Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Self-Help
Publisher: self-published
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 188
Price: $8.99 (eBook)
Contemplative Gaze is a book that helps you listen to yourself, find your own voice and start creating your life from the inside out. This book is a path to the deepest levels of yourself to find your own answers to your questions and, as a result, it gives you the opportunity to create a positive change in your life.
Contemplative Gaze: The Inner Journey to Self-Actualization is a book that helps you help yourself. It's not a one-size-fits-all answer; it's exactly the opposite: a series of questions that make you think about who you are and what you believe in with the goal of helping you to find your own answers to your own questions and make a positive change in your life.
It's also a book about difficulty, struggle and the hard times in life which impact all of us at some point or another. It tells the story of how I was able to overcome the hardest moments of my life by listening to myself and how I feel and not letting other people's answers become my own. That is something I wish to share with you: the power of authenticity and courage.
That is a path of self-actualization; of creating the life you want; of finding what's important to you and living true to it. It is the prerequisite for fulfillment and meaning which we all seek but don't know how to find. My goal with this book is to help you find them and create a life full of soul that reflects who you are.
Excerpt
In the process of coming back to yourself, connecting with your authenticity and developing courage, the development of self-love plays an important role. Self-love is something we all lack for different reasons: from our upbringing, through education and cultural programming to the impact of our social groups. Wherever you look, you see people – sometimes even with good intentions – bringing you down. Most of these people don't love themselves enough so they don't know how to support you in the way you need to be supported as they haven't passed through this process themselves.
It's very important for you not to be overly critical towards yourself. Of course, this is easier said than done. We are not taught how to be nice to ourselves and we generally criticise ourselves very strongly for everything we do. It seems like we can't do anything right. If you react in a certain way that you're not happy about or you're not proud of, you'll most probably go into critical mode towards yourself – blaming yourself, being angry at yourself and often insulting yourself as well. I was the same. I still am up to a certain point, but I've gotten a lot better in the last few years.
The thing is, we expect ourselves to be perfect. To not make mistakes. To always do the best possible thing or to say the most appropriate thing. We expect of ourselves to react in the most optimal and accepted way. I hate to pierce your bubble, but that's impossible. It's just not possible to be right and proper all the time, to always say the perfect thing, to make the best decision in every situation. That would mean that you don't make mistakes. But you do. It's in the human nature to make mistakes. We screw up. We do the wrong thing. We say the wrong thing. We get angry. We insult someone. We judge someone. We get lazy and procrastinate. We're mean to others. And that's ok. It's not about being perfect. That would be exhausting and completely useless. We are wired for mistakes. That's why there's an „I'm sorry“ in every language.
It's not about not making mistakes, it's about accepting, admitting and owning your mistakes. By separating yourself from your emotions and actions, you abandon and orphan that part of yourself. You create a gap between who you are and what you've done. You separate a bit of yourself and pretend it's not you. By doing that, you make yourself weaker and you destroy the opportunity for self-acceptance.
A lot of self-help gurus say that people are not broken: that we're perfect just the way we are. They say that we're already whole and that we don't need something else to fulfill us. You've probably heard and read about these ideas before. I'm not saying they're wrong; in fact, I agree with them. But by separating yourself from your „mistakes“, by criticising yourself, by trying to be perfect and ignoring the parts of you that aren't perfect, you break yourself into pieces. You make yourself miserable and weak. The thing you should do is exactly the opposite: acknowledge all of yourself, not just the parts you like about yourself, but all of yourself. Own it. Wear it with pride. Show it and feel it. It's a part of you and it's also who you are – just from a different point of view.
If you discard all the parts that you don't like or don't approve about yourself, you won't have a lot left. And plus, by that time, you'll feed your own inner critic so much that it will have a mind of it's own – not to mention, it will become your default reaction to your actions. That will, in turn, make you unhappy and make your life even more difficult.
We all find flaws on ourselves all the time. We do it dozens of times a day. For most people, it's easier to find things that they don't like about themselves than the things they do. Think about it. Can you find ten things you don't like about yourself? And ten things you believe you're not good at? What about ten things you do like about yourself? And ten things you are good at? Which one is easier for you to find? Which one takes less time? You get my point. So why is self-love so important? And what can we do to develop it?
There is a simple truth: you are the only person that you have to live with all of your life. You're always with yourself, every minute of every day, even when no-one is around. You're the only constant in your life. You spend more time with yourself than you do with any other person. In fact, you spend more time with yourself than you do with all other people added together! For this reason, the relationship you have with yourself is the most important relationship you'll ever have in your life. You have to put up with yourself when you're sad, angry, disappointed, lost and in grief. How do you manage these things? How do you treat yourself? Are you kind and understanding with yourself or are you critical and judgemental? What is the voice inside your head saying about you? What would you do if someone else you know and care about, for example your best friend, your spouse or your sister, talked to you in this manner? How would you treat that relationship? Would you end it? What about if you talked to the people you cared about that way? How do you think they'd feel? Would they feel better or worse after talking to you? Would you have any friends left?
When you feel self-love, when you really and truly love yourself, you prioritise yourself. Firstly, you shouldn't feel guilty about putting yourself first. I've had a friend of mine say: „When you try to make others happy, you realise that you can't please everybody and you make yourself unhappy in the process. When you make yourself happy, you know you're at least making one person happy.“ You can't make everyone around you happy. That's a fact. Other people's happiness isn't your responsability and is outside of the realm of your power. You might not agree with me first, but bear with me. You might think: „Oh if I did x, my mom/husband/boss/... would be happy even though I'd be miserable because I don't want to do it.“ That's not really true.
Happiness is a complex term which encompasses many things and, when it comes to other people, you can't influence the majority of them. What we're really talking about here is people pleasing. That's very different than making someone happy. You might temporarily please someone and avoid conflict or make them more temporarily satisfied but that's very short-lived and it's not really your job, to be honest. Even if you do something despite of how you feel and someone else, as a result, gets the outcome they want, who do you think actually profits from that? Definitely not you because you're not happy; in fact you're probably feeling some negative emotions such as frustration, anger or sadness. The other person might be satisfied thinking they got what they wanted, but is that really a good thing? Won't they probably come across someone else who won't do what they want them to? At that point they won't be able to adapt and accept that, but instead try to either change that person or cut connections with her because they won't know how to handle it and cope with it.
By standing your ground and listening to how you feel, you, primarily, respect yourself, your desires and your emotions. But you also give an opportunity to the other person to develop, to grow, to learn. What if that person has to learn to accept that they can't really always get what they want? What if there is a reason for you not wanting to do something, and that reason includes that person as well? By being true to yourself you're not only respecting and loving yourself, you're also teaching other people: firstly, you're teaching them how to respect themselves and their own desires; and secondly, you're not standing in the way of the lessons that they themselves need to learn – even if they don't want to and even if they kick and scream in the process. That's none of your concern. How many lessons in your life did you willingly embrace with kindness and understanding? Probably not a lot; if any at all. Learning and developing is hard; it's really hard! It takes effort and struggle, patience and understanding, time and space. Of course we don't want to do it! It's perfectly normal, natural and human to avoid the things that don't really make us feel good or comfortable. That doesn't mean that these things won't happen, though, and that we won't have to find a way to deal with them.
The more people work on themselves, the happier they get because they're less burdened with the issues or their past and more present and able to enjoy the moment without their thoughts or attitudes ruining it. It's not your job to determine which lessons someone needs to learn but it is your job not to stand in the way of them unfolding. Your inner voice, your heart will guide you well. Respect it and listen to it. Even if it doesn't really seem logical at the time, respect it. Give it a go. Do what feels right to you. Come back to it a few months later and see how things worked out, for yourself and for others involved.
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