These days almost everyone has become aware of the idea of positive thinking. Positive thinking is preferred over negative thinking—at least in the new age healing circles.
Blogs and social media pages are full of advice about how to be more positive—all this need for positivity comes because of negativity. Only when people are somewhat unhappy can they try to find something that leads them out of the darkness.
Without negativity there would be no positivity.
There are some people in the world who are not happy, no matter what is happening in their life. If there is a job, the job is the problem, if there is a husband, the husband is the problem, if there is no husband, then that is the problem, if there is a promotion, now that’s the big issue.
That’s their nature. It is their intrinsic core nature, to be pessimists. A pessimistic mindset is a pretty useful mindset, except when it excessive . Then it paralyzes a person and they can’t enjoy life anymore and make it hard for anyone else to smile also!. Also, pessimists often lack the positive mindset needed to help someone else create a positive outcome.
The healing arts’ core curriculum should be compassion, positivity and mental stability. No matter what certification there is, from which university, these three will be needed in the actual work and they should be considered core requirements.
A pessimist who lacks confidence and doubts themselves, will create an internal hell no matter where they go.
I am sure you know people who not only are miserable themselves but also make others miserable. Chances are that at least one of those people is you, at some point in your life. So what, do you do? How can you change the inner core of who you are?
Who you are is what you perceived about yourself from the ages of 0 to 8 and in the womb. Sorry, there is no other way to say it. So I’ll say it again. Who you are is how you felt you were treated between the ages of 0 to 8. Everything in your life, unless you’ve done SERIOUS work on yourself via meditation is about how you felt you were treated during these crucial years. I know. It is dreadful. You are, your mother, father, siblings, friends and teachers. But that’s not just who you are. There’s a part of you that’s infinite possibility. That’s unbreakable and inviolable. That’s the part that made Jesus Christ do what he did. He loved despite all the reasons not to.
The above is an extreme example. Now, how do you get rid of all these voices—those thousand reasons not to love yourself ?
That’s the question that led me to sit at the Buddha’s feet. My childhood was one long memory of bullying, with one protective figure—my mother. I always needed a mother, someone to protect me from the harshness of the world. And that limited me in expressing my life’s work because well, my mother wasn’t around me all the time—life took me to a place where I didn’t have her. And even my mother couldn’t protect me from myself. That’s when you know, you have to do what scares you the most.
In my mind there were harsh, negative voices that made me feel that I was not worth anything in life and couldn’t do anything. The more they criticized me, the harder I worked. They sucked the life and soul out of me. They were the guardians of my heart.
But, there was one voice that was unconditional. It was a voice that believes in you no matter what. That voice is the source of my art, and my calling. I pass it on. I am not always perfect, but I pass it on to the best of my ability.
So, when you are positive, you are relying on that one voice that believes in goodness, no matter what. This voice makes you into a giant avatar—a colossus. When you are negative, you are consulting with those voices who want to keep you small.
But, the voices that keep you small, are here also to help—they are guardians. They save you from risk. They save you from failure. And when they are understood, and aligned with the voice of your higher self, they become your friends.
Thus meditation to my mind, is the art of listening. Not the art of directing, fixing and controlling the mind so it says positive, like an army general. But, it is the art of gentle listening. Meditation should not be done to ‘solve’ a problem. There is no problem. You are not a problem. You are an experience of yourself. Even when nothing is happening, something is happening. In greater stillness, there is greater change.
The voices of negativity may have something to say to you. Be equally kind to the voices of positivity, they may not always know everything. But always stay in the heart. It is here that the divinity of the higher self, and the magic of the earth mingle, to create your future.
Meditation is probably the only real way to know yourself. Anything else that you do for healing, is good and wonderful. Whoever helps you, it is great. But meditation, now that is what you do for yourself—solely for yourself. It is you, watching you and nobody else.
