Food is a terrific connector

How have you learned to explore your relationship with yourself and your truth? Which practices resonated with you? Make a note of those you want to come back to. Before moving forward: As a serious spiritual student, one is no longer obligated to continue these chores; Inasmuch as the mind has no idea of what Reality even is, relinquishing these former duties will be a relief and also bring an end to a lot of guilt. It is therefore quite helpful to give up causes and rallies for the oppressed, downtrodden, other victims, and sentimentalities. Each person is merely fulfilling their own destiny; With detachment, it will be observed that most people enjoy the melodrama of their lives. Observe people with compassion. Observation reveals that physical appearance is a great deceiver. Most people look like adults but are not really adults at all. Emotionally, most are still children. The emotions and attitudes that prevail in kindergarten and on the playground continue on into adult life but are hidden in more dignified-sounding terminology. However, when you turn from passivity to active acceptance of freely chosen problems, you literally are turning problems into challenges. A challenge is just something that stands between you and your goal. It should call up your fighting instinct and your stick-to-it-ness. Don't Let Your Feelings Drive Remember that the negative ego voice is highly emotional and uses emotion to steer you away from anything that might take you off the old path. It will make the new problems you choose seem to be much worse than any of the old ones you had.

So remember to listen to the unemotional, still, small voice - the one that knows. It is your compass when things get difficult due to emotional frustrations. A bad day does not mean you are not supposed to be doing something. It may mean that it's hard and is causing problems, but it does not necessarily mean you should not be doing it. Be proud of the investment you've made in yourself. Recognize the insight you have gained because of the work you've done. Celebrate the growth you've experienced because you chose to grow. Remember your capacity for self-empowerment, fulfillment, and transformation. Believe that you will continue to connect to your inner wisdom should you choose to live with mindfulness. It's not enough to be busy; The question is, Assess your work Think of an assessment as a strategic reflection. Your strategy is to first understand what you're doing and how it's working; Within most people is a child who is merely imitating being an adult. The inner child we hear so much about is actually not inner at all; As people grow up, they take on various identifications and copy what they conceive of as adult behaviors and styles; Therefore, what we see in daily life are people acting out the programs and scenarios that they identify with as a child. The young child, as well as most animals, already exhibits curiosity, self-pity, jealousy, envy, competitiveness, temper tantrums, emotional outbursts, resentments, hatreds, rivalries, competition, willfulness, and petulance. Seeking the limelight and admiration, blaming others, disclaiming responsibility, making others wrong, looking for favor, collecting things, showing off, and more are all attributes of the child.

As we watch the daily activities of most adults, we realize that nothing has really changed. This realization is helpful for compassionate understanding rather than condemnation. Stubbornness and opposition, which are characteristic of the two-year-old, continue to dominate personalities well into old age. Occasionally, people also manage to go from childhood to adolescence in their personality and become endless thrill seekers and challengers of fate; Your emotions will always distort your judgment and handling new problems means handling plenty of emotions, too. Your job is to experience the emotions, slog through them, and keep handling the kind of problems you believe are worthwhile. Emotions of discouragement and resentment often travel with problems, but they do not have to become your advisors. These emotional opinions are notoriously skewed in the direction of ego agendas, so take them with a grain of salt. Once, while working on a section of this article, I was feeling that the morning was being totally wasted because of my frustrated frame of mind. I made myself keep writing to turn out the number of articles I wanted, but it felt like I was just going through the motions. I saw myself in that scene in the movie, The Shining,35 where the insane hotel caretaker spends all day typing out a single meaningless sentence over and over. My feelings were telling me I had accomplished exactly nothing and writing this article seemed like a problem well worth dropping. Yet when I read my notes a week later - now back in a hopeful frame of mind - I was amazed at how much sense I made despite my state of mind at the time. My writing was about as good as it ever was, and the ideas were coherent and on subject. Like reflection, assessment helps you identify your progress and point yourself toward your definition of success. Start by choosing your area of assessment and make a list of the questions you have. You might consider reviewing your tools, strategies, progression, or personal satisfaction. Next, use your questions or today's reflection questions to honestly look at what's working and what changes you might need to make. Which areas of your work are most important for you to assess? Rate your productivity at work.

What makes you more or less efficient? In what ways does your current work situation meet your needs and personal priorities? In which areas are you stagnant or unsatisfied? What results do you seek? There is a tendency to become cute, coy, seductive, glamorous, heroic, tragic, theatrical, dramatic, and histrionic. Again, this is the child's impression of adolescence being acted out. The inner child is naive and impressionable, easily programmed, and easily seduced and manipulated. Cultivate curiosity about and familiarity with the nature of consciousness. Doing so makes it easier to stop reacting to people internally as well as externally. Human life is very difficult, even in the best of circumstances. Frustrations, delays, lapses of memory, impulses, and stresses of all shapes and forms beset any individual. Demands often exceed capabilities, and life is pressured by time requirements. You will notice that everyone's ego is about the same as that of everyone else. The mind is inherited and has a brain run by genes and a genetically determined personality set. I learned that my emotional state was not a reliable compass for determining whether I should go on or not. How Do You Handle Complications? Life seems to get harder whenever you try to achieve something, but it really just gets more complicated. Problems are nothing more than complications. There's more information to process, more emotions to feel, more decisions to be made. In other words, more of you is required to grapple with whatever is going on around you.

Your brain must weigh facts, make judgments, and figure out consequences. To deal with a problem successfully, we not only have to think about right now, we also have to think about the future. Therefore we must mentally live in two places at once, in the now and in the yet-to-be. Not least of all, we have to both feel and think at the same time - we have to solve problems wisely even though we are feeling scared and upset. What changes will you make to achieve these results? Celebrate your successes Identifying and celebrating your successes can provide you with a newfound confidence to complete a project or take on something new. In the long run, this practice reveals what's worked for you in the past so you can apply those successful approaches to your current and future endeavors. Make a list of your professional accomplishments, from little victories to iconic promotions. Whether you deem it to be a small win or a massive success, document each achievement. Next, arrange your list chronologically. Celebrate the steps you've taken and the growth you've created for yourself. How do you feel about your professional accomplishments? Which successes are you most proud of? Research shows that many of the personality's major characteristics are already present at birth. Few people can actually be different from what they are. It is only the minority who seek self-improvement or spiritual growth. This is because whatever their self-criticisms, most people secretly really believe that their way of being is probably the only correct one. They believe they are fine as they are, and all problems are caused by other people's selfishness, unfairness, and the external world. Seek to give love rather than to receive it.