Life seems like a conglomerate of experiences, some or many of which we can process and put into a coherent stream of understanding. This grouping of memories can shape and mold who we believe ourselves to be. It seems logical to say that if we perceive our reality to be mainly positive experiences, then our mind and outlook would be more positive. Or maybe even be able to digest our experiences in such a way that assimilates the “good” experiences and lets go of the perception of “bad”.
Sometimes though, life also happens in which we seem to have a streak of bad luck, where things just seem to be happening to us. Where maybe we don’t have enough time to even get our head above the water long enough before we feel like we are back under again. And in this space of experiences, life seems to happen to us, compiling feelings that have no time to digest and assimilate or extract the wisdom to make positive life changes in a direction that we would like to be.
I am going to speak to this part of us. The part of us that has had no time to deeply get what is going on. The part of us that feels overwhelmed, over-burdened, and has forgotten who they essentially are. And I am not speaking about the person you call yourself by name. I am talking about the great spirit that you are, that be-ing which animates your personhood. Life’s continuity is clear, however, our relationship to life is the meaning we give it. What makes the difference between a victim and a victor? A victor has chosen something that gives their life meaning in an empowering way, while a victim has chosen disempowerment. The quality of our choices makes a difference in the quality of our life. We are literally defined by our choices.
While most people have the experience and can validate that a victim is real, staying in a disempowering space for too long changes the mindset to start thinking like a victim. We create patterns that in time, shape our experience of the present. And if we don’t see the value of changing our relationship to our power, we will see our power having a decreasing value. We may start to observe our powerlessness in situations, our defensiveness increase, our distrust in the inherent goodness of life and this present moment, and our body feeling heavier-maybe not with physical weight but the psychological weight of past carried in this present moment.
The importance of shifting our attitudes about life towards a “yes”, brings about shifts in our relationship to what is possible and unfreezes stuck portions of our past into movement, where our life force has had less flow. The reflection of the stagnation is often in the area of our lives where we have the most difficulty making empowering choices for ourselves.
Saying yes to yourself may be the single most important thing you may do in your life. Carl Jung says that if we stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will start to stare back. We may not understand yet, that every choice brings us a vibration and that collective personal vibration is how we attract to us, life, as it responds as a direct match to our own vibrational field. If we continue to give from a place of depletion, if we don’t have healthy boundaries that remember that we have needs that are to be honored to keep self-care in place, that we unconsciously allow life to happen to us where we have the experience of groundlessness, we are setting ourselves up to form bad habits (bad defined as “those which take us away from what is positive, empowering and uplifting”) that support our weaknesses versus our strengths that will move us in a direction where we have the experience of fulness and contentment.
If we consciously understood how important mental movement is, to be able to change a thought towards more empowerment and action, we would choose this proactively. However, it seems like more often, negative life experiences accumulate or re-occurring, traumatic type experiences are happening and it doesn’t give us enough time to sit and give some space between our feelings, sensations, and thoughts about it. Then mental attitudes can more easily create what feels like a “rut” or groove in a record player that just goes round and round, playing the same tune as always.
Most have had this “broken record player” experience at some point in time in our lives. By the time we are at this place, we have already set ourselves up for some potential “work” to first, see the pattern, and then choose something else. Often by this point, the unconsciousness of the pattern has also co-created some byproducts of the original distortion. And equally common is that we also start trying to fix the byproducts as if they were the original reason for our suffering. If we could foresee where the likeliness of an unexamined thought or feeling could lead us in time, to repetitive unhealthy thoughts and feelings about ourselves and those around us, we would choose to get support to avoid spending time undoing the negative patterns we have created plus all of the extra distorted byproducts created from original false belief.
All that being said, you are not your thoughts. You are also not the person who had all those experiences. You are not the person who is triggered nor the person who feels all the feelings. You are the love loving yourself. You are the light-loving yourself as the person you are called. You are the greatness behind the idea of yourself. When we can get into those spaces, miracles can happen. Your whole perspective can shift and your remembering of truth can easily integrate your experience because love is bigger than your thoughts about your experiences.
Remembering your Self is a powerful way to undo all the negative experiences accumulated in your lifetime. Moving towards understanding the importance of Self-care so as not to create more negative experiences and accumulation of mental/emotional baggage is vital to maintaining a sense of peace, trust and innate goodness of the world and yourself.
Remember that you are the love behind the experiences of you as a person. You are what animates yourself. You are that grand and with your Self as an ally, all things are possible.
