Thursday, July 7, 2011

Affirmations Help You Live Consciously

The most important affirmation you can incorporate into your life is, "I am fully committed to feeling great 100% of the time," followed closely by any affirmation you can come up with having to do with self-confidence. Feeling great 100% of the time is self-confidence, in my opinion, and since self-doubt doesn't feel great at all, it's covered in this one. Say it as often as you think of it throughout your day--especially when you don't feel like feeling great--and it will change your life.

So what's happening when we engage in this simple exercise of affirmation? What's happening is, you're beginning to live your life consciously. Plato said, "The unobserved [i.e. unconscious] life isn't worth living," and as most of us who have suffered through a lot of unnecessary suffering at the hands of unconscious living can easily attest, Plato was right.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

A Cure for Anxiety - Part 1

Inner peace is a purely physical phenomenon. Your soul is deep and unaffected by the tempests your ego tosses, but your body is not.

Without doubt, anxiety has its roots in attitudes that you hold, but lots of people have those same attitudes without also engaging in anxiety. So it's wise to focus first on the physical dimension.

Once you learn this simple technique to ratchet down the negative energy you're constantly spewing into your physical being, you will then be free to evaluate the spiritual and emotional bases for this behavior as you desire and at you leisure.

Monday, July 4, 2011

In Relationships It Only Takes One to Tango

In a relationship, the job is non-reaction. Another word for non-reaction, according to spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, is forgiveness. Forgiveness works wonders. As the Good Book says, "Love covers a multitude of sins." Forgiveness doesn't require participation from your significant other. It only requires your participation.

Tolle's first book, The Power of Now is in question-and-answer format. The question (in this case, actually, a comment): 
I suppose that it takes two to make a relationship into a spiritual practice, as you suggest. For example, my partner is still acting out his old patterns of jealousy and control. I have pointed this out many times but he is unable to see it. [Italics original]
Tolle's answer: "How many people does it take to make your life into a spiritual practice? Never mind if your partner will not cooperate. Sanity--consciousness--can only come into this world through you." If you wait for your partner to come around, Tolle says, you may be waiting forever.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Two Approaches to Psychological Problems in Children

When I come across an article like "How Quiet is Too Quiet? When Shyness is Actually a Disorder," I always recall the line from Robert Persig's classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones.
This article is exactly what Persig is talking about. In it, a mother, Kim O'Connell, recounts her experience with her son Declan's extended periods of complete silence, which she discovered has a name: Selective Mutism.

So science has added another category, that's what science is all about. It's a process that began with Aristotle. It's called classification. Selective Mutism is unique, requiring unique handling, unique treatment and possibly unique drugs--multiplication of facts, etc., leading from single absolute truths (root causes, if you will) to multiple, indeterminate, relative ones. The child's behavior, in other words, is meaningless. These are just symptoms of a disease that he's come by at random.

From the Archives

What's Your Drama?

Ok, I'll go first. My drama has been to allow my pain-body to take over my thinking in the context of a love relationship. No...

Popular Posts