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| << August12, 2003 - Self-Positivity - Apology |
September27, 2003 - Self-Positivity! Sept 03 - Letting Others Learn >> |
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Self-Positivity! 31 Aug 2003 Hi! Here I am, late again. Apologies, it's the same training again. (I'm sitting in an internet cafe miles from home hoping I can remember everything I had already written.) Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the end of it, so I can settle in at work without the interrruptions, but even more so I can be back in my own place, seeing my guy regularly again - phone calls just aren't the same, are they? This month's ezine will look a bit different for the HTML subscribers, simply because I'm doing it on the fly and haven't got any of my normal templates or things with me. Back to the old format next month, once all this travel's done. For the same reason, it's going to be short, sweet & to the point, so here's the article... Article: Letting the Good Times Roll ------------------------------------ Human beings seem to be able to get used to almost anything. Almost. For some bizarre reason, when I asked around my friends, I discovered that pretty much all of us shared the same difficulty with accepting it when things were going RIGHT. The Matrix movie covered this, when they talked about previous versions designed to represent a Utopian ideal which our minds just kept rejecting. Odd isn't it? Now my life is coming together so well I'm coming up head first against exactly this. I keep expecting something to go wrong. I keep feeling like it can't last. In colloquial terms, I'm determined to find the worm in that apple. I'm feeling so good/happy/positive in general that it's been getting uncomfortable. Of course you know me by now. As soon as I noticed it, I had to look into it. And work on it. I've been trying to make the shift to where this is normal & comfortable, allowing myself to not only accept, but expect this level of happiness. Never thought I'd have to train myself NOT to sabotage my own happiness, but that's exactly what I'm having to do! (Hey, at least it's better than the alternative - going back to being UNhappy...) One of the first steps I had to do was to find a way to release or redirect the energy I devote to overcoming obstacles & problems. (Ironic, eh!) I've become so used to having SOMETHING I'm working against that part of my discomfort has been the simple fact of missing that constant challenge. Not that there's any shortage of challenges, but the main areas of my life are now going well and everything else is sort of on a different level. (I'm talking about my home environment, my work, my finances and my relationships. They're the things most important to me.) I've decided to re-shunt my goals so that my next hurdle is to improve my health. VERY different tack from most of the others, which have involved mostly mental work - this one's going to be a majority of purely physical effort to get my fitness levels up where I want them. Naturally, though, I still believe there's going to be some mental prep work, changing of attitudes & beliefs involved here, too. Working on my health is going to be a long-term project of at least a year, probably two. That should keep the 'challenge' part of me happy! Back to the Happiness issue. Second step in accepting things going good was having to discover & re-think the beliefs that held my 'set point' or 'thermostat' to where it was in terms of how much happiness I thought I deserved. There was a concern that getting everything I wanted meant I was selfish. (Sounds silly once you put it into words, doesn't it?) I'd been planning for a while to put part of my income aside for charity, once my debts were a bit further under control. I decided now was the time, and have called World Vision about sponsoring a child. Haven't got the package yet, but there's a 10yo African girl who wasn't going to school anymore, since her family couldn't afford it - now she gets to go back and the family & community get benefits as well! I felt 10 feet tall after arranging that (a nice feeling for someone 5'4") but it also made me see that having it good actually puts you in a better position to help others get what they want too. It IS possible to make the world a better place. Finally, I needed (and still do, to some extent) to acknowledge that I am deserving of good things. I deserve to be happy no less than anyone else, and (this bit's important) there is NOTHING WRONG with being happy. It's not a sin. It doesn't harm anyone else. It doesn't make me less of a worthwhile person, and in fact, goes the other way. I have a lot of residual guilt from the things I learnt growing up, which included the idea that as a woman, my happiness was meant to come after everyone else's. If others around me aren't happy, I shouldn't be - I should be making sacrifices to help them be happy regardless of the cost to me. That's what I was trained to believe. Even though, as an adult, I know people are responsible for their own feelings, their own reactions, their own lives, it doesn't quite overcome that feeling of guilt that I've got it good whenever I see, meet or hear of someone who hasn't. Whether I could possibly help or not, I still feel guilty. That's the thing I'm working on now, because - let's face it - what does that guilt accomplish anyway? Does no good & makes no difference whatsoever. Happiness, on the other hand, in it's pure, uncomplicated form, is totally infectious. I know which one I'd like to spread! Best wishes & be happy! Crystal |
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| << August12, 2003 - Self-Positivity - Apology |
September27, 2003 - Self-Positivity! Sept 03 - Letting Others Learn >> |
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