How much outside events influence your mental, emotional and spiritual state?
You are sovereign if we know yourself. This is more than knowing what personality type you are. This is about experiencing yourself to the core.
Knowing self is like being a tree rooted deeply in the earth. Winds of criticism, job loss, failures, rejections and lack of approval do not break or upset us.
If we do not know who we are, we are not sovereign. We depend on outside events/people to validate our identity. We are easily are manipulated, hurt or angered.
Most people, as a child, first try to fit in and be somebody ‘acceptable’. As soon as we deviate from the ‘norm’, we feel the guilt, shame and may feel unhappy and hollow.
After several decades of fitting in and seeking outside approval, this process becomes repetitive with no lasting joy. We may feel anger, resentment and may turn the anger on ourselves or others.
This is the time that we can challenge our beliefs, thoughts and norms that hold us back from knowing ourselves.
We decide to become self-ish and go deeper within. As a result developing a stronger root such that outside events minimally impact us.
Going within requires dropping all the thoughts, knowledge and beliefs about who we are and how we should be.
This is a process that with humility we connect to our heart. We ask the intelligence within, through silence and meditation, to guide us to experience Self.
Copyright .2020 by Shervin Hojat
When I was paralyzed, I suddenly lost a lot of "friends." People who didn't know how to deal with someone who was not fully physically capable like they were. I spent eight months at home in the country where I took long walks and contemplated my future. Mentally strong, I saw myself as not less capable, just physically so. All I had to do was venture out into new avenues that I hadn't tried before. But I was already someone who felt good about myself and had a lot of success both physically and mentally. In fact, the only thing that I had failed at was playing a musical instrument. Probably because I didn't have enough interest in it rather than not having talent. My singing wasn't that bad. I had a lot to look forward to, and took advantage of that.
Ron