Blog ~ Page 210 of 348 ~ Fractal Enlightenment

Transcending Victim Mentality and Taking Back Your Power

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January 26, 2016

Transcending Victim Mentality and Taking Back Your Power

“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do or say is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions of others you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

Ok, so it would be impossible to go through life without ever taking anything personally or blaming someone for something, but we can eventually get to the point that blaming others for our life’s circumstances and seeing ourselves as victims is not our “go to” perspective.

As our ego begins to form in our younger years we begin to see how the need for control and power (or the opposite, the desire for no control and power which translates to victimhood) in our interpersonal relationships plays out.

There are several reasons why some ego structures adopt the mask of “victim”, a couple of them being: lack of confidence in oneself, afraid to lose control (which causes them to hold on to their illusion of control so tightly that anything that goes array is always blamed on someone else) or even fear of our own power (which causes us to want to place it in the hands of another so that we never have to make big decisions or changes in our lives).

It doesn’t really matter what the reason is, but whenever we fall into this mindset, what we are really doing is setting ourselves up for failure, disappointment, and eventually misery. When we have completely disempowered ourselves and handed our power over to someone else we most certainly will come to a point where we will encounter frustration and anger.

As Steve Maraboli said, “How would your life be different if…You stopped validating your victim mentality? Let today be the day…You shake off yourself defeating drama and embrace your innate ability to recover and achieve.”

In order to come out of victim mentality we are required to adopt two very important traits within ourselves that will help us first identify if we are playing the victim in a particular circumstance.

If we have come to the conclusion that we are playing the victim we must be able to energetically rise above it to a level of consciousness that will help us break out of it.

Inner Integrity

“When you complain you make yourself the victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it, all else is madness.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Being a victim of life or other people’s behavior can happen so sneakily that we may not even have any clue that we are doing it. In order to identify if we are, we must have something called inner integrity, which means being completely honest about our own experience without attaching a “because” to it.

For example, we may be used to saying something like: “I am angry because she didn’t call me back” or “I am sad because you hurt my feelings.”

And while on a certain level of consciousness this may feel true that other people, or circumstances are causing our negative emotions, it is actually not entirely the case. As we raise our awareness we come to a point where we begin to see that all of life is happening not only through us but also for us.

What this means is we are actually encountering people, places, and things that are acting as the catalysts to draw forth the emotions inside of us that have yet to be healed.

So while it may seem that someone is to blame for our, let’s say, anger, a more expanded level of consciousness will show us that we have attracted the perfect set of circumstances to show us that we still have some unhealed anger in our emotional body that needs to be addressed.

And as we feel it we are actually healing it because the light of our awareness and the actual feeling of any emotion (to completion) is what allows us to move past any unresolved feelings.

When we allow ourselves the freedom to be with the truth of our reality, we feel an emotion without creating a story behind the emotion (which is whatever we would put behind the “because” in our story), we empower ourselves to deal with emotions head on.

We also energetically begin vibrating from a higher state, one that is grateful for all circumstances that prompt us to feel anything because we are now seeing that all emotions are being healed as they are being felt by us. This higher vibration then allows us to be in a more expanded and loving place more often than not.

Use love as your only weapon

“Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.” ~ Joseph Joubert

If we think about some of the spiritual masters such as Buddha, Jesus, Dalai Lama, etc., we find people who did not need to exert force over anyone, yet were never caught blaming another person for anything.

Why is that? Why is it that these spiritual masters could be completely centered in their own being while people hurled insults and slurs at them yet they could walk away completely unaffected and probably even blessing those that insulted them?

The reason these gurus were able to do this was because they knew that love is actually the only thing that truly has “power”. When a being has gotten to the point where they have not only unconditionally loved themselves, but only dish out blessings and love to others a confidence emerges within them that allows them to humbly accept everyone exactly as they are.

When we recognize the innocent heart behind every angry person as only a cry for help and love we stop jumping to finger pointing or violence as our defense mechanism and instead only use love as an offering to these people.

By seeing things this way, we start to recognize that anytime we are treated poorly by another person (and no this is not an excuse to put up with being physically or mentally abused by someone, our safety must always come first) they are not really attacking us personally but rather they are showing us just how much pain they are in.

When people are in pain they act out, and as our levels of awareness begin to rise even further past victim mentality we realize that all people deserve our love and the ones who are mean deserve it more.

Over time as we use the tools of being completely honest with ourselves about what we are experiencing in our hearts and using love as our only “defense mechanism” we will begin to see that we are actually healing those around us that normally would have been able to victimize us with their behavior. It’s as if our loving energy, empathy and compassion is giving them the excuse to relax into their emotions without blaming anyone.

Also, our complete confidence in our love power will send their inner “bully” running for the hills because in all of our deepest levels of intuition we know that love is the only weapon with true power.

And when a being that normally uses scare tactics and fear to overpower others meets a being who only has love to give, their darkness, in a moment of complete surrender and energetic defeat, fades away.

Image Source:

Puppet
Fight for power
Make love not war graffiti in Munchen, Germany

Self as World and World as Self: The Eureka Effect of Interconnectedness

Issues

Gary Z McGee

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January 24, 2016

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Self as World and World as Self: The Eureka Effect of Interconnectedness

“Something happens to you when you begin to think about this planet as a single living organism. And when you begin to live in that awareness, nothing is ever again quite the same. Nothing can be the same after that. Nations began to look like people to me, like familiar friends. The distinctions between religion, biology, and politics began to blur. I began to wonder why I had always assumed that human thought was the only kind of thought—as if nature would be content with a single species of flower, or just one kind of tree.” ~ Ken Carey

Here’s the tragedy of our times, down and dirty: We are hostages of a system that compels us to continue destroying the world in order to live in it. We’re hostages –and we have made a hostage of the world in turn.

It’s cut and dry structural violence. We’re all victims of being conditioned and brainwashed by a hyper-violent culture which does not work well for healthy human beings, and definitely doesn’t work well for the biotic community.

I know you don’t want to hear it. I know it hurts that such is the case. But hear it we must, lest apathy reign supreme and we continue allowing important information go in one ear and out the other.

Feel it we must, lest we continue drowning in pandemic Stockholm syndrome. It’s all so deliciously absurd; the illogical irony of our time. The shackles are comfortable. The noose makes us feel safe.

The leash allows us just enough room to feel free. The threats from the powers that be keep us codependent and obedient, baying like sheep in a farmyard. But the stakes are too high to continue remaining ignorant and myopic. It’s not only the health of the environment that’s at risk, but the health of our species as well.

As Terence Mckenna said, “If a radical political alternative is not opened up, then I think we are essentially going to amuse ourselves into extinction. Business as usual at this point is a death sentence on the human race.”

As it stands, business as usual has no business in a healthy world. Something’s got to give. And it begins with our overall perspective, our general disposition, and our basic worldview. It’s time to actually think outside of the box that we all claim to be thinking outside of.

The box is poisoned and polluted, both figuratively and literally. The box is clogging our oceans with plastic and poisoning our air with carbon monoxide. It matters not at all if this is causing climate change or not.

What matters is that it is fundamentally unhealthy to every single species that drinks water and breathes air. Bottom line! So what can we do? How do we maneuver through the muck and mire of a fundamentally unsustainable system that’s the only thing we’ve ever known?

We flip the script. We turn the tables. We redefine what it means to be a human being living on planet earth. We transform doubt into epiphany into revelation.

We overcome the weltanschauung. We make worldview and self-view an interchangeable concept, a harmonious union. It’s practicing Namaste not only with each other, but with the entire planet.

Earthmaste: The divinity in me recognizes and honors the divinity in the planet. It’s personalizing the Gaia Principle. Self-as-world and World-as-self. Eureka!

Can it be so simple? Yes and no. To be truly harmonious and healthy is both very easy and very hard. It’s hard because we have the tendency to avoid the horror of our enslavement to this unhealthy system of human governance.

It’s just too painful to see it and feel it directly. So we dance around the perpetual violence of the vampiric system because we fear the law, the state, the military, and mostly the ignorant masses still married to a dog-eat-dog system.

But we can only be kept ignorant for so long. We live in the age of information, after all. The fruit is easily plucked from the Tree of Knowledge. There are a million-and-one alarm clocks blaring: Wake up!

Smell the vanishing roses. Smell the oil spill. Smell the ambergris of too-many beached whales. Smell the rotting flesh of species dying at record speeds. Take a big whiff. Our sense of smell is the best way to remember things. And the error of our ways should not be forgotten, lest future generations make the same mistakes.

If, as Aldous Huxley claimed, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach,” then it behooves us to take account of our most recent history as a species and learn a very important lesson: infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet with finite resources.

And then we must learn to act accordingly: as independent creatures living on an interdependent planet. Let’s be the sliver of consciousness that juts out from a sea of unconsciousness, the thorn of awareness that sticks in the side of all who are not aware.

Our independent volition has to align itself with interdependent health and wholeness or we are doomed as a species. There’s no way to wiggle out of this issue. We can face it head-on and figure out a necessary balance between nature and the human soul, or we can ignore it and display apathy and indifference to being out of line and grossly misbalanced with the greater cosmos.

The issue has been slapping us across the face for some time now, and so far we’ve been turning the other cheek and meekishly mewing to each other that “change takes time.” But that disposition won’t fly anymore.

It’s crunch time. It’s time we slapped back. It’s time we take responsibility for our unhealthy actions. It’s time we soul-centrically crush out as eco-centric beings overcoming an egocentric epoch.

The issue won’t resolve itself. It will take millions, perhaps even billions, of people who identify as self-as-world and world-as-self. It is the most pressing issue of our time. We’re in dire straits. We’re a species in decline. It’s time to rise up out of our infantile egocentrism and embrace the far superior mature eco-centrism.

It won’t be easy, but flipping the script from destructive-self vs. conquerable world to self-as-world and world-as-self, will help greatly. It’s an undertaking of Herculean magnitudes, but it’s one we must not back down from taking.

As John Green said, “What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?”

Image source:

Gaia by Alex Grey
Reflection
Revealing mystic truths

Eat Right to Feel Right : Change Your Mood with Food

Life

Sonali Bansal

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January 23, 2016

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Eat Right to Feel Right : Change Your Mood with Food

“The link between food and mood is cyclical. If poor eating habits are the initial problem, then depression, mood swing, poor concentration, or fatigue can develop as a result of dietary deficiencies & excesses, which in turn result in more bad food choices.” ~ Elizabeth Somer, Food & Mood.

Have you observed the food choices made when you are in a bad mood or depressed? More often than not we use food as a coping mechanism when we are upset; like indulge or go overboard with sugary, fatty, carb-y and unhealthy foods.

You probably know that these kinds of food will make you temporarily feel better while you’re eating them, but you’re likely to feel worse later. There is a clear connection between negative emotions and unhealthy foods.

A study conducted by Cornell University, Food & Brand Lab on how mood influences food choices stated that the “individuals select healthy or indulgent foods depending on whether they are in a good or bad mood.”

In 2010, researchers found that people in a positive mood were more likely to choose grapes over chocolate than those in a neutral mood. Another study found that people would choose healthy foods if they felt like their good mood was going to stick around; if not, they might eat more indulgent foods, to keep the good vibes going.

The Brain-Gut connection

Several studies over the years have established the fact that the condition of the gut influences one’s mental health. It is said that the Human body consists of two brains, one, located in our head and the other is in our gut.

They develop from the same cluster of tissue, wherein one section evolves into a central nervous system (brain) and another one into enteric nervous system (gut). Both are connected by the Vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve running from the brain stem to the abdomen.

Chemicals (hormones, neurotransmitters) that control the brain in the head are found in the gut brain as well. Due to this linkage between the brain and gut, researchers have found that a healthy gut helps in maintaining good mental and emotional health.

How can you use food to boost mood?

Eating certain foods can not only improve your mood but also build your bodies’ resistance to stress and help you feel more energetic, alert and motivated.

Get more of Omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for good health and well-being. Not only does our body need these fatty acids to function, but it also has a wide range of benefits, including significant reduction in depression levels. Studies show that in depression, we reach out for sugar & carbs that further aggravate the problem.

Opting for foods rich in Omega-3 is known to help form cell membranes throughout the body, keep those membranes flexible, regulates the flow of the hormones along with influencing other chemical messengers that help in improving our mood.

According to Gary Null, author of The Food-Mood Connection, “There is a huge amount of evidence now linking Omega-3 deficiency with depression. Around a quarter of the dry weight of our brains is made up of Omega-3s and if you’re deficient, the cells in your brain malfunction, and you’re much more likely to become depressed.”

Omega-3 fatty acids can be found in salmon, tuna, herring, shrimp along with vegetarian options including walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, leafy vegetables etc.

Dark Chocolate to lighten your mood

The first option that comes to mind when you are having a bad day would be to reach out for caffeinated beverages or high sugar food. But here’s the thing: too much sugar impacts BDNF (brain derived neurotropic factor) chemical, which is integral for brain tissue growth.

“Research has shown that high sugar diets (along with high fat diets and lack of essential fatty acids) decrease a BDNF. In fact, the relationship between BDNF and sugar gets even more interesting: low amounts of BDNF actually lead to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and even diabetes. This means that high sugar in the blood leads to low BDNF, and then low BDNF leads to a worsening of blood sugar control, which leads to high blood sugar, which leads to worse blood sugar control… and the cycle continues.”

The cure to mood swings can be dark chocolate, as it contains several chemical compounds that have a positive effect on our mood and cognitive health. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA), the same chemical your brain creates when you feel like you’re falling in love.

PEA encourages your brain to release endorphins (the feel good hormone), so eating dark chocolate is certainly going to improve your mood. Besides, it’s also good for the heart and circulation, reduces risk of stroke, can help you lose weight, and it’s also packed with beneficial minerals like potassium, zinc and selenium.

Green tea for sleep troubles

Often people suffering from sleepiness reach out for caffeinated drinks like coffee, tea, cola or energy drinks, but what we are doing here is only seeking temporary relief. Somer said caffeine blocks adenosine, the energy-boosting brain chemical, which makes us crankier and more irritable. Instead of your regular coffee or tea, think of having green tea.

Green tea contains the amino acid theanine, which has been shown to help reduce stress and promote a restful sleep. However, the high caffeine level of regular green tea can outweigh these benefits when you are trying to calm down in the evening, so be sure to go for decaffeinated varieties.

On the contrary, people suffering from insomnia might be caffeine sensitive, i.e even one cup of a caffeinated drink early in the day can leave them wide awake at night & exacerbate depression. Heavy breakfast and eating light dinner helps in maintaining healthy sleep patterns.

Apart from helping you combat insomnia, Green tea is rich in antioxidants like polyphenols & epigallocatechin gallate, which helps reduce ageing, improves brain function, physical performance as well as lowers the risk of cancer. Chamomile tea is another helpful and safe sleep aid.

Fight fatigue with Iron-rich foods

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Fatigue is one of the most common causes of frustration, lethargy and mood swings. Most of the time, when we are under the weather, we might overlook it as laziness. But fatigue can be a serious indicator of bigger issues. This issue stems from lack of iron, which results in low red blood cells.

Somer mentioned in her book that as few as 5% of women are anaemic, but about 80% of women who are active, exercising or premenopausal are suffering from iron deficiency, which is the biggest contributor to fatigue.

To reduce this deficiency, non-vegetarians can opt for lean meat, liver, beef, oysters, seafood and poultry products. Whereas vegetarians can go for beans, whole grains, leafy vegetables like spinach, broccoli, berries, melons; pair them with vitamin-C-rich foods like bell peppers, berries, and broccoli to boost your absorption. Also, staying hydrated is one of the easiest ways to stay alert and energized.

Ayurveda: One-step solution

“Herbs are like food; they are catalyst to bodily functions. Conventional drugs don’t balance bodily systems; they either stimulate or inhibit.” ~ Bev Maya

Ayurveda restores the balance between the body, mind & consciousness. When any of the three separates, it leads to imbalance and blockage in our system. The cause of the separation can be accounted to stress either emotionally, physically or mentally.

To counterbalance the stress levels and maintain perfect harmony, adaptogenic herbs like Indian Ginseng, Gooseberry, Ginseng, Gotu Kola etc. reduce the effect of stress without sedating or stimulating, build immunity, vitality, strength & energy levels.

It also balances the doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) and maintains a healthy flow of the prana. An article on adaptogens by David Winston stated, “adaptogens work primarily by affecting the Hypothalamic/ Pituitary/Adrenal (HPA) axis and the Sympathoadrenal System (SAS).

Thus, adaptogens modulate our response to stress (physical, environmental, or emotional) and help regulate the interconnected endocrine, immune, and nervous systems.”

Other mood enhancers

Get your dose of vitamin D by increasing your exposure to daylight; doing exercise outdoors is ideal, as both daylight and exercise are known to boost serotonin levels.

Bananas for dopamine (a natural reward chemical that boosts your mood) and B vitamins, including vitamin B6, which help to soothe your nervous system, and magnesium, another nutrient associated with positive mood.

Also, turmeric has neuroprotective properties and may enhance mood and possibly help with depression.

References & Image source

Food chart
Dark chocolate
Food and mood
Good Mood Food

7 Reasons Why Relationships Don’t Make it

Life

Ester Eckhaus

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January 22, 2016

2

7 Reasons Why Relationships Don’t Make it

We all want to find our soul-mates; the people who understand us on a deep level, love us, and encourage us to be our highest selves. So time and time again, we enter into relationships with people, hoping that they will be it.

But there are two things that can go astray; we are either entering relationships with people who can not give us these things, or we are in the right relationship but making important mistakes that may be hurting our connection.

We’ve all heard the statistics of 50 percent of American marriages ending in divorce; not to mention all the unmarried relationships that are starting and ending on a constant basis, but why? Why are most relationships doomed to fail, and what are all these people doing wrong?

It’s important to note that, there are some mistakes that can be fixed if we are in an overall healthy, soul-fulfilling relationship. If you feel that you are making any of these mistakes in your relationship, there is room to fix, but also a time to end it.

When a relationship is abusive or detrimental to your mental and emotional health, there must be a time when your happiness comes before the relationship. Numbers 6 and 7, are good examples of this.

These are the common mistakes that occur in relationships:

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” ~ Anthony Robbins

1) They do not respect the natural ebb and flow of relationships.

This means that when the hard times come, as they surely will, one partner (or both,) runs for the hills; not knowing that after the hard times come the most rewarding times. This also means that they do not accept the natural flaws in the other; becoming disenchanted when they are past the honeymoon phase, and see that their partner is only human.

Or they do not allow for time apart, so that they can come back together. The world is run by cycles; and if you cannot work with these cycles, you may think that things are supposed to go only up, or only down, when in fact it is a constant life-giving circle.

2) They do not allow for changes or freedom within the other.

This means that they come together and expect the other to stay as they were. This is incredibly stifling as we are constantly evolving, and have a need to change from day to day in order to find ourselves whole.

Not allowing for freedom in the other means to tie the other down to certain expectations, whether social, or personal. To be in a healthy relationship, each partner should ideally be glad to see the other blossoming and being their complete free selves. To want to restrain the other from this is an emotional blockage that cannot, and should not, exist in a healthy relationship.

3) They do not commit.

This means that they come together saying, “I want to be with you, and see where this relationship can go,” while really thinking, “I want to be with you until something better comes along.” This does not let the relationship flourish to its true potential, because their eyes are constantly wandering to see what else there is out there.

This also leads to looking at others’ relationships; thinking that they are not being the ideal couple based on other’s values and dynamics, instead of focusing on their own and what is best for their unique partnership.

4) They do not communicate.

In order for an issue or worry to be resolved, or even for a partnership to fully flourish, there must be communication. Good, open and honest, non-judgmental communication. The problem arises when one partner is not willing to share. This means that a bump in the relationship will bring the whole thing down because they are unable to talk about it, and see if it can be fixed.

Another problem arises when one partner is willing to talk, but the other is not willing to listen or discuss an issue. Not only does this lead to hurt feelings for the one who is sharing, but the partnership cannot get past this stubborn attitude, and nothing will be resolved.

5) They do not compromise.

After they have the communication down pat, they are unable to let go of “their side.” In order to have a functioning and healthy partnership, each partner must be willing to compromise. (To a certain extent, as there are certain vital things that each person should know of themselves, should not be compromised for their well-being.)

Compromising requires really listening to the other, and relinquishing your opinion long enough to truly hear theirs. It then requires being able to let go of ego in order to sacrifice some of what you want, so they can get some of what they want. We learn this method pretty early on in life when we are urged to share with siblings and playmates, but some forget this very basic tool when it comes to relationships.

6) They choose partners based on the external, such as looks, social status, or sex.

This leads to the relationship being shallow and doomed to failure if they cannot relate on deeper levels. We must be willing to look around for a partner by looking into the other’s soul, or essence. We may be attracted to someone through the external, but love can only manifest when the internal is involved.

7) They do not bring joy to each other.

In every loving relationship there will be easy times, and harder times, as we discussed in number one. But each cycle should eventually end in good again. When a relationship endures more pain than it does joy, there is a problem. The wisest words I’ve ever been told were, “Life is not supposed to be that painful.”

Love should bring joy to each partner involved. When partners keep trying to make it work, without any feeling of joy, then the partners have trapped themselves in an unworthy, or perhaps karmic, relationship.

Each person and relationship is unique, and requires a truly aware heart and mind to decipher the truth. Each person must be able to look inside themselves and see which relationships are fulfilling for them, and worth fighting for; and which are not.

5 Ways to Turn the Tables on Fear

Gary Z McGee

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January 21, 2016

3

“The only thing to fear is oneself, and if you can control that, then volition and action may at last coincide.” ~ Robert Rowland Smith

We all want to change things for the better, and yet most of us seek to settle into our comfort zones. But we have enough settled dust in this world.

What we need are more fearless spirits willing to kick up some dust, to shake things up, to not settle on comfort and security.

Fear is the most common obstacle to making positive changes. Whether it’s the fear of change, the fear of discomfort, the fear of messing up, or the fear of what people might think, fear can be an ugly, crippling thing.

Here are five ways to turn the tables on fear.

1) Recognize fear as comfort zone expansion

“The world was made to be free in: this we know in our bones, and this definitive and fearful knowledge is what both supports us and requires us to turn away from our secure but less-than-joyful lives.” ~ Bill Plotkin

When we can recognize the feeling of fear as comfort zone expansion, carpe diem becomes a battle cry. We are seized by our own freedom. What we do with this freedom is the greatest responsibility of all.

Do we fall in love with the journey, or do we falter in anxiety? Do we push the envelope and self-liberate, or do we get a papercuts from suppressing the inevitability of change? Do we rigidly stagnate or flexibly expand?

Feel the fear. Use it as fuel for the fire. Fear can be an excuse to curl up into a ball at the center of our comfort zone, or it can be an impulse to radically thrust out. A healthy disposition is the thing. A daring temperament coupled with a heightened state of awareness is key.

Stretch the comfort zone until it snaps, then put on the brakes, regroup, and design a more flexible comfort zone so the next time you’re able to stretch even further.

Flatten the box everybody is thinking in, then use it as material to build a bigger box. Then repeat. Eventually, with enough practice, fear will just become a reason to courageously grow.

2) Transform demons into diamonds

“In a world of tension and breakdown, it is necessary for there to be those who seek to integrate their inner lives not by avoiding anguish and running away from problems, but by facing them in their naked reality and in their ordinariness.” ~ Thomas Merton

Facing the shadow of your unconscious can be unpleasant, but confronting your demons is the only way to unravel the knots that have you tied to fear. Don’t worry so much about being uncomfortable with your demons, focus on comforting your demons instead. This way you are truly able to embrace them, and instead of being your enemy they become your ally.

Don’t avoid what you fear at the expense of obtaining what you desire. Then again, don’t cling to what you desire at the expense of your journey.

Transforming demons into diamonds is eliminating the middleman and turning him into a right-hand man who can help you with being more flexible and robust on your journey of self-exploration so that you are more capable of obtaining what you desire.

Sometimes we surrender ourselves to our demons and sometimes our demons surrender to us, but a balance is maintained within such sacred pressure and diamonds are revealed despite the “rough” they’ve been hiding in.

3) Embrace insecurity not security

“Man, the animal who knows he is not safe here, who needs continued affirmation of his powers, is the one animal who is implacably driven to work beyond animal needs precisely because he is not a secure animal.” ~ Ernest Becker

Our hyper-culture creates the seeming need for hyper-security. This has led us into believing that we need more and more security, to a dizzyingly paranoid degree.

But when we’re paranoid, we’re overly obsessive and distrustful, which just leads to more fear.

Break the cycle of fear by using insecure courage as leverage against secure cowardice. It seems counterintuitive because it is counterintuitive. Because otherwise we feel too safe. Otherwise irrational fear keeps us married to rational comfort zones and we never gain the courage to grow.

So seek not security, but absolute insecurity. The kind of insecurity that is so uncertain that it becomes a delight to be in a constant state of perpetual adventure; where we’re able to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst within our own courage instead of leaning on the crutch of security (be it codependent or independent).

So swim against the tide of paranoia. Court the unexpected. Celebrate astonishment. Embrace insecurity. It’s only within the throes of our own insecurity where we’ll be able to discover the magic for resolving our fears.

4) Embrace progress not perfection

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ~ Marie Curie

Fear feeds on the need to be perfect. You’ll never get around to doing anything if you’re always worried about being perfect, or even good. Let the need for perfection go and you free yourself to be courageous, you turn the tables on fear.

Perfection is an illusion. Imperfection is reality slapping us across the face. Being okay with being imperfect is us slapping reality right back. It’s kicking fear in the nuts and declaring to the gods, our own mortality, and the need to be perfect, that, “This imperfect, prone to mistakes, fallible human being is going to embrace progress despite perfection.”

It is understanding –balls-to-bones, ovaries-to-marrow– that the pursuit of flawlessness is flawed. The journey is truly the thing. Progress trumps perfection. Growth trumps flawlessness. Improvement is the path, despite whether or not excellence comes at the end of it.

In the grand scheme of things, there are neither rewards nor punishments only consequences.

5) Embrace adventure not happiness

“Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure.” ~ Karl Frei

So great is people’s fear of unhappiness, that they flock to the slightest distraction. But the problem with distraction is that it obeys a diminishing law of returns.

Better to face unhappiness full-on, grab it by the throat; allow it to fill you with an emptiness that you can then fill with your own meaning.

The meaning gained from living life on-purpose leads to a kind of happiness not dependent upon comfort, feeling good, or contentedness, necessarily, but determined by how far we can push our comfort zones, live flexible but healthy lives, and challenge ourselves to grow.

When we let go of the need to be happy, we free ourselves to be present, in the moment, in the grip of the here-and-now. That’s the adventure. The moment may be sad or happy, but at least we are aware of it. At least we are present.

If happiness should come, so be it. But being present isn’t about being happy, it’s about being real. It’s about living life to the fullest, despite either happiness or unhappiness. As Guruji Sri Vast said, “People have fear about death but at the same time they complain about everything in their life. People do not fear death. They fear dying before they’ve had a chance to live.”

When we’re liberated from the need to be happy, we are no longer afraid of unhappiness, and so we are more likely to discover meaning in the present moment. And it is precisely within self-discovered meaning where true happiness is found.

It’s just a matter of getting out of our own way. If we can embrace adventure first, regardless of happiness, we’re more likely to discover authentic happiness as a rewarding side effect.

But as a side effect only, lest the fear of unhappiness infiltrate the present moment and bring our adventure to an unfortunate halt. Meaning is the cake. Self-discovered meaning is the icing on that cake. Happiness is the sprinkles, but we can do with or without sprinkles when living adventurously is the thing.