Mental Moments

Archive for September, 2008

“…no one ever pushes you toward freedom. You need to take that for yourself.”
–Joan Erickson, wife of psychologist Erik Erickson, quoted in Joan Anderson’s book, A Walk on the Beach.

Do you believe that someone has to give you your freedom? Do you believe that you can be free only when you have others’ approval? Is your sense of freedom dependent upon what others think of you?

If you believe that your freedom is dependent upon another or others, then you will wait forever to be free. You will feel free when you decide that you are going to do what feels right and loving to do for yourself, regardless of what others think.

How do you reach a place where you are willing to trust yourself enough to follow your own inner guidance rather than be limited by others? How do you come to a place where you are willing to experience others’ disapproval in order to be true to yourself?

This freedom comes from a deep place within regarding which intention is most important to you:

• To control what others think of you, or

• To support your own highest good.

These two intentions are mutually exclusive. You cannot be focused on trying to control getting others’ approval or avoiding their disapproval, while at the same time be focused on lovingly supporting your own freedom and what is in your own highest good. Read the rest of this entry »

Today a great spiritual hunger is surfacing as many seek comfort, support, and meaning in a world that has spun out of control. Yet, times of loneliness, confusion, fear, or separation come for a powerful reason—so we can stop our usual way of being and discover where true strength, connection, and understanding lie. These difficult times are actually a blessing, removing us from preoccupation with externals and inviting us to embark on a journey into the heart and meaning of our lives. Both Jewish and Zen practice call us to enter the journey, though in different ways.

In a sense, Judaism and Zen represent two opposite ends of a continuum: Zen is based upon radical freedom, letting go, being in the present and nonattachment. Judaism comes rooted in family relationships, love, prayer to a Higher Power and the injunction to hold on and remember. A Jewish heart is warm, giving, human, devoted to family and friends. A Zen eye is fresh, direct, spontaneous, unencumbered by ideas, beliefs, hopes or expectations. These two practices are like two wings of a bird; both are needed to be able to fly. Read the rest of this entry »

It is not difficult to love yourself as long as you do not have any limiting and negative messages running through your subconscious mind. These messages that you have going through your mind are messages that have been embedded there since you were a little child. Your thinking is very much influenced by your past, by the words your parents have spoken and by everything you have heard from others as you were growing up.

Every time you have heard something negative like you being no good, not amounting to anything, or even being called stupid or weird affects you until this day. The problem arises because somehow, when you heard these negative thoughts, you believed them to be true even if you did not want to.

You can easily turn things around to overcome these negative beliefs and replace them with positive and empowering messages instead. Below are some strategies can apply to start in your journey to learning how to love yourself:

1) Pay attention to yourself. Let’s compare this to a love affair. When you are in love with someone, you devote a lot of time, attention and affection to the one you love. Why not have a love affair with yourself? Focus on YOU – and treat yourself like royalty. Do the things that make you happy. Call yourself beautiful and smart. Give yourself a hug. Treat yourself to your favorite things. Spend some quality “you” time – you deserve it.

2) Go back in time and explore your beliefs. You may have some negative beliefs holding you back. The easiest way to let these out is by allowing yourself to answer some questions. How did you parents treat you? Has anyone ever embarrassed you or belittled you in front of others? How did your siblings and friends make you feel? Did you ever feel less than others in school? You can write your answers in a journal. The idea is to go back in time and discover when and where these negative thoughts started. Then, once you have narrowed down the negative beliefs and when they started, figure out if these beliefs are still true. Read the rest of this entry »

You may not notice it but attitude is everything especially when it comes to your quality of life. You tend to bring into your life the things that you focus on the most. I am sure you know of at least one person who has a terrible attitude. This could be someone who is extremely negative, not fun to be around and would always complain about how her life is horrible and everything seems to go wrong. These kinds of people drain our positive energy.

Negative attitudes are contagious. They not only make you feel terrible but those around you will feel the strain as well. No one wants to hang out with a negative person.

The good thing is that positive attitudes are contagious too. The difference is that people do like to hang out with positive people because it makes everyone feel good about themselves. If you want to be the kind of person that everyone wants to be with, here are 5 easy steps to help you achieve that:

1) Figure out what you love and do it. This includes activities you enjoy doing, hobbies, things you like to do in your free time and most importantly your job or career. If you start questioning yourself about how much joy and fulfillment you get from your job and realize that you no longer are happy then perhaps it’s time to consider a new career or options you can take to move to a new career. When you do things that make you happy, you feel better about yourself, have a positive outlook at life and you begin to project a positive attitude.

2) No matter what, expect the best. Although it seems easier to see the negative in every situation, turn around and look for the positive in everything. Make it a habit to expect the best out of every circumstance. Recite an affirmation, “Everything will work out great. Everything will fall into place. Today will be a happy day!” The more often you recite affirmations, the easier it will be for you to believe that positive things do happen. Read the rest of this entry »