How to give up what you think you want

Part of you is aware that what you think you want is not always good for you.  How do you choose when to detach from certain desires? When is something potentially destructive behaviour?

1) Foresee results before you act. If you are on a diet, and you truly hope to lose weight, then that yen for a whole chocolate cake does not serve you. It is important to connect how certain behaviours will undermine your desired results so you can learn to discipline your mind differently.

2) Examine the giving-up process.  If you are working to give up an addiction and your mind tells you to feed your habit, then you could fall into a trap.  The reasons which prompted you to start doing something unhealthy offer insight into the imagined pain of stopping.  People rarely resist change for reasons they assume.  Delve deeper to get answers.

3) Look for patterns. If you think you want a relationship with a certain person, but it is not working, and the scenario reminds you of a past relationship, then it is possible you are not consciously aware of a pattern.  Repeated experience of something not working the way you want can create tendency to cling to people who are not good for you. Time to wake up.

4) Listen to your feelings.  If you are asked to do something dishonest in exchange for getting what you think you want, then the means to the end could undermine the goal. Your feelings are a dependable gauge. What feels good, works.  Anything else does not.  Learn to discern the real difference.

Deflate your ego

Analysis of dream submitted by Anonymous in Melbourne, Australia.

Dream- I was speaking to an older, asian man with long white hair, a beard and mustache. He smiled. His whole person inflated like a balloon.I sensed the energy vibration of his dialogue but he faded out of the dream. I re-entered this dream state three separate times and continued varied attempts to communicate with the same man. Yet I was unable to decipher what he was telling me. He was not moving his lips and held his hands clasped beneath lengthy sleeves of his white cloak.

Predominant Emotions- frustration, impatience, courage.

Interpretation- You recognize you have untapped, inner wisdom that is bursting to get out,but part of you still denies this. You are unconsciously struggling against your true self. Learn what it will take to liberate that and deflate your ego.

Human beings are normally only conscious of themselves in dreamsfor brief periods. Yet, it is possible to extend consciousness using mental discipline. Youseem totell yourself that part of you is afraid to allow the dream to proceed to completion. What are you afraid to accept about yourself?

People will deliberately re-enter the same dream because they desire to create a new path, to devise a new resolution or, to add details that were amiss before. As you evolve to grasp the meaning of a given dream, the next step is to apply the wisdom you have gained to your waking life.

Another way to view this dream is at different levels of lucidity. You see through material to view hidden hands, you also consciously take control to enter and exit the dream at will. You know you are dreaming and identify with a kind of mental body floating. You are aware this is a controlled, mental experience but you have not yet mastered how to extract key detail. Through practice, you work to control your attention.

If you believe human beings exist to learn what it means to dedicate themselves to the truth, then you would also believe this implies people grow more willing to confront lies they tell themselves. You are exploring what it means to love and respect your true self. This implies a willingness to self-monitor, to think and feel as accurately as possible the truth or reality as you perceive it. When you lie to others, you also lie to yourself. Develop capacity for openness and truthfulness. Witholding the truth to protect a lie never serves you.

5 ideas to build your self-reliance and redefine dignity

Every human being is unaware of their own gifts that exist on many levels yet remain consciously unacknowledged. Even you are aware of things people are conditioned not to discuss. Part of you may patiently wait for others to discuss them. Part of you is ready and willing to make a different choice.

Even now, you silently reflect on what it means to demonstrate and experience self-respect. You may do this for yourself, for loved ones or strangers who re-evaluate their self-perception during illness and a personal journey to their inner healing. 

Everything in this life teaches you.  You are unconsciously evaluating how you define living with dignity, what kinds of life choices would not offend your view of an acceptable existence. You are judging which lifestyles would work for you, deciding what you would or would not be desirable. You are anticipating based on misperceptions that require attention.

We are each our own prophet, not because we all accept it is possible toforesee the future, but because we are slowly accepting we read energy and signs in the present. We sense what feels right and are acknowledging we have the courage to be more honest with ourselves. Consider these five ideas to build self-reliance and redefine dignity from where you stand;

1) Recognize your own patterns of avoidance of responsibility. To bravely move to assume responsibility for your own perceived problems will humble you, move you, and transform you forever. What do you believe should be done?

2) Acknowledge and explore hidden resentment. The way you choose to live your life, perceive and use time, contributes to your stress and attitude as if you were fueling a fire. What you resent about others reflects hidden things you fear and resent about you.  Which choices no longer resonate with you?

3) Attune to how you perceive and respond. How you are conditioned to experience life is based on learning at a given moment. Yet people carry conditioning like baggage and apply it to situations inappropriately. What would you change next?

4) Notice you are no longer who you were.  What you learn when you have certain faculties, mobility and experience no longer defines your point of reference when your baseline changes. What you are taught at different life stages is not always transferable to others. If your abilities strengthen or weaken, this is simply an invitation to reset your baseline.

5) Choose to rethink what it is to be genuinely loving.  An evolving sense of health and well-being invites you to grow from perceived disappointment.  This means you learn to love yourself despite not always meeting your own expectations, regardless of what other people define as their ideal, freedom, independence or desirable conditions for them.  Only listening to others traps and constricts when you have the power to define your life mission, your sense of dignity every moment.

How can you be sure you are loved?

When was the last time you knew something beyond you was helping you? When was the last time you had enough faith to suspend beliefs? How do you pour out feelings of gratitude?

While on route to the hospital to visit a cherished inpatient, I used a parking card to get through an electronic gate. It was dark, rainy and I dropped the card. I got out of the car to pick it up, got back in, went to park, and did not think much of it.  Then, while the car was parked, my banana mysteriously dropped out of my purse.  Initially I did not see where it went.  You might say this is not so strange, or even, so what?

Yet what if I told you that misplaced banana appeared in an unlikely place, and prompted me to walk back in the rain to precisely where my glove had dropped? What if I told you that I felt guided to where that cherished inpatient had been moved? What if I told you this person had been mumbling to me in a different voice during sleep earlier that day and it resonated.  Some people may believe I am going bananas.  I beg to differ. 

About a week ago, my car swerved in a storm toward the ditch.  Miraculously, the car swerved right back onto the road, going against what I presumed were laws of physical nature.  I sensed it was not yet my time to go.  I voiced aloud how grateful I was to still be present and alive to assist someone through the next stages of her illness.  We each sense truth without needing to explain.  We make silent, unconscious choices based on love.

The soul experiences impressions that remind people they will have eternal life. You might even infer  more than one path exists to a mystical experience.  When you are willing to acknowledge the unexplained, you breath life into possibilities and make them real. You confirm you know you are loved.

Thich Nhat Hahn & a tip to help you understand

Thich Nhat Hahn is a Zen master who reminds us love is what we nurture as we develop our capacities to take care of others and ourselves. He inspires us to learn to generate loving energy toward ourselves.  Only then will we gain expanding insight into love and evolve to nourish and care for others well.

In reading about Thich Nhat Hahn's life journey, you rediscover a different kind of heart of compassion within yourself.  You may care for loved ones who suffer from illness or, be relearning to care for yourself.  What matters is the effort, the will to learn, the instinct to love. As you ask, 'what else could you be doing for others?', do you also care for you?

Hahn shares this story worth mentioning:

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce.  You look for reasons it is not doing well.  It may need fertilizer, or more water or less sun.  You never blame the lettuce.

Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person.  But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce.  Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reasons and arguments.

That is my experience.

No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change. You will find peace in every step, providing you choose to perceive it, for it is always there.