i've realized the reason i've been having trouble being happy lately. it's easy to understand, intellectually, the ideas of positive thinking and the law of attraction. but ego is so sneaky! it will grab ahold of ANYTHING, including spiritual teachings, and twist it into a new fear! i started becoming fearful of my own negative thoughts manifesting into reality. i kept worrying about my subconscious mind, wondering how much it was really just sabotaging me in my endeavors. THIS IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE!
today, as i left my house and walked to work in the icy sunlight, i suddenly felt so uplifted and full of inexplicable joy! i don't know where it came from. it's the first time i've felt so happy without having to convince myself to be happy in a long time. i had a fantastic time at work, making truffles and listening to music. i was laughing to myself the whole day long.
making truffles (and cookies, and muffins, and scones) is a very meditative and repetitive task, so it gives me a lot of opportunities to think and delve into my inner guidance. i realized i've been taking myself and my life way too seriously. i haven't been enjoying the growth process. i haven't been letting go of outcomes and desires. i haven't been acting enough like a child!
it's so ironic that when people don't like something you do or say, they call you "childish." yet, in their purest forms, children are the wisest and most godly beings on our planet. so when someone says i am being childish, they are really just insulting themselves. when you're a kid, you don't want to be a big old boring grown up. you just want to play and be carefree and run around and say whatever is on your mind without worrying about what you're actually saying. when adults say something offensive, other adults get angry because their egos get hurt. but when a child says the same thing, they are immediately excused because "they don't know any better."
but is the "knowledge" of an adult better than the freedom and playfulness of a child? why do we have to forget how to play? why do we have to forget how to really have fun?
i think it begins when parents and adults introduce shame into our psyche. children know no shame. but adults know shame, and they feel it when their kids do things that "embarrass" them. so they say "stop embarrassing me" to their children. they tell them "you should be ashamed of yourself." i'm not saying that parents are big bad people who are ruining their children. most people don't realize that when you are raising a child, every single little thing is taken in by them and put into their computer programming. an infant's brain actually has more neural connections than an adult, and this is because as children learn, their brain decides which neural connections are needed and which are not. so the brain is actually honed away as a child grows. and EVERY feeling and experience is turned into subconscious thought. and subconscious thought takes up about 90 percent of your brain activity. it controls your bodily functions, emotional reactions, habits, and so much else. so when you tell a child "you should be ashamed of yourself" you are introducing a foreign concept into that child's brain, but that feeling of shame (which is the most debilitating feeling in the human experience) will be there forever. and it not only affects their thoughts, but it affects the way they view their world. and as we all know, our thoughts create our reality.
well i've decided i'm done with shame. i am through with feeling ashamed of anything i've ever done or said. nobody should ever be made to feel shame for any reason. shame creates enormous limitation on your ability to create. i knew a four year old who thought she was terrible at drawing. FOUR YEARS OLD? FOUR YEAR OLDS ARE SUPPOSED TO LOVE DRAWING. but she somehow had the idea that her artwork wasn't good enough. and that comes from the feeling of shame.
i deserve to be treated with love and respect. nothing i do or say is shameful. i do things differently. but different is not WRONG. it's just different. when someone tries to make another person feel shame, they are just trying to justify themselves and make themselves feel bigger and more RIGHT. but we are ALL EQUAL. and WE ARE ALL DESERVING OF LOVE IN EVERY MOMENT.
therefore, shame is not something i will allow to enter my consciousness. if someone tries to make me feel shame, i will smile and walk away from them. i have nothing to hide. i have no reason to feel ashamed. i am beautiful and intelligent and creative and glorious and amazing. and i wish to show that to everyone. because everyone and i are one. and therefore, everyone else is beautiful and intelligent and creative and glorious and amazing, and so much more. i choose to show everyone their best Selves by showing my best Self. and that Self does not feel shame. there is nothing to be ashamed of.
to anyone who has tried to make someone feel shame: what are YOU so ashamed of that you must make another feel the debilitating, agonizing, gut-wrenching feeling of shame? why do you think you are so much better than anyone else that you are given permission to inflict such pain on another soul?
do you really think you get to cast the first stone?
stop taking yourself so seriously. stop taking your "problems" so seriously. stop taking other people so seriously! for god's sake, stop being so uptight! if you find yourself getting wound up, take a second... breathe.... and ask yourself "what's the big deal?" chances are, someone somewhere else in the world has a bigger problem to deal with in their lives.
of course, everything i write in every post is not only talking to anyone who reads it, but it's also me talking to myself. so don't feel bad! i've been the recipient AND the giver of shame. i've been condescending and mean and harsh before. who knows if i'll forget and do it again?
so i'll end with a quote from my fave book, Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God Book 3 (page 90):
"Yet be not quick to judge another. Rather, seek to avoid judgment, for another person's "wrongs" were your "rights" of yestermorn; another person's "mistakes" are your own past actions, now corrected; another person's choices and decisions are as 'hurtful' and 'harmful,' as 'selfish' and 'unforgivable,' as many of your own have been.
It is when you 'just can't imagine' how another person could 'do such a thing' that you have forgotten where you came from, and where both you and the other person are going."
love to all of you!
ps. i found a great website called gratitudelog.com. it's like twitter, only instead of incessant, frivolous jabber, one posts expressions of gratitude and sends encouragement and kindness to friends. if you want, you can follow me: themagnificentadrienne
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