Every day

So I am really new to all this positive thinking and spiritualism... So I still have my off days.

This week has felt like a really off week. Sometimes I forget the difference between me and my ego. Which can lead to reverting to my old ways of thinking and acting and reacting.

Its not very nice at all. But its all part of the learning curve. There isn't a book or a movie that you can watch and thereafter you have this revolutionary moment and suddenly your life takes a change for the better. The moment where you recognize a need for change does occur, the truth is that that is where the journey can start and end. You really have to put in the effort and have the drive to want to change things... be happier... Be loved... be you!

So recognizing when you think and feel things that go against the way you vision the perfect you to be, is actually an important step. The more you recognize, the better you will get at overcoming those thoughts and actions.

Don't beat yourself up about it, because that will only serve to feed yourself with more misery... guilt... victimization... Just recognize and allow it to happen... then move on from that point.

All things pass. Good or bad... It comes and goes. No use getting attached to a point in time.

Food for thought

For the last few days I have been feeling rather uneasy and I couldn't figure out why. The Darrel Naidu, my good friend, told me that instead of thinking about a possible future, I should rather think about the possible me. Which got me thinking...

So many of us (including myself) spend our time thinking about exactly what it is that we want. What it is could also include a who we want. I looked up at the notes I stuck on my wall, which I made after I watched The Secret, that who can't ever make us happy, because no one must change in order for me to be happy. 

I am the sole controller of my own happiness. If I put my happiness in the hands of someone else, it will never bring about the happiness that I really want. How can it? I am my own person, with my own personality and my own set of likes and dislikes... So how can someone else make me happy in exactly the way I want to be happy?

Just some food for thought...

Judging Amy

Lol, for those of you that don't know me, a lot of people call me Amy. And this post is about passing judgments. So I thought the title was appropriate... Now it's lame because I explained it. So now its a Lamy... (for Ash and Darrel)Okay, so what do I mean by judgments... I mean the role we play as a Judge.
By being a judge means that you are passing judgement upon other people, situations and most importantly yourself. As we all know, we tend to be our own worst enemies. We continuously criticize ourselves... I’m too fat, I’m too thing, I have big feet, I have ugly handwriting, I am a terrible cook... etc, etc. I can literally go on all day listing every criticism I have ever paid to myself or I have heard someone else say about themselves. Then one day I realized that I am so mean to myself. I find myself paying compliments to people all the time, yet I only ever had bad things to say about myself.

So I decided that from now on I would focus on all the things that I like/love about me. Sure it is difficult at first, so to make it easier, I wrote a list of things that I loved about me. Some of the things I wrote down, I didn’t really like at all, but I wrote it down anyway. I began to appreciate myself. Whenever, I would feel the urge to judge myself, I would just notice what it was that I was saying. Then I would take a moment, whenever I got the moment, to think about why I said that about myself. What was the deeper meaning of what it was that I had said to myself? In this way I began to uproot all the insecurities that were hiding inside of me. I deal with each of my insecurity as it shows its face so that in time I will be secure about myself in every way possible.When I stopped judging myself, I began to notice how many times I judged other people. When I say judge, I mean even in a good way, I judged people. Whether someone behaved in a way that I perceived to be "wrong" or "bad", or whether I noticed someone’s behavior to be in accordance to something I believed to be "right" or "good", I was judging. They say when you point your finger at someone then at least three fingers are pointing right back at you. It is true. Most judgments are hypocritical. The things we judge about other people are the things we usually don’t like about ourselves. It reminds me of a poem that I had read when I was a little girl. It was about how its okay for me to act or behave in a certain way, but it’s not okay for you to do it. The problem is that it becomes difficult to notice our own hypocritical nature. That is why I started by being kinder to myself. I became kinder to others, then I became more secure in myself.

Some people argue that there is no real way to not be judgmental because by saying that you’re not going to judge someone, then you made a judgement about them and then you decide not to judge them. Well that’s why I say that it’s important to not judge whether something is perceived by you to be "good" or "bad". Good and bad are relative to each person. In economies we had a joke that went something like: Don’t treat others the way you would like to be treated because their preferences may be different.  So something that is good to one person maybe bad to another. Some people love cabbage, other people don’t. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t treat people the way you would like to be treated, but it is necessary to understand that good is only relative to the eye of the perciever. So rather you rather not judge whether an action is "good" or "bad", instead focus on treating others the way you would like to be treated... with kindness... you will notice that the mean hypocrite will be replaced by a more peaceful and relaxed you... you will be happier and more secure. 

Introduction

Okay, so my good friend Yuveshan Pillay suggested that I tell my readers a little bit about me... But I don't know what to say because I am still trying to figure myself out. I feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Yesterday I knew who I was, but today I am hardly myself. Perhaps I tell tell you some things ABOUT me. I say 'about me' because I'm gonna tell you about my form not my substance.

I am 24 years old, female, single and I just finished my BCom Honours in Management from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I am an only child but I have a close knit extended family. And people say that my personality is "awkward and random and funny". Well Yuveshan (I call him Lava) likes to make me sound like a spin-off of New Girl.

I got into the new age idea of Spiritualism at the beginning of this year when I realised I wasn't very happy with life. I guess, I was always intrigued by the idea of "finding myself" and being connected with God. The concept of right and wrong was something that always confused me. I always wondered if I was really wrong in thinking that something was right... and who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong. So I guess I have finally started my journey. My yellow brick road, however, is just starting... So I decided to blog about the concepts that I have learnt and the experiences that I have gained since I began my own personal story, loosely based on Eat, Pray, Love... except I didn't leave home, and I didn't eat more than usual. I start praying, in a different way from the prayers that I did before this journey.

Please excuse my typos and spelling. I will try my best to keep those down.

I hope you find my blog helpful, enjoyable and fun.

The Victim Mindset

In order to get a full understanding of the victim's mindset, please read the following link:

http://www.becomeselfaware.com/articles/articles-2013/57-the-victim-mentality.html

It will give you a clear understanding of how a victim thinks and operates. Happy reading :) 

The Victim and the Survivor

How to start your journey towards your perfect life

The Victim and the Survivor

The first discovery that really stuck with me is the idea of the victim. So what is the victim- it is the role that people play in their lives that makes them perceive all situations and circumstances as if it a personal attack in their lives. Victims believe that everything that happens to them is a result of something or someone else; it never happens because of them. Victims believe that they are never at fault.

We all know someone that plays the victim of their life; some of us are the victims of our own lives.  I say this because only once I realised how many times a day I played the victim, was I finally able to understand why the universe was not giving me what I wanted.

You know that feeling when we say things like:

·         I’m such a good person, but people are so mean to me;

·         I give so much love but I don’t get that love back;

·         I work so hard but I never see the results;

·         These things always happen to me;

·         Why do I always get hurt in love;

·         I don’t get treated the way I deserve to be treated and;

·          I ask for so little and I get even less back.

Those were some of personal favourites for when I threw myself a pity party, which felt like almost every day. I would think of all these things and I would cry until I couldn’t see anything through the heavy tears. Then I would call a friend or two and look for sympathy from them. I didn’t realise that I was looking for sympathy because I believed that I was just confirming that I was right to feel the way that I did. Off course I did get the sympathy that I was looking for, but all that happened after I got that sympathy was that I felt more sad for myself.

Feeling sorry for myself lead to new and even better psychological problems. I started to believe that if I wasn’t treated the way I felt that I should be treated then maybe I didn’t deserve to be treated in that way. Perhaps this was what I deserved. Perhaps that was all I was worth. So in the end I felt worthless and in my head I believed that I must truly be a "bad" person because I deserved even less than I wanted.

Ah, then the even better game started... I began to point out people that I felt were “bad” people and I then compare them to myself. I wondered why was it that those "bad" people were so happy and I wasn’t.  I wasn’t promiscuous, I didn’t cause harm to others, willingly, I was helpful and I did my best in trying to make others happy (which is a story for later).

So here is what I learnt... Playing the victim only encourages the universe to give you more reasons to play the victim. By feeling sorry for myself, I began to play another role. I began to play the detective. I was constantly looking more and more things to make me feel sorry for myself.  Here’s where it gets more interesting... Not only was I a victim, but almost everyone I was in close contact with, were also victims. I realised that as much as I went around looking for sympathy, I had also given so much sympathy to others. So here’s the hard truth, sympathy is not love. It may seem like love, but it’s not love. If it was love, it would be called love; it would show up as a synonym for love, but it doesn’t. All that it does, is it increases the power of the universe in giving you more of a reason to play the victim.

This is what happens in the comic energy of the universe:

1.      You feel victimized.

2.      The universe hears and feels you.

3.      You list all the things that make you sorry for yourself.

4.      The universe hears and feels you.

5.      You tell your friends, family and some unfortunate person that stands in front of you in the line to buy a cup of coffee.

6.      The universe hears and feels you and all the people that sympathize with you.

7.   The energy put out becomes amplified. In economies they call this: The Multiplier Effect.

8.      The universe gives you back what it understands as what it is that you really want.

9.      A situation occurs in your life and you feel victimized.

It’s easy enough to understand now. As you can see it is an infinite cycle. So I realised I needed to break free of this cycle. I knew I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. So I did two things.

First I started to call myself a survivor. When something happened that would have made me feel sad for myself, I would say to myself:

“Amrisha, you’re still alive. You made it through. You survived this.”

By thinking of myself as a survivor began to give me courage to face life. It made me feel secure. Many of my insecurities began to fade away, taking my fears away. I was not as afraid as I used to be. This made me feel so much stronger and capable of achieving my goals in life.

The second thing that I did was to be grateful. When something happened that would have made me feel like a victim, I would thank God, the angels and the universe for something. By showing gratitude towards the things that I have in life made me focus on the things that brought positivity in life. At first it was hard to be thankful when all I wanted to do was curl up in the fetal position and feel sorry for myself. It started out small. I started by being thankful for things like my eyesight, air-conditioning, my ability to walk and for the roof over my head.

I actually made a game of it now. Every time I hear the words “grateful”, “gratitude”, “appreciate” and “thank” I say something that I am grateful for. Each time, I find more things to appreciate in my life. In essence I felt happier about more things in life, so I keep finding more things to make me happier.

So stop feeling sorry for yourself and start seeing yourself as a survivor and a become grateful for all things that you receive in life. When you do this, you will find yourself feeling happier, lighter and your problems will start to fade away. You will start to own your own power. 

There will be more blogs to help you become a survivor.

Thanks for reading :)