting is the real work here. I’m just suggesting you can do so joyfully, because every being deserves to be happy. You are no exception.

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