What are You Feeding Today?
March 3rd, 2008, by Shelley Riutta
The conditioned part of us is addicted to negative thinking. When I work with clients who are transitioning from their Conditioned self to moving into their Authentic self—it can be similiar to breaking a severe addiction. Negative thoughts will pull them back into their conditioned, false self in a blink of an eye. One of the keys to change is to first identify when you are in your Conditioned self and when you are in your Authentic Self. You can tell this in two ways–one is the tone of the thoughts–the thoughts of the Conditioned self are negative and limiting—and then also to how you feel when you are having the thoughts–when you are having thoughts from your conditioned self you will feel depressed, hopeless, bad about yourself, anxious etc.
In contrast, when you are having thoughts from your Authentic Self they will be positive and expansive thoughts which will lead to you feeling light, hopeful, excited and happy. So a good first step is just moment by moment asking yourself–”Am I in my Conditioned self of Authentic self?” The next step then is to decide for example– if you are in your Conditioned self –if you are going to continue that thought or your current thinking. It is a choice–although at the beginning it will feel like those thoughts are in charge of you! Getting back to how this is like an addiction–breaking the habit of these thoughts can be like going through withdrawal. I will illustrate that with this example;
Jane had been making a lot of progress in living from her Authentic Self. She was taking loving actions every day to take care of herself, she had very loving relationships and she was doing work that she loved—essentially she was living the life of her dreams. Yet she found she would scan the horizon looking for something “not right”. Once she found the thing she perceived as “not right” she would focus on it until she felt unhappy and anxious.
In her session we discussed how this pattern was shifting her into her conditioned self and then blocking her from really enjoying how wonderful her life was. I shared with her that the conditioned self “feeds” off of negativity and if there is none obviously there–it will find something and expand it so it feels big. She felt relieved when we discussed this because she would feel so happy and joyful about herself and her life—and then she would have these periods of feeling “down” that didn’t make sense to her. Once we uncovered what was creating that she was able to see this pull towards negativity as her conditioned self trying to “feed” off of negativity. She was able to tell herself that she didn’t need to go there and it was OK to enjoy and appreciate the beautiful life she had created–and to sustain this feeling.
Even if your life isn’t exactly as you would like it right now you can still view it from your Authentic Self. If you view it from your Authentic Self you would appreciate the wonderful things you do have in your life now–even as you move forward to make the changes you would like. You can trust that you are moving in a positive direction and you will get to where you want—and most importantly you will appreciate every step of the way! Staying in your Authentic Self will allow the process to be easier and also to go faster.
What are you feeding today—the thoughts of your Conditioned Self or the positive, uplifting thoughts of your Authentic Self?
Needing support to be in your Authentic Self—then the All You Can Stand! Workshop is the place to be. For details click here ALL YOU CAN STAND! WORKSHOP For those of you that live at a distance I am hoping to record the Workshop do you can get the audio CD’s and handouts from the Workshop. Stay tuned!