Shatter the myths

How you perceive yourself highly influences your life choices and whether you have faith in dreams.  To what degree you recognize and value your skills and abilities helps you understand your behavior patterns.  Why do you disregard your potential? Why opt to ignore aspects of your personality?  This all influences whether you struggle with your sense of self-worth.  Ready to shatter your self-created myths?

Its quite common for people to nurture false assumptions about their identity. From a young age, we're all labelled by others.  The words we permit to affect us are often those we allow to sink deep into our subconscious.  If you were ever told you weren't capable, you may have grown to believe it.  You don't have to feel permanently inept or inferior.  Rethink reasons for your insecurity or shame. Consider these three tips:

1) IQ tests don't accurately measure intelligence.  How smart you are isn't for other people to tell you.  Its for you to prove to yourself.  This isn't something you can pin down with a number, an acronymn, or any other test result.  It arises through life experience and choices you make that shape your self-confidence.  Many people have been labelled as one type of person and gone on to prove they are a completely different sort.  You are really the best judge of your own character. 

2) Historical & socio-cultural evaluations are misleading.  You may assume your sense of adequacy (or inadequacy) depends on qualities or skills deemed important by your community.  Not everyone works in a field that is socially-valued in mainstream culture.  The level of external approval doesn't have to influence your core self-acceptance.  Yet, lots of people wrongfully assume their earnings, gender, skin color, ethnicity, religion or other labels alone define self-worth. Identity simply is and begins within. As you permit, your emotional awareness grows with you.     

3) Who you are is not reflected in the mind's self-image. The latest trends don't define who you are. Your mind tricks you into thinking it controls the parameters of your life. You intuitively sense untapped abilities before you gaze into a mirror or read current media. Nobody, not the media or the ego knows you as well as the heart. As you imagine your physical body, envision how it functions ideally, how you know it is evolving in quantum leaps. Notice what happens when your thoughts are no longer the point of reference for health and well-being, time and space. Who or what exists beyond the mind's limitations? Can this be perceived or described?

Move beyond simply thinking positive

If you tend to spend a lot of your time imagining where you're not, allowing your mind to wander away from the 'here and now', then you may be missing the key to realizing dreams.  It may be time to take a new, more proactive approach.

People will ask me about short-cuts, about full-proof strategies, to achieve the key to their deepest longings or greatest passions.  No single mindset will necessarily work for everyone.  However going further than simply thinking positively can help:

Recognize when you're avoiding what you want. 

You may desire to be in a siutation where you feel more comfortable about who you are and where you are, yet constantly avoid what evokes the real fear and uncomfortable emotions. I'm not talking about your current job or relationship or what you assume is the source of disquieting emotions.  I mean the idea of avoiding the initiatives, the risks or other steps you think success would require.  Avoiding change may convince you you feel less vulnerable in the short-term, but this will not enable you to confront your fear or enable you to feel less afraid.

Let fear in your front door. 

Are you the sort of person who arrives in a new situation and is already wondering what you could do to leave?  Did you think you were ready to embrace new responsibilities and already contemplate how you could get out of them?  To intentionally take steps which invite change, which bring you face-to-face with uncertainty, can be a very effective way to go further than simply thinking. 

So, if you think about what it would be like to have a different job, apply for it.  If your mind repeatedly wanders to thoughts of a place you've never visited, boldly travel there.  If you ponder how your life would evolve in a more loving relationship, become the change you wish to experience. Take the next step.  Believe in yourself.

Choose to orient your destiny

You are here for specific reasons.  Are you consciously aware of your destiny already? If not, what do you think it will take? Each of us exist with the desire to do certain things, though we don't always know why,  or how we will manage, at least initially. 

The idea of dreaming you'll accomplish certain tasks, visit specific places, meet particular people, is all connected to an underlying emotional journey. Are you ready to consider that what you choose to experience is part of the bigger plan?

Take Responsibility

You'll get more out of your life as you take responsibility for your choices.  Where you go and what you choose to do make sense to you at a particular time.  No need to blame people for what didn't work out, for what you don't like about your past.  You were a different person then.  Accept what you have done and focus on what you gained from it.  Its all related to raising your awareness of your own evolution.

Think Before You Act

Discontent is a reflex reaction to worry and dissatisfaction. Its useful to think before you act and convince yourself that you'll make the best choice for the person you are now.  Be willing to consider different sides to a situation, to keep an open mind.  Being honest with yourself at a given moment brings the most clarity at that moment.  Live in the now.  Recognize each thought and choice orients your destiny.

Discern what is right for you

Analysis of the week on dream submitted by Anonymous in Halifax, N.S., Canada.

Dream - I was standing beside an outdoor market.  Vendors were promoting their wares. I was disinterested. Someone accompanied me and directed me to three nearby pedestals. Strangers stood up on each one; a pantomime, an engaging actor, and an opera singer.  Each one was vying for the attention of an audience. 

Predominant Emotions-  Hope, astonishment, admiration, desire and focus.

Interpretation - Pedestals imply you admire or look up to certain people. Only you can discern whether your reasons are superficial.  You may be in need of nurturance, mentoring or deeper fulfillment. Consider specific pursuits that you imagine.  Perhaps you desire to create situations which permit you to be more carefree and spontaneous?  Draw your attention to budding talents or growing interests within.

Actors suggest you seek to be acknowledged or recognized in ways that haven't yet come about.  For whom do you put on a show? It may be overdue to discover or reveal the real you.  How you perceive yourself is mirrored in how you project your personality to others.  Rather than shop around for a new face, re-connect with your soul.  Singing reminds you of your connections to Divine power.  The qualities of love, compassion and what it takes to valide your spirit, are all within your reach.  

Regardless of who you are and what you decipher, you exist in part to experience struggle and to learn to find value in that. You can evolve to discern self-worth and value in others that initially escape you.   Each of us can grow to love ourselves for who we are and for who we aren't. Tragedy and loss can be some of the most eye-opening teachers if we can evolve to accept them as part of our education. You can learn from what you've done in the past, from what inspirations currently undertake, and from images and dreams that inspire hope for your future. Sense it's all good.

Further your soul growth wherever you are

We all exist to learn and share whatever abilities we have. No matter what work you choose, no matter what you do now, or what you dream of doing differently, work has value for what it is, and because of what you can learn at each step of the way.

Each of us has gifts. Some people have the ability to heal. Some people truly have a knack for raising awareness in others. Some people are inspiring public speakers. Other people are very effective doing what they do best in the background. Even people who sense no specific direction already recognize their basic gift of humility.

The time may arrive when you sense you've lost focus and seek new sources of meaning in work.  Come what may, its always desirable to apply talents you have.  You can also set out to uncover or develop new skills.  Each person is shaken out of comfort zones sometime. Such an experience can seem dis-orienting, even scary yet, doesn't have to be.  Move beyond society's view of what's most important. 

No matter what happens, you're in the midst of opportunities to grow.  Still, loads of people express unhappiness about work.  You may know people who sense their job is "beneath them" or they feel like "a square peg in a round hole."  You may feel stuck or forced to associate with co-workers you dislike or distrust.  You may do your job mechanically because it pays bills, feels safe and represents security. 

Do yourself a favor.  Recognize you have lots to learn. This year, take initiatives to move beyond your own emotional distractions.  Re-think where you are in your job or career and why.  Consider where you have opportunities to listen more attentively, to give more of yourself, to show compassion, to impact lives for the better. Discover there's more to life than seeking approval and temporary gratification.