personal growth | David M Masters

Personal Growth and Change

There is little that brings more personal satisfaction to a person than personal growth and change, breaking through to a new level of existence among others with whom we share life on planet earth.

There is a growing number of people who are part of the next evolution of the human being, and these are the people embracing a variety of personal growth and change in all areas of their lives, including family, friends, careers, health, emotional wellness, volunteerism, love, and spirituality among others.

Why might some otherwise “normal” people seek to separate themselves from the pack via personal growth and change, embracing their individuality, purpose, message, passion, and mission?

As you might already know, there is this still small voice inside you. You hear it, mostly in those rare moments between frantic activities and the constant barrage of media and information, and it begs the question,

“Is there more to life than this?”

Deep inside you, the knowingness resides in the answer, “Indeed there is,” but so does the awareness that the true meaning in life is not found in the quest for status, power, or things.

The “more” that awaits is in your own evolution and expansion beyond that which the status quo might dictate.

So, you, like so many others embark on a journey, risking the safety and security of family, friends, and the constant droll of everyday life to forge your own path to where ever it leads.

Again, you ask, “Why?”

Besides the answering of your sacred call against all odds, there is the self-satisfaction that comes from being your own man or your own woman. Realizing that you are not merely the sum of your experiences and pedigree on this planet, you make your own way, discovering the nature of your true self.

You chart out a journey or discovery within and without to places unknown, which may have been explored by others who dared to attempt similar journeys in the past, but even so, yours will be completely unique to you as the entire landscape of these unchartered (or previously chartered) landscapes change, evolving, moment by moment. That is the nature of evolution.

You are on the path to getting to know you better than anyone has ever cared to. You are dealing with the programming, ideas, and issues from your past which were designed by social engineers to keep you small and subservient.

You are no longer shackled by the chains of society. As you exercise your true independence you see the effects of your personal growth and change as you evolve into your highest and best version of yourself.

You see life as something new; as if seeing it for the first time from a unique, new perspective, becoming more aware of your surroundings, free from the filters and restraints of your social programming.

You see your value in the world, how you can help others, and contribute in making the world a better place. You see each step toward a better life, leading toward your best life, as you build cumulative momentum toward the realization of an entirely new world of unlimited possibilities.

You find the fuel to go on from within, not needing the support or acceptance of others to see your way through this higher process of expansive self-growth, and when you face a challenge or obstacle you find the strength within to persevere and keep on going, when anyone else might have turned tail and run the other way.

You find new strengths, gifts, and opportunities appearing all around you as you move forward in faith, with each new step.

All this builds a new sense of assuredness found within, knowing that you are being true to your divine calling and living out your purpose. You are more self-confident and cannot be threatened by nay-sayers as you have nothing to prove to anyone.

You respect and love others, just like you would like to be respected and loved. This opens new opportunities for you in managing your relationships. Now, they are healthier, more authentic, full of love and happiness, as judging others fades into the distant past your can love and accept people for just being who they are, whoever they might be.

Your heart is full of love as you grow in strength and honor, unshakeable in your new versatility and sustainable expansion.

You are love. Your personal growth and change have taken you to a new place in the universe where you bask in the love, with inner peace, and happiness, ready to share your message with the world.

What If Nobody Could Hurt You?

What if nobody could ever hurt you, ever again?

If you’ve ever been in a knock down drag out fight you know what it feels like to be hit by someone. Adrenaline and other hormones cascade overwhelming your state of being as you as immediately find yourself in fight or flight. Being part of a brutal smackdown is no fun and the trauma, pain, and suffering that comes from the physical abuse can endure and cause even more suffering as you try to heal from the event over time.

How curious is it when we are similarly affected by the spoken words of someone?

When you feel as though someone has disrespected, insulted, ignored, judged, or rejected you, BAM! Just as though you’d been kicked in the guts, all the pain, emotional and physical with all the feelings and hormone overload.

When this happens to you, those words, which cut like a knife, were likely spoken by someone you love, trust, or highly regard. They could be your partner, a family member, a child, a neighbor, someone you work with or for. Because you are more connected to these people than others in your life, their words cut the deepest, can crush you, and leave your heart bleeding in pain and sorrow.

Those you care about the most hurt you the most

The concept, “those you care about the most hurt you the most” rings true.

Interestingly enough, this concept was programmed into your psyche since the day you were born. Based on your life experience, you learned to love and depend on others. Early on, you realized that if you disappointed the people you loved and trusted to take care of you, they would turn on you, leaving you in a state of fear and suffering.

That’s where it starts, and it grows as you trust and are betrayed by those who you love and care for along the way, when all you really wanted was to be accepted, respected, and loved for no other reason than you love others. Family, friends, lovers, fellow students, teachers, and others in your circle of influence. Why can’t they just love you back?

We have been programmed to value the opinion of others so highly that the slightest threat of potentially not being highly regarded by someone we care about can threaten our very sense of existence. Our feelings are hurt. We can either strike back and start an all-out war of words (or worse), and if we’re unable to strike back (for fear of being hurt even worse), we find someone else who we are stronger than to strike out at to release the angst inside. Or we can find ourselves sinking to the depths of depression, even contemplating suicide as a way out of the pain.

You were socially programmed to want what others want, to desire to do the things that others do with them as a part of the crowd. Giving you a sense of belonging, in the belief there is safety and security by being accepted by others, for to be alone would be potentially dangerous, or too much to bear.

This social programming has been a disservice to your highest and best because you were meant for so much more than just being just another sheep in the herd.

Blessed are those who were raised in an empowered sense of individuality and personal awareness. They possess the power of seeing themselves as separate, and in the best-case scenarios, also see themselves as part of the greater whole of community and humanity, though these days this represents a very small percentage of us.

To expect someone to know and appreciate you for all that you are sets you up for disappointment and failure, and your feelings will always be hurt because no one can ever know and appreciate you as much as you do.

Likewise, no matter how hard you try, you can’t fully “get” anyone else. So much goes on inside the heart and mind of everyone that you will never know. Just like when you are silent, your mind keeps working and think thoughts you might never convert to spoken word.

What’s the answer?

There is great personal power in realizing that what anyone thinks or says about you has nothing to do with you at all. It’s about them.

You know that you are always intentionally authentic, open, honest, and want the best for everyone in your life. You know you are always worthy of the best things in this life, and you would never do anything intentionally to hurt anyone you cared about. You don’t need anyone else’s validation of these things because you know them to be true. Your knowledge of and confidence in you is unshakeable.

From this vantage point, if someone barks something that might have hurt your feelings in the past, you can feel compassion for the person who felt like he or she had to react in such a say. And instead of being threatened or hurt by what they said or did, you can just look at them lost in their own life-struggle and think (or say, if appropriate), “That’s interesting.”

You know you can respond with love and compassion because you know that you were like that too.

You are emotionally resilient and bulletproof.

You are no longer a victim of anyone else’s disrespect or abuse.

You don’t have to defend yourself or strike back because they didn’t actually do or say anything that could hurt you. You can bless them because you know they are just doing the best they can with what they have.

Growth Amidst Chaos

When you’re trying to stay focused on your balancing and maintenance of personal, professional, and spiritual growth, many distractions abound to break your stride, interrupting your maturation and expansion.

As you turn your attention toward maintaining your love vibration and protect your sacred space, circumstances, challenges, and situations crash into your otherwise upwardly mobile progress by any means possible, using the manmade distractors such as “the news,” TV, media, personal communication devices, Google, social media, books, magazines, celebrity gossip, money hardship, relationships with others, or other emotional stressors.

The crux of your growth and expansion is to focus your attention within, yet there are so many methods which society and the “powers that be” utilize to keep you so distracted that staying in the zone for any amount of time is difficult at best.

Taking time to center yourself in quiet repose can give you the pause necessary to adequately review the events of your life in the recent past (yesterday, last week, last month) to give you a good idea about which distractions have the greatest distractibility quotient over you. This recognition sheds light on the areas in your life that may need tending to.

“Everything was going along great, then all of a sudden…”

Whatever comes after that helps to identify particular weaknesses or chinks in your armor. With a little attention to these areas you can repair the damage, or eliminate altogether, any future risk of penetration.

And if that weren’t enough, there’s enough discord among the faith systems of the world to keep you utterly confused about which way to go, as you’re trying to make your own way while staying true to your own purpose, message, passion, and mission.

Everyone has their own idea of how you should approach your spiritual relationship with the ultimate power of the universe, but others are not aware enough to know that while their path may be a perfect match for where they are in their own journey, it may not be perfect for you. In fact, someone else’s path may actually be counterproductive for your continued growth and expansion; another distraction.

The perfect clue to help you identify that someone else’s faith-system is not for you and does not support your highest and best will be the degree of pressure they impose upon you to convert or conform to their point of view. If their insistence is unfailing, threatening, borderline abusive, or destructive, common sense dictates this is not the path of love’s growth and expansion.

Love’s growth and expansion includes the divinity of all forms of life in all their various styles and perspectives, all in various stages of awakening. Even though some may be stagnant, immature, against the flow, or even considered to be controlling, predatory, or evil, all are perfectly divine in their own way.

Separateness keeps us divided, does not support expansive growth, makes humanity stagnate, and is unsustainable, while allowing other people and their ideas simply “to be” while finding more ways to grow and expand one’s self, understanding that we are individuals, yet “one” in love, is the current evolutionary process of the human race.

How we interact with others reveals the nature of our emotional/spiritual condition. If your approach is to either accept like-minded people and reject those who present different approaches to life, you could do better. A fully engaged love vibration will have you seeing the sacredness in all life. The contrast actually helps to promote the evolution of humanity.

At some point, when the evolution hits critical mass, only love will be sustainable, and that which is not love will simply deteriorate and fade away. Until then, the best we can do is to love everyone and everything with all we’ve got, doing the best we can with what we have to move this expansive evolutionary process forward.

Don’t take things personally, find opportunities to accept what is, love and bless everyone and everything as you discover new methods of staying focused within yourself, tending to your own life and growth, while allowing others the same courtesy.

The distractions and interactions with others actually support your continued growth, if you increasingly approach all these things in love, and training your attention to focus on the sacred divinity of all things, while focusing on that which is good, beautiful, and loving.

Your Life is the Result of the Choices You Make

If you look around you, your life is the result of the choices you make, the friends you have, your income level, the home you live in, the amount of happiness you enjoy every day, all are a perfect match to you and your vibration.

Your life is the result of the choices you make. You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you’ve invited or created. Your life presents you with everything you need for your personal, professional, and spiritual growth. Always perfectly matched.

You may reject this idea on the surface, thinking, “That’s not true, I want more.” Even this wanting of something different, something more, is a perfect match for you. These desires feel like you wanting something else, but it’s really something else which wants to reveal itself to you. All of the things you want are already there, waiting to present themselves to you.

Your wanting has already manifested all the desires of your heart. Everything you’ve ever wanted is already there, not far off, waiting for you to become a vibrational match for it, then it will be revealed to you in all its fullest capacity.

Do you want a better life? It is there. A better car, education, social network, lover, friends, cash flow, whatever you strongly desire, it is already yours. Only one thing stands between you and everything you want, and that thing is you.

Your life is the result of the choices you make which set the tone of your vibration. You cannot have what you want if you don’t change your vibration, to become a better match for that which you seek.

Now, you can, with your determination, persistence, and through the strength of your own flesh cause certain things in your life to be had through strain and struggle. When you get what you want through brute force, those things you desire will satisfy your longing for a moment, but this satisfaction will fade quickly, leaving you to want something more, and you may not be able to sustain the having of it without some stress or difficulty.

When you are a vibrational match for something and it manifests itself to you, there is a peace and calm that comes with the having of it. You know it was always there, and you were the recipient of it at the perfect time in the perfect place.

You must start to change the choices you make in life to affect your life in such a way that your life changes, becomes a better match to what your heart is calling you to, if you want to see everything you want to come to you naturally and easily. That’s how to get what you want.

By not making new choices, and making the changes necessary to change your vibration, you will see the same old life presenting itself to you, over and over again. Endless cycles of dissatisfaction and all your best efforts to make your life appear to be everything you want will not satisfy, ever.

Every day, you are presented with opportunities to make a new choice that will change your vibration and your life. When you choose based on your current vibration, your life stays the same. Your vibration is affirmed and strengthened.

When you are presented with the opportunity to make a new choice, and you make your normal choice, that opportunity is removed from your potentiality. Don’t go chasing after it. It’s too late. A new opportunity will present itself, and it will be even better for you, offering you even more of what you want as you raise your vibration to love and above.

Make a new choice and instantly your vibration changes to match your new choice. Keep making new choices and you change your vibration. The more you establish your new vibration the more your life changes to match your new vibration.

This is the process of your growth leading to evolution and expansion which will cause the desires of your heart to appear to you in divine order, without stress, strain, or dissatisfaction.

Your new life is waiting for you to step into it.

Make a new choice today, do something different, and your life changes accordingly.

Life of Light Among the Darkness

You’re awakening. You’re seeing things from a different perspective. You’re becoming more aware that things are not as they appear. You are growing and changing living a life of light among the darkness. As those closest to you are viewing recent changes in you, they try to be supportive, tolerating your expansion, hoping you’re just going through a phase.

Nonetheless, you persist. You continue to evolve and expand, and as you do, you are having less and less in common with those who previously were tethered to you. As they witness your transformation, they may try to “save you” from evolving too far away from your former you.

The person you were before was more like them, embroiled in the darkness. Now you are a child of the light, and your light is shining ever brighter. What fellowship can light have with darkness?

As you continue along your journey, you end up being further away from the vibratory state of those who are dependent upon the darkness for their sense of security in leading a “normal” life. They prefer to engage in the socially acceptable lifestyles which they have been programmed to align themselves with. You, on the other hand, are experiencing a growing desire to do other things, exploring other interests and activities which wouldn’t interest anyone who resides in darkness in the least.

Freaking Out

Those you were tethered to (and still may be deeply connected to) do not want to see you go, and they may express themselves in various ways. They may have played along, feigning interest or support, then, one day, they crack. They just can’t take it anymore, and they strike out at you. Their freaking out can be very unpleasant, potentially abusive, or be fueled in self-righteous anger as they are seeing you as the freak.

Even on your best day, such an entanglement can be difficult and can hurt your feelings as you now see your former friend as he or she really is. This can be heartbreaking and make you feel alienated or rejected by those whom you thought loved you for who you are, no matter what. Alienation does not serve you.

Some people may be resilient enough to support you as you grow as they choose to remain living their lives in a lower vibration. Even so, you feel yourself drifting away from them because they’ve become accustomed to, even love the darkness and cannot understand that which they are unable to see of the light.

The more enlightened you become the less you and your friends who remain in lower vibrations have in common.

Love Them

Those who live in the darkness may associate negative thoughts and feelings about the distance growing between you. You cannot blame them for the way they are. No one knows better than you because you, too, were once among the darkness.

Have compassion for them. Negative thoughts and feelings have no place in the light. Keep your heart pure. Remember their intention is good even though their execution may falter. They cannot understand what they cannot understand.

Love and bless them. They are doing the best they can with what they have, as are you. Love can build a bridge and your love may encourage them to see the possibilities which exist beyond the darkness.

Respect and honor every individual. Do not be afraid to meet them where they are at. You cannot change anyone, only they can change themselves when they are ready, just like you have.

There is no need to argue, debate, or have any conflict regarding differing ideas. Allow everyone and everything to be who or what they are, for all is perfection in the eyes of God.

Honor the sanctity in all things and remember that there exists only truth. All thoughts, fears, ideas, and dreams exist in the truth continuum and are subject to change at any moment in time.

Your responsibility is to you. Focus on you and your own path, stay true to you and do not alienate those who dare to not reject you. Greet them in love, with compassion, understanding, and do not judge. For no man is better than any other man, we’re all doing the best we can with what we have.

Do It Right and Face Opposition

You’re going along in life, gathering like-minded friends and supporters along the way, and invariably, you will encounter the occasional individual who may not have your best interests at heart.

These are the relationships which cause you to grow, change, and encourages you to do the deep inner work necessary for your further expansion and exploration of the unlimited possibilities which are availing themselves to you.

You will encounter the occasional Judas, Benedict, psychopath, or horde of haters who will seek to betray, attack, knock you down, or cause you to stumble or second-guess yourself. All of this is uncomfortable, potentially unbearable, and if you face it in strength and honor, you will grow.

Being attacked and opposed means you’re probably doing it right. So, continue to do it right and face opposition. Acknowledge it, but don’t let is keep you from living a better life, your best life, and making the world a better place.

You may align yourself with people whom you love, trust and support who will sneak around to do dirt behind your back, and while the trust betrayal hurts, cuts like a knife, don’t give up.

And remember this; he or she is not your enemy. If you are dealing with a psychopath (or some other predator on the Antisocial Personality Disorder Spectrum) this person may hope to be labeled as your enemy, he or she is not.

Do your best not to engage in battle with someone whose intent is to stop your work or ministry, to keep you from achieving your highest and best. Ignore them. You are better than that.

You never have to respond to someone’s rude comments or false accusations. To do so would only be a distraction. Haters are gonna hate, and you will be challenged, betrayed, or threatened along the way in an attempt to keep you from accomplishing your mission.

There will be those who will try to knock you down and others may join in the kicking you while you are down. It’s an unfortunate display of our barbarian human nature to revel in the weakened condition of someone who weild(ed) great potential otherwise. These attacks are usually accompanied with a resounding, “Not so cocky now, are you?”

Even those whom you regard as your closest friend, confidant, partner, or lover may not be as supportive as you might think. You will encounter the occasional individual who has only his or her best interests at heart, and you will find them exiting your paradigm at the worst possible time, leaving you to wonder what happened?

Some people will just be playing along to get everything that they can, just to take what they can and run off to hide it away or promote their own agenda, sometimes at your expense.

A good partner is hard to find, and you will find yourself in these challenges because the work you are doing, the life you are leading, your mission is progressively leading edge love-technology which is approaching the tipping point between where the human race is today and where it will be tomorrow.

There are a great many people, including the most powerful and influential people on this planet, who desire nothing more than to see you falter, question yourself, throw you off balance, even destroy you, if you cannot easily be distracted, angered, or otherwise compromised.

You are in the process of metamorphosis. You are expanding into the greatest version of yourself, and the “powers that be” want to quash your efforts at every opportunity. People with low self-esteem will seek to make themselves feel a little better by attacking you, while minions will attempt to profit from your efforts.

Bless those who try to stand in your way because they are only doing the best they can with what they have. Continue to progress and grow in love, in the realization that if you were that person, having lived the life that he or she has lived up to that point, you would have said or done the very same thing.

It’s not about you, it’s about them. So, don’t take it personally, no matter how personal it feels.

You are the champion of the burgeoning evolution of humanity. The day will come when all of this will change, and you are part of the change.

Keep moving forward with dignity and grace. This is your highest and best work, be your highest and best you.

Don’t let them get to you and keep doing the good work.

The world needs you, now more than ever.

For more information, see: Trust Betrayal dot com.

Repurpose Your Life

I know a great many people who repurpose all kinds of things, taking something that would otherwise be thought of as refuse turned into something of function, value, even art. So it is with your life. If your life has been routine, mundane, meaningless, or ready for the trash heap, don’t bail just yet. The time has come for you to repurpose your life.

Often repurposing a thing takes effort and attention. The result is something of value which is worth more than the raw components used to create something new from something old.

There was a time when the trend was to create everything to not last long. You would buy it, then throw it into the trash without a thought of it. This trend has led us to live a disposable lifestyle. To throw out anything which has outlived the short life which it was intended for.

This disposable lifestyle is not only counterproductive, it is destructive and unsustainable.

If you can break your trance long enough to become aware of your surroundings, you will find people who are scouring the Internet, thrift, antique, and pawn shops, eBay and Craig’s List for hidden treasures from the past which can be repaired, reconfigured, or enjoyed in their current state as a cherished, valuable, and functional purpose.

To apply this trend to your life is a thought which is not far off. You can look at your life and think, “My life has no purpose,” or, “I have nothing to offer the world,” then to think of yourself as disposable. Left by yourself in this state of mind, your body will begin to accept this as your reality and you will find yourself in premature deterioration.

Where is the happiness in a life which is not valued? If you’re in a state of self-devaluation, maybe a step outside yourself will help you to see how valuable you really are, and with a little intention, attention, and work, a new you can emerge enabling you to live a better life.

Take a look around. Are you stuck in a rut? Is the work that you do day-in/day-out satisfying? Are you achieving a sense of accomplishment from the life you’re living? Could you be making more of a contribution to someone close to you or, serving the local community?

If you can agree your life can use a little repurposing, you might consider asking yourself,

What changes can you make to live a better life?

Whatever you are doing that drains your energy, or does not resonate with that higher part of yourself and doesn’t make you feel good, stop doing it, and make the changes in your life which would be necessary to replace it with something that makes you feel good about yourself and what you’re doing.

When you’re considering embarking on this journey of repurposing yourself, be mindful of what makes you feel good and do more of that. Ask yourself,

What makes your heart sing?

What are those things which bring you joy? Find ways to integrate more of these into your life.

After you start this process of repurposing your life, you can imagine a renewed sense of purpose, possibly living out your best life, affecting the lives of others and our environment, in effect, making the world a better place.

Feeling Bad About Negative Feelings

It’s okay to feel bad. Sometimes, the motivation to be positive or to consistently be a good influence on those around you can make you feel like you cannot allow your positive persona to be interrupted by feeling negative. If you do have negative feelings, you might like to cover it up or push it down, and for god’s sake don’t let anyone see your emotional falter because you wouldn’t want anyone to misinterpret any upset in your powerful baseline as weakness.

Are you a human being? Don’t you think others might be able to feel closer to you if you occasionally allow your humanity to show through? You are not a deity. You are a man or a woman making your own way through this life, just like anyone else. Yes, you want to remain positive, but you don’t want to separate yourself from the rest of humanity so much that you are no longer a member of the human race.

There are few cases in history where the attempt to do so wasn’t met with severe emotional conflict. A mentor of mine used to say, “Don’t become so spiritually-minded that you’re no earthly good.” Be in the world but not of the world. In essence being here but also maintaining a residence elsewhere simultaneously.

Here, amidst humanity, we all express a wide range of emotions, and you must find a way (or ways) to express these emotions. To not do so is a denial of the human condition, and your psychology and physiology will deteriorate, health will decline, and you may put yourself at risk of disease, psychotic breakdown, rapid aging, or a premature exit from the human condition altogether.

Yes, being positive and maintaining high vibrational states is preferred. St. Paul encourages us to fix our thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. To think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8) which is integral to the maintenance of higher vibrations of the power of love.

You must also allow for the natural ebb and flow of life, especially if you intend to grow because the greatest growth spurts take place in the time of struggle, when things appear to not be going so well. You need both the good and the bad to move to the next level, sometimes more than others.

This complexity in life gives us the ability to enjoy all the richness this life has to offer. This contrast, as Esther Hicks says, “knowing what you don’t want helps you to know what you do want.” This is the balance of life, enabling you to know what it is that you want less of and what you desire more of in your life. You, then, can make the necessary adjustments in your life accordingly.

Your intention to remain so positive can keep you from seeing potential obstacles or danger. It is prudent to keep one foot on the ground, aware of your surroundings in the “real world” to avoid finding yourself in an undesirable predicament, or to find yourself falling into complacency.

Adversity leads you into growth, allowing you to come to increased clarity about what you want, empowering you to delineate specific goal for further advancement and achievement. In essence, being able to squeeze all the best juiciness out of all this life has to offer, all thanks to those less than desirable moments in this life.

A natural emotional response to not feeling right, or having negative emotions, might be to reject these feeling or to push them away but they are really an attention-getting pique to your awareness if instead, you start to look within, rather than to become defensive.

Since these feelings are in contrast to what you want, it is an exciting opportunity to break your positive flow, which is just comfortable enough that you can glide unaware of your surroundings, in a kind of sacred trance. This interruption can break your state or being just enough to look for new opportunities for potential alternative exploration, growth, or expansion.

The more you push against a thought with your consciousness, the more it expands in your unconscious mind, where the lower vibration undermines your ability to remain in higher vibrations in the background. This is why the Law of Attraction doesn’t care whether you want a thing or don’t want a thing. It is attracted to you whether you want it or not.

It’s like telling yourself not to think of a lemon. The more you resist a thought, the more apparent it becomes either consciously or unconsciously. This is also the nature of nightmares, where your unconscious mind runs rampant, unbridled by your conscious mind’s ability to squash your thoughts.

There is wisdom in inviting and allowing the negativity to flow over you, even to allow yourself to be fully engulfed by negative emotion for a predetermined period of time. In a sense surrendering to it in an effort to fully feel it. After fully expressed, you can examine the source, or look around for new opportunities which may be trying to expose themselves to your awareness.

In some cases, just letting it out and letting it go is all that is necessary.

Looking within yourself when your regular flow of life is interrupted by negative emotions might be the door through which you must pass to become aware of some lingering deep inner work longing to be addressed.

You might want to find or create a safe space or the company of another who will hold the sacred space for your expression of these negative emotions without fear of judgment.

Embrace the fullness of life, the good, the bad, and the potential for change, growth, exploration, and expansion.

An amazing journey lies ahead.

Reduce Conflict at Home

Isn’t it time to reduce conflict at home? Sometimes people just can’t seem to get along and this leads to a lot of conflict at home, work, school, among friends, and even while driving. When you get upset at something that someone else does, says, or communicates in some other way, you are likely to experience some degree of stress.

The greatest stressors will be initiated by those whom you know the best, the people within your family. While the family unit is no stranger to stress, if there are little witnesses to these active familial stressors, they will be affected the most. This is how children learn to interact with others, and this follows them into adulthood, even if they cannot consciously recall these events.

Even if the conflict does not engage the children directly, they are still being affected by these stressful situations. If you don’t believe me, just think back to familial conflicts which you witnessed when you were a child. How does that affect the way you handle stress and conflict today?

If you have children around watching your interactions with your family, you might consider taking a break or a timeout, the next time you feel tensions building. Maybe you can reason with the person you’re experiencing the conflict with and pick up the discussion at a different place and time. You might be surprised that delaying the discussion will allow you both to revisit the topic when emotions are not running as high.

This works for adults, adults interacting children, and among children as well.

This can have a tremendous effect on reducing the familial stress in relationships, also, it gives whoever might be inclined to do some deep inner work time to reflect on his or her own past to see if there are any hidden anchors from the past triggering the feelings which are being experienced in the moment.

If you are in a relationship with someone and are not able to manage taking a break or timeout, then you might consider seeking a relationship coach, counselor, consultant, or a member of the clergy, whatever appeals to you and seek assistance from a qualified third party, someone you can trust.

There are many techniques which can be applied to any type of relationship which will reduce both conflict and stress, and it’s up to you to check it out and take the appropriate steps to change your life. No one else is going to do it for you.

This is your life, and those whom you care about deserve not to be impaired by your lack of control, and left to itself unhindered by someone’s drawing explicit boundaries, not seeing eye to eye, or having different points of view, could turn into an abusive situation.

If ever, any relationship is visited by abuse, you have the right and the responsibility to stop the abuse. You are never required to fight back if there is abuse. Just take the steps necessary to isolate yourself from any further abuse.

This takes a great deal of courage and determination, but you can do it.

You have zero tolerance for abuse.

Your Shadow Self

There is a deep dark you hidden deep within yourself which is devout in the protection of your self and will stop at nothing to prevent you from living your best life because to do so would put you at risk. Your shadow self protects from exposing yourself to potential failure, pain, sadness, longsuffering and grief, and in doing so actually blocks you from experiencing true love, health, wellness, and ultimate happiness.

Hidden from you by your shadow self are all the negative life moments you have experienced, so as not to hinder you’re being able to face tomorrow. Associated with all these dark moments are litanous associated programs which run silently in your unconscious to prevent you from being at risk of future negative physical or emotional impact.

While these systems have been accumulating for years unchecked for validity, they continue to perceive threat and trigger your fight or flight sensations, even if there is no apparent threat in the current reality or real world in the moment, or possibly ever.

Which reminds me of Debbie Ford’s shadow work, for which she is renowned, and she insists that within each trauma hidden by your shadow self, there is a sacred truth which if dealt with through her shadow process will contain an enlightening treasure which will empower you to realize exponential positivity and personal power.

Profound wisdom is hidden within your shadow self and these treasures are the keys which unlock all the best things this life has to offer.

Let’s say you want something deeply which seems to elude you, like massive success or long-lasting romantic love (or anything else your heart desires). While you may desire these things with all your heart, your shadow self is there to protect you from the potential pain associated with exposure to the risks which would be necessary to achieve the results you desire.

On the surface, in a therapist’s office or as noticeable by you or your friends this might look like self-sabotage, but it is your shadow self, hard at work, preventing you from being exposed to potential pain or loss.

Debbie Ford insists that within the darkness of your shadow self, you will find the key to unlock your strength, your happiness, and your ability to live out your dreams.

In order to enjoy all the best things of life with all its possibilities, you must be vulnerable, and vulnerability is the enemy of your shadow self.

Carl Jung, who introduces us to our shadows, suggested that our maximum potential could be realized by making peace and standing in the middle between, “his shadow and his light simultaneously.” In effect seeing yourself from both sides.

Yet, due to the excellent abilities of your shadow self to keep you from seeing that you, as well as the rest of us suffering from the human condition, are a mixed bag of contradictions.

For instance, it is highly likely that the things you dislike the most are actually a part of who you are, though you are unable to see it, as these details about yourself are so effectively hidden from your conscious mind by your shadow self.

Delving into the secrets hidden within your shadow self is part and parcel of the deep inner work which you may choose to encounter if you are to truly have the ability to achieve your highest and best in this life.