Why is it that we are unhappy? We know that events do not make us unhappy of themselves, but it is our reaction to those events that leaves us feeling discontent, sad, frustrated or angry.
It follows then, that we feel unhappy because we forget that we are not what happens to us in life, we are the life that is behind everything that happens.
When we focus on the raindrops on the surface of the puddle, we forget that we are in fact the vast ocean itself.
When we begin to close our hearts to others, it can set off a chain reaction.
One area of our life where we feel justified in showing intolerance or lack of compassion, can easily impact other areas of our life.
If we are not being mindful, we can soon become bitter and lose sight of our deeper truth.
By not acting consciously or with empathy and compassion for others, we could one day find ourselves becoming generally disgruntled and seemingly unhappy with our lives.
This may manifest itself in many ways – but constant complaints about those around us, how the world is run, how others live their lives (and so on) will lead us to becoming miserable.
As humans, we tend to want to justify our behaviours, however unreasonable, by blaming others or showing how their perceived bad behaviour has “made us” act in a certain way.
At this point, we are no longer grounded and are in danger of losing perspective entirely.
We may further try to justify our behaviour by becoming more entrenched in our thinking or more antagonistic in our interactions with others.
Before we realise it, we hardly recognise ourselves (if we have moments of clarity) or we start to lose our friends, fall out with our loved ones and suffer at work.
We must be always vigilant against closing our hearts to anyone, so that we do not head off down this path in the first place.
Empathy, compassion and love are our weapons against the encroaching darkness.
Mindfulness is the light that we shine to help us see the truth.
Living consciously is the process of learning to achieve balance between the long term development of the soul and the short term needs of the body – in order to find lasting happiness…
When we do not act consciously, we respond to stimuli in a reactive manner – lashing out verbally or physically, unaware of why we do so.
When not conscious, we tend to blame others for our woes and for feeling irritated, unfulfilled, frustrated – it is always someone else’s fault.
When conscious, we take responsibility for our own actions – and when we do so, we are no longer able to lash out, to react negatively or to blame others for how we feel.
Instead, we make changes to our expectations, or become more compassionate for the feelings and sufferings of those around us.
Our bodies make constant demands on us – they need to be fed, tended to, loved and protected.
If one or more of these external stimuli is missing, there is a reaction which is almost instantaneous – hunger, anger, frustration, feeling unloved.
It is very easy in these instances to say or do something that we later regret once the initial demands of the body/mind have subsided.
By shining the light of consciousness upon ourselves, we are attempting to interrupt this knee jerk reaction and give ourselves time to consider what is the loving thing to do in a situation – what is the best response for our long term happiness?
Do we best serve our own happiness by lashing out verbally at loved ones whenever we are tired, hungry, bored or sad?
Of course not…
Our challenge is to remember who we are and who we want to be – we need to see ourselves through the eyes of those who love us and try every day to be the person that they believe us to be.
What we think and believe is very powerful – our thoughts create our experience and reality.
Everything that we think contributes towards the reality that we experience on a daily basis.
It is therefore vital that we remain vigilant of our habitual thoughts and try not to succumb to the habit of negative thinking or limiting beliefs.
Most of us at some point have at least considered that we are not good enough.
This thinking is not objective at all though.
It is our subjective, habitual fears playing out in our heads – often accompanied by that incessant mind chatter that keeps us awake at 3AM in a blind panic – ‘everything is going to go wrong and it’s all my fault’.
The more we succumb to these thoughts and allow them to have power over us, the more our outer lives will reflect the fears we have carried with us through life.
Our outer experience is a mirror of our inner habitual thought patterns.
If we constantly tell ourselves that we are too stupid to get that dream job, we won’t get it.
We will make silly mistakes or blurt out something inappropriate in the interview and that will be the end of it.
Our perception of our own inadequacy will become our reality because we expect it to.
Fortunately for us, the opposite is also true.
If we truly believe that we are worthy and capable, we will be more successful, confident and happy.
Because life is changing all the time – no two moments are exactly the same – we are presented with a glorious opportunity every moment of every day.
At any time, we can change what we get out of life by changing what we put into it.
This is very freeing once we know it at a deep level.
We can learn to choose only those thoughts that support and encourage us to do our best.
We can dissolve and forget the thoughts that hold us back.
We can make those changes instantly, any second of any day – all it takes is awareness of the thoughts that are going around our heads and the discipline to change those thoughts to ones that support us.
So, how do we achieve the level of consciousness that is required to catch our thoughts as they are happening?
How do we replace unhelpful mental habits with supportive, empowering ones.
There are a number of techniques that can work – such as sitting in quiet contemplation, watching the thoughts as they arise and choosing to let the unhelpful ones go.
Practicing being aware of our thoughts will help to make us more conscious of what we are constantly telling ourselves.
Something that worked for me is to decide to do things with ‘the wrong hand’.
For example, try stirring a drink with a spoon using the hand that you don’t normally use – it feels ‘weird’ and you will almost have to consciously teach your hand to make the circling motion from scratch.
There are hundreds of opportunities to do this every day: we can use the wrong hand to do almost everything – using the mouse, holding our toothbrush, picking up drinks, shaving, throwing, eating cake – anything.
Habit is the death of creativity, so if we want to create a new mental perspective on life, we have to be aware of the limiting mental habits that we have.
Do you always say ‘no’ when asked if you want something?
Try saying ‘yes’ instead.
If you catch yourself saying no, correct it by adding – ‘you know what, I think I will have that after all, thanks’.
Learning to say yes to life can be tremendously liberating and itself opens up many new possibilities.
By retraining our mind to say yes more often, we will bring more variety into our lives, feel more connected to life and become more fulfilled.
If we are going to be stuck with mental habits, it makes sense to make them supportive ones.
First published on Nick Cork Associates blog: https://nickcorkassociates.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/habit/
Having all of the ingredients is no guarantee that the cake that we bake will be any good.
Following a recipe can help, we should remember that this is someone else’s idea of how the cake should be and may not necessarily be to our taste.
Even though we may be following a recipe, it doesn’t mean that the cake will turn out just as it appears in the glossy photo accompanying the recipe.
It takes practice to be able to bake a good cake consistently and, even then, each one may be slightly different from the others.
Every baking session is an individual experience, an act of creation that has many variables and therefore many possible outcomes.
Altering just one of the ingredients or steps in the process can completely change how the cake looks or tastes (or both).
It is important to start with the end in mind – you need to know at the outset what your cake will look and taste like in order that you can select the right ingredients and put them together in the right amounts.
We all have slightly different tastes in relation to our cake and we may even have a different preference depending on how we are feeling on a particular day.
It is not wise to just launch into baking a cake without the proper planning required to know with a good degree of accuracy how the finished article will turn out.
For all of us, life is a lot like baking a cake.
We all have the ingredients that we need in order to create and enjoy the life that we really want.
However, even though we have all of the ingredients, we are not guaranteed to have the life that we want if we just throw everything into a bowl and hope that it all turns out to our liking.
We still need to have a goal in mind, an idea of the sort of life that we would like to live and a plan as to how to achieve that goal.
Even then, there are still many variables and it is important to be flexible and adaptable during the process of putting the plan into action.
In life, as in baking, having all of the ingredients is no guarantee of success – we still have to put in the right effort to ensure that those ingredients are mixed together in a meaningful and satisfying way.
Our futures are constantly changing, like patterns in the sand on a beach as each successive wave laps onto the shore.
Every wave moves the sand around and repositions it in a new pattern.
No matter how gentle or strong the wave, the sand is moved and the beach is forever changed.
From a distance, the beach may look the same.
Sand, rocks, sea – all have their place and appear to be unchanging, constant and permanent.
However, the closer we get to the beach, the more easily we can see the changes taking place.
Some, like the patterns in the sand, are obvious and immediate.
Others, such as the erosion of the rocks, take place over a much longer time – but are no less dramatic when seen in the context of the whole life of the beach.
The waves cannot be halted – change is constant and unavoidable.
The waves create and continually shape the beach and its landscape.
We are also constantly changing, like the beach.
The events of our lives are like the waves lapping at the shore of our being.
Every wave makes a difference, no matter how small.
Over time, even the smallest of changes can have a huge impact on how our lives map out in the future.
Like King Canute, we cannot stop the waves or the events in our lives.
We can, however, accept that these events will come, that they will affect us in some way or another and that our future is constantly evolving.
The future holds all possibilities and if we can relax and be calm with the lapping of the waves on the beach, we may be better able to appreciate the beauty and majesty of its creation.
The time to live is always now.
We cannot go through life hoping that at some point in the future we will be happy – if only we had enough money or all our plans fell into place.
Thinking that way is self deception – we have convinced ourselves that our personal happiness is dependent on external factors totally beyond our control.
In reality, happiness, contentment and living life to the full is always something that we can experience now.
True happiness is an expression of internal contentment with ourselves and not a response to external events or possessions.
It is not something that we are working towards achieving – it is something that we can only experience in the present moment.
If we are not content and happy now, as we are, then any future happiness that may come with increased possessions or a change in fortune will only be temporary.
Most of us go through life veering from brief moments of happiness (stimulated by external changes or luck) to general discontent with what life has to offer.
The more we have, the harder it is to be satisfied by external possessions and events.
The path to true happiness lies in being content with the present moment – the now.
Only by being content now with what we have can we ever expect to be happy with our life.
Being content now means being grateful for what we have and not resentful for what we don’t have.
Being content now means appreciating our loved ones for who they are now, not wishing to change them to fit an ideal of who they should be for us.
Being content now means accepting that life can be difficult at times for everyone and not wishing that it was always easy for us.
Being content now means keeping our own house in order and not constantly criticising others for how they manage their lives.
Being content now means taking the time to appreciate the wonder and beauty in the natural world.
Being content now means recognising that life is all possibilities.
Being content now is open to anyone at any time.
Living in towns and cities teaches us about dealing with other people.
Visiting the countryside or park and watching the wildlife interacting with each other and nature teaches us about the wonder of life on this planet.
Spending a night or more in the wilderness on our own will teach us about ourselves.
When we are truly alone, we discover what we are made of and how strong we really are.
When there are no labels or roles to play along to (father, mother, son, daughter, boss, employee etc), we quickly get to the very core of what it is to be alive as a human being in a world that does not belong to us.
We discover that individually we are vulnerable, weak and at the mercy of countless unseen dangers.
It is a sobering, yet enlightening experience.
It can lead us to the realisation that we cannot tame nature without at the same time destroying a vital element of ourselves.
For it is only when we are truly alone and facing the wilderness that we learn what it is to be with others.
We realise how much we need and rely on other human beings to survive and feel safe.
And we learn that it is through our interactions with each other that we can express our own humanity and help to bring it out in others.
 | hitandrun1964 on Creation |
| hitandrun1964 on Balance |
| Habit | Love Rules on Habit | |
 | Phoenix. on Cake |
 | tinkererofwords on Beach |
| hitandrun1964 on Creation |
| hitandrun1964 on Balance |
| Habit | Love Rules on Habit | |
| Phoenix. on Cake |
| tinkererofwords on Beach |
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Love Rules 