It Starts First Thing In The Morning

I woke up this morning searching for good feelings before I got out of bed to start my day.  I tell myself positive I Am statements and try to envision abundant, happy me in the present. Then I wondered, Why should I have to make myself go through all of these processes just to feel good? Shouldn’t feeling good and thriving be automatic?  For many of us, the moment we open our eyes we’re thinking about yesterday’s problems, what we have to deal with today, and what might happen tomorrow. We’re burdened with deadlines, difficult people, financial concerns, and all the bad things going on in the world. In a nutshell, we feel powerless and afraid. The truth is our only real power is in the now. We have the choice to decide what we give our attention to and how we perceive it. A shift in awareness might be needed to change things.

As I recalled past experiences, I felt bad for my inner child, the young me that was tripped up by wonky programming. By the time we’re six or seven years old, we’ve learned from people around us who we are and how to perceive the world. Unless those people are super aware of what they’re showing us, things can get a bit messed up for us later. If I could go back in time to see her, I’d give her some encouragement, tell her that everything is going to be OK, things aren’t what they seem, this is just part of the process, and she’ll see things much differently later. Then I’d give her a big hug and tell her I love her. Can I do this in my mind? Of course. Does it help? Most definitely. There are other processes you can go through if you feel trapped by your past, and I highly recommend the Twelve-Step work. Here’s a link to my intro on that topic… Twelve Steps for The Rest Of Us, and I’ve written a little more explanation on each of the steps in further posts from there.

Why do some continue to struggle with their past while others don’t? We choose our birth families to help us develop certain skills or handicaps for our life path. We may have things to accomplish that require a lot of love and support to get us off the ground, so we choose a loving, caring family.  Others might want to learn lessons on a deeper level, so we get family situations in which we must overcome. For those types of life lessons, we must recognize the patterns and learn from them, or we’ll keep repeating uncomfortable scenarios over and over. We have to understand that the emotional discomfort we feel helps us to move and change. Avoiding pain just drags out the process and keeps us looking for relief in unhealthy ways, like negative feelings of anger, judgment, and resentment, or behaviors such as withdrawal, manipulation, and possibly various forms of addiction.

If we look at the positive side of overcoming ourselves, we may eventually discover a passion in life that grew out of our past experiences, and we realize how that shaped who we are for the better. For some of us who suffered past traumas, we developed a desire to heal, to find connection with God, and to help others. But we have to seek understanding and face our inner darkness to dig up the truth about who we are at our core so we can heal first, and then help. If we don’t turn inward, we spend the rest of our lives looking outward for something or someone else to fill up that part of us that feels empty or unworthy. We work harder to gain material things, attention, recognition, love, etc. We might do well for a while, but then we end up circling back around and finding ourselves stuck in similar situations that we didn’t want to repeat. We might have been doing some other self-help activities, white knuckling it through life with positive affirmations and love bubbles while our subconscious kept telling us how unworthy we were. The world will give us what we think we deserve. It has nothing to do with our worthiness. We are all God’s children and all worthy of a wonderful inner life. It has everything to do with understanding Universal Laws and how to create within them. You have to deliberately choose what you want to be, do, or have, and learn to use your mind and feelings to receive it, even if your desire is simply to have a good day today.

Buckminster Fuller said, you never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. This holds true with all the teachings I’ve followed over the last several decades. You can create a new model of whom you are becoming through meditation, imagination, and focus. Writing it down on paper helps. The key is, you have to feel it and believe it. You might not be able to talk yourself into the new vision at the drop of a hat now but keep at it with love and patience. It will get easier. If you can’t convince yourself in the morning that you’re worthy, confident, abundant, brilliant, creative, loving, etc., without feeling resistance in your body, just go for something simple like I’m going to have a good day today, I’m going to find something fun to do today, I’m going to listen for a good idea today, or a simple I’m OK right now, all is well.

If you try to force change upon yourself, it simply doesn’t work. You end up beating yourself up because you’re not doing it right or you’ll believe other people get this but not you. It just reinforces your feeling of unworthiness. It’s a subtle dance. It’s helpful to appreciate what you already have if you want to feel peace and abundance. If there’s something specific that you want, state it as if you have it, and feel what it’s like to have it but give up your attachment to it. State it, feel it, release it, let it go. Wayne Dyer suggests we wish it for someone else, which is a good way to release attachments. Be easy and relaxed about it and let the Universe bring to you what you desire when the time is right. Be OK with your now, and trust God to take care of you. Good things will come sooner if you’re playful, having fun, and enjoying the moment. You’re more creative in this state, you’ll receive wonderful thoughts and ideas. And when you get up tomorrow morning, and every morning after that, tell yourself as much good stuff as you can muster. Start small and build up. Then go sit and meditate for fifteen minutes. You’ll feel the difference in your days. You may start seeing more and more amazing things happen too!