Personally, I Try Not To Take Things Personally

"Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally… Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world."-The Four Agreements, Don Miquel Ruiz

Taking things personally comes naturally to most of us. We view the world around us from our own perspective, from the viewpoint of our ego, personal experiences, feelings and thoughts. We create our own, "personalized" version of the Universe, therefore, in our mind, we are all the centre of the Universe. In our mind, everything that has been said, has been done or happens around us affects us personally, therefore, it must be personal.  Yet, the impossible notion that the world revolves around us, but others have complete power over what we think, how we feel, and how we behave is only in our mind.

We are both the creator and the centre of our Universe, we are Masters of our Own Domain,  but everyone else is in the centre and masters of  their Universe. Our Personal Universes are all the same in the way that each and every one of them  are highly personalized, one of a kind and unique.

Taking things personally, assuming that everything others do, say, think or feel has to do something with us personally is a form of magic thinking: we lead ourselves to believe, that we have a direct effect, therefore control over "changing another person's mind" and therefore controlling their actions, feelings and beliefs about  ourselves.

Most of us assume, at least some times that we "know" and therefore can change what others feel, think, and that we know better than themselves the reasons for their behaviour or actions. Yet, and most of the times, we do not even have control of our own mind, our own thinking, feelings and reactions not to mention that everything that we believe about our own self, our own personal Universe is not necessarily - and most often not - true. Our truth is only a version of many truths, and what we believe to be "true" changes all the time.

Taking personal responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings starts with acknowledging that no one has the power to "make us" feel good, bad, and no one is responsible for our actions towards others, but ourselves.

A tremendous amount of relief and power comes from the understanding, that nothing that happens in the Universe happens "to us", simply happening "around us". Similarly, no one can do anything "to us", they are simply doing things around us that might or not have an effect on our inner or outer  personal life, but have nothing to do with us personally.

A relatively easy way to keep our personal feelings, thoughts, actions and reactions in check is to drop references to "I", and "me" from our thoughts and conversations, and acknowledge that things are not necessarily what they "appear to be". Next time, when you catch yourself thinking "He is angry at me", change your thought to the simpler, and more accurate "He appears to be angry". Instead of saying: "I think you do not like to be with me", say: "You appear to want to spend time alone".

Take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings by dropping personal references to the other person and their actions. Instead of "You make me angry", simplify the  thought to "I am angry". Instead of  "I think you hate me", think or say: "I feel unloved".

Of course, things are much simpler and much more complicated than that. But personally, although I find it quite difficult not to take things personally, I feel much better when I congratulate to my Self  for "making me happy", than when I believe, that other people "made me sad".

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Mind over Materialism: Joy to the World

The  Holiday Season is upon us, and it appears that ever year the pressure builds to create a "perfect" Christmas: a media campaign designed to mind control and brainwash as many people as possible to spend as much money as possible.  Crazy making that results in highly unrealistic expectations that can not possibly met, increased emotional and physical stress, crowded malls, increased traffic and pollution, lack of natural light, cold, wet, damp weather, overindulgence on high calorie meals loaded with cholesterol, fat, and sugar, increased alcohol consumption: it does not take a lot of mindpower to figure out that this can not possibly be healthy or desireable for anyone, and is more likely to create a hellish experience than joy to the world, peace on earth, peace of mind, happiness, joy, enlightement. Christmas, as prescribed by the media contributes joy and  merriment and beneifts only  merchants, bankers, loan sharks and credit counsellors.

In the virtual world of the media, there are large, affluent, perfectly functional, happy and joyful extended families that live in huge mansions, or chic condos furnished and decorated to a perfection that would challenge and shame professional decorators. Healthy, fit parents, grandparents, friends, in-laws, children and teenagers in designer clothes sit around a perfectly set table to enjoy a picture perfect, succulent and lavish holiday meal, exchange extravagant and expensive gifts. Cute kids scream with delight, romantic couples share a moment of bliss, friendly neighbors and perfect strangers share gifts, hugs and warm handshakes. Pit bulls are becoming cute puppy dogs with Santa hats, school yard bullies become Big Brothers and Girl Guides, abusive partners become loving husbands or wives, war lords stop warring, drug dealers stop dealing, the earth stops quaking....all sit in a big circle around a Christmas Tree, hold hands and sing Silent Night....
Everything is to be perfect at Christmas, and perfection is sold near you at a department store, or conveniently online. Christmas Spirit is available for sale, for twelve easy payments of $99.99, plus applicable taxes, shipping and handling, no refunds, no exchange.

Become the master of your mind, body and Christmas Spirit this year: resist the temptation to spend, buy, outdo the Joneses, or the Kardashians. Remind yourself, that everything that truly means anything in this life (love, joy, happiness, friendship, companionship, passion, compassion, peace, fun just to mention a few from my own wish list) IS free. Christmas Spirit might not be ordered on line, picked up at the drive through window, can not be bought on credit, and is not likely to impress your neighbors, or facebook friends.

Getting Christmas right might take a bit of effort: you might have to accept that resentment, anger, disagreements, family feuds, dysfunction, war, conflict and other "plagues" will not magically be resolved and go away for Christmas; if you are poor, you will probably just as be poor, if not more after the holidays, if you are rich, you will likely be just as rich, your sister in law just as awful, your brother just as annoying, and your life not much different than it was the night before Christmas.

But, if you can resist the temptation, pressure, brainwashing and mind altering influences of those (let they be the media, merchants, airline personnel, or your annoying sister in law) who are attempting to make you feel inferior, inadequate, imbalanced for their own personal benefit, if you can accept that people, earth and the world is how it is, if you can make a decision to be happy, joyful and loving  right now, right here, if you can put down your cell phone, texting device, game and TV controller, if you can stop and reflect instead of  rushing, if you can sit still, if you can find the Christmas Spirit in your own heart, if you can find joy, happiness, peace and love in your own life, then, just like magic,  your  Christmas will be magical.
Now, hold that feeling....and have a wonderful, abundant, passionate, loving, joyful, harmonious New Year in 2011, and forever more.

Merry Christmas, Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All.

Mind over Matter of the Hearts: Welcome into My Love

I was talking to a girlfriend the other day, about what us, women mostly -not always, but mostly-talk about: men, relationships, love and Love with a capital "L".

My friend, a sexy, intelligent, beautiful inside and out, yet (or perhaps "thus"?) single, was describing the man of her dreams, the man, who would win her heart, mind and soul, the man, whom she she would, she said, "Welcome into my Love"

We noticed and laughed about the apparent Freudian slip; of course, she meant "the man I would welcome into my life", but long after I hung up with her, I could not get this notion out of my mind: I mean, we welcome men, women, friends, children, pets and even appliances into our life, but, how many of us welcomes anything, anybody "into our love"?

Come to think of it, how many of us have ever met love, how many of us known love, how many of us welcomed love into our life? Furthermore, and perhaps it is an even more rhetorical, but important question: how many of us invited and welcomes LIFE into our LOVE? In other words: do we give life to our love, or do we give love to our life? Sadly, I assume it is neither; most of us think of love as something that will, one perfect day, "find us", enter our life, and stay forever, cherish us, honor us, sustain us, till death do us part, love will stay with us, until the end, we hope, but many of us, most of us, do not have the commitment, the courage and the wherewithal to stay in love, let alone stay and live with love.

We seek love, we crave love, we fall in and out of love, we love love, and most of us, except certain psycho or sociopaths would agree, that we can't live without love: yet, , many of us never "met" love, many of do, and live without.

Since the beginning of time, philosophers, poets, scientist, theoreticians and every day people tried to define, explain, and sometimes control the concept, energy, feeling, this "thing" we call "love". Depending to whom you listen to, love either does not exist, it is "in our mind", it is in our heart, or, at the other end, it is what makes the world go round, love all there is.

Some would argue, love is nothing but a chemical reaction to certain hormones, designed by evolution for the survival of the species: it is "love" that makes us hunt for a partner to have over for dinner (hopefully followed by desserts, vine and various acts of procreation), instead of having her for dinner. It is a rush of certain chemicals that makes us -especially women- feel good, "in love" after the physical act of procreation (a.k.a. sex), and it keeps us, unlike some spiders and other species, from consuming and digesting our partner, immediately after consummation of our love affair. "Love hormones" keep us from eating our young, and from kicking them out the nest before they can fly.





Love is an emotion, a thought process, and our notion of  Unconditional Love, strongly conditioned by our culture, society, and personal experiences, others argue: it is all in our mind, a construct of our thought processes, a matter of perception, and thus, it can never be truly shared or communicated: even two people deeply in love with each other are not "in" the same love.

Love is an action, others will say, it is a behavior, mostly learned, a conscious act. We "make love", we "act lovingly", we "share love" we "love others" and others, hopefully will love us back.

Do we have a choice over love? Can we control with whom, where, and why we are going to fall in love with? Are we responsible for "staying in love", do we "fall" out of love, or do we walk out on love?

Some say, you can not truly love others, until you've learned to love yourself. Others say,that you can not love yourself, unless you experienced at least once, even if for a short period of time, how it feels to be loved. Truly, some people who never experienced love as being accepted, cared for, safe, might even confuse being controlled, or even abused as being loved, and they end up abusing themselves and others in the name of "love".

Personally, I tend to believe that love is as much an instinct as it can be constructed, learned and practiced mindfully. I believe, love is a word of action and a state of mind that can be developed, cultured, an experience we can create, and a choice we can make.  a conscious choice. As long as we have a mind, body and soul, we can choose to evolve toward a conscious, mindful and soulful experience, feeling and action of love: all we have to do is to open our heart, mind and body, to welcome love into our life and to welcome life into our love.