Review of Letting Go

Posted on October 29, 2019 by admin

Letting Go is the best book I’ve read this year. David Hawkins brilliantly addresses how to effectively manage unwanted thoughts, feelings, and emotions so that they don’t build up within us and cause problems. I got this book right when I needed it and it helped me through the most difficult season I’ve had in a long time. Here are some of the highlights.

Hawkins’ primary focus, letting go, is fairly simple to explain. It involves acknowledging whatever thoughts, feelings, or emotions arise, feeling them fully, and breathing through them without trying to resist them or bury them deep down inside us. Once we’ve given enough of this type of attention to a particular sensation, it will lose its power over us. Some sensations require more attention than others before they can be let go, but, in time, even the most difficult sensations can be fully released, leaving us feeling much lighter and freer afterward.

One of the points that resonated the most with me was the one that said thoughts aren’t painful; the emotions underneath the thoughts are what can hurt. Keeping this in mind makes it a little easier for me to work through difficult memories because it takes away the automatic expectation that thinking about them will cause me pain. It also helps me distance myself from the sensations in my head, which makes them much easier to let go. This may be especially helpful for people who don’t want to address their deep, dark memories for fear of being hurt by them. It could allow them to overcome their past and move forward in ways they never imagined possible.

Hawkins also discusses how we tend to project the qualities we dislike about ourselves onto other people. That’s something that I catch myself doing quite a bit when I’m being self-aware. Noticing this tendency is good in that it gives me an opportunity to work on surrendering to the negativity and accepting myself as I am. In addition to making me feel at peace with myself, this also improves my relationships with those around me.

Letting Go is a powerful book that’s packed with great stuff. However, as Hawkins says in there (and as I’ve learned the hard way), to truly see life-changing results requires constant practice. Working on this once in a while won’t do the trick, nor will practicing it only during difficult times. Surrendering has to become a way of life. Reading the results of surrendering constantly that Hawkins describes has reminded me of my own experiences of doing this before I got the book. That has gotten me intrigued and excited enough to make this a daily practice once again. I hope this has enticed you to read Letting Go so you can try it out for yourself. You’ll be so glad you did.

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Review of Letting Go

The Calm After the Storm

Posted on October 28, 2019 by admin

Since I’m feeling much better now than I was for most of the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the calm after the storm. Things have settled down for me, most of my negative emotions have retreated, and I’m feeling much more like myself. I caught myself wondering how long this calm time will last before the next storm comes my way, which is something I routinely think about at the end of a difficult stretch. I’m certain that thinking this way does me more harm than good in several ways.

At the very least, expecting something bad to happen during a pleasant season takes away the joy of whatever good things are currently going on. Whether I’m learning some cool new life hacks, spending quality time with a few close friends, or just feeling at peace with everything, I’d rather focus on what I have than imagine how things could start going downhill. Additionally, what if expecting the worst is what’s causing the difficult times in my life? What if it’s attracting negative things, inclining me to make bad decisions, or making me overreact to a minor inconvenience and letting it ruin my day? In that case, I’d be wise to change my mindset sooner rather than later.

I know that staying present and surrendering to unwanted emotions is the way to stay in a good place and avoid the emotional roller coaster I seem to go through every few months. At this point, I hope that I’ve been through this cycle enough to remember to do this stuff each day. I’d prefer to see what it’s like to make this a permanent way of life than to endless repeat this lesson without ever learning it. We’ll see what happens.

Posted in Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The Calm After the Storm

Living with the Shadow

Posted on October 27, 2019 by admin

There is a concept in psychology called the shadow. As I understand it, the shadow consists of whatever aspects of ourselves we unconsciously repress or consciously suppress. It is anything that we keep from others or even from ourselves, and this doesn’t mean just the parts of ourselves that we think are bad. Creativity, humor, certain opinions, and other things that are either neutral or might even be good can all become part of our shadow. The more we try to ignore our shadow, the more control it has over us in ways that become increasingly visible as well as destructive.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung postulated that the best way to manage the shadow is to bring it into the light by observing it and, eventually, embracing it. When your shadow is no longer allowed to move and grow with no conscious attention afforded to it, it will have less impact on your thoughts, words, and actions. Fully accepting it along with everything else that makes up your personality makes you whole. This is difficult for me to think about and even more difficult for me to do because of how I tend to approach this area.

I’m so used to thinking of these things in terms of struggle. Wrestling with God, resisting certain urges, and fighting elements I don’t like about myself. Plus there’s the story of the two wolves within us fighting for control, one good and one bad, and the one that wins is the one we feed; the idea there is to love one wolf and hate the other. But there’s another way to look at it, a way that fits perfectly with the post I made about Mara. Instead of looking at this as something to conquer and overcome, look at it as something to love and accept. This makes sense when I think about my interactions with other people. I can’t be at peace with someone if I’m constantly fighting with them, so how could I be at peace with myself if I’m constantly fighting myself? Additionally, since I have internal resistance whenever someone tries to control me, trying to control unwanted feelings within myself only strengthens them. Acknowledging whatever comes up and providing no resistance to it allows me to accept it, which causes it to evaporate shortly thereafter and leave me in a state of peace.

Most of the little knowledge I have on Carl Jung and the shadow came from this video that I watched while I ate breakfast this morning. Two more videos containing audio of Alan Watts talking about Jung and our dark side (or “rascal” side as Watts called it) gave me some incredible insights into my life and what I can do to become whole. In particular, something Watts said about showing ourselves the same love and compassion that we show to other people in need resonated deeply with me and made the light bulb go off. Since I listened to those three videos, I’ve felt much more peace than I have for most of this month and I really feel like this, along with everything I’m learning in Letting Go, is the way out of pain. I’m incredibly hopeful and optimistic about all of this. I hope this all makes sense and helps you live in peace with yourself.

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Living with the Shadow

Wanting to Get Away

Posted on October 26, 2019 by admin

I’ve been wanting to get away. Not by going on a trip that I think I’ll enjoy but by getting in my car and driving across the country to start a new life. My whole life has been in the same city in the same state and I’m feeling extremely uncertain about where I’m going or even where I’m at right now, so the idea of starting over in a place where I don’t know anybody and nobody knows me sounds pretty appealing. Sometimes I think that getting away will solve some of my problems. However, when I look back on the big life changes that I’ve already made (such as the many times that I’ve changed jobs and social settings), I remember that the novelty of a new environment soon wears off for me and I fall into the same rut that I was in before the change.

That perspective has made me realize that if I don’t heal from my past, I’ll just keep repeating my same behavioral patterns no matter where I am or who I’m around. I’ll be sorely disappointed if I keep the same mindsets that have held me back for years, including the expectation that other people should change to suit me; that will keep me unsatisfied and feeling like an outsider everywhere. Alternatively, I can continue working on myself and take ownership of my inner state so that I decide how I react instead of giving that power to anyone else.

Maybe that’s what this season in my life is trying to teach me. Maybe it’s saying “You know what to do, now here are several opportunities to practice it so that it becomes natural”. The journey I’m on might have caused me to be in these situations or they could have arisen even if I’d never learned anything about self-improvement. Either way, I’ll try to be patient and work through all this one day at a time. Wherever it’s taking me, I’m content to see it through to completion.

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Wanting to Get Away

Tribute to Daryl Davis

Posted on October 25, 2019 by admin
Image result for daryl davis"
Daryl Davis

Daryl Davis is an incredible person. He has done so much to promote empathy, understanding, compassion, and dialogue on some of the most controversial subjects while simultaneously showing the dangers of fear, assumptions, ignorance, hatred, and rigid ideologies. In the process, he has done what many consider to be impossible: persuade others to change views which have been cemented in their minds for most of their lives.

Davis was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1953. A decade later, he moved with his family to Belmont, Massachusetts. According to one of his amazing TED Talks, this is where he had a brush with racism that made him desperate for answers. When he couldn’t find them through relentless research, he started talking to members of the KKK. Davis avoided insulting them or engaging them in violence. Instead, he slowly gained their respect and their trust by treating them as his equals and having open conversations with them. This caused many of them to rethink and even renounce their racist views as they got to know him as a person and became his close friends. As they left the KKK, some of them gave him their robes and hoods, which Davis keeps as reminders that people can, and do, change their ways.

To this day, in addition to being a professional musician, Davis continues to encourage open communication between people who consider themselves to be enemies. He is fond of closing his speeches with the following quote: “When two enemies are talking, they’re not fighting. They’re talking. It’s when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence, so keep the conversation going.” Accordingly, he hopes that everyone will spend more time talking with each other and less time talking about, at, or past each other. Respectfully listening to one another is the way to go. Even if you disagree, at least hear them out. That’s the way to get to the root of the problem, which, according to Davis, is fear that arises from ignorance: “If you don’t keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don’t keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction.” Once you know how a problem originated, you can then figure out a solution to eliminate it as well as all the harm it causes.

Daryl Davis is a wonderful role model and one of the best communicators I’ve ever seen. His approach of humanizing those who hate him and gradually guiding them away from their views through interacting with them has been extremely effective and, I hope, will become commonplace. Other approaches that involve yelling, insulting them, using violence against them, and trying to pound a certain point of view into their heads have consistently failed to change anyone’s mind. The harder someone is pushed, the more they dig in their heels and push back. Davis’s approach, which works due to psychological principles described in this video, is so much more effective and has caused people to not only change their behavior but also to change their minds. He has done what many consider to be impossible and he is an excellent example of leadership that anyone who hopes to make a positive difference in the world can and should look up to. I hope he continues inspiring people and changing hearts and minds with his work. We’re all in desperate need of it.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Humanitarian Things, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tribute to Daryl Davis

Let Go and Dance

Posted on October 24, 2019 by admin

This passage from Letting Go is a wonderful illustration of what it’s like to get lost in a dance. David Hawkins perfectly describes the feeling I’ve felt on many occasions; that feeling is primarily why I stuck with swing dancing after I started and why I continue to dance at least once a week. I loved reading this last night and I knew right then that I had to share it with you.

After about a year of working with the mechanism of surrender, he was at a party with someone who kept insisting that he get up and dance. “You know I can’t dance,” he said. “Ah, come on and try it,” she entreated. She persisted and said, “Forget about your feet. Just watch me and do what my body does.” Reluctantly, he agreed, and he kept letting go of his feelings of resistance and anxiety.

On the dance floor he let go completely. In an instant, his inner feelings ascended the scale from apathy to love and, to his amazement, he suddenly began to dance like he had always dreamed of and envied! The realization of “I can do it!” hit him, and he went from love, to joy, and even to ecstasy. His delight radiated to everyone. Friends stopped to watch. From a sate of high joy, he suddenly went into the experience of oneness with his dance partner. He suddenly saw his own Self looking out of her eyes and realized that there was actually only one Self behind all the individual selves. He and she became telepathically connected. He knew her every step a split second before she took it. They were in perfect harmony and danced as though they had practiced and danced together for years. He could hardly contain his joy. The dancing became effortless and began to happen of its own, without any conscious thought on his part. The longer they danced, the more energy he felt.

It was a peak experience that was to change this man’s life. He went home that night and danced some more. Free-style disco dancing had always terrified him more than any other because there was no form to be memorized. It necessitated spontaneity and a free feeling, which is just what he had specifically been unable to experience previously. At home he turned on the disco music and began to dance for hours. He watched himself in the mirror, fascinated by the body’s surrender and the inner feeling of freedom.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement, Swing Dancing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Let Go and Dance

The Daily Stoic: “It’s Easy to Get Better. But Better at What?”

Posted on October 23, 2019 by admin

This entry from The Daily Stoic is a good reminder to keep my priorities in check. I want to strike a good balance between taking good care of myself (which includes pursuing and improving at my interests) and having good relationships with those who are close to me. What that looks like, I’m still figuring out, and I hope to have it someday.

“So someone’s good at taking down an opponent, but that doesn’t make them more community-minded, or modest, or well-prepared for any circumstance, or more tolerant of the faults of others.”

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.52

Self-improvement is a noble pursuit. Most people don’t even bother. But among those who do, it’s possible for vanity and superficiality to corrupt this process. Do you want six-pack abs because you are challenging yourself and committing to a difficult goal? Or is it because you want to impress people with your shirt off? Are you running that marathon because you want to test your limits or because you’re running away from your problems at home?

Our will shouldn’t be directed at becoming the person who is in perfect shape or who can speak multiple languages but who doesn’t have a second for other people. What’s the point of winning at sports but losing in the effort to be a good husband, wife, father, mother, son, or daughter? Let’s not confuse getting better at stuff with being a better person. One is a much bigger priority than the other.

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on The Daily Stoic: “It’s Easy to Get Better. But Better at What?”

Making a Difference

Posted on October 22, 2019 by admin

People who talk about something they’d clearly like to change and then say “But there’s nothing I can do; that’s just the way it is” drive me crazy. I see this attitude on a fairly regular basis. It doesn’t take long to find some idea, institution, or practice that most people you ask will say is always going to exist and will never look much different than it currently does. Try suggesting changing or eliminating that particular thing and see how they react. They’ll probably look at you like you’re insane, insist that your suggestion is impossible, and do everything they can to avoid seriously considering your proposal for even a second. That gets old fast.

To a certain extent, I can understand their reluctance to think outside the box. I sometimes can’t think of a solution to a particular problem until someone else presents me with one, especially if it’s in an area that I know little to nothing about. I always appreciate whenever someone points me toward a solution because it reminds me to think in terms of possibilities rather than limitations. My entire attitude can be summed up this way: “I’m sure this can be done, I just don’t know how to do it yet.” This, along with regular practice at coming up with as many different potential solutions as I can to all kinds of problems, has honed my creativity and allowed me to see things that lots of other people miss. My curiosity and appetite for knowledge constantly introduce me to all kinds of things that help me put the pieces together in ways that, to my knowledge, nobody else has.

I used to argue with people about dismantling current societal systems and replacing them with better systems or even replacing them with nothing. Once I realized that this was a big waste of time and only served to make everyone involved upset (including me), I stopped arguing and started focusing on ways to bring my ideas to life. There are a lot of things that I’d like to see changed and I hope to be directly involved in as many as I can. The best way I can think to do that is to help as many people as possible get into solid, stable life situations so that they can live as they like and turn their dreams into reality. While I’m not yet in a position to do that to the extent that I have in mind, I still find ways within my current means and abilities to help people where they’re at. This is much more meaningful and rewarding than arguing over things that haven’t happened yet.

There is too much talk of how things could be and not enough action to make them that way. Meetings, planning sessions, discussion forums, and the like keep us all trapped in our current reality by using up a lot of our time, energy, money, and other resources that we could be using to make the world a better place. Some things require extensive planning and brainstorming before they’re carried out, but plenty of things can easily be done by starting from scratch, trying different possibilities until you find something that works, and making adjustments on the fly. Direction action is within the reach of nearly everyone. You don’t have to make a major change right out the gate; just find some small ways to make a positive difference, such as random acts of kindness, and put them into practice as often as possible. Kindness and goodness spread, so your example will inspire others to pay it forward. I started the Joker Challenge last week and, in addition to getting an overwhelmingly positive response, someone I know completed the challenge before the day was up. It cost me hardly anything to come up with the challenge and put it online and it’s already started making a difference for mental health. I’d like to see more of that with anything worth doing. How about you?

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Humanitarian Things, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Making a Difference

A Lesson in Letting Go

Posted on October 21, 2019 by admin

Saturday night was the roughest part of a difficult two weeks for me. When I got home after work, I spoke with a friend who helped me work through a lot of stuff I’ve been feeling lately and that was a huge relief. I felt much lighter and freer afterward, read for a bit, and then got the most refreshing sleep I’d had in days (and I didn’t wake up during the night like I had the previous several nights).

That wonderful feeling stayed with me all of Sunday. I was off work and decided to just stay home and have a day to myself. Among other things, I slept in, had fun with some of my regular hobbies, started learning how to use an abacus, stretched, took more time away from social media and electronic devices than I usually do, and, perhaps most importantly, had plenty of alone time to recharge after a lot of social interactions during the week. Essentially, I spent the day sharpening the saw and moving at my own pace through everything I did. I’m glad I had plenty of time that day to rest and recover from everything I’d recently experienced. It was a much-needed change of pace and it did me a lot of good.

The past few weeks showed me the importance of letting go each day. Even though I’ve been reading Letting Go by David Hawkins for almost two weeks now, I still faced a lot of resistance whenever I thought about following its recommendations. I could feel that resistance inside me saying “I’m not ready yet, I want to hold onto this for a while longer.” Each time I did, the pain within me grew until it got so painful that I had to let it go. Before I did that, my usual life hacks did little to nothing to make me feel better. Even floating for half an hour just gave me a temporary break from my emotions rather than removing them or helping me work through them. Once I let go, however, I felt much better than I had in a long time. If I hadn’t let go at that point, who knows what would have happened? I probably would have been hit even harder later on with an even more painful experience. Moving forward, I hope that I’ll remember to let go and surrender before my emotions accumulate to the point that they cause a lot of trouble for myself and those around me.

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Lesson in Letting Go

The Daily Stoic: “Give People the Benefit of the Doubt”

Posted on October 20, 2019 by admin

The Daily Stoic has once again touched on a subject I find incredibly difficult when I’m in the heat of the moment, although I’m pretty good at doing this when I’m observing a situation from the outside. Still, when I manage to do this, it makes everything easier for everyone involved. I’ve gotten better at doing this since I really started focusing on it so I hope I continue improving at it as I keep working at it.

“Everything turns on your assumptions about it, and that’s on you. you can pluck out the hasty judgment at will, and like steering a ship around the point, you will find calm seas, fair weather and a safe port.”

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.22

“Even a dog,” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.” Yet if you’ve ever accidentally stepped on your dog, you know that the first reaction is usually a bark or a yelp or a quick snap of the jaws. In the instant, there is no distinction – just pain. Then it sees who it was, hears your soothing voice, and goes right back to wagging its tail.

A virtuous person does not jump to hasty judgments about other people. A virtuous person is generous with assumptions: that something was an accident, that someone didn’t know, that it won’t happen again. This makes life easier to bear and makes us more tolerant. Meanwhile, assuming malice – the most hasty of judgments – makes everything harder to bear.

Be deliberate and accommodating with our assumptions about other people and you’ll find, as Marcus says, calmer seas and fairer weather.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Daily Stoic: “Give People the Benefit of the Doubt”