Himal
Mon,10 Nov 2008
Michael Hadfield
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I greet you , readers old and new. I have a question for you. Do you measure up? Are you acceptable? Have you used your life in a way that pleases you? Oops, that was three questions – still, who’s counting. I ask you this in order to engage your thought processes. It is too easy to read passively; to allow the words to barely register before moving on; to think that was interesting and immediately let it go lest it have some life-changing impact upon you.
You all want change, yet there are few prepared to embrace the process of change lest it bring to you the unfamiliar. Why so? Because of course, the unfamiliar is potentially threatening. If it is unfamiliar you will not have a set of rules in place that will allow you to deal with it. If it is unfamiliar you may have to do something spontaneously. Wot, no plan? No mentally rehearsed conversation ready to implement to keep you safe and ensure you do not look foolish. No questions for which you do not have a prepared answer. Can you imagine what a day would be like when everything that happened was unexpected and unplanned and unforeseen? And even if it starts off that way, with a surprise invitation perhaps, how quickly do you start the thinking, the planning, the what-ifs, the what-shall-I-wears…
Can you imagine not thinking? Try it for five minutes. Bet you don’t get to thirty seconds without a thought.
You see you are pre-occupied with thinking. This is why I posed those three questions at the very beginning. I want to draw your attention to the amount of thought energy that you put into thinking about what people are thinking about you. There will be many who will respond to that question with a certain indignity. If that is you, then I would suggest that this is particularly relevant to you. You will be unaware of it because it is subtle. Many fool themselves into thinking that what they do, they do for themselves, but in truth they are horrified that others might think badly of them.
During tomorrow, just monitor every little thing that you do and look to why you do it. Shave/make-up – comfort or appearance. Who sees it – you or others? Hair/clothing – same question. Trivial matters perhaps, just look and see what you discover about you. If you are honest you will discover that the views of others have, to some degree or other, a controlling influence upon you. To this extent, you are not living your life – they are.
It is a social conditioning. It is a way to ensure that our personal world remains safe. Your children are conditioned into behaving appropriately from the moment they are born. They are rewarded when they are good and disapproved of when they are bad. And so behaving becomes a measure of your goodness. This is why it is such an unconscious pre-occupation, for when you are good you receive love. And love is what you all desire. When there appears to be little love in your life, it becomes very important to keep that little in place and, therefore, the consequences of behaving in a way that is disapproved of could remove the most important thing in your life. This is the reason so many long-term intimate relationships become dysfunctional. People behave in ways that deny them themselves in order not to be disapproved of (=loved) by their partner, for that may mean their partner will find love in the arms of another and their world will end. Far better to be dysfunctional than to be without love. At least that is what I must conclude from an observation of your behaviour.
You are a beautiful creation. Look at you until you see it too. See it when you look in the mirror in the morning. See it in every little thing that you do. Cooking, cleaning, working, gardening, playing, holidaying, loving – in all of these things see the beauty of you. Then you will start to see the beauty of you independently of your actions.
At this moment you will experience freedom.
With Love,
Himal
Acceptance : Michael Hadfield : Thinking :
Acceptance : Michael Hadfield : Thinking :
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