Ok so this appears to have nothing to do with fear but I have just finished watching it about five times and laughed my head off! If you want to loosen up and clear out your baggage, which a good laugh always does, then watch this any time you feel overwhelmed by fear!! Or if you just feel glum!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGI5sU-QbQs
So, back to understanding others, part 4! We have talked in the last few blogs about understanding being the opposite of fear and I have explored different aspects of understanding. Today is the aspect of reality or the ‘truth’.
The truth is that we will never see the ‘truth’, the WHOLE truth! Because humans perceive everything, they don’t see the interconnectedness of everything, of reality!
Perception IS reality to the average human. That is deeper than it sounds! It means that EVERY SINGLE PERSON has their own version of reality or what they would call the truth, based on their perceptions.
Their perceptions are based on their deepest fears, parental beliefs, life experiences and usually judgments that are made based on those fears and perceptions, NOT on the WHOLE truth.
Think about witnesses in a court case. There may be five different versions of the story and although some may consciously be lying, anyone who is honestly describing what they saw is probably telling the truth for them.
Even in everyday fights with our partners, we remember VERY different versions of an event and we are both convinced we are speaking the ‘truth’!
What is the whole truth?
Each of us sees a tiny, VERY tiny, portion of everything that goes on in every moment and how everything is connected.
Did you know that if you scrape some cheek cells from a person, put them in a test tube and send them to another state, they will become agitated at the exact when the person watches a violent movie? True!
Similar experiments have been done with couples where one is sick with cancer. The healthier partner is trained in a loving compassion exercise and when they are separated, as the healthier partner thinks with love and compassion for their beloved, it literally changes the unwell persons physiology.
WE have no real idea of how everything in the universe works and what the spiritual realms or void or matrix or whatever you want to call it is filled with! And yet my belief is that it is filled with love and loving angels, or spiritual beings or beings wiser than us!
There is a great movie I watched recently called The Living Matrix, you can view it free on http://vimeo.com/21432874
It will start to give you more information, which will lead to greater understanding - on healing and more on the way the world really does work. Of course, this still isn’t the WHOLE truth because we are human and we perceive!
I suspect when we really do understand everything and can see how it all works and why things happen the way they do we will be so evolved and enlightened we will be crossing over and leaving this earth!
How does this help you understand others?
Well, every time you make a judgment about someone else, you are making your decision or choice based on all the information? Of course not, because we will never know all the factors that have led this person to this point.
Nor are we aware of how much our past experiences, fears and filters influence everything we think and therefore all our choices!
Go forth today knowing that you know very little about others and the way the world really works, so be gracious, humble, grateful and when you find yourself judging, stop.
Use that awareness as a trigger to examine YOUR own fears; question the truth of them; find the source and reassure your ‘inner toddler’; ask yourself if you truly understand who this other person is, do you know their whole life history, their fears, their habits and patterns?
If not, then who are you to judge? We so often see aspects of ourselves in others and that is in truth what we are judging.
Humility is the key! We are only human. We can only aspire to seek to understand. Reminding ourselves we are limited by our perceptions is a great way to humbly explore, with interest, what the other person is really meaning by what they say or do.
Can you relate to any of this? Post a comment, or let us know if you tried some of the suggested activities and what happened!
- TRANSFORM YOURSELF AT THANKSGIVING! BECOME A WALKING JOY SPOT!
Are you a walking joy spot?
Are you someone who spreads joy everywhere you go?
Are you someone who has found your inner joy and can share?! I call the intersection of 4 sciences, Neuroscience, Epigenetics, Emotional Intelligence and Positive Psychology, the joy spot! It's the place from which amazing life and leadership emerge.
How do you find your own joy spot and then become a walking one?!
This is a 12 part series where each newsletter we explore one of the 12 pillars of JOY, and work you through the steps that help you uncover the JOY that is waiting to burst forth from inside you!
This first one is what I call the JOY SWITCH!, Gratitude.
You can’t find your joy without gratitude! And any time you feel out of JOY - all you have to do is flip on your JOY SWITCH! Immediately find something for which to be joyful and keep your gratitude glasses on!
• So don those gratitude glasses today and start to look at everything through these. Perhaps you can make your own gratitude glasses - they don't have to be the ones we sell! Make them as creatively and beautifully as you can. Make it a family exercise to do them!
- Go over your life history and find the good things that came out of the hardship of the past.
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- What lessons did you learn from 'difficult' parents or siblings or past partners that has made you stronger, more resilient, more compassionate, loving, forgiving or built your character!
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- Look at your current situation and find things for which to be grateful. Sometimes you have to look for a long time!
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- Make yourself a gratitude journal and each night before you go to bed, write down at least 5 things for which you are grateful, either that happened that day or just things in your life for which you are grateful, like your health; ability to walk and breathe; a roof over your head; the capacity to speak and think or laugh, there are gazillions of reasons for gratitude. Regularly writing in a journal is a well known way to stop depression and begin your inner journey to joy!
If you lie in bed at night and worry - you are releasing lots of stress hormones. Adrenalin is one of them and it does not affect us as badly as cortisol. Cortisol is released and lasts for five hours in your body when you worry or feel stressed. It 'eats' internal organs and sits in the brain acting as a toxic bath for your brain. It also puts on abdominal fat. So if you lie in bed and worry - you are making yourself sick (cos we know stress contributes to most disease) fat and stupid!!
• Ask everyone at the dinner table every night from now on “what are you grateful for today?” Sometimes have a competition to see who is MORE grateful! For a bit of fun!
• You cannot teach children gratitude by forcing them to say ‘thank you ‘under sufferance! Teach them by modeling it yourself.
• Find things are work for which to be grateful, even if it is just you have a job! Millions would take your job in a heartbeat!
• Say to your self constantly in the face of a challenge: “Everyday is a good day. Everything is a good thing. Every place is a good place.” My Qi Gong teacher taught me that and it has calmed many a potential argument!!
• Tell the people in your life who mean something to you, or your colleagues, how grateful you are to them and give them specific examples of why you feel gratitude.
Do these things and you will be on your path to being a walking joy spot!
Gratitude is the place to start.
Begin today. Joyfully!
If you would like to see a video clip on this - have a look at MEL INSERT YOUTUBE GRATITUDE GLASSES CLIP
Zooties!
Amanda Gore Director The Joy Project www.thejoyproject.com www.amandagore.com
youtube channel????
