Lately I have been so caught up in my own negativity. My inner critic has been running a riot, having a field day being loud and proud! Every single thing has been causing me great irritation, every persons voice (especially that of my own family) has been like fingers down a black board. I have felt all this energy that is unpleasant around me, all this noise in my head. I just want it all to SHUT UP. A couple days ago I had a really bad day. I mean all that has been going on with my inner tormentor literally just blew up in my face. I had not been sleeping again and had spent the early afternoon at the place I go to from the job centre to look for work. I just sat there in front of the screen feeling lost and empty. I had run out of jobs to apply for. I had already applied for countless jobs I did not want to just appease the job centre, though it went against every fibre of my being. I felt there is no choice. So I sat there trying to think of more boring places to work and just ran out of them. I just wanted to relax and be and allow myself to do what I love. Still seeking approval from the people at the job centre like their sole opinion mattered and would mean I am allowed to 'play' for a living.
Then in the evening I had an acting class. I wasn't gonna go as felt so low but thought having a play will lift my spirits. Well the person taking the class chatted for about 3hrs and I felt so utterly bored. I felt like I was at school and I just wasn't interested in sitting there having a lecture about things. I felt unintelligent about my own creativity. I don't remember what I learnt about Stanislavski, I don't know about The Method or the countless other 'Techniques' used in acting. For me I just 'do' . So hearing the person as well as others talking about all this made me feel I m not qualified to act. Again this was my inner tormentor in full swing. Anyway at one point the person was saying to various people about what makes you, you and said things like 'why did you wear your hair like that etc' suddenly he turned to me and said 'Why did you put on those clothes' I literally felt my entire being jolt and he could see this and quickly said 'I am not picking on you' and I knew he wasn't but I felt like I had just been singled out. I really felt myself back in school. It was most interesting.
On the way home I just cried so much. I had my umbrella up and was walking, sobbing. I got a bit lost and couldn't find the station and I stood there sobbing saying 'I don't know where I am, I'm lost, I don't know where I am' I was in a state. I eventually found my way back to the station and went home. I wrote in my journal when I got back as I knew I needed to let this emotion out. I realised that when I get like that and the stress and worry and self loathing is at that amount of intensity it feels like I am on a merry-go-round and I've been on it for so long I have forgotten how to get off. I need something to stop the ride and show me the exit., show me there is a whole fairground out there I can play with. When I say 'something' I mean something within me that clicks. You always hear how we all choose our thoughts but what if no one ever told you there was another option, no one ever said to you any different. So how can you flick a switch and bang! You think different. I tell you it takes a lot of practice. I mean even though I was in a state I was still recognising where it was from that I felt I was at school. I came to the realisation that I am bored hearing my own negativity. I do not believe what it says anymore. So now I am sure there will be a great change. I do not have a clue how it will occur nor what to do but I know there will be change.
All this experience has brought me is the inspiration to talk about Stress, Pressure , Guilt and how powerful our minds really are. To share this with you all. So already a positive has come. I hope you all find some little pockets of something helpful in these words for we are never alone.
We put so much stress and pressure upon ourselves and others. We even place it upon 'things' if we don't get that job....if we haven't achieved so and so by a certain age....the list goes on. I was told to have fun. How many of you feel guilty for enjoying yourself we have spare time we must fill it with anything that is work. Guilt is another big thing that is best friends with stress and pressure, they all feed one another. You get all kinds of guilt. I'm Jewish so I got Jewish guilt, then there's Asian guilt, Catholic guilt, Christian guilt, whatever type of guilt you have it really all amounts to the same translation : that there is some force out there that won't allow you to....(fill in the blank). Whether this force is God or Parents or Them, The Universe, doesn't matter . It's the little voice that tells you you can't. You see someone who is the same age as you, younger than you, a couple years older and they have achieved what you have yet to and you look at that person and think 'what's wrong with me?' You place them upon a pedestal and yourself in a bunker far away. It's the same with a man/woman - you have feelings for them and suddenly they go from being on your level to being 100 feet up in the air sitting on a golden thrown with a halo swimming around their head, you bow down to them 'I am not worthy oh great one' you worry how you look if you're gonna see them. I am sure each one of you has experienced that moment of 'I've got nothing to wear!' and feeling so stressed about what 'they' think. Sometimes we can silence our very own voice by agreeing with someone to not say something 'wrong' and risk being 'judged' by 'them'. I could sit here for a good hundred pages filling in all the stresses and pressures we place each day upon every thing we experience and every person we meet.
When we wake up in the morning we already have a million thoughts in our heads from how tired we may feel, the dreams the night before, all we have to do today if there are deadlines to make are we gonna make them, meetings, not wanting to get out of bed, any people we may not want to see or face. Or if you don't have a job what's the point what is there for me today, I have to find work if I don't do so and so 'they' will be let down. And if we hit the snooze button we feel guilty to take the extra ten minutes so spend with ourselves. So we spend an extra ten minutes berating rather than enjoying our selves. So before we have even opened our eyes and got out of bed there are a billion and one negative thoughts floating around our mind. How many times have you got out of bed after feeling really stressed and flustered only to stub your toe or bang your elbow, trip up on something. One time when I was especially grouchy I caught my foot on my chair leg and flew through the air narrowly missing the corner of my cupboard to land on my knees. You could say I was literally 'brought to my knees' by the universe. Now you can put it down to just another reason why everything sucks or you can stop take a minute and ask 'what is this here to teach me?' Coz every bump, bruise, accident, unpleasant person or situation, every single traffic jam, broken down car, every burglary, every single person you meet is a teacher baring a special message just for you. All that's needed is for you to just stop in that moment and ask 'what can I learn, what are you here to tell me, what's the message' however you feel comfortable to phrase it, you only need ask and you will be enlightened to the truth.
Worry+Stress+Pressure+Guilt = Struggle. And struggle makes life so much more a chore then the actual joyous celebration it truly is. Every tiny thing is hard and filled with an effort. Even breathing becomes unnatural. When we are faced with a challenge we can do one of two things we can see it as 'argh not another thing anything else you wanna throw at me' and let that event/experience become bigger then it is or we can choose to see it as a lesson we can learn from its like instead of seeing a traffic light and just waiting for it to change we see kilimanjaro and we struggle up the mountain when we could have just let the lights change. To coin the old phrase 'don't make a mountain out of a molehill'. I am learning now that in fact the less I try to control things and just let it all be the more at ease and healthier I feel. After all each experience you have brought to yourself by a thought or a belief pattern. Each of these experiences can be changed by how you react to them. Treat these seeming mishaps and discord as a reminder something needs attention. Go within ask what its here to teach you then make the changes you need to.
If we do not pay attention to the negative thoughts and relieve the stress in our selves it can not only cause mishaps and negative events, it can also create dis-ease within the body : colds, bugs, bruises, broken bones all of these things can be avoided if we can change our thoughts and eliminate all stress from our life. If I could recommend a book every person should own it would be 'How to heal your life' by Louise Hay. It has every single problem with the body, what the emotional cause is and the affirmation you can use to heal yourself. For example the emotional issue behind a cold is :
Too much going on at once. mental confusion, disorder. Small hurts ' I get three colds every winter' type of belief.
And the affirmation is :
I allow my mind to relax and be at peace. Clarity and harmony are within me and around me. All is well.
I cannot recommend this book enough to you all it really opens your eyes to what goes on in your body and how you can indeed heal yourself. This and her book 'The Power is Within You' are both worth the investment.
Our Minds are powerful machines' like the most intelligent computers storing billions upon millions of data. Every single experience we have had, every single remark that has been said to us is all swimming around inside our head. What we need to do is start sorting through it all. When we hear a negative quip we just ask some simple questions:
How old am I? (this tells us at what age we had this experience)
Where am I? (this tells us the place of the event that lead to the negative quip)
What happened? (lets you know details of said event)
Whose voice is this? (this let you know who said this negative thing to you.)
optional:
What can I learn from this?/What can you teach me? (this can be asked if you feel something is repeating and you need to get to the bottom of it)
Once you know all these things you can begin to change your thinking. It's like seeing a mouse that's been telling you all this time it was a Lion and would eat you and now you actually see it for what it really is - a mouse. It's all illusion. Smoke and Mirrors. You see the truth and then you no longer need to believe in that quip. Thus begins the change of thinking. Every time you dismantle a negative quip put a positive in its place. See the scene played out with this new positive thought/belief there instead. It helps that part of you to grow up believing in this wonderful thing and so it grows stronger. So the next time that same negative quip comes up you just see it for what it is - Illusion and you no longer give it any importance.
We never stop learning and letting go. There is no magic wand that you can waive to make it all immediately fall into place. It's a process and you just gotta keep unravelling the knots and layers, like an epic game of pass the parcel, unwrapping each layer till you reach the gift inside. You.
I'd like to share with you all the story of The Tortoise and the Hare by Aesop :
The Tortoise and the Hare
Posted on Jul 2, 1997
One of Aesop’s Fables
Illustrated by Arthur Rackham
Once upon a time there was a hare who, boasting how he could run faster than anyone else, was forever teasing tortoise for its slowness. Then one day, the irate tortoise answered back: “Who do you think you are? There’s no denying you’re swift, but even you can be beaten!” The hare squealed with laughter.
“Beaten in a race? By whom? Not you, surely! I bet there’s nobody in the world that can win against me, I’m so speedy. Now, why don’t you try?”
Annoyed by such bragging, the tortoise accepted the challenge. A course was planned, and the next day at dawn they stood at the starting line. The hare yawned sleepily as the meek tortoise trudged slowly off. When the hare saw how painfully slow his rival was, he decided, half asleep on his feet, to have a quick nap. “Take your time!” he said. “I’ll have forty winks and catch up with you in a minute.”
The hare woke with a start from a fitful sleep and gazed round, looking for the tortoise. But the creature was only a short distance away, having barely covered a third of the course. Breathing a sigh of relief, the hare decided he might as well have breakfast too, and off he went to munch some cabbages he had noticed in a nearby field. But the heavy meal and the hot sun made his eyelids droop. With a careless glance at the tortoise, now halfway along the course, he decided to have another snooze before flashing past the winning post. And smiling at the thought of the look on the tortoise’s face when it saw the hare speed by, he fell fast asleep and was soon snoring happily. The sun started to sink, below the horizon, and the tortoise, who had been plodding towards the winning post since morning, was scarcely a yard from the finish. At that very point, the hare woke with a jolt. He could see the tortoise a speck in the distance and away he dashed. He leapt and bounded at a great rate, his tongue lolling, and gasping for breath. Just a little more and he’d be first at the finish. But the hare’s last leap was just too late, for the tortoise had beaten him to the winning post. Poor hare! Tired and in disgrace, he slumped down beside the tortoise who was silently smiling at him.
“Slowly does it every time!” he said.
The moral of the story is that if we just take our moments one at a time, our baby steps each day we will get to wherever it is we wish to be. 'Rome wasn't built in a day' we cannot go from A to Z we have to stop at each letter, and sometimes we spend a while there til we have learnt all we need to learn from that letter then on to the next one. The hare is in a constant state of flux. He is not there in the moment just thinking of how he can 'win'. What he did not realise is there are no 'losers' we are all destined for that goal post, that's just fact what is for you will never go past you and you will be where it is you desire to be. Just enjoy the journey, take your time. There is no rush. We each have our own pace in which we stride through life. Be the tortoise. Go at your own pace. 'slowly does it every time'
And next time you are having a stressful time just stop, breathe and enjoy the presence of you.
It's rare I ever get in advance what I will be writing. Usually something happens and then the blog forms. I hear that my next topic will be on 'Giving and Receiving' so I look forward to all the inspirations that will form the next blog for you all. : )
love and light
Mandy
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