My friend was talking about the unhappiness she was having in her job the other day. She said that she realized that she was more than willing to take less money for less stress in her life. I suggested that maybe she could actually make comparable money, and still find a job that was less stressful than her current job. My friend is an expert in her field. She has spent her entire adult life cultivating her skills in this area. My friend deserves to be paid well. I told my friend to question and investigate her belief that a well-paid job automatically comes with a great deal of stress.
I read an article the other day that suggested that by the time we reach adulthood, roughly 70 percent of who we are is unconscious conditioning. We take on the beliefs of our families, our communities, our countries, our religions, our educations, our generational peers, and our professions, and we don’t do much to really question and explore these beliefs to see if they really resonate with the deepest parts of our own core selves. Unfortunately, it often takes a full blown crisis in our lives, to wake us up to our own truths.
Is there an area in your life where you are struggling, maybe not at full-blown crisis stage (yet), but an area in your life that just doesn’t feel right? Explore your beliefs around this problem. Are your beliefs true? Is there another way of looking at what you are going through? Have you created yourself a prison of “Well, this is just the way things are”, or a guilt prison of “Well, this is what I should do”? Where is that should coming from? Is it really your own judgment, or is it a conditioned judgment that you have never really examined and questioned? When you do this activity, you may find that you have been your own jailer, hemmed in by your own limited, conditioned beliefs. While this can be an upsetting realization, it is also a freeing one. When you are your own jailer, you are also the one who holds the key to your freedom.
*****In regards to yet another American mass shooting tragedy that happened yesterday in Nashville, take some time to really examine your own beliefs about what could be done concerning this epidemic of needless devastation. One thing that I am certain about, (a belief of mine that I have fully explored, and personally experienced in my own life many times) is “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” One person isn’t going to fix this problem, but we all can do our parts. Take some time to explore what part you think you might be able to do, to help solve this problem. (Don’t waste time arguing about what other people should do. What could you do? Contact your local politician? Sign a petition? Volunteer for a mental health organization? . . . . ) Think outside of the box. Our future generations deserve more than this current “Oh, this is just the way things are” defeatist attitude.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.