2 Alternative Ways to Overcome Top Challenges of Self-Improvement Efforts

The common ‘theme’ of challenges we face in trying out self-growth or self-development programs is – why is it that gurus say something that sounded so easy but it just can’t seem to work for me?

The simple answer is gurus have a different perspective of the world than many of us. One good example to illustrate this is they can believe that whatever one wishes for, it already ‘exist’, already happened, while our logic would say that it is just wishful, irresponsible thinking.

How do we overcome these challenges?

There are two ways to go about helping ourselves overcome these challenges:
1. Change our way of perceiving reality to be like those of the gurus
2. By-pass this perceptual filter, and strike an alliance between our inner conflicting ‘selves’ to implement the gurus’ teachings effectively

The first way, by changing our perception, involves digging deep inside us to discover ‘alternate’ views about reality. This is the sort of thing you experience if you go through a 15 days meditation retreat and come out a changed person. Stuff like quantum physics, the non-existence of time and space, that reality follows your ‘being-ness’ rather than from your ‘doing-ness’ - become your view of reality.

For the rest of us, the more ‘accessible’ way would be to keep most of our current way of viewing the world and reality.

I have come across people who get very upset when asked to visualize and feel what you wish for as if it already exist. It is completely against what their logical, rational mind says!

When gurus give instructions in visualization, it usually involves a certain amount of work in relaxation. However, the importance of relaxation is not always obvious to the student.

This is where we find ourselves ‘unable’ to execute what the gurus preach or without much success. We have neglected the essential ingredients to successfully by-pass our rational mind ‘conscious filtering – which is deep relaxation or meditative state of mind.

For deep relaxation, meditation skills could be developed on its own to eventually support your other self-growth and self-development exercises.
The most powerful meditation skills that I have come across are those that help you be very ‘present’ and brings about deep state of relaxation. Some of my favorite techniques are found here.(http://www.betterlife-healthwealth.com/how-to-meditate-for-beginners.html)

If meditation is difficult, we can then develop this mind-quieting ability through ‘alternative healing therapies’ to clear and cleanse our psyche and body from ‘accumulated stress and psyche toxins’. For example, yoga (if you are physically active) and yoga massage (if you are physically passive) would help you clear your body and psyche of ‘stressful’ influences, helping you relax at deep levels and quiet your mind.

The power of meditation cannot be overemphasized. Certain types of meditation are designed to raise our ‘vibrational frequency’ as a living consciousness. What that means is that we are able to easily see our situations or ‘current physical’ reality in a detached manner, not to identify the situation as our ‘absolute, no other possibility, truth’.

This is what ultimately opens us up to accept the possibility that we could be ‘rich’ when we are faced with a ‘current situation’ of being broke, because we are not ‘identified’ with being broke. We are ‘we’, we that is ‘not equal to being broke but merely experiencing an unpleasant situation' – thus, we can be what we choose to feel.

We can choose to feel rich, and let go of feeling broke. We are not denying the existence of the ‘experience’ or the ‘situation’ of being poor. We accept the situation as something that we see, observe and is able to let go of. Then, we see ourselves having the choice of choosing another feeling, another emotion.

Certain music can be a form of meditation, in a passive way. I have found some music designed to ‘raise your consciousness vibrational frequency’ - that not only helps you to see things at a new level of thinking/feeling but helps you to relax and ‘purifies’ your psyche. To download over 2 hours of meditative songs for free, go here.(http://www.betterlife-healthwealth.com/music-tracks-without-lyrics.html)

This is where we strike the ‘alliance’ with our conscious, rational thinking mind. There is no fight, no internal ‘conflict’. We become clear that we are not equal to what we experience at the moment. That we are ‘above’ the state of being rich and the state of being poor – the two ‘experiences’ as simply possible choices. We then are at a level of thinking and feeling (level of choice) different from the level at which we encountered the problem (level of being broke). We are not trying to ‘fool’ ourselves in thinking we are rich when we are broke. We are simply choosing a different feeling, a different ‘being-ness’ in a situation where we face the experience of lack.

Thus, feeling as if we have achieved success while we are ‘faced’ with a ‘current’ experience of lack can be done, with a little bit of patience and work.