3 Tips to see underneath your beliefs

If you genuinely desire to improve yourself, then you need to be open to learning.  That's a given.  In which ways you will learn, well. that's up to you.  Now, if you step back and realize that what you see and experience is always a choice, then you can also consciously change your desires.  You may ask, "how it could be so simple?"

Now, if you decide you don't like something about yourself, you have at least two options: you can decide to love yourself as you are and stay that way or, you can decide to change.  Its all a matter of attitude.  How you perceive yourself is a product of your mind.  Its useful to reflect on three points to see under your beliefs:

1) Realize what you are can't be threatened.  You experience your physical body based on perception, based on conditioning, and based on what other people would like you to believe.  As you deduce that nothing can threaten or intimidate you unless you choose to be effected as such, then you discover fear and anxiety are also products of your mind. Choose instead to know you're safe.  This is the truth.

2) Make choices about what you are.  Consider words you would use to describe yourself. Are you an individual? Are you living in a body? Are you a misplaced soul?  Are you living in the world you perceive or visiting? Are you mortal? changeless or ever-changing? immortal and invulnerable? What you sense or ignore is always a choice.  Does your ego control you? Your view may emerge from insecurities, self-criticism or judgment. Discern reasons behind your self-image and 'ways of seeing.'

3) Engage in mind training.  How many people do you know who will go lengths to support their views and interpretations?  This includes perceived reasons why people are conviced they're right and other people are wrong.  Practising forgiveness of yourselves and others is a leson to learn on the road to self-growth. Remove blocks you put in the way.  Increase awareness of the presence of love all around you.

3 Points to get back on track

How often do you utter words and later, have things drawn to your attention that make you wish you had put your foot in your mouth? It may be that you need to learn to read between the lines. What kinds of reactions could ensure? You might condition a new approach.  Perhaps you could benefit from learning to think more before you speak? Perhaps you know someone who would benefit from guidance? Three points may will get you on the track to expressing more effective communication.

1) Take 3 seconds. Reflect briefly on the idea you plan to share and imagine the potential repercussions. Whether your aim is to help someone else think more before they speak or, help yourself be a better communicator, it makes sense to inhale and exhale.  This will enable you to harness negative emotions that might otherwise prompt you to blurt things out and rub people the wrong way.

2)Learn diplomacy.  Put yourself in the shoes of the person to whom you're speaking. That is, imagine yourself at the receiving end. Ask yourself if what you plan to say would be perceived as constructive, uplifting and beneficial or, would your words be more apt to put another person on the defensive?

3) Seek & retain lessons.  Nothing happens for no reason. Realize your meant to learn something from every person you meet and every dialogue.  If the reactions you get aren't the ones you desire, then this is an opportunity to examine yourself. If other people are the sort who don't think before they speak and don't realize what they say, then they may have entered your life because they need your help.

Understand & release destructive feelings

You don't realize dreams unless you love yourself. You can't love yourself until you forgive all your perceived imperfections and see beyond. You don't learn to love fully before you realize you have reason to love the innocence in others. If your instinct is to judge or attack, then you have new opportunities to see new purpose in life. Fear is what sets in when you forget how to love. fear is a delusion. You don't fight fear, rather, you turn on the love and extinguish or dissolve the illusion of fear.

Are you unhappy people aren't nice to you? You might interpret their behavior as a call for compassion and love. Only what your own heart is doing determines whether you have peace within. If people seem nasty, aren't you forgetting to love yourself? Everybody loves you, they just don't all know it yet. We have a veil called a personality that hides the loving beings we are. We also fall into the trap of being blinded to the true personalities of others.  Any judgment you have on anyone, is a way to judge yourself and prolong your suffering. You may be saying, what is my mission? What should I do? Learn to use your mind to figure out why you're here.

You can experience clarity. The physical reality is only the level of effect. Consciousness is the level of cause. Changes you make in behavior will only be temporary unless you deal with the thoughts at the basic level. Invite yourself to rethink potentially destructive feelings and decipher them for what they really are. Knowing is a way to remove their power or hold over you. Its not your job to get things, its your job to discern why you create barriers to sensing and learning.

1) Denial: takes form when you fear anything other than what you think you know. Learn to let go by becoming more flexible and open-minded, and accepting that you don't know everything. You want a perfect relationship with whatever you deny yourself. Get comfortable with having whatever you fear not knowing or having.

2) Anger: takes form when your values, principles or beliefs are threatened. Learn to let go by accepting diverse ideas contribute to a wider view. The real matter is learning to see thoughts, expressions and others equally rather than unequally.

3) Annoyance: takes form when you allow yourself to judge and somehow feel discomfort about it. Learn to build self-confidence, to balance inner (spiritual) and outer (physical) world views. This implies transcending visions of hierarchies.

4) Depression: takes form when you give into doubt, lose direction or get wrapped up in what isn't enough or isn't working. Learn to let go by realizing everything happens at exactly the right time and you can learn from it all. You must go within to envision and create the world anew, attracting the experiences you want.

5) Resentment: takes form as reaction to criticism, sarcasm, judgment and control of ego-mind.  Learn to let go by tapping into the healing force of the Universe. Replace harsh impulses with the desire to share kindness, to align your mind with the Universe's forcefield of positive power. Expand on your view of "appropriate."

6) Discomfort: takes form when intolerance or disapproval are permitted to control your mind. Learn to let go by opening your heart, becoming more accepting, and sensing value in other people for who they are and how they think.

7) Hostility: takes form when you refuse to accept some aspect of yourself at soul-level. Learn to let go of the negative eneergy by pinpointing exactly what you don't love inside. Choose to seek within yourself and take down the barriers that prevent you from experiencing love. Realize why you condemn and decide you're worthy. 

8) Sadness: takes form when you sense lack, void, regret, and permit selfishness to prevail. Learn to surrender, celebrate what is, to grasp selflessness, altruism and infinite joy. Take opportunities to forgive people who don't think they deserve it. If you don't choose to love, you can't understand people. You also set them up to fail.

Examine where you focus attention

As you go about your day-to-day activities and contemplate dreams, its useful to recognize where you focus your attention. You will come to realize you're attracted to certain people and environments, as well as selected dramas that may repeatedly rev you up. You may ask "how do I break those undesirable habits and patterns?"

Notice how often you get angry or frustrated and the nature of the triggers. Make an effort to become especially attuned to your thoughts and physical body. To what degree you listen and comprehend your judgment and discomfort offers clues to where and how you desire to improve. What do you notice? As you learn to focus on the tempo of your breathing, this also guides you to refocus your attention.

1) Open your senses. Truly observe and absorb your experiences. Its a question of learning to decipher the messages from your mental and physical body. What do things like yawning, kinks or physical stiffness reveal? When you catch a cold or the flu, how do you read your symptoms? Do you disregard various signs your body has been sending? How could you turn situations around to strengthen your immune system? How would you consciously choose to behave differently?

2) Rethink how you perceive. Whenever you identify problems, take a closer look. Every action and reaction has an underlying meaning you can uncover beneath the surface. Consider your thought process. Are you focused on limitations, obstacles or lack? Do you ever view yourself as a victim? Evolve to recognize your physiological reactions to people and conditions. When do you tense up? Are there instances when you repress feelings and bottle them up inside? Learn to let go and release them.

3) Reflect on the why. If you come to a point where you desire to improve some aspect of yourself or some situation, then you are unconsciously acknowledging a level of dissatisfaction. Examine the real reasons for your focus on goals or aspirations. To establish plans can be a source of motivation. Yet, goals can also mask insecurities and fear that help explain why you don't accept yourself as you are. You can change your mindset and attitude to create new kinds of happiness.

Discern the truth in your dreams

Everybody fears something in this world. The good news is that you can get a handle on it and reframe your life with renewed strength. All fear can be traced to the level of the unconscious mind and the guilt you create from making undesirable choices. Dreams help you gain insight into how and why you can improve yourself. What matters isn't what you learn, but what you actually do with what you learn.

Consider the idea that you're connected to everyone and everything. If your unconscious mind knows this, then why is it you choose to judge and condemn others while awake or asleep? Mistreating others simply means we think we deserve this kind of treatment ourselves. How we behave is like projecting a message about ourselves so that we can heighten our own awareness. What will you do about it?

You may be surprised to realize improving yourself requires learning to discern and break repeated cycles. The way you will experience and feel about yourself isn't determined by how other people perceive and think about you. So, seeking approval isn't the way to go. In actuality, the way you will experience life and feel about yourself is determined by how you choose to perceive and think about others. As you criticize or reject, you only really reject you. Emotions are clues to heal your soul.

Self-improvement then, is all about deciding you'll forgive yourself for reacting with anything other than forgiveness. The kind of truth you need to learn can be heard in your dreams, but what you need to do to evolve isn't a dream. Your sleeping and waking dreams take different forms, but the content and what they aim to teach is the same. Open your mind. Opportunities to grow lie outside your comfort zone.