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“Remove Mind Tattoos” from wikihow

“Remove Mind Tattoos” from wikihow

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

“Mind tattoos” are mental imprints. Though not physically visible, these manifest themselves in your actions, reactions, and thought processes, and more often than not, they are a negative imprint. If body tattoos are exhibits, might we not view mind tattoos as inhibits?

Unable to be concealed no matter how hard you try to cover them up with excuses, distractions, or addictions, mind tattoos harm you through their persistence and habitual nature. However, with small effort and much resolve, it is possible to shed your mind tattoos. On paper the recipe is very simple, and certainly it will be harder to actually implement, but once you’re resolved to deal with your mind tattoos, and once you dedicate yourself to this task, your life will take a turn for the better.

Steps

  1. Use the simple displacement method. Mind tattoos and negative mindsets grow in a vacuum. Do not allow such a vacuum to be created in your mind. Increase your curiosity for things around you and beyond, allow yourself the privilege to be wonder-struck. Let the newness of every moment tickle your senses. Question yourself, keep asking what, why, when, where and how. A questioning mind is an open mind. It is not a knowing mind (the knowing mind soon leads to arrogance and shutting down on newness). Only an open mind can be creative. A knowing mind can never be creative.
    • When you open your mind, it can be filled with creativity, positivity and newness. Negative mindsets and tattoos will be displaced and deleted.
    • A questioning stance sensitizes the mind in a very special way, enabling it to sense what would have been missed otherwise.
  2. Come out of the mindset of blame games. The most damaging tattoo is the tendency to look for and find a scapegoat for every situation. Release yourself from the tendency of being problem averse and for shifting away responsibility. Stop wringing up your hands whenever there is a problem; while it is good to hope for a life without problems, realistically it is possible only when you work to make your problems surmountable, by cultivating a problem-friendly attitude. This means just rolling up your sleeves whenever you’re faced with a problem, and searching for an opportunity to improve the quality of your life by dealing with the problem. Being faced with a problem is never a problem. It is way of life and once you have woven problem-solving into the matrix of your life, you will feel stronger, more capable, and freer of the negative mind tattoos.

  3. Open your mind to ideas from friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. A tattooed mind is beset with preconceived ideas and closed to suggestion from outside. Open up your thinking to the ideas, opinions, and viewpoints gathered from your friends, colleagues, and even from strangers. Once you realize the value of these alternative ideas and views, you will be in a position to start using your increased understanding and empathy to improve the quality of your own thought and decision processes.

  4. Set achievable goals, and achieve set goals. A major reason for negative thought process is failure on personal or professional front; not just failure though – it is the failure to learn and grow from failure, to accept it as part of life’s lessons. The negative thinking can set in when personal or professional goals are not properly set. An improper understanding of your strengths or constraints often results in goals being not properly set and many excuses being made to sidestep developing a purpose to your life. In letting others make the decisions and change the rules on you, you drift rather than achieve through life. Instead, know yourself, understand yourself, and be yourself when setting your goals. This way you can be successful in setting and achieving your goal and keep failure out of your door. Moreover, do not be dissuaded by the failures but see them as detours that teach what to do better next time.

  5. Come out of the habit of perennial dissatisfaction. Perennial dissatisfaction is a major indication of a person with a negative mindset; a positive thinker can spot such a person a mile away and will do their best to steer clear (hence, you attract more negativity than its opposite). It is good to be acutely aware of your dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desires. However, this awareness should not frustrate you or cause you to give up citing everything as being “too hard” or “all over”. Even if you are frustrated, it should never be reflected in your behavior toward other people. As a matter of fact, you should use this awareness as a stimulus to realize your dreams, and to be grateful for that which you have achieved already. See How to Stop Feeling Like Your Life Isn’t Good Enough.

  6. Don’t overestimate the effects of your level (or lack) of schooling. A feeling of being uneducated or inadequately educated is one of the biggest self-destructing tattoo one can carry around. But higher level schooling can also imprint more negative tattoos: arrogance, self-righteous behavior, and greater dissatisfaction with one’s lot in life or sensitivity to past failures. Whatever category you fall into, understand that schooling is different from education. Education is sourced from life itself, the people you meet, the things you discover, and the environment in which you move and observe daily. Very often people with less or no schooling are found to be highly educated in matters of life and other way round. Less schooled people are often highly successful because they have minds clear of the biases that schooling can build into us. The more highly schooled who have simply associated their learning with being of a “higher status” might actually lack openness to new ideas and empathy for others, so they wind up less likely to succeed. Both would do better to
    • realize that universities and degrees do not determine your level of your education and do not even determine a person’s all-round intelligence or suitability for the rest of life.
    • Instead, figure out what you still need to learn and find the fastest way to learn it.
  7. Reframe your situation from different angles. A situation often appears to be hopeless and irretrievable. In many cases, such catastrophizing does not ultimately turn out to be true, especially where it is based on allowing ourselves to be the victim and to imagine things that are not there. Try to reframe the situation from different angles till you find an angle from where it looks acceptable. For example, in a cricket match in a close run-out decision, sometimes it appears that the batsman is out; however, reframing it from different angles gives the umpire more options of viewing the truth and taking correct decision. Similarly, being your own inner umpire (referee) by mental reframing of the situation often helps you to make the correct decision.

  8. Tattoo your mind with conscious, positive thoughts. What we tattoo on any part of the body for others to see is not as important as what we tattoo in our minds. Much of what is tattooed there has been absorbed from the criticisms, expectations, and limitations placed upon us by other people; they are not wanted or chosen tattoos but they are embedded out of obligation, loyalty, misplaced trust, and over-eagerness to please the other. On the other hand, positive, successful, energetic mind tattoos are a must to attain success and are tattoos that we can choose to implant and thrive from. So, it should be your conscious (and ultimately subconscious) endeavor to keep tattooing your mind with thoughts that are only about winning or thriving. Implant and nourish the tattoos that reflect who you want to be, the goals you want to reach, and the successes you seek to achieve. Mentally, make or choose your day’s outcomes for the day every single day.
    • Focus doesn’t simply sprout unaided. It requires effort and conscious attention. However, once you are focused, you can achieve a great deal of your heart’s desire because you’re consciously attending to what needs to be done, as well as channeling your subconscious experience more effectively.

Tips

  • Be very careful when implementing the process of removing your negative tattoos. It is necessary to restrain your feelings and impulses.
  • While you are going through this reform process, people around you could be the biggest inhibiting factors for you. Please be patient with them and be determined in your objective. Sometimes the fears and insecurities of others mean that they want us to stay where we are and not change or improve but you cannot bear their burdens for them, you can only choose to be a better person for yourself.
  • Take the advice and guidance of peers and elders. While you do not have to heed all that is said, other people’s experiences are important sources of information and guidance to set you on the better path through avoiding the pitfalls that they experienced. Remember that reinventing the wheel is a waste of your time when you stand in front of many generations’ of experience.
  • Thriving is better than winning at someone else’s expense. In the long run it helps you sleep better at night and gives you more future resources. If you step on people during the climb, they’ll kick you hard on the way down and remember exactly who you are.

Warnings

  • Give yourself time. Expecting too much too early can result in disappointment and frustration.
  • Your mental tattoos are well entrenched and may resist evacuation initially. You need to be persistent and confident. You can, and you will, release your mind from them.
  • Filter the advice that comes in from other people with trial and error. Try it honestly but when the trial fails, look at why. They can be right for themselves and wrong for you. Sedentary people can get sick from lack of exercise but a disabled person can get sick from exercise. If those other people have the same mind tattoos, they can often just reinforce them – it didn’t just crop up on its own. Don’t let them just hand the same biases back to you with a new set of intellectual rationalizations. Your mind tattoos came from somewhere so consider the source and weigh ideas for themselves.
  • If your friends and enemies both agree on something about you, it’s probably true or something about you makes people see you that way.

Things You’ll Need

  • A strong resolve
  • Self realization
  • A will to change
  • Dedication
  • Sacrifice

Related wikiHows

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Embracing a Wider Perspective

Embracing a Wider Perspective

When you leap forward in personal growth, it can be disorienting. You’ve outgrown your old awareness and have to change the way you respond to life. You can’t go back to the old way, or put the genii back into the bottle. Here are a couple of strategies that can help re-orient you to your new inner landscape.



Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Will negative statements erase positive affirmations for a friend?

Will negative statements erase positive affirmations for a friend?

Question: If one person is affirming something positive for a friend, while someone else is speaking negatively to that friend, will that affect the first person’s affirmation?

Answer: If one person is affirming something for someone else, the receiver may or may not accept the blessing of the affirmation. For instance, a person can affirm health for a loved one, but the loved one has to accept the idea of health for the affirmation to be fulfilled. They have free choice as to whether to experience it or not. Why would someone not want to have a better life? There are many reasons for that.

And if someone else is affirming something negative, the receiver will accept whatever they identify with the most. Their dominant attitude will lean them in the direction of the most familiar. For example, suppose you give a compliment to someone. If they have a good self-image, they’ll just say “Thank you.” However, if they lack self-esteem, most likely they’ll negate whatever the compliment was.

What a person can do to help is to include a statement in their affirmation to give the person the free will to accept the substance of the affirmation and protect them from negativity. Something like “If any part of them is in agreement with this affirmation, then they accept it, and every level of their being is protected from outer negative influences.”

Copyright 2002, 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

When One Door Closes, Another One Opens

When One Door Closes, Another One Opens

Twice last week, situations confirmed the old adage, “When one door closes, another one opens.” I experienced this, and a friend did, as well.

I was completing a project, and getting ready to send it to an inexpensive online copy place I’d chosen after a lot of searching. But before I placed my order, I realized I had several questions. After filling out their contact form with the questions, I waited. And waited.

A week later, I called and got an answering machine. Since my questions were too involved to leave as a message, I hung up. Disappointed, I realized that if that was what their customer service was like, I didn’t want to use their service. So back to the search engine.

Almost immediately, I found another company who was even less expensive than the first one. When I emailed my questions, I got a rapid response, even though it was after hours. So I’m going with them.

My friend had a similar experience. Ten days before a party she was organizing, the venue she’d selected notified her they were going to be closed on that day. After a day of frantically trying to find another location, she found one. It was slightly more expensive, but much nicer and with a better catering menu. And the people she dealt with were much more courteous and helpful.

When you have a door close in your face, it’s hard to remember that it might be for the best. You’ll never know what would have happened if your original plans had gone through. It could have been fine, or it could have been disastrous.

But when it slams, and you have to go looking for a new door, keep in mind that the one you find just might be better in ways you can’t even imagine.

Embrace The Changes From Personal Growth

Embrace The Changes From Personal Growth

by Linda-Ann Stewart

When you grow up and mature, you no longer wear the types clothes that suited you as a teenager. They don’t fit the image of who you are now. The same can be true of friendships. Have you ever gone back to a school reunion, and not had anything in common with the good friends you had back then? This is normal. As you mature, grow and have more experiences, you change your view of life, your likes, values and opinions.

When this happens, you don’t try to go back and recapture the old way of doing things. It would be pointless, self-destructive and shortsighted. By moving forward, you’re fulfilling the natural impulse to grow and stretch. Your relationship to your old world changes irrevocably with growth. As the saying goes, “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle.”

The same thing happens when you jump up a level of spiritual, mental or emotional consciousness. For instance, when you realize that you deserve to take care of your health and well-being and begin to say “no” to unreasonable requests for your time, your perspective on everything else changes, too.

The same is true when you have some sort of spiritual peak experience or mental expansion. Your relationship to your inner self and the Universe alters. The way you used to connect to the Infinite changes.

It may seem like the door has closed to your contact with the Divine. It hasn’t. God hasn’t moved. You have. Your consciousness has expanded; therefore the way you used to relate to your inner landscape has also shifted. It’s not a bad thing, it can just seem disorienting.

When this happens, your way of experiencing life will probably also change. For instance, if you were originally logical and analytical, you may discover that you’ve become more intuitive. Before, you would reason out a project, now the answer might just pop into your mind. You may sense that a certain person isn’t being honest, whereas before, you would have taken them at face value. As a result of this unasked for change, you might belittle your new insights, and try to return to pure logic because it’s safer and more familiar.

The opposite can take place if you’ve always been intuitive and followed your heart. You may discover that your guidance comes to you now on a more conscious level. Instead of opportunities dropping into your lap, or synchronistically bumping into a person you wanted to see, you might have a conscious impulse of what to do or where to go. It’s now up to you to listen to the urge or ignore it. You could also need to make deliberate choices and follow guidance to their fulfillment, rather than just drifting with the tide.

You’re no longer operating out of an unconscious ability. Now you are more aware of what your insight is telling you. Because it’s much easier to operate unconsciously, you could doubt your guidance and try to dismiss it because it’s coming to you in a different fashion than it used to.

In both situations, if you try to backpedal into what worked before, you’re going to be frustrated. You can’t go back, unless you want to stall your progress. By opening to a greater awareness, you’ve expanded your mind to incorporate more of it. Consciousness includes intuition and reason, heart and head. When you increase your awareness, you’re beginning to balance them and the old responses will also change.

You can’t undo what’s been done, anymore than you can retreat to your teenaged self once you’ve grown up. The Universe is always moving forward, and you must move with it or be left behind. You’ve leaped out of your comfort zone into something that can more fully serve the more conscious you.

Affirmation

I am opening myself up to a greater experience of Life and the Universe. As I grow and expand, I embrace my new awareness and abilities. With confidence and trust, I allow my new relationship to myself and the Infinite unfold in a wonderful way. I balance my heart and mind, knowing that they both have a role in helping me expand into my highest potential.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Can you curse or manipulate another through thoughts or words?

Can you curse or manipulate another through thoughts or words?

Question: Can someone put a curse on another and manipulate them through the power of their thoughts or words?

Answer: Someone can only manipulate another through curses if the person being cursed believes it or is open to it. Someone who knows that they are Divinely protected cannot be harmed through any “magical” means. The power of thought and prayer pervades us all, and we’re all affected by this power. If it’s a negative thought from someone else, if we’re not solid in the belief of being protected, then it can influence us or our life.

I had a friend who had a former boyfriend who tried to manipulate her life through “psychic” means. At the time, this friend was learning not to let others take advantage of her. As she became stronger in saying “no” to others demeaning her, the former boyfriend’s influence became weaker and weaker. That’s what I meant by a person has to be open to it. She was open to being manipulated and belittled, so the former boyfriend’s thought was able to affect her. When she became stronger in her own worth, his thought no longer could harm her.

If someone says something with great emotion to a person he wishes to curse, the emotion will impress the subconscious mind of the person. Think of how it feels when someone says something nasty to you. Generally, you’ll feel bad. Words have power to hurt. But the stated curse can be reversed, because it’s all within the person’s own subconscious. It has very little to do with the person doing the cursing.

Copyright 2002, 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

7 Ways To Climb Out Of Your Slump

7 Ways To Climb Out Of Your Slump

by Linda-Ann Stewart

After a few unsuccessful plays, an athlete can sometimes get caught in a slump. They start performing far less than their potential. For instance, a basketball player wouldn’t be able to sink a ball even if he was standing over the net. By this time, he’s trying too hard and it interferes with his reflexes.

Yogi Berra said, “A full mind is an empty bat,” meaning that athletes who over think what they’ve been trained to do interrupt their muscle memory. They’re out of the groove and can’t get back into it.

Have you ever felt like that? Does it seem that everything is conspiring against you? After a few difficult or disappointing episodes, your thoughts spiral downwards and nothing works. Eventually, you can’t even hold onto a glass of water without spilling it. You might find yourself saying, “I knew it wasn’t going to work out,”  “Nothing ever goes my way,” or “I always get the short end of the stick.”

You’re tying up all your energy in focusing on the problem and trying not to screw up. And since that’s where your attention is, you have more trouble. Just like an athlete mentioned above, you’re giving yourself negative feedback, and that instructs the subconscious to create more of the same.

Break that cycle and climb out of your frustration using the following tips:

1. Realize that difficulties will happen, no matter what. The challenge is not to overreact to them. That just gives them more energy and more attention. It becomes a negative spiral into a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster. Your slump may simply be due to the natural cycle of peak performance alternating with a period of recovery and regeneration. So relax and let nature take its course.

2. Check your overall stress level. Your underlying attention may be taken up with some difficulty in your life. Your mind has a limit in how many things it can focus on. Try and go beyond these limits and everything starts to fall apart. Your mind may be distracted by your other issues. Do some stress reduction practices like meditation, self-hypnosis, exercise, and others.

3. Step away from the problem. Relax. Take a walk, go to a movie, have a picnic. Let your subconscious work on it without your conscious mind trying to interfere and control the process. By shifting your attention onto something more pleasurable, it allows your subconscious to begin finding solutions.

4. Do something, anything, that makes you feel successful. If you don’t have any money coming in, get a job pushing a broom just to have the feeling of financial flow. Find a way to feel like you’ve accomplished something.

5. Write about your concerns. Studies show that doing this can reduce the anxiety felt just before a test, a meeting or starting a project. Journaling can also help your mind process the information differently and solve problems.

6. Instead of being discouraged or defeated by a challenge, reframe it so you perceive it to be a pleasant experience. Change your attitude towards it to be something to accomplish, not dread. Viewing it from a different perspective will also bring much more creative energy to bear.

7. Write a list of what you’re grateful for as a way of changing your mood. Studies show that gratitude is one of the best ways to form a positive frame of mind. It increases optimism and instructs your mind to begin looking for the good.

Athletes form rituals and superstitions to help get them out the negative frame of mind created by a slump. Instead of using that hit and miss method, use the more productive strategies listed above. They’re more helpful in the long run. Once you’ve been able to detach from and break the negative feedback loop, you can get back into the flow.

Affirmation

All of Life is for me and works for my best interests. When I encounter obstacles and disappointments, I remember that everything is conspiring for my Highest Good. Success is my natural state, and it is always at the core of whatever happens. I change my perspective to view any difficulties as temporary challenges that will ultimately further my success and well-being.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Your Beliefs Determine Your Actions

Your Beliefs Determine Your Actions

You tend to filter current situations through your beliefs. If you tend to believe that nothing good happens for you, you probably overlook opportunities that come your way. This means you don’t take action on them, because you don’t realize there’s any action to take. But you can change those beliefs and filters. Here’s an exercise to practice turning negative beliefs around in your daily life.



Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

“Personal Development Tips: Why It’s Good For Business”

“Personal Development Tips: Why It’s Good For Business”

By Stuart Tan

I took a trip to Japan recently and was all the rave about the culture and the people there. I’d been asking myself why there was such a difference between Japanese culture and other parts of the world. I’ve been to Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Australia and the US.

While many of my friends tend to complain about service in most of these countries, I was personally pleasantly surprised by the level of service  especially so in Japan. The level of patience and “wow” service was quite amazing. For example, since it was the first time my family and I were in Japan, we had to ask for directions at the train station. For a beginner, the train network was quite confusing, with multiple providers and multiple stations. We had kind of sorted out where to go, when the officer at the station told us there was a faster way, and promptly refunded all our money and pointed us in the right direction.

Yes, these were competing train line providers. Yet, the focus was on the convenience of the visitor. Did this train line (Tokyo subway) lose out to the JR line? Well, not really. They did provide a great impression and also they created a positive for Japan overall.

Let’s draw a lesson from this: sometimes, providing good service helps the overall industry to win, not just the company alone. It would be really sad that an industry is avoided simply because of the bad press of a few companies cutting and slashing at each other.

It boils back down to the leaders within the organizations involved to be able to develop their people to think a little broader, beyond just the immediate term solution. In fact, the main thing is if you are constantly focused on the next 5 minutes, you won’t be able to proceed to create wins in the broader scheme of things.

Interestingly enough, Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, was quoted yesterday as encouraging a middle path amid the looming foreign currency war as part of the  G20 Summit in Seoul. This takes into account the fact that economically stronger nations could support weaker economies by strengthening their currencies a little where they could afford. I think this was quite interesting because it not only demonstrates the ability to avoid the black and white thinking approach, but also create wins all around.

We all expect certain things to happen in our mental models of the world. So unless we are taught to take a different approach or a more creative stance, it is highly likely we will fall flat in our pursuit of excellence. In customer service, for example, we expect waiters to attend to us immediately. Brian Tracy goes on a fake tirade during his presentations and says “the reason why we are in the restaurant is because we’re hungry you assholes!”(and of course the audience responded with laughter) I’m certain the restaurant never gets the point because in many circumstances, they are a victim of their own success. The more popular they are, the more customers they get and the lower the quality of their food!

Once again, it points to the idea that we have to constantly upgrade and change in order to become better. Every level of success will present for itself an additional level of challenge.

Back to Japan, I had a surprise also when we walked into a tempura bar. This bar is the kind where they will cook your order when you place it right in front of you, and was quite a novel experience. They got us to hang our jackets (we were experiencing 50 degrees Fahrenheit at night) and take off our shoes, which we placed in a shoe rack before getting to the bar. I’d personally already forgotten that there was a shoe rack in the first place, because I was enjoying my dinner. So when it was time to foot the bill, something strange happened. The shoes had automatically appeared out of nowhere, laid out in front of us at the foot of the place where we had left them. Of course, I processed it and thought ‘shoes don’t move on their own’. It was the attendant who had memorized what shoes we were wearing, and laid it out for us when we were leaving. I’m sure they had a system for remembering or else they wouldn’t have been able to handle the dozens of customers who were in their restaurant that night. Another point scored for Japan.

No matter where you are: a Prime minister in a G20 summit, a train station officer, a restaurant attendant or a public speaker running an event, we all need to strive for surprise – the ability to find a path that is more innovative to engage their audience/customers/suppliers.

Finally, shopping for shoes. My sister-in-law has tiny feet, so it’s impossible to find shoes anywhere in the world for her other than custom-made shoes. The problem for her is that she has had hers made and many of the shoes may look pretty but are not comfortable at all. Lo and behold, we chanced upon a shop that had SS sized shoes – size 20.5 to 22 (cm). These are the kind of shoes that your young teenage daughter might have at the kid’s department store. the only difference was the shoes were comfortable and good looking. Problem – each of them were over $200 a pair, a far cry from the traditional $20 Charles and Keith shopping mall sales. But, she went in to see how well the shoes fit anyway. Pair after pair, the attendant patiently brought suitable selections, in spite of a problem with language. Eventually, after going through almost 40 pairs of shoes, my sister bought five pairs. To be honest, I think we didn’t pay for the shoes, really. 90% of the cost of the shoes would easily have been attributed to the pleasant natured lady who attended to her, and it was worth it. Strangely, this seems to be a culture in Japan. Yet, in Singapore, we’re just scratching the surface of this, praising people who have GEMS programs in their company for ‘going the extra mile’. Wow. And here in Japan, they don’t mind going the extra few hundred miles… with a smile.

I figure this: attitude is something that we can never tell someone to have. I couldn’t go to an employee and say “improve your attitude” and it magically happens. But what can be done is to empower the organizational culture so that such behaviors and attitudes continue to shine. It’s therefore imperative that businesses constantly focus on bringing out the best in their employees through any form of training, coaching and mentoring. After all, one employee in the above case, could spend just under an hour to help the company earn over $1000 in shoe sales. Go ahead and crunch the numbers. Is that not proof of a decent return on investment?

Copyright 2011 Stuart Tan
All Rights Reserved

Stuart Tan is a trainer of personal development and business process excellence. He has trained in various countries all over the world over the last 15 years and continues to impact people through his podcasts and articles. For more information about his training programs, visit him at Facebook.StuartTan.com.

“Life Doesn’t Have To Be A Struggle”

“Life Doesn’t Have To Be A Struggle”

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Recently, a belief surfaced for me that was an aspect of a deeper issue concerning the need to struggle. This specific belief stressed that I could only learn and grow through difficulty. It claimed that it was necessary for me to experience blocks and obstacles, since that was the only way to strengthen me.

It made me realize how pervasive this idea of struggle, suffering and difficulty is in our culture. From religion to business, we’re conditioned to believe that life has to be hard and that we’re born to suffer. Our society has made suffering and struggle a condition to aspire to. Not only is it condoned, it’s expected. Think of the things you’ve heard from childhood.

  • Life is hard
  • Money doesn’t grow on trees
  • You have to work hard to earn a living
  • Only by working hard can you get ahead
  • You have to learn from your own mistakes
  • You can only learn from challenges
  • What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
  • You’ll never learn from other peoples’ mistakes
  • If you haven’t struggled, then you don’t appreciate what you have
  • The only thing that teaches you is suffering
  • If things come easily to you, then you’re shallow because you haven’t struggled
  • You have to walk a mile in another person’s shoes to appreciate their suffering

People actually play a game of one-ups-man-ship about how hard their life is. “I worked more hours than anyone else in the department,” or “My life is harder/worse than anyone else’s.” They get perks from management with the first, and a jolt of power with the second (believe it or not).

If people like this try to draw you in, disregard them. No matter what you do, you can’t please these discontented people. If you engage in their game, they’ll keep upping the ante. When someone says something like that to me, my internal commentary is, “You win. I’d rather have an enjoyable life than a hard one.”

It’s true that suffering sometimes can encourage a person to grow. But more often than not, it just causes them to dig a deeper hole. Struggle may strengthen character, but it’s more likely to cause a person to implode and be self-destructive.

When this belief surfaced for me, I realized that, to a certain extent and in limited amounts, struggle and suffering could be beneficial. It can wake us up and cause us to aspire to something better. Too much of it, though, and it’s counter-productive. In large amounts, it doesn’t build a person up, it breaks them down.

It’s like stress. A little stress helps propel us to develop new ideas, new ways of doing things, and actually creates interest in life. What would life be without a little excitement? To build muscle, we stretch and stress them. But train too hard, and we strain or tear our muscles. Having too much stress for too long harms our health.

We can choose what to believe. Our beliefs create our reality. Since, in the past, I’d   successfully transformed a belief to be more constructive, I decided to do the same thing with this one.

I considered how I could turn the idea of struggle around to be more in alignment with the Universe. What if the solution appeared as soon as I hit a snag? What if I could learn lessons while things flowed easily for me?

It may take some time for me to integrate these ideas, but I know that when I do, my life will be enriched. Try it for yourself. You just might be surprised at how wonderful your life can be without believing you need to struggle.

Affirmation

There is no struggle, strife, stress or suffering in the Universal Spirit, which I am a part of. I now erase from my mind the belief that any of these limited ideas are necessary. My life can flow smoothly, while I learn and grow with ease. The answer to any challenge is already apparent as soon as the issue arises. Ideas and internal resources increase as I allow myself to be more open to the flow of the Universe.

Copyright 2011 Linda-Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved