I've been taking walks in the morning lately and I am finding each walk to be unique and profound. I spend the morning listening to a podcast, A Course In Miracles, or music and each day something occurs to me that I had not thought of before, or I am reminded of an important lesson I'd forgotten.
Today as I walked along a new trail in the heart of Los Angeles I listened to Oprah's Super Soul Conversation with Gary Zukav and was reminded of a very profound concept that I feel compelled to share with you.
When we embark on this journey of self discovery and personal development many of us are faced with conflict. We experience conflict not only from those around us who resist our growth, but we experience it from within as well. We are constantly battling our old beliefs and patterns of behavior and can often get down on ourselves when we slip up.
When we decide to let love guide all our actions we come into alignment with our true desires and higher self. The trick to achieving this is to identify the parts of ourselves that are acting out of fear, and those parts that are acting out of love. Then, we take action on the love, and resist action on the fear. Its a very simple concept, but not always easy to achieve.
It is far easier for us to not face these parts of ourselves and remain blissfully unaware. But, to remain unaware is to live a bleak and dull life. What we need to do is wake up. We need to wake ourselves up to the beauty, the glory, the profoundness of our existence in order to live a robust and fulfilled life.
In order to do this there are some easy steps for you to follow:
1. Develop emotional awareness.
Take some time to write down how you are feeling. Whether it is happiness, sadness, anger, fear, hurt, confusion, joy, whatever your emotions are, the first step is to turn inward and get in touch with how you are truly feeling.
2. Be mindful of how you are feeling.
Take time to practice mindfulness. Recognize the emotions you are experiencing as they happen. Be aware of what it feels like to be happy, sad, loving or fearful. Take a mental note and make it a practice to be mindful of your feelings.
3. Realize your pain was not caused by someone else.
Almost all religion teaches us that life is about pain and suffering. What causes the suffering though, may not be what you think. Other people do not actually cause you pain. What they do is trigger you. A hurtful comment can trigger a pattern of thoughts you have been conditioned to believe about yourself, or set off a fear that you are fundamentally unlovable, but the comment itself has no meaning on its own, you choose to give it meaning that can be painful to experience.
4. Make a decision.
When you apply these steps, and you have spent time learning to recognize what you are feeling, being triggered actually gives you the opportunity to put space between the event and your reaction. Instead of reacting spontaneously you are given the choice to decide whether you are going to act out of fear or out of love. Sometimes the most loving thing you can muster at that moment is to remain silent, and that's OK. We are human and it will never be easy to respond in a loving way when we are triggered. The beautiful thing about learning to respond from a place of love is that it gives you the opportunity to let your light shine. Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes those around us will not appreciate the journey you are on and even be annoyed by you operating as your true, authentic self. It is important to not let this get to you though. The sun doesn't try to please everyone. It just shines. Some days you love the warmth, and some days you hate the heat, but that has no effect on the Sun. It continues to shine, and takes no offense to your reaction to it. It doesn't try to please you by adjusting its light, it just shows up daily and does what it does best. So, Let your light shine as bright as you can. Some people will love you more for it, and some will hate you for it, but it is your responsibility to yourself to shine as bright as you can regardless.
Learn more about what you can do to gain better control of your emotions at www.mariahaurora.com/work-with-me
