Friday 9 November 2012

The Word of the Week


“Be the change you want to see in the world”
Mahatma Ghandi

When I read this quote, it helps  me to understand that the journey to self-mastery and growth, will be one that will always keep me occupied until I go back to my source and to me, this is exciting!  Every minute of the day I am discovering new things to like and love about myself because I have decided that I am going to commit wholeheartedly to “be the change I wish to see in the world.”  This means changing the way I think, act and respond towards people and situations in my life.  More importantly, it is learning to love myself and others unconditionally.

Now, I would be lying if I said this is easy, it is not!  This has to be one of the most challenging concepts that I am trying to master but it is also the most fulfilling in terms of what it allows me to experience, as I negotiate my way through the minefield of my own learned behaviours and habits. 

Last week, I spoke about responsibility and one of the key elements in learning to love yourself unconditionally is to take full  responsibility for everything that you say and do, especially when you interact with others.  When you realise that YOU create the feelings of separateness from yourself and another person, you have no choice but to own the feelings that you create.  To love oneself requires that you learn to choose feelings that uplift you rather than those that bring you down, plus you have to go to task on the internal work that is required to pinpoint the root cause of your unloving behaviours. This will allow you to recognise, that every interaction you have is an opportunity to commit further to  your own self growth. 

For example, your partner/friend decides to mock you in respect of one of your beliefs.  You then become defensive and hurt that they have said such a thing and you respond by saying something equally hurtful.  Now, this causes a separateness between you and the other person, both of you now view each other without love in that moment. Now, if you go back to the scenario, it was your defensiveness that created the separate feelings.  Your ego used its power of recall from your own learned behaviours to create the emotion of defence and hurt; you then responded in a knee jerk fashion which ultimately made the situation worse.  Conversely, you could have acknowledged to yourself that your initial response is a learned behaviour that will take you away from peace and serenity, secondly, you now give yourself time to recognise that you have no need to defend your beliefs to anyone and that they have every right to voice their opinion.  You further recognise that it is the other persons learned behaviour that caused them to act that way and thus you do not have to take everything so personally. Thus, as a response to the comment you just smile and say nothing because you have now separated the behaviour from the person and can still have love for them, plus you have recognised that your own learned behaviour no longer serves you and you have now replaced it with a more loving response.

You can see by the above scenario, that the inner work that is required IS challenging , but it is also the most rewarding in that it allows you to achieve the goal of being more loving and nurturing to yourself as well as to others!

So I end today's word just as I began…..Be the change YOU want to see in the world!

Wishing you love and blessings for a wonderful weekend. 

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