Scribblings Empowerment Blog

A Feeling for the NOW

3/28/2024

We hear a lot of talk about the NOW. Being in the NOW is supposed to change our experiences in life and increase our spiritual understanding. Why is this true? It's because most of the time we are not in the NOW. We are rehearsing what we are going to say to someone in the future or what we should have said in the past. We let our mind wander wherever it chooses. It may take us to a rehashing of negative past experiences or affirming our sense of being less-than. Why does this matter? It matters because it impacts how you react to the situations right in front of your face. It colors your universe whether you intend for it to or not.

What does being in the NOW mean for you?

You feel free of internal demands and recriminations.

You're in charge of your life because you are consciously choosing every minute to let the past and the self-imposed restrictions go.

You understand that THIS MOMENT is truly all there is.

You experience true joy and love more often in your day-to-day, recognizing that these moments are more important than things or accomplishment

We are such creatures of habit that developing the ability to release our belief that we must be thinking every waking moment won't be easy. It takes determination, but it will be worth it.

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How Do You Eat an Elephant?

3/21/2024

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So much has been written about goals that I hate to even bring up the subject; however, there is an approach toward goals that can create obstacles rather than support forward progress. Let me explain.

Lack Of Clarity Not Uncommon
Often there is great emphasis put on long term goals. You are asked to define them specifically and hold tight to this image. This is just fine if you have tremendous clarity about what you want. If you are young and preparing for your higher education, and you know that you want to be a doctor of pediatrics and practice in a small town, then congratulations on your clarity!

However, most of us find ourselves over the years in situations that are not so clear. Let’s say that you are working in a job that doesn’t challenge you or even utilize your skills or strengths. You have never trained for a specific field, but you are a quick study. You have never met a challenge in any field you’ve encountered that you couldn’t handle. You’re sick of the job you’re in, and you want something that will bring out your passions. You have thought and thought, but you can’t figure out what job or field would allow you to use your skills and excite you.

So, how do you set a specific long term goal when you’re that unclear? You don’t. You can set a goal, but it must outline your emotional and intellectual desires and not how they would manifest in the real world. You can desire a position where you can utilize your skills (write them out) and where you can be innovative. You can desire one about which you can be excited every day. It is good to establish these features of the position you desire; however, anything else at this point will only serve to separate you from your good. Forcing yourself to fill in the blanks is like trying to push a round peg into a square hole. It doesn’t work, and it won’t attract your true heart’s desire.

One Bite At A Time
Remember the joke that asks, how do you eat an elephant? Answer: one bite at a time. The same is true for goals, which means that the best approach when you lack clarity is to create clear short term goals. This is akin to “putting one foot in front of the other.” Take the most important of your skills, the one you enjoy doing the most, and begin doing research to find out how this skill is used in the marketplace. Stay with this short term goal until you feel a greater connection between your skill and the job market. Continue to refine your options by researching each of the skills you feel are important to your broad long term goal until you home in on the possibilities. Then you are able to fill in the blanks in your long term goal with specifics that resonate with you.

My example was job-related, but the principle works in your day-to-day as well. Unless you have absolute clarity about what you want, don’t force yourself into a corner with artificial desires. Make sure they resonate with both your intellectual and emotional desires, and never be embarrassed by lack of clarity about something. Just take it one bite at a time.

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Don't Hide Your Feelings From Yourself

3/7/2024

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It is truly hard to accurately judge a book by its cover for more reasons than one! Most of us work so hard at maintaining the persona we believe others expect that we don't realize how much hurt and disappointment is being pressed down into the depths of our psyche so we don't have to acknowledge it. Unfortunately, the more feelings you force into submission, the greater the force of the explosion when it comes. And it will come.

Stress
As a young person, I was always aware that it took a great deal to push me into an angry outburst. I was also aware that when that threshold was reached, it was not a pretty sight! The reason the explosion was exponentially more intense than the action that sparked it was because the explosion represented the cumulative effect of many such actions that I had stuffed down inside me.

After one memorable event, I asked myself: "When did I shift from just hiding my feelings from others to hiding my feelings from myself?" And you know what I figured out? It didn't really matter when it started. What did matter was that I recognized that I was doing it and started trying to change it.

Stress is usually caused by a lack of knowledge about a situation or a lack of direction. Taking a proactive stance on your personal psychology will change your life. There is an approach that is absolutely necessary if you plan to stay ahead of those feelings that have been simmering for years. It is called developing a Self-Observer.
Using a Self-Observer increases your awareness of the connection between your thoughts and feelings and your subsequent actions. It also gives you something specific to work on. Thus, it reduces the pressure that is building inside you from all those suppressed feelings

Your Self-Observer
Changing the way you deal with your feelings and your actions requires the development of this Self-Observer. Oh, it’s not what you may think. You know those voices in your head that always have some reaction to everything around you as well as to your thoughts and feelings? Well, that is NOT a Self-Observer.

Those voices are your subpersonalities. Each of them has an agenda, and most of them developed without your conscious awareness in order to meet some specific need that arose. We’ll talk about them at a future date.

A Self-Observer, however, is deliberately developed by you. It is a mental part of you that observes how you think and feel about events in your life without making judgment.

Developing your Self-Observer requires you to consciously note when you have a negative reaction to any situation, such as shouting at someone, or simply feeling regret or frustration over the way something unfolds.

The Self-Observer takes note of what happens, how you feel about it, and how you react to it. It does all this without making excuses, beating up on you, or taking score.

It takes time and effort for this process of self-observation to become second nature to you, but it will, and it is a CRITICAL part of your spiritual growth.

Pushing down your feelings, not dealing with them, in favor of meeting the expectations of others will backfire on you. Developing this Self-Observer is the method that allows you to be more honest with yourself about your feelings.

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Dannye Williamsen

I have been studying the human psyche and its wonderful and often frustrating journey for over four decades. It was only natural that my love of writing and teaching became part of this journey.

My writings are dedicated to those who are willing to search outside the box for meaning in their lives, who are willing to shift their view of the world just enough to recognize they are unique expressions, and who are willing to do the inner work to improve their understanding of who they are.

A Feeling for the NOW

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

Don't Hide Your Feelings From Yourself

Dannye Williamsen

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