Bitcoin Wishing Well

Self Improvement? No Need!
by: Willie Horton

You don't need self improvement. You're perfect all ready - you just need to realize it. Some aficionados of personal development might call the process 'self-realization' - a big word (two actually) for something that is within every single person's reach. There's little pointing in clouding what comes naturally in some fog of mystique - little point in complicating the simply. Every single one of us can achieve awareness and self fulfillment if we learn how to simply stop the incessant noise in our head. I think you know the noise that I'm talking about. The little voice that says 'No You Can't' - that nagging feeling that, unlike the L'Oreal ad, you're not worth it! - or all the various different feelings of inadequacy, shyness, uselessness, that, in actual fact, have nothing to do with who you really are - they're just the leftovers from the things that happened to you during your formative years.

We all labor under this crap - but crap it is. Psychology tells us that our subconscious mind - the part of you that's constantly feeding your feelings of perceived inadequacy - is obsessed with what made you feel good or bad about yourself during your childhood - those aforementioned formative years. Unfortunately, psychology also proves that your subconscious mind actually prefers, for some bizarre reason, to focus on the negative. In other words, instead of being encouraged by your subconscious, you are constantly being put down - your subconscious mind is actually working against you. This is a very big problem for us all because, you must remember, that your subconscious is the part of your mind that automatically creates your behaviour and reactions - so you constantly keep proving yourself right! Your life is a string of self fulfilling prophecies!

As an adult, you've grown older but never grown up. Well, it's time to grow up now and take responsibility for what's going on in your head. You need to learn how to free your mind - to sweep away all that horrible self-destructive noise. Those useless thoughts will always be with you, they're deeply impressed upon your subconscious mind, they're never going to go away. However, what you have to do is learn how to not give them your attention or energy. What you must realize is that thought on its own is nothing. On the other hand, thought plus energy the energy that you give it equals your version of reality. And it has nothing to do with real reality right here, right now.

You've got to find a different way to deploy your energy. First of all, there's certainly no use in trying to counteract the useless thoughts in your head with positive thoughts. Fighting the useless thoughts is counter-productive - if you get involved in that argument you will just give those self-defeating thoughts even more energy and you'll get even more frustrated with your lot in life. Instead, you've got to learn to pay attention to something else - and nothing else is more exciting, nothing else should demand more of your attention than the wonderful world of the here and now. Because real reality is actually taking place before your very eyes - it's just that the useless crap in your head has blinded you to who you really are and all the opportunities that life has on offer - right here, right now.

The present moment is the time and place where life is lived. By training your mind to focus on the here and now, you can break out of your 'thought-made shell' and start living the life that you really want to live, free of the unreal inhibitions that have been holding you back. You have the opportunity to live life to the full right now. What you've got to do is wake up and smell the roses - I mean that literally. Reality - with all its possibilities and opportunities - is experienced through your only interface with the outside world - your five senses. Psychology proves that, because of the noise in our heads, we do not pay adequate attention to what our senses are actually telling us about the present moment. Instead, we use our internal crap to make sense of what we think is going on - and, obviously, make nonsense of it. You've got to come to your senses. You've got to train your mind to pay attention to what's real so that it will stop paying attention to what isn't.

And starting out couldn't be simpler - as I said earlier, why complicate what is simplicity itself! Tomorrow morning, before your day gets going, make ten minutes 'me-time' for yourself. Find somewhere quiet where you will not be disturbed, sit down, close your eyes and just listen. You'll think that someone has turned up the volume! However, it's just that, with your eyes closed, you're actually paying more attention to the sounds around you. Try to listen to the sound of your breathing and, then, try to feel the way the air goes in and out of you - and the effect that it has on your body - every time you breathe in and out.

The secret to living your ideal life is no big deal - you've simply got to start paying attention to living, instead of letting your subconscious mind pay attention to dying a slow and painful psychological death.