How liberating it is to realise that it's up to us to decide what kind of person we want to be!
The greek philosopher Epitectus (c. 50 AD- c.135 AD) agrees :
First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.
Nothing or now one can prevent us to be who we are. It's an inner misconstruct.
It requires concentration and attention to up-bring ourselves to be the person we would like to incarnate. It needs awareness. It depends upon vigilance.
Gangaji, the American born spiritual teacher, writes in her book You are that:
Vigilance is the willingness to free-fall through all illusion.
...Be vigilant by surrendering every effort to define yourself according to mental or emotional states...Vigilance is attention.... Attention gets its attentiveness from pure awareness, which is who you are.
It is easier to free ourselves from being hijacked by our thoughts or emotions, when we know who we are; in all honesty; in the peace and quiet of our being.
It requires courage and self love.
The courage to ground ourselves in the reality of our desires and needs and enough love of self to implement them.
The courage to see the enjoyable and the not so enjoyable aspects of our personality and enough love of self to accept them.
Our personality, our ego, has been forged by past events and by the corresponding limiting beliefs that helped us survive those difficult moments.
Those insane moments are also what helped us grow and become who we are.
Great!
Now, would you like to upgrade ?
Listen to what you tell yourself about yourself, others or Life.
Develop a soft, kind, patient and true inner voice. Your nervous system will facilitate a different relationship with yourself.
Learn kindness, compassion and develop your sense of humour.
Unkind thoughts are the result of unprocessed past traumas and are not based on truth.
Whatever you say to yourself that is not based on love is simply not true. It is your fear, pain or frustration expressed in conclusion of limiting beliefs. And it hurts!
It is a long, sometimes joyful, always incredible, journey to recover a sense of true self. To discover and gather the parts of self that you have left on the way so you could belong to the culture of your society, so you could be loyal to your family, so you could be loved and accepted. This was the price for safety.
Social acceptance brought on a feeling of security while confusing our priorities.
Social love often became more important than self love.
We betrayed our true desires in order to please others, to fit in, to get love in return.
We lost ourselves in others over time until we realised that we didn't know what we wanted or needed anymore.
Social success often took over well-being.
We neglected our dreams in order to "earn a living" and put pleasure last.
We dis-regulated our body rhythm to fit in times and schedules, to push ourselves more and more to "achieve".
How do we know that we have been confused?
Our soul calls us back!
We might develop a chronic illness, loose someone or something important to us, develop addictions, be outright unhappy, or feel that we are the victim of circumstances outside of our control. We might also feel we are not fully alive!
It's time to heal our mind, body and soul.
Our soul is sending us the signal that we have gotten lost and that it's important that now and with love we find our way back to fulfilment and satisfaction with self, others and Life.
Our soul whispers that now is the time to upgrade. With love, awareness and vigilance.
Love because this is the most powerful and stable energy there is.
Awareness because this is consciousness.
Vigilance because this is commitment.
So simple that we miss, in our complicated mind-world, the very easy and natural steps towards wholeness.
One so very easy ritual you can do to rekindle yourself with who you are, what we like and what works or doesn't work anymore for you , is this short process:
In the evening, take a little time to go through the events of your day. Observe openly and feel : What was pleasurable, what did I enjoy most and what do I wish could have been different?
Look back at your day with kind, gentle and inquisitive eyes and discover what made you happy, fulfilled and alive.
This is how you get to find out what fulfils you and what you would like more of.
Create daily more of what you would like. No excuses!
Time, money, work or relationship obligations are all boundaries that can be lifted in updating the way we look at them.
It's the surest way to build on the life you would like to live.
It's a great way to get to know who you are, as opposed to who you should be.
It's how you liberate from defining yourself through your mental or emotional states.
It's how you align yourself with your truth, with your gifts and with your life.
Upbring yourself! With love, simplicity and truth!