Discovering the Real Parts of Me

I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole "being yourself" business. Recently it has become something I use to make note of what I do not want, and then my ego gets me lingering on it and that it's the biggest problem in the world and can never be solved and oh drama and poor me stuck in a situation where I don't know what I want but the only thing I know is that it's not this.

This is such a bugged thought and I actually didn't notice it until now.

I've been spending a lot more time thinking about what I want as when I studied abroad and had more freedom and space in my mental psyche to dissociate from my identity at school (and even more rigid my identity at home) that I started doing things that I actually did want to do or started asking what I actually wanted to do.

So naturally as I haven't been really marching to the beat of my own drummer I've been noticing all the things that bring me joy and get me excited are not really what I've been doing.

But instead of being inspired by this, my ego wants to bring me down about it and be like look at all the horrible things I have to put up with because I am at school and stuck here for another 3 semesters.

Now it seems clear that given where I was in this soul-evolution thing, this is where I am. What's wrong with it? And goodness I'm only 20 it's not like I'm 80 and realising this (man that would actually be much harder to swallow) so where is the need to feel bad?

I'm glad I saw this one and can continue working on designing my life and things in my life. It'll be fun and I can do my schoolwork well at the same time if I carefully shift my perspective on the things in my life.

xx,
Catt

What Others Think of Us

The only person in this world you can control is you. And most people do a very bad job of it.

It seems like a lot more could be done in a day if I could completely drop the habit of being concerned over what others think of me. It takes up so much time and mental energy..time and mental energy that could be spent on more productive things. I'm always inclined to see productivity as how much psychic energy you can free up and thus how well you can focus on what you're doing.

We literally imprison ourselves by letting what others think bother us. If something bothers us, then we are accepting it as true to the degree we are bothered by this. We have to recognize this as wrong thinking and let go of it because it's just not real and just not going to work if we want to be ourselves and being ourselves is the only way to live a fulfilling life.

For myself right now I am learning to take note of when things to bother me (and it's not that hard..feeling crappy vs. feeling gratitude is what happens for me) and accept that right now this is how I feel, and I have to work with where I am right now. Only until I've completely accepted and love the pain (and all the past decisions that brought me to a particular point) does the pain go away and can I now ask the question, what is the best thought I can have here?

There are so many things we think, speak, and act upon about us that just aren't true..well clearly if they were true we wouldn't be in the state we're in right now. So learning to accept is the first step and then picking the closest next best thought.

As Andy says, worrying about what others think really is insane, but we all do it because somehow we've defined ourselves as how others see us..I guess there's few people who define themselves by their own standards (certainly no one I've been close to) so it's hard to see. But untrodden territory is definitely obtainable, as I've already proven to myself big time.

xx,
Catt

Why Am I Still Here Today

So this is a kind of sad post but I'd rather be honest than cover things up.
I watched this once, then listened to it while I asked my fiance to watch it, and then just watched it again, and each time the tears roll.

I was never called names on a large scale in school but at home I definitely felt like it was a daily battle. I don't know what things caused me to believe in things this way aside from I guess getting in trouble for small things that didn't make sense to me all the time and feeling under my brother growing up. I still remember the times where my brother and my mom would make fun of me together, about how I would never have a boyfriend because I have an impossible-to-get-along-with personality and an easily irritable temper. I remember they never picked compassion they picked ridicule and pity/look-upon-like-she's-pathetic. Then my dad would tell me to get over it or learn to cope with it. He didn't pick compassion he picked "strength." And it's all really peachy to say I could handle it all but that approach never worked. It never worked because when I chose "strength" I never let myself be hurt or down. I wanted to be bulletproof and unassailable. It took me a while to realise how this wasn't working for me. It took me some ample doses of emotional pain and physical pain - from domestic violence to forced sex - until I could finally see that something in the way I saw things was wrong.

And more importantly, a very recent realisation, they have to be wrong. They can't be right. Otherwise how would I still be here.

The more we hide things the more out of perspective they get. Whoever came up with the idea that being strong by being unassailable was wrong, and my own life experiences are the experiments to that hypothesis. And I can tell you they're wrong.

But only when we realise the deep seated unassailability we all possess by default, spiritually, truthfully, can we then be "brave" enough to tell the truth. But otherwise, we're accepting us as half-good, broken goods, if we put up a facade that everyone can see as bulletproof..the army of friends that call us an inspiration.

I actually had a pretty good day I didn't wake up sad. I think it's because I let myself really cry over this long enough last night and start realising I can pick better. I'll know I've made progress when I come back to this video someday and find that perhaps I'm not crying anymore and understand fully why we go through these things and what a gift it's been to have gone through all these things, and that I don't need them as a contextual field anymore.

xx,
Catt

Deep Fears

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I wanted to look at this quote a bit because it's a really strange concept - or more accurately perhaps, an unfamiliar one. I haven't been doing quite as well emotionally recently although perhaps "materially" it's been better than it's ever been before.

This quote reminds me of a quote Dr. Robert Anthony wrote:

A lesson that has taken us far too long to learn is that the opposite of bravery is not cowardliness, but rather, conformity.

I know personally I've been scared to "be myself" because of what others may think or say about me, and for good reason if I am affected by it. If we are really, as Marianne Williamson describes, "powerful beyond measure," surely we would be rejected by more people than accepted. Beyond being brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous, it is really about being ourselves which is brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous, and that's where the confusion comes in, that's where we start to question well what's up with that? I didn't do anything to merit it.

When we really take a good look and observe, it's all around us. To claim who we really are is not a big deal, but with years on years of conditioning we automatically turn right when maybe we're supposed to turn left to get when we want to go.

I think it's time for a few things to be established (for me at least)
1. The things most people say most of the time are just BS (ie. ungrounded or for ulterior motive)
2. It takes thought and awareness to not get dragged into it
3. There is a way to live in this world but not of it

I've been having trouble since I came back to school because suddenly everything in my limited thinking became "I must" or "I should" or "I have to"
The more I dwell on these things the more I feel an obligation and the more it gets crappy.
I'm not here to sell ideas [anymore] or be proof of burden or whatever the terms are. I desire to give and I have no clue who ends up on my blog or anything of that sort but I know that there are people out there who do have similar feelings or situations and I know that there are ways out and I know it will come with a matter of time, for everyone. I've been cowardly recently. In actuality it is just taking the limiting beliefs for real. It's not exactly a matter of being brave just what to pick to represent what is real. I struggle still with knowing that I can live in this world without being of it because no one around me that I'm close to or I know really well does, but it's time I stopped using examples.
I had a problem set for philosophy class and I couldn't really do it because I had no example to follow. Previously, I could only do them because I could follow step-by-step what was to be found. Yet the last one had no example and I found myself clueless. I felt I had no way of doing it. I went to my professor's office hours and he showed me how to do it (my main task of the day..complete my problem set :)), but he tried teaching me (I don't know how successfully) not by teaching me how to do it but how to think about it. I think it's time I clarified things more and allowed this to come through me.

xx,
Catt