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Has anyone ever told you that you “take yourself too
seriously?” Or, is that a phrase you
use to describe someone you know?
And what exactly does that mean – taking
yourself seriously? One would think that on some level that would be an
admirable trait. But on the other hand,
such intensity can be a bit tiresome.
By comparing and contrasting, we get a slightly
different perspective on this expression:
Taking yourself seriously
as opposed to taking
yourself too seriously.
Or
Taking yourself seriously
compared to taking
your Self seriously.
The Razor’s Edge
What is fundamentally
important to our core Self, with a capital “S” should be taken very
seriously, because
it represents the things that matter most to you. Sometimes
the challenge is sifting through the gazillions of mind messages we get
on a daily basis just to recognize what is important as opposed to
truly trivial. It’s notan easy task, and
finding the balance between the two is like balancing on the edge of a
razor. Here’s a useful technique for
pinpointing the things that matter most to your Self.
Food for Thought:
Let’s imagine a time in the far and distant future when
you’ve come to the end of this life journey (and please don’t get
“weirded out” or macabre on this one!) If
you were able to eavesdrop on the people gathered together to reminisce
about you, what are the three things for which you would most want to
be remembered? Don’t think too deeply
about this – just allow the answers to come as swiftly as possible.
Was it being a good parent? A
devoted companion? A person who had
accomplished his/her goals? That cared
about the world?
These are things that you should take very seriously. They are messages from your innermost Self,
and it’s likely that you will feel much better about yourself and life,
in general, when you begin to take some action to bring them into your
reality, if they don’t already exist.
This exercise was enlightening for me in that I realized that
I was on track and I could relax a bit. Here
are the 3 things I would like to hear:
1 – She was good friend
2 - She contributed something to
make the world a better place.
3 – She could laugh at herself.
On the
other hand…
So now that you’ve identified what you should be
taking
seriously, there’s an awful lot of mind noise that is best to disregard
or reconsider. In his book, The Four
Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz teaches that the
mind is like a dream “where a thousand people talk at the same time,
and nobody understands each other.” The
Toltecs called this the mitote, and in India it is called maya. It is so hard to identify what is real when
there is a constant barrage of misinformation. As
Ruiz cautions, “everything you believe about yourself and the world,
all the concepts and programming you have in your mind, are all the mitote…Humans
punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should
be.”
Last year I caught the tail end of a special on
PBS with Dr.
Wayne Dyer – an absolutely brilliant speaker and author, and someone I
greatly admire. (I think this was about a
“Spiritual Solution for Every Problem.” He
was telling the audience about how he was sitting on the porch and
singing with his daughter a song that anyone brought up in the States
has probably sung dozens of times, but probably never really paid
attention to the words. When he actually
pondered on their meaning, he realized that this simple verse contains
a treasure chest of wisdom. Do you
remember this one?
Row,
row, row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily,
merrily, merrily- Life is but a
dream.
We
used to sing this in camp, in choruses. I
don’t remember Dr. Dyer’s exact interpretation, but here’s mine:
Row, row, row Life is
about taking action, moving forward – so keep going even when
things are
rough.
YOUR boat This
is YOUR journey and no one else can do it for you.
Gently Don’t take yourself so seriously
Down the stream Without resistance! It’s
so much easier that way than trying to go upstream – after all, you are
not a salmon.
Merrily, merrily,
merrily, merrily Don’t take yourself so seriously
Life is but a
dream.
Just as in Don Miguel Ruiz’ description above. And even quantum physicists claim that the
deeper they go into penetrating matter, the more it appears that there
is an illusory quality to life, created largely by our thoughts and
collective beliefs.
Exercise –
Have
you launched your “year of positive habits” from January’s newsletter? How about doing a 21-day cycle reciting or
singing the song “Row, row, row your boat?” You
can sing it with your children, or on your way to work in the car, or
while washing dishes. Do 3 choruses and
let your mind reflect a bit on the meaning as you do. This
one should be fun and relatively simple. And
I am pretty sure that after 21 days you will have a lighter perspective.
Monthly Inspiration
“When you change the way you look at things,
you change the way things look.”
Wayne Dyer (The Power of Intention, 4 hour
special on PBS – this is his new fabulous program and it’s being shown
NOW, so check your local listings!)
To visit Dr. Rose's home page, click
here
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