Gapping it to the light

Those of you who read my ramblings would probably have guessed that there's a lot of stuff going on my life. (Those who don't, well, ignorance is bliss, and they get to simply enjoy the pics :) There is indeed a lot of stuff going on... and while on one level it may appear sad and bad, it's actually just hard (at times), and ultimately really, really good. I'm going to leave the details out, as they are not important here, and just share things on an abstract level...

Gapping it to the light...

So often in life we create our own hardships. Circumstances create also hardships, it's true, but so often we subconsciously create our own extra hardships, and make our circumstances worse.

Sometimes we may find that we've been carrying something from our past with us all our life, something that we thought was long over, that we had escaped from, that no longer had a hold over us. But sometimes it does still have a hold over us, and it overruns - and can ruin - our lives. It can be so insidious and so pervasive that we have no idea that it is there. That deeply buried part of us that's our "Me" knows, but being so deeply buried, its voice is too soft to be clearly heard above those of our inner judge/abuser and our inner victim, and we believe that those two are our true selves. We often think of a victim as good and abuser as bad, but in the case of our inner victim and abuser, they both have a negative effect. The abuser is obvious, but the victim less so: the inner victim will feel hurt when we actually aren't, and whine and bitch as unnecessarily as the abuser harshly says we're wrong when we aren't. In my case, I actually believed my inner victim was Me, while my inner judge/abuser was so harsh that I didn't want to own it and saw it as something external that I had no control over. And so, while I nurtured my inner victim, my inner judge/abuser ran riot. And I listened to their negative voices, and acted on their whims. But what I recently realised is that actually neither of them are my true self; they are merely learned modes of thought and behavior based on my experiences and reasoning - long past their best-before date - overlaying my inner core, my Me. Because they are a part of my whole personality, I thought I would never escape from them, but recognizing them for what they really are - merely constructs - has enabled me to recognize when their voices, which are still responding to my past and not my present, are speaking, and tell them to shush!

We often think ourselves into a negative space by following a negative thought, adding to it, making a whole negative story that isn't true. Our emotions can't tell the difference between a thought about something real and a thought about something imagined, and we react the same way. (Just notice how your body tenses up when you imagine something kak that may happen!) Energy begets energy, and because our emotions are now feeling negative, we have more negative thoughts, and so the whole thing spirals down. The good news is (and I know this from first-hand experience) the reverse is also true: positive thoughts create positive emotions, which create more positive thoughts, creating more positive emotions, and on and on. Just remember that if you've been in a negative space for a while, you'll have gone into quite a bit of positive debt, and, just like a bank account, if you only make a small deposit you'll still be in debt. But if you keep making positive deposits, you'll soon get out of the red and into positive credit.

Ok, enough shew-wah-ness now! Just one last thing... I've noted how interesting it is that often we can see things so clearly in others, but the same thing in us is completely obscure! I am on a long, often difficult, yet always rewarding journey which is deeply personal, yet I'm sharing this because I've recognised slightly similar issues in others (some of you on this mailing list, in fact!) and if it helps you on your journey, so much the better. If not, well, I hope it's interesting nontheless! Bon voyage!