Why do we hate our bodies?

In the previous article, I was talking about the obsession our society has with physical appearance. It is obvious that it is so. Now I want to go even deeper into this subject .

I think that these days our obsession with physical appearance is worse than ever. More and more 12-year-old girls are going on diets because they believe that your weigh determines your worth. But when all you see is a body type that only two percent of the population has, it’s difficult to remember what’s real and what’s reasonable to expect of yourself and everyone else.

Before social networks, we mostly had images of impossibly perfect celebrities. We would pass these images on billboards, watch them on TV, look at them in magazines, but we weren’t sitting around staring at them for hours every day.

I think that social media hurt because young people are now having their bodies judged online in addition to being judged in person, which causes them to feel trapped. People also say things they’d never say to your face. It’s like Facebook gives them a screen that totally blocks out their emotions…they don’t have to see how I’d react when they say something negative about me. We are relying on judgments from people we’ll never meet to determine our worth.

The standards that society has set on what we call “pretty” are very hard to meet. There are few people who are naturally pretty and all other people could probably be considered the uglier ones.

For years, we’ve acknowledged the fact that no matter how much we try to temper it, girls face immense pressure to look a certain way – from the media, Hollywood, and probably most of all each other – a pressure that many would say starts early and doesn’t ever really end.

Body image is no light subject. There are people who are suffering legitimate illnesses, mental and physical, relating to how they appear. 

I’ve read many stories of girls that want to kill themselves because they hate the way they look. They are in such a deep place of self hate.  I’ve heard of a girl that avoids mirrors and windows because whenever she sees her own face she wants to vomit. She can’t even stand people looking at her. People laugh at her all the time, boys teas her for being ugly. She cries herself to sleep at night and even cuts herself because she hates that she is not pretty.

It hurts me that we as a society are causing this suffering that people experience regarding their physical appearances. 

The question is, what do we do about it?  What is the solution to this problem? What can we do to stop this insane obsession we have with physical appearance?

I have been thinking about this for days and days, trying to come up with a solution. But the more I was focused on the problem, the more upset and angry I was becoming. I was casually walking on the street when I saw a billboard with a model on it. I instantly felt like I want to destroy that billboard for spreading the propaganda of plastic beauty. When I watched a movie, I was so angry at the fact that only beautiful people by society’s standards play leading roles and the normal looking people play the dorky ones in the background. Whenever I encountered good looking girls in a bus, I was getting more upset because I felt like society pressures us into uniformity.

I became so angry that everyone is obsessed with their appearance. But most of all, I was angry at myself. My hate for everyone was just a reflection of my own self hate. I recognized myself in all of these people I was hating on. I was just the same as all other girls. And I hated it about myself. I felt like it made me a shallow stupid person. I couldn‘t stand it about myself. When I wasn‘t dressed well and when I wasn‘t wearing any make up, I felt ugly and unworthy. And when I was dressed well and looking good according to society’s expectations, I felt like an attention seeking whore. I felt like because of me there are so many people suffering.

Then I asked myself, what the hell am I doing? It doesn‘t matter what I look like, I always find a reason why to hate my body. I obviously have a problem.

Then I have realized how ridiculous this is. The only reason why we all care so much about our looks is because we don’t feel good enough. We think that we must live up to certain expectations in order to be considered beautiful. And not to be considered as beautiful means to me that no one will love us, we will end up alone and rejected.

Therefore it’s only natural that for us females it’s so important to look good. Most of us have a similar belief, that to be ugly means not to deserve love. That’s why we care so much about our looks. From our perspective our entire existence is dependent on it.

We have to realize that it’s not about what we look like. It’s all about self worth. We don’t have to change our bodies in order to be worthy and loved. We just need to learn how to appreciate ourselves more.

In the next article I’m going to tell you more about what you can do to love and accept your body.

Sorry if this post was too depressing, I just wanted to explore the shadows that cause so much pain in our society. I think that it’s important to have a clear image of what’s going on and how many people are suffering because of our crazy beauty obsessed society.

Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet

I became familiar with the Work of Byron Katie. I think her Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet is awesome and very helpful so I filled it in when I was angry with my mother:

1. In this situation, time, and location, who angers, confuses, or disappoints you, and why? 

I am angry with my mother because she underestimates me and she only sees the worst in me. She tells me that I’m not good enough to pursue my dreams. She tells me that I’m wasting my life. She tells me that I’m not smart enough to pass the entrance exams. She tells me that I’m a waste of space and no one loves me. She tells me that I will never be independent. She tells me that I’m not that kind of person anyone would ever fall in love with. She tells me that I will end up poor and alone and depressed. She tells me that I have failed my life. She tells me that I shouldn’t have been born because my existence only bothers people around me. She tells me that I’m mentally retarded and I should visit a psychiatrist. She tells me that I’m naive a stupid. She tells me that I’m crazy and not normal because I don’t have any friends except the internet. She tells me that no one would ever like or love a person like me. She tells me that with my attitude I will never be successful in my life. She tells me that I will go through lot of pain and suffering in life. She constantly compares me to herself at her age, to my younger sister, to other people in my age who in her opinion have achieved much more in their lifes. She tells me that I was born flawed and I’m predestined to have a life full of suffering.

2. In this situation, how do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?

I want my mother to acknowledge me. I want her to see my true self, the true beauty of my being. I want her to see that I’m a worthy being full of love and infinite potential. I want her to get to know the true me. I want her to stop thinking I’m insane. I want her to support me in pursuing my dreams. I want her to love me for who I am and not hate me for who I’m not. I want her to see my attempts to heal our relationship. I want her to acknowledge my uniqueness.

3. In this situation, what advice would you offer to them?

My mother should realize how much she is hurting me with her behavior. She should try to be more emphatic and she should see that I am a human being and I have feelings too. She should see how much her words and actions influenced my life when I was a child. She should see how much pain she has created with her stupid words. She should realize that it’s impossible to be unworthy. She should forgive herself and she should love herself. Then she will no longer hate me and she will see the beauty in me. She should try to get to know me better. She should focus on the good side of me. She should look at my talents and abilities.

4. In order for you to be happy in this situation, what do you need them to think, say, feel, or do?

I need my mother to look at me from another perspective. I need her to see my true talents and abilities. I need her to stop criticizing me and looking for all the things that are wrong with me. I need her to admit that I am worthy and I deserve to exist.

5. What do you think of them in this situation? Make a list.

My mother is unfair, arrogant, selfish, awful, pessimistic, rude, way out of line and unconscious. She is self hating, self sabotaging, self destructing and depressed.

6. What is it in or about this situation that you don’t ever want to experience again?

I don’t ever want my mother to treat me like this. I don’t ever want her to underestimate me so much. I don’t ever want her to tell me that I shouldn’t have been born. I don’t ever want her to make me feel guilty for existing. I don’t ever want her to make me feel like I am a worthless piece of shit that doesn’t deserve any love. I don’t ever want her to make me feel like I’m rejected and abandoned by everyone. I don’t ever want her to make me feel like I’m incapable of doing any real job. I don’t ever want her to tell me that I can’t achieve my dreams. I don’t ever want her to treat me like I’m not good enough and not a worthy human being.

Now I have to investigate each of the above statements using the four questions.

The four questions

My mother thinks that I am a worthless
1. Is it true? She thinks it is but fundamentally it is not.
2. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? I feel horrible and hopeless when I think this thought.
3. Who would you be without the thought? I would be confident and self loving.

Turn the thought around
a) to the self. I think that I am worthless.
b) to the other. I think that my mother is worthless
c) to the opposite. My mother thinks I am worthy.

As I began to turn around these statements, I noticed that I was everything I called my mother. She was merely my projection. Now, instead of trying to change the world around me, I can put the thoughts on paper, investigate them, turn them around, and find that I am the very thing I thought she was. In the moment I see her as selfish, I am selfish (deciding how she should be). In the moment I see her as unkind, I am unkind. If I believe she should stop waging war, I am waging war on her in my mind. When I think she is arrogant, I am being arrogant. When I see her as pessimistic, I am pessimistic.

She is nothing else but  a reflection. And it also works the other way around. When my mother tells me I am worthless, it’s because she believes she’s worthless. If she calls me impractical and useless, it’s because she feels impractical and useless. Everything she judges about me in a negative way is what she judges about herself.

Now with this knowledge, I’m no longer so angry at my mother. Now I understand that she has been behaving to me this way because she’s suffering inside. All these things she has called me have absolutely nothing to do with me. Not even a little bit!

I don’t need my mother to tell me I am worthy in order to feel worthy. I  don’t need anyone to tell me this. If I don’t give love to myself, all the people of the world can tell me they love me and still I wouldn’t believe them.

The next time me and my mother are having a fight, I’m going to remember than none of the things she’s calling me is actually true. I won’t take it personally.

A brutally honest post

Today I had a fight with my mother again. That’s nothing strange about that, we fight since I was born at least a few times in a week, depending on how much time we spend with each other. I’m not going to go to great depths about our relationship because I’ve already described it in this article. 

My mother functions for me as my clearest mirror. She reflects to me all the negative beliefs that I have about myself.

This is a list of things she says about me that make me feel bad about myself:

• She says that I’m a boring person with no opinions
• She says that I’m not competent and practical enough to live a life
• She says that I’m not independent enough and I always rely on other people to help
• She says that I’m not normal because I have no friends and no social life
• She says I have chosen a horrible field of study and that I will never be able to find a job
• She says that I will end up poor, alone and unemployed and that I will live with my parents forever
• She says that I’m not likable enough for people to love me
• She says that I’m stupid and naive
• She says that no one will ever love me because I’m too weird and defected
• She says that I’m lazy and unproductive
• She says I’m crazy because I spend all of my time at home alone
• She says that I won’t be accepted to any university because I’m not smart enough
• She says that I’m not deserving to exist

I’m not making these things up. She literally said all of them straight to my face. And she says them regularly. Now it’s easy to understand why I grew up believing I was a worthless piece of nothing that deserves no love. And everyone treated me that way because that was the vibration I was emitting. I constantly saw proof and evidence of how I was worthless.

It’s like a vicious circle. Once you have a core belief, it manifests itself in all aspects of your life. Your entire reality is based on that belief and you see the evidence supporting that belief everywhere you go. It’s impossible to get out of this vicious circle when you don’t know that your beliefs create your reality. And it’s hard to believe that you create your own reality when you live in a society that conditions you to believe in the exact opposite. It’s easy to believe that life is pointless and the universe is against you.

Today I asked myself what would my mother have to believe to be true in order to say things that she says. This is what I found out:

• She believes that life is pointless
• She believes that people are divided in good and bad
• She believes that some people are born better than the others
• She believes that the world is a horrible and unfair place
• She believes that you have to have certain qualities and personality traits in order to be worthy and deserve to exist
• She believes that life is based on chance and that there are things you can do nothing about
• She believes that she is not good enough
• She believes that there are no good things awaiting for her in the future

I came to understanding that I function as a mirror for my mother too. I reflect to her all of her shadow sides. She sees her failures and her biggest fears in me. Just like I see my biggest fears in her. I’m not the only one that is frustrated. She is sad and frustrated as well. She believes that she’s worthless and that she has failed as a mother and in her entire life in general. She has a sad and depressing life. Only suffering creates suffering.

I feel empathy and compassion for my mother. I wish there would be something I could do to help her. I’ve tried many times, but she simply can’t understand my perspective. When she looks at me and my life, she only sees evidence of how she is worthless. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to make her like me, she only sees what she wants to see.

The fact that my mothers comments are making me upset reflects to me that I have to believe in these things too otherwise they wouldn’t hurt me. If I truly didn’t believed any of these things, I wouldn’t have such a strong emotional reaction to them. I would simply recognize that these things have nothing to do with me so why should I bother? So to some degree I must believe in these things or at least I’m afraid that they might actually be true.

I’m going to ask myself this question: What would I have to believe to be true to end up feeling this way?

• I would have to believe that I might be worthless.
• I would have to believe that there is something wrong with me.
• I would have to believe that I’m not smart and good enough.
• I would have to believe that I don’t deserve love.

It’s true that I mostly believe that I’m worthless. I put myself down and focus primarily on things that I dislike about myself. I worry too much about the future and I always think about how can something go wrong. I feel guilty because of my past and I’m afraid of my future.

I have dedicated many years of my life to self improvement. Since I can remember I always believed that I need to improve myself. I believed that I need to fix myself, because I felt that as I am right now is not good enough. I thought that I need to change my personality in order to be a valuable human being. That’s why I have been interested in self help literature in the first place. I didn’t start to read motivational literature just for fun, I started to read motivational literature to find techniques on how I can restructure myself in order to be worth something.

I’ve tried so hard to make myself a good human being. I read every book and article I could find on self love. I watched all the documentaries and videos on self improvement. I followed all new age spiritual teachers. But no matter how hard I tried, nothing seemed to work. Just as I thought that I did it and I no longer have to face the same issues, suddenly everything crashed and I found myself in square one. Nothing has changed. I did this so many times and I always ended up disappointed. I started to use my constant failure as an evidence of my worthlessness, because apparently, I’m not good enough and powerful enough to change it . I thought that something must be horribly wrong with me because I just keep repeating the same mistake all the time.

I’ve never been so obsessed with self love like I’m right now. I’ve made a commitment at the beginning of this year to make self love my priority. Since then, there wasn’t a day I wouldn’t be dealing with self love. I wrote so many articles on how to love yourself,  I even gave advice to some people. One would have thought that I’m a self love expert. And yet, I still have self hating tendencies today.

I know the root of my self hating behavior. When I was cca. 3 years old, I started to feel abandoned by my parents and people around me. As a child I interpreted it as something that I have done wrong. I felt like something must be wrong with me and I started to  believe in it. Because of this I was a very shy child. I started to suppress myself at very young age. Other kids were expressive, cheerful and loud, but I was quiet, I hated games and I looked sad and pessimistic. The teachers in kindergarten didn’t like me and they told my mother that there’s something wrong with me and that I should visit a psychologist. My mother was upset because of it and I blamed myself for making other people sad. I felt like I was a bad and defected person and that everything and everyone is against me. Throughout my whole life, people have been telling me that it’s not good to be shy and afraid. So I started to hate this about myself and I rejected this part of myself. When I was about 10 years old, I started to work on changing myself in order to deserve love and become a valuable person.

But even after all those years of studying self help literature, unhealed wounds from my childhood keep on reappearing in my life. I’m extremely scared of rejection. I can’t stand the feeling of being rejected by someone. I can’t feel worthy when other people disapprove of me. But what I’m afraid the most is my own self rejection. When I’m interacting with someone, it’s not their opinion on me that I’m actually scared of. They don’t even know me, so why should I care? What I’m scared of is that I’m going to disappoint myself. I’m scared that I won’t make the good impression that I desire. In my eyes that’s a failure. And I can’t stand failures. I’m convinced that when I fail, it means that I’m a worthless piece of nothing that doesn’t deserve any love.

I know this sounds pretty cruel. But I’m not overreacting. I believe in my own worthlessness, otherwise I would not react in this way. I wouldn’t feel this way. I understand that I can’t have a feeling about something unless I assign a specific belief to it. I’m experiencing my reality according to my own beliefs and definitions. I understand all of this, theoretically. I see this particular belief as it’s manifesting itself everywhere I look. But why is it so hard to put this theoretical knowledge into practice?

I think I know the answer. I’m berating myself for continuing to buy into those things beyond the point that I recognize that I have the ability not to.

I know that I create my own reality. It’s an undeniable fact to me at this point. And it has been clear to me for a while now. When I first found out about the fact that I create my own reality, first of all I have gotten pretty frustrated because it means that I have created all of this suffering for myself. I could not blame anyone else, it was all my fault. It was my fault that I have attracted to myself such a sad childhood.  But instead of using the knowledge of my own creator power to change my reality into something I would prefer, I was still blaming myself for my past. I didn’t forgive myself, instead I was beating myself up and hating myself for what I have done. In my eyes it was an evidence of how horrible I am.

Well, I can’t say that I haven’t changed at all. Things have changed over the years. I’m not as self hating as I was when I was 12 – 13 years old. I can even write a list of things that I love about myself and that list is gigantic (with more than 100 reasons). I wrote a list of things I hate about myself and I couldn’t come up with more than 8. But even though I have 20 times more reasons to love myself than I have to hate myself, I still focus mainly on the things I hate about myself. I’m so bothered by those few things that I don’t pay attention to any of my wonderful qualities, instead I blame myself for not overcoming those few things that I dislike.

Reasons why I hate myself:

• I’m shy.
• I’m afraid to express myself, to open up to people and to show my true self because I fear rejection.
• I’m secretive and I isolate myself.
• I obviously can’t change and it doesn’t matter how hard I try.
• I don’t believe I can achieve anything and I see myself as less then anyone else.
• I’m a horrible procrastinator.
• I waste my life.
• I’m not smart enough.
• My life is a failure.

I now know the reason why all of my previous attempts to change myself and to improve myself failed. It’s because you can’t overcome what is inside yourself or part of yourself. As soon as you identify with something, it is you. And from that point forward, to try to overcome those things, is to put one part of you at war with another part of yourself.

I was resisting aspects of myself. I tried to avoid certain type of behavior at all costs. This type of behavior was something I strongly identified with. And because I was resisting it so hard, I kept attracting it into my reality. I was resisting myself and that is self-hate, and therefore it is self-destruction.

Now it’s clear to me why I haven’t made any progress in years and why do I still hate myself. Even though I have healed many layers of this issue, it still hasn’t been healed completely. Healing happens in layers, so to expect myself to love myself completely in just few seconds is impossible, especially if I have been hating myself for decades. Today I have reached another stage of healing. Possibly it can be the last stage, since I have just uncovered the root of my problem.

Another reason why self love seems so unachievable to me is because self love is my ultimate goal. Most of the time I’m in pain. Why did I find my way to the spiritual life and to self-help in the first place?  Because for me, happiness is not easy. For me, happiness is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just when it seems like I have found success at last, something happens to separate me from it. It drives me mad.

But why is it so? Deep down, I don’t feel worthy of happiness because I feel like I’m bad or defective. I fear that it is inevitable that the universe already knows that I’m bad and is therefore out to punish me.  And I fear that people will one day discover that I’m bad or that something is wrong with me and abandon me because of it.

So what is the solution for me? How do I finally get out of this vicious circle of self hate?

I have to stop blaming myself, stop blaming everyone or anyone. I just have to understand that I now have the ability to recognize what I prefer and what I don’t. And just because that someone might have taught me more of what I don’t prefer doesn’t mean now that I have to hold on to those beliefs if I really don’t prefer them. I did the best I could. I’m always doing the best I can.

It’s time for me to tell myself a different story, time to be a different story. I don’t have to buy into the old stories if I don’t prefer to. I am old enough to make that decision on my own.

Sorry for this extremely long post. It might have been too depressing but I wrote it the way I truly feel. I don’t expect anyone to read this anyway. I just wrote it for myself because writing about my feelings makes me feel better and I have much more clarity about what I believe to be true about myself. It helps me in my own healing process and what do I know, maybe there are people out there that may be struggling with similar issues as well.

The Secret To Why You Can’t Overcome Your Problems

Today I’m going to share with you an article. It’s a transcript of Teal Scott’s video named “The Secret To Why You Can’t Overcome Your Problems.” If you’re someone that is obsessed with self improvement like I am, I encourage you to read this:

We try to solve our chronic problems. We try to become the people we want to be. But it just doesn’t work. We keep on doing the same things. Why is this the case and what do we do about it? 

Whether you are self-help junkie, or a spiritual connoisseur, or just someone who is curious to hear another perspective on life, one thing is for sure, if you are reading this article, you like the idea of self-improvement. But how do we accomplish this improvement? Everyone seems to have a different answer. But most of these self-improvement techniques don’t work. And they don’t work for one giant reason. They put you at war with yourself. They pit one aspect of yourself against another aspect of yourself. Have you ever noticed that it feels like you cannot overcome your problems no matter how hard you try? Well I’m here to tell you today that you cannot overcome your problems because; you cannot overcome what is inside yourself or part of yourself. As soon as you identify with something, it IS you. And from that point forward, to try to overcome those things, is to put one part of you at war with another part of yourself. Even negative traits (which are part of you) can never be eradicated from you. They can only be transformed into their highest aspect.

When we suppress our emotions, which all of us must do at one point or another in our early lives, those suppressed emotions become part of our personality. Our problems become part of our personality. And as soon as they become part of our personality, they become part of our identity. We begin to see them as ourselves. Resisting any aspect of yourself is asking for emotional disaster. It is self-hate. Regardless of whether you resist something positive within yourself or negative within yourself, it is self-hate, and therefore it is self-destruction.

So what is the solution? The solution is Exaltation. The concept of exaltation is an ancient alchemy concept. Simply put, to exalt something is to transform something into its highest spiritual aspect. For example, the old alchemists thought that the exalted form of metal was gold. If we are to live better lives, where we are not continually made unhappy by our negative personality traits, we must take each personality trait we do not like and first recognize it within ourselves. We must then accept it by both owning it and finding a way to approve of it. And then we must find a way to amplify that personality trait into it’s most in alignment or exalted expression.

Here’s an example of exaltation: Let’s say I felt unloved as a child, and was punished for trying to get the love I needed. I suppressed those feelings of resentment and powerlessness. Over the years, the powerlessness and resentment has become part of my personality. It has caused me to exhibit certain chronic behaviors. Chief among those behaviors, it has caused me to be an energy vampire. Because I believe I am not allowed to ask for the things I need, I manipulate people so I can get the energy I need from them. This personality trait is so much a part of me, that one could say it is part of my personality. I cannot overcome this problem and I can’t eradicate it from my personality. It is part of who I am now. So, my only choice is to take that negative personality trait and make that same personality trait into something positive. Because I am an energy vampire, I am a master at manipulating energy. I could become a brilliant energy worker. I have the capability of consciously pulling in negative energy and transmuting it inside my own body. This means I can feed off of illness and discordant energy rather than stealing life force from people’s bodies. I can manipulate energy to heal people. Also, being an energy vampire, I am a master at mental chess. I play mind games with people. So, the highest aspect of that trait (what we call the exalted aspect) is to play mind games with people that benefit them. I could become a brilliant counselor or psychologist. I could outsmart other people’s egos and help them to see things about themselves that they are totally unaware of.

Describe yourself. What problems do you have? What do you feel are the negative parts of your personality? Be very honest about what traits you don’t like about yourself. Once you have your list, spend some serious time thinking about what the highest and best use of those traits could be. What is the positive exalted form of those negative traits?

Maybe I am dark. The exalted form of being dark could be that I am a brilliant shadow worker. I am a seasoned veteran when it comes to working with the subconscious and with the thoughts that scare people. I can guide people into bringing awareness to and healing whole parts of themselves that they have been trying to avoid. Also, dark energy is powerfully captivating because it frightens people. I can embrace that energy instead of trying to lighten myself up and use it to capture people’s attention and break them out of the monotony of their lives.

Maybe I am anxious. The exalted form of being anxious could be that I am sensitive to the energies around me. I could be a talented interior decorator because I can feel the way that energy moves around a room. I am sensitive to the placement of objects and the influence that colors have on our emotions. I could design homes for people that made them feel exactly how they want to feel upon coming home.

Maybe I am a bully. Bullies push people. The exalted form of being a bully could be that I push people to be their best. I embrace my forceful energy and use it in situations where people could benefit by that force, such as when someone needs especially strong encouragement. Bullies establish dominance within a social group. The exalted version of this dominance is leadership. I embrace my leadership ability and take charge when other people feel as if they need direction. I take initiative. I can rally people to cooperating with one another.

Exalting your negative personality traits and problems is not about going to war with yourself. It is profoundly self hating and counterproductive to want to rid yourself of those traits. It is resistant and whatever we resist, persists. So the key to solving your problems is to find the highest and best use for those so-called negative traits. Fall in love with what you hate about yourself. Turn metal into gold on an internal level. Embrace and own the person that you are. Quit trying to turn yourself into something or someone else.

Source: http://www.thespiritualcatalyst.com/articles/the-secret-to-why-you-can-t-overcome-your-problems

A life changing decision

It’s early in the morning.

My alarm goes off.

Beep, beep, beep.

I open my eyes, feeling groggy and disoriented.

Still half-asleep, I try to figure out what’s going on.

Then I remember.

Last night, feeling particularly inspired, I decided I’d get up early and go for a run before starting to work.

Ahhhh shit.

My bed feels so warm, so comfy, like a little cocoon.

I close my eyes again. I know I have to make a decision.

I can take the easy way out, hit snooze and go back to sleep…

Or take the highest road, put on my running shoes, and head out the door.

Every single day, I’m faced with countless little decisions like this one. In these moments, I have to decide between what’s good for me… and what’s easy, comfortable, safe. Individually, most of these decisions are fairly inconsequential. But together, they add up. They compound. And it’s the sum of all these micro-decisions that determines my destiny.

This month, I came down with a severe case of procrastination. Every time I sat down to work, I felt an irresistible urge to check random websites, watch some videos on Youtube, or fire up a quick episode of The Big Bang Theory. Getting myself to do any productive task was a struggle of epic proportions. No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t stop procrastinating.

But then, I’ve realized something very deeply. I’ve realized that I only have this life. And this life is so very short! Right now I am the youngest I will ever be. Time only moves forward. Soon I will be old. How am I going to feel about my life when I continue to live like this? Will I be proud?

If I continued to live my life procrastinating, I would definitely regret many things. I would regret that I was so fearful of judgement of other people that I’ve never made a deep bond with anyone. I would regret that I was too scared to take risks that I ended up living my life safely… only to arrive at death safely. I would regret that I have been ignoring my body and its needs until it got sick. I would regret that I was afraid of failing, so I never tried anything new. I would regret that I believed all my life that I was worthless and lived my life according to that, when at the end it was never true… I would have many regrets. But what would I regret the most is that I knew I had the chance to become great and I have not fulfilled my highest potential.

I have realized how short my life is so deeply that I no longer want to waste a single moment. I now know that I am fully and completely responsible for my life. There’s nothing standing in way between me and my dreams except myself. Its only my choice what do I do with this life.

Right here, right now, as I’m writing this, I’m at a crossroad in my life.

I can stick to my old habits and patterns, knowing deep down I’m not living nearly at the level I’m capable of…

Or I can use this article as a springboard towards greatness by implementing the strategies it contains.

Once I have realized this, the option to go back to the old behavior of procrastinating and avoiding my life just became totally illogical. Why would I continue to do such a thing when I know I can be great?

Today I’m making the decision to change my life in every way. I’m going to master self discipline. I will set goals and fulfill them all. I will celebrate all of my successes. I will dream big. And I’m going to become the best version of myself I could possible be.

Forgiveness

Today I gained a lesson on forgiveness.

I got very angry at my mother. I got angry because she told me I am not good enough to pursue my dreams, that I will never reach my goals and I will end up disappointed in depression. She basically told me that I am not smart enough, not assertive enough and likable enough to be the person that I want to be. When I heard her saying these words I felt this strong internal resistance within myself. I knew that non of these things she is talking about is true. I started feeling anger towards her. How can she be so mean? How can she say such a thing? I know this is completely not true. I know myself better and I know that I definitely can achieve what I desire. I know that I am good enough and smart enough. So why cant she see the real me? Why does she say these kinds of things?

I was angry that she doesn’t acknowledge me and she makes these judgements about me that I know are completely not true. I told myself that I don’t want to be around her anymore. I had this moment when I told myself that I will never speak to her again because she doesn’t deserve my love.

But then after a few hours, I started to shift my perspective. My empathy doesn’t allow me to be angry at someone for very long :D. I have looked at myself from my mothers point of view. Suddenly I understood why she thinks such things about me. She doesn’t see me as I am. I would say that to see someone the way they truly are is impossible. Because when we look at the other person, we look at our own version of them that we have created. The other person is like a hologram. It reflects to us our own belief systems and vibration. When we are imbalanced, we see these traits in others and we judge them in a negative way. This is what my mother is doing. She has a strong imbalance within her being and I function for her as a mirror of her own shadow sides so she can see them clearly and heal them. Unfortunately she doesn’t realize this so she blames me for being a bad daughter and a bad person.

It’s not my fault that my mother sees me in this way. In fact, I can do nothing about it. I could change in every way possible, but if she doesn’t put herself into balance, I will always reflect to her her own imbalances. So I shouldn’t care about my mother opinion on me. What I should care about is my own opinion on myself. That is what determines everything.

So after I realized all of this, I stopped being so angry. And suddenly, another realization hit me. I have realized that forgiveness is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of great power. It’s easy to blame others for the things that we think went wrong in our lifes. But to forgive these people requires a lot of self awareness, strength and compassion.

Suddenly I was able to forgive my mother. Not only for the words she has told me today, but for everything that she has ever done to me that made me feel bad about myself. I understood that it had nothing to do with me and that I simply agreed to adopt her belief systems. It wasn’t her fault that I felt worthless. I have chosen to believe that. No one can force a belief on me. Only I decide what I believe in.

When I forgave her, I felt so much lighter. It was a great moment of relief. I even started to cry because of all the overwhelming and beautiful emotions. I felt love and compassion for myself and for my mother. I saw that our relationship is wonderful in its own way because we both reflect to each other our own shadow sides and we give each other great opportunities for healing.

So don’t hesitate to forgive. It won’t make you a weak person.

Overcoming my internet addiction

I feel bad. I dislike this feeling. I have been feeling like this for two days now. Sometimes it is better and sometimes it is worse, it depends on what I am paying attention to at the moment.

It is fascinating to me how fast my emotions change. Last week was totally amazing. I have been so happy like never before. Life felt like ecstasy. And somehow a few days later I feel so frustrated like I have ruined my life. It is overwhelming how things can change.

So what is it that is creating this pain within my being? Obviously I must have some definitions and belief systems that are out of alignment with my natural self. Lets find out what these definitions are!

The first question I should ask myself is when do I feel this intense negative emotions and why?

I feel bad when I spend too much time on fan forum, when I watch too many youtube videos, when I read too much fanfiction and when I spend too much time (basically the entire day) on the internet. This causes me to feel guilty because at the end of the day I know that I have done nothing productive. I feel like I am wasting my life. I know it is bad for me and I still do it. That makes me feel even worse about myself. It feels like the internet has more power over me than myself. I just cant get enough. It feels like I am addicted to it.

Now I need to ask myself: What am I getting out of this? Why am I choosing to do all these activities when I know they do me no good?

I love the excitement that comes with reading the forums, reading fanfiction, reblogging things on tumblr, watching youtube videos, browsing the internet… Life just seems so exciting. I am learning new things, I can talk to people all over the world, it is fun. There is no better feeling than when something amazing happens in my fandom. Everyone starts freaking out and everyone goes insane. It is great to feel so many intense emotions. It makes me feel alive.

Obviously I use my internet addiction, mostly the addiction to my fandom, to replace the lack of fun and excitement in my life. There is nothing wrong with going on the internet. Internet is great, it can be very informative, you can talk to people around the world, you can share your perspective on blog (I love my blog btw). But like everything, you can use the internet in a positive and in a negative way. The negative way of using internet is when you spend your entire life in front of your computer instead of having real life social interactions and real life interests. It is also unhealty to sit in front of your computer all day. You demage you back and make yourself sick.

My problem is that I have been using the internet to fill the void within my being that craves excitement and fun. I am also using it as a disctraction from dealing with my problems and insecurities. I use it to escape the „real world“.

So what is the solution to my problem? I need to find a way how to make my life more exciting without neccesarily using internet. Here are some exciting activities I could do:

• I can go on a walk outside.
• I can exercise.
• I can listen to music and dance around.
• I can paint mandalas or anything that I like to paint.
• I can do creative things.
• I can write into my diary.
• I can hang out with my friends.
• I can read books.
• I can do meditation.
• I can cook.

All of this could help me to make my life more fun and exciting without spending the entire day on the internet. I am not saying that I wont be using internet anymore. I love writing my blogs and I don’t consider writing them as a bad thing for me. It is definitely an enlightening activity for me. What I am saying is that I won’t be spending so much time on social media like facebook, tumblr, youtube, twitter, instagram, forums… I can check them out once a day for a few minutes but I can’t spend hours there. That is definitely not good for me and it only makes me feel like I am ruining my life.

My problem with studying

I am feeling intense negative emotions when I am learning for my entrance examinations. When I am trying to solve a math problem and I don’t know what to do with it, I start to feel completely frustrated. I feel like I am stupid and I won’t pass the test. I feel  like I am a worthless human being because I am not intelligent enough. I feel that I am not good enough to be accepted for university. I start feeling bored and I seek distractions. I stop focusing on the test and I start to think about millions of other things. At the end of the day I have not completed the test, I feel like crap because I have done nothing productive all day, I feel incredibly stupid and horrible about myself. Whenever I do something what is supposed to be fun I don’t enjoy it fully because I am telling myself that I should be studying. And when I am trying to study I get bored easily and think about all the fun things I could do at the moment. So at the end I feel like I am wasting my life.

It seems that my number one problem is that I feel worthless when I am no table to solve a math problem. I think that more intelligent people are better than less intelligent ones. Therefore I feel like a worse human being when I am no table to understand some things easily.

First of all I should know that people with higher points of IQ aren’t better than people with lower IQ. We are all equal from the perspective of the source. Intelligence does not determine my worth. Little babies don’t know how to solve complicated math problems and still they are worthy. So to judge myself as not good enough because I am not a math genius is completely irrelevant.

And just to make myself feel better, I am not completely stupid. Everyone is good at something. Just because maths isn’t my biggest talent doesn’t mean that I am not smart. To quote Albert Einstein: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Areas in which I am smart and talented:

• I have good language skills. I am a good writer.
• I can learn foreign languages easily. My English is getting really good and I am also very good at German (since I study abroad in this language)
• I have a good memory and I memorize things easily.
• I am very emphatic and understand peoples emotions and motives.
• I am also good at figuring out my own shadow sites and counseling myself.
• I am good at social sciences.
• I am not so bad at maths either. In the last year of high school I got best grades.
• There are people that are so much worse in maths than myself
• I am good at painting mandalas.

So what do I do to learn more effectively for my exams and have fun with it?

I shouldn’t beat myself up when I don’t know the answer to the question immediately. I am going to tell myself: I am smart enough to figure this out. I will think about it long enough and I will surely find the answer.

I will stop distracting myself from the test. I will be paying attention only to the test. I will take breaks so I don’t get tired too soon. When I finish it I am going to feel good about myself and I will also be able to do all the fun stuff without feeling guilty. That is going to increase my productivity and I won’t feel like I am wasting my life.

Dealing with self worth

Through the process of shadow work I found out that my core belief is “I am worthless”. I can see this core belief being active in many situations in my life. These are a few examples on how is this belief manifesting itself in my life:

• I care about what other people think of me.
• I am afraid to express myself.
• I hate speaking in public.
• I feel guilty when I make a mistake.
• I am afraid to talk to other people because I fear rejection.
• I have no close friends, I keep everything to myself because I am afraid of judgment.
• I do what other people expect me to do and not what I want to do.

This belief is present in pretty much all of the areas in my life. It is everywhere I go. I deal with it like 100 times per day. Today I am ready to change it. I am going to use Teal Scott’s process on changing a belief.

I have already completed the first step which is identifying the belief. Now I have to decide if this belief is beneficial or detrimental to me. This belief is definitely detrimental. It is limits me in every way. I can not grow into my highest potential as long as I have this belief. It does not allow me to express myself. Because of this belief I always attract people into my life that are making me feel worthless.

Now I have to decide what would I like to believe instead. I would like to believe that I am worthy. I would like to believe that I am enough.

The next step is to determine the emotions that are holding me to the belief. There is always a hidden positive intention behind any belief. If we did not believe that it is in some way, shape or form serving us, it would make no sense to have such a belief. When I am being really honest with myself, I found out, that when I believe that I am worthless I get pity from other people. That pity feels like people care about me. When I think thoughts like “I am not good enough”, I give up the responsibility of having to try something new. I give up the responsibility over my own life and my own decisions. I have to decide if the emotional pay off is worth keeping the emotion or not. To me it is not worth it. I would rather know and express my true worth and people will naturally care about me. I am ready to take the responsibility for my life and try new things.

Now I will seek out alternative evidence and alternative explanations which undermine the validity of my belief “I am worthless”: For years I took my mothers words and actions as a proof that I am worthless. But when I was little and made decisions that were embarrassing to my mother, she was the one who felt worthless. She then yelled at me and expressed her anger, because I made her feel worthless. I simply adopted her own belief.

I had no friends growing up. This one can be easily explained. When I felt like I was not good enough, other kids felt that rejection and that fear that was present within me and they did not bother to talk to me. They were simply reflecting to me my own rejection of self. I know I have the belief that I am worthless for many years now. I am aware of the fact that I can change it. And yet, after all these years, the belief is still here. It means I failed in changing my belief ans that means I am worthless. The reason behind why this belief is still here is because I am invalidating it. I reject it. I say it has no positive meaning, I resist it. And what you resist persists. It does not mean I am worthless.

What I will do now is that I look for evidence and proof to back up the beneficial belief I would rather believe. I ask myself this question: How am I good enough?

• I have had successes.
• I successfully completed high school.
• I am now a collage student.
• I have people in my life who love me for who I am and appreciate me.
• I have worth which is inate.
• Unconditional love is what I was created from.
• When All That Is created me, it obviously thought I deserved to exist.
• Therefore I must be equal to every other creation, otherwise I would not have been created.

As the next step I am going to be using affirmations that I do believe. I begin to tell myself things like this on a daily basis: I value myself because I care. I am an interesting person. I know many things that could help other people. I am smart and loving…

The last step is taking some time for my reality to change itself. I can not expect myself to be completely self loving at this moment. When I spent 15 years of my life hating myself, it would be cruel to expect from myself to completely change it in a second. I also can not resist hating myself anymore. Because what we resist persists. My reality will surely change if I allow it to change.

How to change a belief

Last time I told you what beliefs are. Today I am going to tell you how to consciously change a belief. This process is based on Teal Scott’s teachings on how to change a belief. I find it really helpful and it works for me so I hope it will work for you too. The steps for changing a detrimental belief are:

1. Identify the belief. If you do not know how to do that, read the article on Shadow work that I wrote just recently.
It is important to work with a core belief. For example the thought “I hate speaking in public “is not a core belief. It is an emotional reaction to a core belief. A core belief can be “I am not good enough”. You always want to be working with the root belief when you are dealing with changing your beliefs. Because if you do not, it will just keep coming back.

2. Decide if the belief is beneficial or detrimental to you.

3. Decide what you would rather believe instead. Let your non beneficial beliefs be your inspiration towards beliefs you want to believe.

4. Determine the emotions that are holding you to the belief like glue. Decide if the emotional pay off is worth keeping the belief or not. For example: If I believe that I am not good enough, if I am being really honest about the emotional pay off it might look something like: I get pity when I feel like I am not good enough and that pity feels like people care about me. Or: when I think thoughts like I am not good enough, I give up the responsibility of having to try something new. You have to decide if the emotional pay off is worth the limitations of the beliefs which you are holding. If not, decide you are ready to let go of it. Nothing will help anybody to change something if they do not want to change it.

5. Seek out alternative evidence and alternative explanations which undermine the validity of your detrimental belief. Replace the evidence you’ve been using to back up and support your detrimental belief with evidence that undermines it! For example: If you believe that you are not good enough, this belief may be backed up by this kind of evidence: my mother always told my that I was not good enough. An alternate explanation may be something like this: When I made mistakes, it was an embarrassment to my mother. She was the one who felt as she was not good enough. I simply adopted this belief.

6. Look for evidence and proof to back up the beneficial belief which you would rather believe. And example would be: How am I good enough? I have had successes (you can list them). I have worth which is inate. The things that I have to say could really benefit other people. You want to look at as much proof and evidence that is possible. Make it your focus.

7. Use affirmations that work. These are affirmations which feel good to think, that you DO believe… NOT affirmations which make you more aware of where you aren’t and feel like a lie because they contradict your own sense of intelligence. Because when you believed for decades that you are not good enough and you say something like “I am good enough”, it sounds to you like a lie. You can use things like: I value myself because I care (if you do believe it).

8. Without immediately taking inventory of your reality (out of distrust of the process), simply giveyour self some time to let the new beliefs take root and ALLOW your reality to change. Soon after you change your thoughts, you’ll be looking at tangible proof in a reality that backs up your new thought to such a degree that the new thought will then become a firm belief. But this time, it will be one which benefits you and your life!