Misunderstood Roadblock to Growing 1

Posted on December 12, 2010 by venagozar

If you are walking a path either spiritual or a personal development quest of any type, you are most likely frustrated by the glib, off hand way the your most important question is treated.

It seems most writers or speakers who stake a claim of expertise in the process of Spiritual Development or Personal Development either choose to gloss over what you really need to know or do not really know themselves and of course can’t tell you, what you want to know.

If this were a site for profit I may be doing the same thing. It may be that is how for pay authors and web sites make their living. In some cases I think the person behind the scenes really may not know how to go about giving you what you need to move ahead in your journey. The write out some some easy picking fruit and leave the hard to explain fruit hanging on the branch.

Sooner or later in this type of endeavor everyone hits a point where the next step you want to accomplish is improving your spiritual self. It may not be understood as such, Raising your spiritual self is written so many different ways, sometimes it is hard to tell what the writer means. Some writers write, “Increase your awareness”, and let it go at that. Other writers write about, “Increasing your vibrations”, raising your energy frequency or something else as vague. What the heck is vibrational frequency anyway? Still others write or talk about your Third Eye, Chakras, Kundalini Rising, etc; the terms go on and on.

I may be too narrow in my thinking about all the terms that are used to describe different ways of doing the same thing. Maybe they are speaking to a different audience who understand exactly what they need to do and how to do it. Words and thought that are understood by the smallest child in some places leave adults in other parts of the world feeling of helpless.

So what is all this jumbled talk about awareness, kundal-who, frequency changing and the rest? It is really quite simple to understand, and a lot harder to actually undertake because misunderstanding follows closely on the heels of a new idea.

These terms all mean the same thing. They only represent different ideas or thoughts of the same thing. What you want to do is change your spiritual or inner self. I bet you are saying, I know that, what a waste of my time to read all this only to be told what I already know.

The key is learning and growth is understanding what do you change yourself to, and how you do it. Everything else is so many letters and words flowing into the galaxy of written words. Most the Authors and Writers, and perhaps Speakers, are most likely all talking about the same thing, only they are using different words and ideas to attempt to explain the ‘same thing’.

Life is a process. Our physical life for much of our life is forged for the first twenty-five years or so of our life. Our spiritual life on the other hand marches to a different drummer, and ignores time. For most of us we manage our physical world fairly well. Then one day we suddenly have a need to improve our spiritual self.

Stairwell of Life

Posted on March 20, 2009 by venagozar

empty-canvas Do you ever wonder who you are? I mean the inside you, not your physical relationship with the people around you. Usually after our schooling ends we discover we have lots of free time. We spend a lot of that free time thinking, usually about us. What better subject is there after all?

We have a thin veneer formed around us by this time in our life. It is what has formed from what our parents, other family members, and friends think about us. What they perceive or think we are. This thin veneer is a good guess of who we really are, though at other times it does not wear so well.

When it does not wear so well, it is because there has been lots of time for serious introspection about ourselves, who we are, and our place in the world. It dawns on us slowly that those ideas and thoughts that others want us to be are not us. The thin veneer that has been placed upon us does not fit quite right. Or perhaps it does not fit at all.

Looking inside ourselves for what is really the first time, these differences may appear. The clothes we have been wearing all our life suddenly do not seem to be the right style for us. Our hair style, which we have had since we were children now belongs to a stranger. We wonder how it ended up on us, and how we went all this time without realizing that we are not the person we see in the mirror.

For some of us this is a sad and occasionally scary time in our life. As we are programmed to fight or flight, so we normally do one or the other. We change our looks, habits, and other things about us as we fight the idea of us we see in the mirror.

Others run away from what they discover. Why that has to be us. That is how we have been our whole lives, how can it be any different? We pretend we never noticed that we are not who we see in the mirror. We go about our day as if the discovery never happened.
For those who embrace change, and start on a quest to discover who we really are, it is a ride full of ups and downs. Imagine you are the person in the picture. You spend your days going up and down the stairs, trying on this clothing and that clothing. Cutting your hair and letting it grow out. Wearing clothes that do not quite go together, but they seem more like you than any other clothes you have been wearing.

I think we do a disservice to our young adults. We no longer have any formal ritual, or initiation process where one can make the change from being a child to being an adult. We do not have a process where someone is sen as their own person and have the freedom to be who they think they are.

Generally for some, it is a painful process for everyone around. Expectations parents had for their children are not met because as young adults the child may not know who they are, but they know they are not what the parents think they should be.

If you find yourself in this situation, there are a few things you can do. The first thing one should do is remember this is your life, and it does not belong to anyone else. It is your life to do whatever you want to do with it, within some boundaries of common sense.

If you are a parent, it is important to understand that children grow up, and need to be respected for who they are trying to become, not what you may think they are. You have done your job getting them to this point, now they need your support and understanding until they become who they think they should be.

The stairwell of life goes up and it goes down. This period is the spring time of adult life. It is a rare time when we have the freedom to start finding out who we really are and what we are about. It may feel like we are on level ground, but none of us are really. No matter who we are, we are either going up or down the stairwell of life.

Meeting and accepting our dark side

Posted on February 27, 2009 by venagozar

What is happening in our lives, why are things that have been the same for so long suddenly changing? Why are the people we have known all our lives not really who think they are? How did we get this far without noticing all these little things that paint a different picture of the world than we had been seeing for as long as we can remember.

Shin Yee, in her post, What am I missing, writes what she suddenly realizes is missing in her life, perhaps wonders where it all went. Shin Yee laments of all the things that were and are no more. It is almost as if all these things happened while she was off doing something else with her life.

Another young woman, Khushi writes in her blog/diary that she has discovered a part of herself that she never knew existed. She was willing to explore that side of herself, and for now has decided to leave it alone. Kushi say’s she has taken a, ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt’ stance.

babarkazmi, writes in his post, The Lost Thoughts writes of living two lives. The first life where he tries to do everything expected by following the ‘codes and rules’. He writes this way of living is suffocating him, that there is another part of him wanting escape, wanting to create a life of its own. He calls it the, “Barbarian”.

Three different views of the same problem we all come to know as we live our lives and make that jump and grow into adults. The people around us are not there any longer. They have deserted us, they have changed, they are not who we always thought they were.

Living with our parents and having our life guided for us, life is so simple, we went through our planned day and life, rarely give thought to how well orchestrated everything is. How well the pieces are put together that made up our life during those years.

Now as we start a new chapter in our life of making our own way, we start to see life is not as it always was, and we are not who we always thought we were either. Entering adult life, introduces our life on an empty canvas. We are not prepared for what we see and experience. It is difficult to have our world change around us, when we are used to everything always being the same.

When we start looking at ourselves, we are shocked to notice that we are changing too. There is another side of us, that until now we have never noticed. In our first encounters with this other part of us, we see it as ugly, and not at all us, and we wonder where it came from and how it got in without our noticing.

Some of us are able to accept this other side of us, mesh it into our life, and we go on as if nothing changed. Others however, have a more difficult time with their other side. As children
and into adult life as babarkazmi so succinctly points out, we have been so busy following the rules and behaviors expected of us, that we never notice our complete self.
When the rest of us starts to make an appearance, we do not always like what we see. We may see someone who enjoys cruelty, vice, or other life choices we may have abhorred all our life – only to discover we are them. We discover in occasionally unpleasant ways that part of us is made up of those things we thought we despised all our lives.

We are enveloped in a conflict we all struggle with if we are to live a reasonable life. We have to accept that we are made up of thoughts and feelings that not only are we not proud of, but we may find revolting.

Some people turn these parts of themselves into enemies, locked away never to see the light of day unless they slip out in a moment we we let our guard down. Others, start leading separate distinct lives that have little in common with one another accept the body they share. The most successful of us, acknowledge these other parts of us, and accept that we are simply human.

From that acceptance of ourselves as being all those ugly things we find in us, we grow and evolve into more than if we never embraced the dark side of ourselves. Embracing our darker side makes us more human, compassionate, and in general better people. Embracing our dark side does not mean giving in to it, or hating it. Embracing our dark side means accepting what and who we are. For all the good that is in us, so is an equal amount of evil. Our individual life is in the balance and how we arrive in that space where we are okay with all of us.

Argue less and find more happiness

Posted on February 13, 2009 by venagozar

There was a time if I was in an argument, it was not over until one of us admitted defeat. The argument would go on until there was a clear winner. It would even go on longer if it was a heated debate. After all what was the fun of stopping at just winning if I could really rub the other persons nose in their defeat?

It sure felt good when on the winning end to really punish the other person. Taking it one step further. Adding a few extra hurtful comments because I knew I could was extra frosting on the cake.

Over time, I learned, or maybe unlearned, that I was not doing myself any good going above and beyond when I won an argument. It made me feel good for a few minutes of course. Or maybe I should say it made my ego feel good.

What I found was the price I extracted in collecting my proverbial pound of flesh from the other person would eventually turn out to be very expensive for me. I found out my behavior I was really hurting myself in the long run.

Over time, I find it better not to let arguments become that heated if at all possible. The more battles I took on, even more battles would make their presence known. In the end there are only a few battles worth fighting.

What I learned to do was stop arguing when I won. When losing, I found it is less painful to concede immediately. Stopping at the first opportunity is something practiced in martial arts where the idea is to stop the violence as quickly as possible with the least amount of harm to the opponent.

Fighting battles can be fun. Winning them is fun. Punishing the loser is even more fun. It is a blast in fact, until I needed something that only the person I hurt could do for me. Then suddenly it became obvious that the price they paid was much smaller than the price I would end up paying.

At first it was hard to stop. Hard to make myself stop when I had a lifetime of taking arguments too far, too often. With practice it became easier, and when done long enough, stopping before an argument became heated and something painful was said, became second nature.

So what is the benefit in not taking an argument too far? The most obvious is the other person does not feel like they have an enemy. They know what they were saying was actually heard and understood. In the future they may be may be more likely to help you, or at least not do anything to hamper you because they are not your enemy.

Being perceived as more mature comes in third for me. Not letting a disagreement become personal, and therefore heated, allows me to stay focused on keeping the disagreement respectful.

I find I have more energy. I have more energy because I am not wasting energy and effort on something that is not that important.

Life becomes easier and simpler. Not wasting time and energy on something that when compared to the bigger things in life are not really that important, allows more time and effort for what really matters. Not spending my energy trying to win an argument at any cost, gives me more time to notice those little things that make a big difference in the quality of my life.

When enough time is put into not arguing for the sake of arguing, I now understand other peoples arguments may be valid when they disagree with me.

Because I learned other people are not always wrong, I started seeing the person. When I start seeing the person, I know they are trying to enjoy their life just like I am. They may be going about it differently, but they are not wrong.

Reaching this point, a happier more filling life starts to happen, and life becomes happier and more enjoyable because almost everyone is moving in the same direction I am.

Polished by life

Posted on January 1, 2009 by venagozar

Some people see life as painful process where they go through each day, each year, and each decade feeling like little pieces of themselves are torn off and cast aside. Every struggle, conflict, and tribulation no matter how small tears off a little piece of them.

As their life goes on they start to feel and look tired and a little worn out. As they grow older the effects of life pulling and tugging at them away each day becomes more obvious. If live to be very old they feel like a hollow shell where everything has been drained out of them.

They remember being young and having energy and fight, and strength, taking on the worst life can throw their way, but over the years it becomes to much. Life starts draining them, sapping their strength, and quelling their love of life. They are not sure where exactly it all happened, they remember the big issues, death, divorce, and financial struggles. They seldom remember the little things that really drained them. The day to day grind that their life turned out to be.

I share some part of me with people who feel like this. I have my days when I feel like life is trying to grind me into the ground and turn me into a dust cloud to be blown away by the wind. Everyone normal has these days or days like them. I think I am lucky though because for me these days are few and far between.

I love the change and challenge my life, and the sometime unique ways everything turns out for the best no matter what my efforts were. Problems and challenges are a part of life, we can not escape them normally. If we do escape problems that happen in every day life, it is time to acknowledge we may have a bigger problem starting with denial.

I had a though that prompted me to write about this. One that sort of puts life and the challenges we face in perspective. I saw myself in my minds eye as a rough and jagged rock. It did not look like much, just a big rock. As I watched, little chips were taken out of the rock, some so small they were hardly noticeable. Other times, larger pieces of the rock were broken all at once.

As I watched this movie play in my head, I made the connection that the rock was me. Over the years, little pieces have been chipped away from me. During those somber serious life events, larger pieces of me were broken off and cast aside. While parts of me are being chipped away over the years and decades something else was happening too.

I have been taking on a form or shape, becoming defined. My jagged outside was becoming polished, and taking on a little shine. Things that used to take little chips out of me, now polish me a little bit.

Maybe if I live long enough, one day I will look into my minds eye and see a shiny stone where the rough jagged rock once stood.

Your life in your time

Posted on December 29, 2008 by venagozar

I remember as a teenager wanting an identity of my own, rather than being my parents child. I used to set out on long weekends away from home looking for me and who I was. I would camp out at the lake, or by streams and rivers fishing and looking for me.

I never did find myself which at the time was frustrating for me. I thought once I was physically away from home finding out who I was would be an easy matter. After all anyone I was likely to meet or talk to would have no idea who my parents were, and should have a clear idea of who I was.

All these years later, I know now, that what I was doing was writing the story of my life. It was not out there for me to find, but rather there was a large empty blackboard waiting for me to fill. Who I ‘was’ is a lifetime of living and discovery.

Of all things that appeal to us, the first sought after are usually not the best for us. The best we can become take some searching and planning. I discovered a few things that may be of interest to you in the process of finding me.

Of the many things I have become, a few of them should not happen until their time. Getting married and having children are two that come to mind rather quickly. Many of us want to get married and we want to have children. That is the way we are, at least we want the try to have children part.

Getting married and having children though should be a farther along the road of becoming who we are rather than an early life goal. It is pretty difficult to become a parent and raise a family when we have not given ourselves a chance to discover who we are.

Other things should be done as soon as possible. For example, going to college or traveling across the country should be early life goals. College has obvious benefits and should be completed before life gets complicated. The same goes for wanting to strike out on our own or do some traveling. Traveling is much easier when there are no other responsibilities in our life.

Some things should be avoided all together. There are some roads where one should not venture when creating our future us. These are determined by what we think and feel, and vary from person to person. What is okay for one, is not okay for a second person.

Don’t be afraid to take reasonable risks. Because our life is basically empty until we start living it, taking risk is part of the process of defining who we are. Doing something you have never done before can lead to new friendships and interests. Be careful and make sure that what you are about to do is something you can tell your parents you are doing. It is a long lifetime, and it is easy to do something starting out in life that is regretted forever. The old saying, ‘look before you leap’, applies. Some new adventures can put you in a wheelchair or prison, or worse for life. Think long and hard before you act.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes when you are finding you. If you are not making mistakes, you may not be reaching far enough. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just make sure the mistakes you could make, do not harm yourself or others.

As I was out there making my own mistakes, and trying out new things, and discarding things that no longer worked for me, somewhere along the line I found myself. I found out who I am, and clarified my likes and dislikes. I learned what I wanted from my life.

Who you become is who you become. It takes time to create your life, and if you find it is not working for you, it will take time to change your life again. It is not possible to change who you are overnight. It is not possible to write the complete book of your life and who you are until the final page is written. Until then we are on a sometimes rambling journey down the path of life.

Enjoy where you are at in your journey and make the most of it, the next chapter will start in it own time and rushing it does not speed the process up but only adds frustration. Enjoy today and tomorrow will take care of itself is a good though to end on.

Happy New Year, happy new life!

Welcome, Ven a gozar!

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