1 No psychological fear is part of your original equipment
-no event, in itself, is the cause of the fear we feel in the moment of it’s appearance. Shakespeare said “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”
-whatever you think appears in consciousness as a show. that’s the way thought works to display its content, as a show of imagination. therefore, if you think the observer is separate from the observed, it’s going to appear in consciousness as two different entitites
-the next time some fear tries to drag you down into it’s world of worry-first showing you all that’s dark and wrong, then telling you how to make things right and bright again-choose in favor of this action instead
2 No painful resentment or regret is part of your original equipment
-proof-you aren’t born with a pre-filled photo album for a mind
-insight-no resentment or regret exists without your being tricked into revisiting and reliving some painful mental picture from your past
-explanation-the past is powerless over your original self. think about it. the truth about the past is simply that it has passed. this means that our experience of each moment-for it’s pleasure or pain, peace or trouble-is a direct reflection of what we are in a relationship with the present
-our attention connects us to life, it establishes our relationships with all that unfolds around and within us. our experience of life reflects these relationships. this means that, whenever resentment and regret darkens our day, there’s only one reason for our sorrow, we’ve been tricked into revisiting and reforming an unconscious relationship with some misery-making moments from our past, we’ve simply made a bad connection within ourselves, due to a temporary lapse of attention
3 No anxiety-with it’s painful rushing around-is part of your original equipment
-proof-you aren’t born with a merry-go-round in your mind, let alone with a lifelong ticket to ride
-insight-no anxious state exists apart from the illusion that the security, happiness, and wholeness you long for exists somewhere outside of you-“in a time to come”
-explanation-once the truth of any situation is clear, so is our choice within it. no one consents to keep playing a part of deception that, instead of delivering happiness, actually prohibits it, then why do we go on embracing anxious thoughts and feelings that do nothing but steal from us our love of life? whenever our mind imagines a pleasure, something else comes to life within us at the same time, right alongside our newly imagined desire is born a feeling of anxiety
-as long as we stay present to ourselves, anxiety is powerless to hold us captive
-anxious thoughts are not there to help us reach the promised land, instead, they keep us a prisoner in the world of their empty promises
-there is no intelligence in any fearful or worried thought or feeling
-no negative state has the right to rule over your life
-pain is neither a natural or necessary part of making a mistake
4 Act on what you know is true
-understand that any lingering sense of discontent belong to an inconsolable level of self that believes it can escape its pain by reliving it, refuse to ever again hand yourself over to a nature that loves to complain about its circumstances, even as it does nothing to change them, your reward-being released from the false belief that dark thoughts or feelings have any power to improve your life
-understand that any lingering sense of discontent belong to an inconsolable level of self that believes it can escape its pin by reliving it
-refuse to ever again hand yourself over to a nature that loves to complain about its circumstances, even as it does nothing to change them. your reward-being released from the false belief that dark thoughts or feelings have any power to improve your life
2 understand that there are parts of you that always want to take the easy way-to do things halfway, to avoid unneccessary challenges. now have the courage to act on this knowledge. deliberately choose to take the more difficult path and finish whatever you start. walk into what you’d rather walk away from
3 understand that being anxious does nothing but drive younowhere faster. when you find you’re in a mad rush, remember that what you’re really trying to get is a quiet mind-that peacable state of your original self reached only through this realization. deliberatly slow down your life, your reward-the deeply refreshing realization of what it means to be “washed clean” of anxious states
4 Understand-in spite of the highly polished performances to make believe otherwise-that everyone you meet suffers in much the same way as you. no one wants others to know the weight of their unspoken pain.and yet, we are all burdened by broken dreams, shattered hearts, and whatever other sorrow walks with them through their day. refuse to ever again ass to the pain of another, even a small measure of your own. your reward-the birth of a whole new kind of compassion.
-start seeing the good when things look bad-unwanted moments introduce us to parts of ourselves that would otherwise never get healed were it not for the difficulties that first reveal them and that lead us to release their pain
-the only reason life changes as it does is to reveal the secret goodness underlying those same changes
-when things go badly for us, we’re not intended to return to who and what we’ve been
-all things good come to those for whom the good is all things
1 even though we may feel badly when we lose whatever we hold near and dear to ourselves, it is good to see that nothing in this world-or that we can imagine-is permanent. learning to welcome events that foster this understanding helps liberate us from painful attachments to relationships, possessions, and our own bodies. what follows is freedom from all forms of false dependency and their attending fears
2 even though we may feel badly when our sense of self-worth is shaken by events, it is good to see that in their experiences that any sense of self derived through images, social powers, acclaim, or peer approval is not who we really are. learning to welcome events that reveal this truth helps free us from the impossible task of trying to be all things to all people
3 even though we may feel badly when we run into a limitation of some kind, it is good to see that, apart from the certainty behind our own pressing demands on life, nothing else stands in our way. the more we resist seeing our own limitations, the greater they become! and when we realize this truth, we see that limitations are illusions, they exist for only as long as we resist going through what we must to prove them false
-never feel sorry for yourself
-the secret attraction behind self-pity-why it’s so hard to set down-is that the part of us that feels like nothing makes the part of us that points out this nothingness feel quite special
-we know that love is greater than hatred, courage slays fear, and that what is light, bright, and good only shines the more for anything that tries to darken its way
-the only thing feeling sorry for yourself changes about your life is that it makes it worse
-no matter how you look at it, you involve yourself with whatever you resist
-being wrapped up in self-pity completely spoils any chance of being able to see new possibilities as they appear
-the only thing that grows from cultivating any dark seed of sorrow is more bitter fruit
-feeling sorry for those who want you to feel sorry for them is like giving an alcoholic a gift certificate to a liquor store
-your thoughts can no more tell you what is true about your possibilities than a set of boulders can know the nature of the waters that rush by them
-feeling sorry for yourself is a slow-acting poison. first it corrupts, then it consumes your heart, choking it with dark and useless emotion
-you cannot separate the reasons you have for feeling sorry for yourself from the sorry way you feel
-the heart watered by tears of self-pity soon turns to stone; it is incapable of passion
-when you agree to live with sad regrets, you ensure they’ll still be with you tomorrow
-anyone who rushes through life always finishes last!
-all forms of momentum are mindless, but never more so than when a mind-blinded by desire-runs after what it wants without any awareness of its action
-patience is a great virtue whose cost is paid by becoming painfully conscious of what our impatience does to others
-the rush to judgement is a race that nobody wins!
-allowing the rushed state of another person to push you into an anxious state of mind is like letting the horse you’re about to ride convince you to wear the saddle!
-you are well on your way to reclaiming your original fearless self when you find your source of peace and contentment in just being alive
-rushing through life lends the one who habitually hurries the feeling of being important, but at the high cost of always having to justify one’s unkindness
-the main reason it’s wise to listen to one’s own heart is because there is so much more to be learned from the parts of us that don’t “speak” in words…than those that do
-the most important thing to remember wherever you find yourself in a mad rush is that what you are really trying to get is a quiet mind
The BPD Group 