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Aug 2010. After many difficult times and much thought, I have recently been concentrating on the idea that identity, and the search for it, is the most important motivation for our actions, and therefore for happiness/unhappiness. Below. I have written a little article, but will write more soon
On this page I will try to write about the nature of being. Throughout my life I have been conscious of being on a journey, of searching for something that was possibly unobtainable. Below, you can read about the experiences that have shaped my conscious thought, and also the deeper unthinking realisation of self.
Of course, it is fine if you disagree with my conclusions, think I'm crazy or laugh. I already do. However, my aim is to record my personal journey and give hope to those who are unhappy with themselves and with life.
There is no plan to my writing, but I'll simply write whatever I feel is best at any moment. I might edit and change sections in the future, so keep coming back!
Writing
Identity
When we are small children,
we don't ask
ourselves 'Who am I?' But we do start the long process of develping an
identity. For example: 'I am a boy!' or 'I am three!' 'I like ice
cream.' These simple statements are our attempt to define who we are.
As we grow, we label ourselves more and more. Our identity grows with
all the new labels that we stick to ourselves.
But later in life we begin to
consciously ask ourselves the fundamental question of who we are...
'Who am I?'
'Well... I am a
successful doctor. I have published many books. I have a lovely wife
and two lovely children. I play tennis and golf and enjoy Mozart.'
'But who am I really?'
'Well... I am someone who has visited many countries and knows many
things. I
am rich and successful. I know who I am!'
'Really? Is that really who I am?
'Yes! I am a kind and loving person. A man who is reliable and honest.
That's me. That's my identity.'
But is that really who you are?
In my opinion, we are like the image I drew above. An empty shape with a big question mark inside. It was the same when you were born and is the same now. Some people are lucky; they stick so many 'identity' labels on themselves, that they cannot see the shape and question mark at all. thet have found their identity. But, of course, they haven't.
If you can live your life without the labels falling off, then you are lucky. Even if sometimes we replace labels, change our identity, keep patching up the holes that appear, we can be sure of our self-created identity.
I wasn't so lucky. I spent a long long time trying to stick labels on myself, but knowing they were not who I was. Labels like 'world traveller', 'communist', 'gentle and kind person', 'part-time philosopher!', 'climber', 'English teacher', skinny guy', etc, etc. Unfortunately, my shape is very slippery and all of the labels I tried to stick to myself to create 'Me' simply fell off and littered the ground at my feet
So, what does this mean? In my view, those people who cannot identify themselves with such things as the job they do, car they drive, or the partner they live with; these people face much uncertainty and unhappiness. the eternal questions of 'Who am i?' and 'Why am I here?' will keep coming back. You will feel the empty shape below the labels.
The search for different kinds of labels can motivate people to incredible achievements, but also to terrible crimes, or worst of all - a feeling of nothingness. People with many labels are deemed successful, those with few labels, or boring labels are thought to be failures. But under all the labels we are the same shape.
So the question is... 'Who am I really?'
Say 'No!' to Negativity
Do you get lost in
negative thoughts? Are
you always thinking bad things? Try the following simple technique to
help you overcome your negativity. Buy a small notebook and keep it
with you for a week. Every time you have a bad or negative thought.
Write
it down. Make a note of the target of your negativity, and brief
details about what you thought (If you don't have time to write, then
mark a page with a black dot).
The action of writing down your thoughts could reinforce them and make them stronger. But I suggest the opposite will happen: that you will soon see the foolishness of harbouring such thoughts. In addition, you will soon get bored of writing down so many bad thoughts. You will start choosing to think positively to avoid the tedious note-writing. This technique works well with those who want to lose weight, but I suggest it can help you to get rid of harmful negativity too. If you fill the notebook, then burn it. Burn it with a small ceremony, saying to yourself that the old you dies with the burning of the negative thoughts. The fire will cleanse your spirit.
Forgive me
Do
you like other people? Do you treat
other people with respect? If someone makes a mistake, can you forgive
them and move forwards without bearing a grudge? Hopefully you answered
'yes' to these questions. So why is it that you don't treat yourself so
well? if you respect other people, why don't you show the same respect
for yourself? If you can forgive others, why can't you always forgive
yourself so easily?
Many people treat themselves very differently from the way they treat the people around them. sometimes we punish ourselves terribly. Would you punish another person as much? Would you constantly say the same terrible things to another person that you say to yourself?
Perhaps we should be judged, not on how well we treat others, but how well we treat ourselves. Maybe that would show better whether we are actually 'good' or not. Forgiveness must start with yourself. Forgive yourself and stop punishing yourself. You'll be a better person if you do.
Chasing cats
Cats
are wonderful creatures, but are often unapproachable. The more
attention you give to a cat, the more it tries to escape. When you
chase
one and pick it up, it struggles to get away, seemingly uncomfortable
in your arms. However, if you sit quietly, and pay a cat no attention,
it
might come to you and sit on your lap. Only when you stop chasing it,
does it allow you to get close.
To me, this is exactly like happiness. If you chase happiness, you might find it is impossible to capture. We pursue it in the relationships we build; the money we make; the holidays we go on; the hobbies we engage in. And yet, happiness is often momentary - reduced to memories and photographs. If you want lasting happiness, you must stop looking for it. When you give up the chase, it will find you. The happiness you will experience will be a deeper joy; the simple wonderous joy of being that is separate from the fleeting superficial happiness of actions.
This pure happiness also includes a feeling of peace, and can be yours if you stop chasing and let it come to you. The key is in acceptance. By accepting whatever happens, you will find the space to relax and enjoy life. Although, in this state, it simply doesn't matter if life is good or bad, because true happiness doesn't depend on day-to-day outside influences - it is eternal.
Ice cream
Imagine
three happy couples are sitting on a wall. It is a lovely summer's day
and they
are all eating ice cream cones. The guys have strawberry
flavour, the girls have chocolate flavour. Let's see what the
three couples do:
The first couple smile at each other and offer each other their own
ice cream to taste. They have a taste, say how delicious the ice cream
is, smile, and continue with their
own cone in the warm sunshine.
The second couple smile at each other, and sit and
enjoy their own ice creams, but do not offer each other a taste. They
are happy to have their own, they do not need to try the other flavour.
The third guy looks at his partner, smiles and
offers his ice cream to her. She smiles and
has a taste, but does not offer him her own ice cream. But he is happy
to see his girlfreind enjoying herself. It is such a lovely day.
These three couples are very
different but they are all happy.
Their
needs are met in three different ways. However, not all couples have
life so easy. Imagine they were swopped partners. Now the first
guy offers his cone to his new girlfriend, but his new girlfriend is
not intersted in tasting his strawberry flavour,
she doesn't need to. He can deal with it, but he is disappointed when
she
declines his offer and then doesn't offer him a lick of her chocolate
cone inreturn. He wants to try it,
but does not want to ask her. He just hopes she will offer it to him.
She doesn't. She is happy, but he is left feeling something is missing.
The next day he goes out with the third girl. He offers her a taste of
his ice cream. She has a lick and really enjoys it. They smile at each
other and he waits for her to offer him her chocolate cone. She
doesn't. She is happy eating both. He feels something is missing and
cannot understand why she didn't offer him a taste.
Matching needs is a crucial part of a successful relationship. Many relationship styles can work, but only if both partners needs are being met. I suggest, the first of the three couples stand the best chance of success, because they are considering their partner, and putting their partner first. However, the other two couples are also happy in their own way. Sadly, many relationships are more like the final mis-matches, where in the end, the unhappy partner will think the other person doesn't care.
What kind of ice cream eaters are you and your partner?
Ugly teddy
Sometimes, we don't know
what to do with
our
hands, so we cross them, or put them in our pockets, or smoke a
cigarette, or play with a pen. What we really want to do is to
cuddle something and so feel secure, to return again to our mother's
warm love. When we are children, many of us have a teddy bear. This
bear protects us through dark lonely nights, makes us feel wanted and
at ease.
As adults, we still need a teddy bear to feel secure. Except some people have an ugly teddy. Unfortunately, what makes them feel comfortable is holding negative emotions close to them. These feelings might be guilt, self-punishment, jealousy, or anger. But they feel familiar and comfortable. For some of us, feeling happy results in feeling insecure, like having the teddy snatched from our hands, feeling naked and vunerable. So we hold the ugly teddy tighter and tighter, believing we cannot survive without it.
'Antibiotic' reading
Many
of us read self-help
books and popular
psychology books such as 'The Key' by Joe Vitale or 'Men are from Mars,
women are from Venus' by John Gray. Through reading, we are trying to
make sense of our lives. Some books offer seemingly wonderful ways to
change your life and become happy and/or successful. These books are
either like drops of candy or bad-tasting medicine.
Recently I read a very challenging book by Eckhart Tolle entitled 'A New Earth'. This book is about your ego: your conscious thought or the voice in your head, and its ideas are the most difficult medicine to swallow. Three hundred pages of painful ego confrontation. A friend of mine found the reading very heavy going and extremely disturbing. However, it occurred to me that Mr Tolle was therefore succeeding in his purpose of forcing awareness of the harm our Id-serving ego does to us.
This book is similar to a course of antibiotics, if you give up before the course is finished, the sickness will not be cured. In fact, your resistance to further disease will be lowered. If you try to change your self or change your life, you must finish the medicine. If you read a book, and agree with what it says, then don't move on until the wisdom in that book has had a chance to heal you. Simply buying a book will not change your life, but following the book's ideas and advice everyday may just lead to a new you.
Locked box
Inside all of us is a locked box. Imagine a small heavy wooden
box, strengthened by iron bands, with a heavy padlock. Within this box
are all the answers. We know the answers are inside, but we fear the
box can never be opened, as we don't have the key. And also, we fear
that the answers are not the ones we want to hear. So we hide the box
and try to forget it exists. Instead, we look for answers in many other
places; the warm embrace of a lover's arms; the comfort of a large bank
account; religious conviction; vacations in the sun; new possessions.
And yet, we know these will never fully satisfy our craving for the
answers, as the answers are within each of us.
My life had been always full of changes - different jobs, different partners, different locations, a new 'me' ever year. Searching for what I knew I could never find by looking in the wrong places, but searching anyway. Ignoring the box inside me. Finally, I became exhausted with the futility of my actions and began to concentrate on the box. Suprisingly, it was not as difficult or as scary as I had imagined. The box began to open and reveal its secrets.
Hourglass
Sometimes life can feel like an hourglass with the sand
slipping through. When you are in the top of the hourglass, you will
feel yourself being dragged down towards a tiny hole at the bottom.
What you cannot see is that once you pass through the narrow hole, life
will spread out in the great space below. Going towards and through the
tiny hole is a painful and scary experience, but necessary if you want
to experience a new and open existance. I used to think the hole
represented
'death', but now I know that this hole represents 'acceptance'.Choices
Zoroastrianism
Does an ancient religion from the Asian steppes hold one of the keys to understanding our place in the universe?
Although
I grew up in a England, a Christian country, I could never accept its
ideas and definitely not the churches that were supposed to represent
those ideas; there were far too many questions I needed
answers to. Living
in North West Kent, as a young child most of my friends were Sikhs and
there was an obvious contradiction between the basic beliefs of Sikhism
and the
beliefs of the Christian churches.
As I grew older, I toyed with the idea of Buddhism as a belief system,
but again, Its ideas didn't fit well enough with my own basic gut
feelings about life and the universe. But I always wanted to find the
comfort of shared beliefs and the meaning of existence.
One day, I was surfing the net and stumbled across a restorationist Zoroastrian web site. The simplicity of the ideas were such a relief. So finally I discovered a way of matching my beliefs with a 'mainstream' religion. Of course, Zoroastrianism is no longer mainstream, but in the past it was. For one thousand years it dominated the 'civilised' world, and it's basic principles show up in all major religions still popular today. Since that time, the religion was transformed into a regular church-based worship system, but the original beliefs were very simple. These are a few of the basics:
Think 'right' thoughts, speak 'right' words, do 'right' actions.
Try to live life in harmony with the Universe.
There is no punishment by God as there is only love. You punish yourself.
Good and evil are created in the minds of men. They do not occur in nature.
All things are equal: man, animal, plant.
If you are interested in finding out more, please visit an informative site by clicking on the sunset image image. There is a useful section of questions and answers that is worth reading, as well as some of the major concepts.
The Secret
This is a book which helped change my life. "Not again!" I hear my friends say. But it's true. Here I will outline some of the basic ideas that have allowed me to begin to change who I am and more importantly, how I think and feel.
I had been struggling with myself for a long time, especially with
negativity and unhappiness caused by a destructive ego. A good friend
of mine was recommended this
book by another friend who
is well-versed in self-help programmes. Although my ego's natural
skepticism
kicked in, I had a gut feeling that this was exactly the right time
for change.
almost instantly, the authors words made sense to me, and instead of
discounting them as money-grabbing frauds, as I would have done in the
past, I opened my mind to their superior wisdom. This in itself was a
first for me!
The essence of The Secret is 'The Law of Attraction". Basically, this law states that we attract what we think about. This can be good or bad and is remarkable in its simplicity. You can have whatever you want, be whoever you want, through utilizing The Law. It works! Here are some personal examples of its validity: I decided to start small trying to attract good things into my life and in the space of three days I managed to attract butterflies to me. On day one, one butterfly came to me seconds after believing that I would see a beautiful creature. Day two - two butterflies, and day three, three together. Although this sounds coincidental, I hadn't seen any butterflies since the previous year and so their appearance was significant. And.. I had thought about the exact number of butterflies. Not convinced? Read on...
I decided to buy another copy of the book in Japanese. I walked into a bookstore containing thousands of books, all in Japanese, and knew the book would find me. So I walked randomly to a section, stopped, looked down and 'The Secret' was right by my knees. I bent down, picked a copy up and bought it. No effort, no searching. Not convinced? Read on...
I decided to believe I would receive unexpected money within a week. Fat chance! Never happens! But three days later - I did receive some hard cash unexpectedly. One of my students returned from a trip to Korea and he put his hand in his pocket, picked out a Korean banknote and gave it to me. Free money! Now, this is the crunch, it was only worth 90 Yen (about 50p/$1) - a tiny amount of money even though it was free. So why so such a small amount? In fact, I really believed I would receive money, but deep down, I didn't expect much, and I got exactly what I thought was possible in my situation - a small amount.
So our sub-conscious beliefs and expectations influence the Law of Attraction strongly. I decided I needed to work on my subconscious and as I this realization occurred, the universe was moving to answer this thought. My friend gave me another two books - 'The Key' by Joe Vitale, and 'The Attractor Factor' also by Joe Vitale. Joe explains how to clear yourself of the negative limiting beliefs and feelings. We manifest exactly what we deeply believe we deserve, and so if we think we deserve little, we get little. Simple really. I've been working on the techniques he introduces and trying to make progress. It's tough, but knowing I am finally heading in a better direction is very comforting. Recently, I have felt much more positive and in control of my thoughts, feelings and future. If you don't believe me, I'd encourage you to borrow or buy the book. At the very least, you will feel brighter about yourself.
Beaches
Why are people attracted to beaches? Click the image below..
