As I move along on this path of spiritual enlightenment I’ve come to the conclusion that my progress along this journey is proportional to my ability to clear my emotional body of all its clutter. To put it another way; as I heal I grow. Now I tend to be a bit impatient with the processes at play here and I would rather travel down the emotional road smoothly and without an undue amount of bumps and falls if possible. To also say this another way, I’m tired of the pain I have so far brought to myself and I now choose to heal in a way that is easy and more efficient. Sure I’ll face my demons one at a time, but I would rather keep them at bay than have them pummel me from all sides. Now that I’ve set up my thought on all this, I have been having conversations with my higher self and my spirit team and asked them to show me the areas of my emotional body that need work. Instead of requiring myself to repeat painful experiences, I have requested that they be presented to me in the form of thought scenarios. For me, this is a great balance of left and right brain contemplation. It allows me to look at the scary places inside me but with a certain amount of emotional detachment. Here’s how it all played out the other day. I was driving down the highway with about twenty minutes of travel time ahead of me. The radio was on and I had the feeling that it was just too distracting so I turned it off to spend a little time with my thoughts. No more than five seconds later I heard my mind speak up and clearly say, “If all other humans disappeared from the planet, I would have no more anxiety.”  What? Was that you, Brain? Why would you say something so random? I was a bit surprised by this. What could such a peculiar thought mean to me? Then I realized that this is one of those thought scenarios. Time to be honest with myself here. I asked myself, “Do I have anxiety?” The answer is yes I do. The reality of the situation is I am indeed afflicted with this condition. I suddenly saw how I have been living with this my whole life.  It started in early childhood in a family of four children. As the youngest, I had little protection against three older, smarter, and somewhat sadistic (if I may) siblings. I can recall all too well countless times when their taunts and jabs brought them to laughter as it left me in tears. They would often belittle me and make fun of me just to see how I would react. I have to admit that when I got older I became witty enough to play the game too and I learned well how to deliver cruelty just as efficiently. I know now that we all were acting from the behaviors we were taught and I have gone through a period of realization and forgiveness on all fronts, but still there is a lingering amount of that pain still stuck in my emotional field. This indicates that there is, to this day, some more work to be done here. Perhaps more forgiveness, perhaps more self-awareness, but definitely more releasement. I’m now forty eight years old and those early days are far behind me. I have a great relationship with all my siblings and it seems that none of us hold a grudge for those rocky years. When this thought scenario came to me I had to think about what the reason for the anxiety really was. In my most honest moment was the answer; FEAR. The only thing I could conclude was I still have fear deep inside me of being judged by others. When I was a kid it seemed that no matter how well I performed at a task there was a sibling to put me down about it simply for the joy of causing me pain. Flash forward to the present moment and some say I’m a perfectionist. They see that I’m skilled and talented, but what they don’t know is that I have driven myself to be the best at my crafts because I fear being judged as incompetent or stupid. For many years I craved the attention and the validation from being the best. I felt I needed praise to prove to myself that I was indeed finally good enough. But the catch is that there never is enough praise and atta-boys to satisfy the fear monster. It greedily gobbles praise but knows no satiety. It can’t be stopped by words or achievements. I could build skyscrapers to the heavens and bridges across the seas but no accomplishment will ever be grand enough. All the energy and effort spent in the search for validation has not filled this emptiness. The truth is, the answer lies within me. Plain and simple. It requires virtually no energy at all except maybe sitting quietly for a spell in honest self-awareness. Owning the emotions and making one simple change. A change of the mind. That’s all. Just a change of the mind. To change my thoughts from being not good enough to being perfectly imperfect. I don’t have to pay attention to judgements from others and I don’t have to support my judgements of myself. From this moment on I will be conscious of my anxiety and, when I feel it, I will release the fear of judgement. Slowly at first, but I’ll gain new ground every day until I stop letting fear of judgement hold me back. Today is a great day in my life but tomorrow will be even better. Thanks for listening. Inner peace to you my friends, Patrick Views:]]>