Feeling bad about yourself? Feeling unworthy of love or friendship? Feeling guilty about things you’ve done in the past? Feeling like your personality is just too flawed for you to be able to fit in with the rest of society? These thoughts and feelings can arise for different reasons. Whatever the reasons, feeling and thinking better about yourself is possible, and may be easier than you might have thought.

I’ve struggled with low self esteem, and I’ve talked with many people from different parts of the world with negative perceptions of themselves. The reasons vary, but, like everything else, shifting our perspective can change everything.

First of all, if we’re thinking negatively about ourselves because of mistakes we’ve made in the past, we need to remember that we are not alone in this experience. Maybe we unintentionally hurt someone physically or emotionally/mentally. Maybe we were experiencing some intense anger, pain or anxiety and lashed out at someone we cared about. Maybe we just didn’t fully realize what the negative consequences of our actions might be on others. Maybe we didn’t realize how much the harmful things that we do to ourselves have an influence on other people, too. Whatever it might have been, we have to acknowledge/remember/accept that we all make mistakes. We. All. Make. Mistakes. This is inevitable.

Can we forgive ourselves? And can we forgive others for making the mistakes they’ve made? Sometimes, maybe even often, it can be easier to forgive others for their mistakes or offenses, telling them it’s ok, and that we know that it really wasn’t their deeper intention or desire to cause harm or problems. We acknowledge and remind them that they were just in a bad way at the moment, experiencing some rough emotions that made them act against their better judgment. Recognizing this for someone else can be liberating for both them and us. Can we do the same for ourselves? Can we recognize that we all, including ourselves, make mistakes and that our deeper intentions are to find peace and happiness?

Second, consider the fact that we simply cannot control everything. In fact, there are many things that are out of our control. Each of us comes into this world with strengths and weaknesses. It’s just a fact. Some of us might be strong in math but terrible with social skills. Some might be great at art but terrible in business. Some of us might anger easily, and some of us might have more patience. We don’t have much, if any, control of how we started in this world. We just have to do our best to make the most of our strengths and become stronger where there’s deficiency. But even then, we can’t control all the outcomes. Nature, or God, is ultimately in control of everything. Assuming too much responsibility or power will only leave us with more grief and a sense of failure.

Third, we can accept a boost in self esteem when we understand that each of us is doing our best to find peace, safety, security, strength, happiness, creativity, and all the other positive qualities of life. This is self care, or self love, and each of us has our own unique way of doing that. Again, we will make big or small mistakes on our journies, but this is a crucial part of the learning process. It’s how we learn. It’s how we gain insights and wisdom.

As usual with the Light Inside Technique (LIT), allow yourself to soul search and do VERSes (see the article on this site entitled “3 Steps…”) – Vent, Express, Release and Share. Make good use of the negative energy, the negative thoughts and emotions, and then recognize that we can’t control everything, we can’t know everything, and that we all make mistakes. And finally, appreciate that you are doing your best to find peace of mind and happiness.

Peace!

If passion and inspiration are not used in a way that satisfies the personality, this can leave the person depressed, anxious and frustrated. Are you aware of your passion? Are you aware of the thing(s) that inspire you?

I recently talked to a friend who often says he is not happy. He tends to keep to himself, doesn’t socialize much, if at all, and really only interacts superficially with people on his job. He also says that he has no colleagues or boss to interact with on the job as he basically works for himself. Even if we work at an office or in a place with other employees around, we can still feel alone and unsatisfied. We can feel like none of our co-workers likes us, that we are not appreciated by the boss, that we’re not using our talent, knowledge or skills, that we’re simply not doing something we love, etc, etc. Then there are our personal lives, in our communities and at home. There can be many reasons for the negative thoughts and feelings in these and similar situations, but finding a deeper passion and inspiration can give us more hope, positivity, and sense of purpose and direction. Passion can give meaning and purpose to each new day and every task we perform, no matter how insignificant it might seem. With passion comes energy and motivation.

If we’re in a job or situation that we HAVE to be in, but don’t necessarily want to be in, then of course we have to be responsible and do what we need to do. The appeal to passion still applies, though. We have to take the necessary steps to move forward. We may struggle, but having dialed in to our deeper passion, we can have more willpower to work through the challenges we face each day.

I’d like to offer a simple practice to find your passion and inspiration that anyone can do whenever feeling angry or frustrated, scared or worried, sad or unhappy. During those moments of anger, or sadness, or worry, there’s energy to work with. We just have to be willing to transform it. Here’s a simple way to do that.

The next time you feel a general sense of unfocused anger, try thinking of it as passion and simply ask yourself, “What is my passion?” or “What do I really want to do with all this passion?” or“What do I want to make happen with all this passion?” You get the idea. Maybe there’s some action you want to take, or maybe what’s needed is a change in the way we’re thinking about things. Be open and willing to ask the question and find a positive, useful answer, and see what presents itself! This alone can bring focus and clarity!

Do the same with anxiety or worry. Try thinking of anxiety as excitement, inspiration, motivation, or any other positive word that works for you. Then, with a genuine curiosity and intention, ask what you feel excited about. Ask what you feel inspired to do, or what motivates you. Again, be genuinely open to any positive idea that might come to mind.

Do the same with sadness, grief, or depression. How can we re-label these? I’ve thought of them in different ways over the years. I’ve thought of them as grounding and stabilizing, and I would ask myself what job or activities make, or would make me feel more grounded and stable, strong and centered. (I even thought of sadness as “fun,” like the down part of the ups and downs of a fun rollercoaster! And it worked amazingly on a few occasions!).

Find the words that work for you and give this simple exercise a try. The purpose of the Light Inside Technique (LIT) is to help us feel lighter in mind, body and emotions. This exercise described can help us transform the negative emotions into passion and positivity which in turn gives us direction, purpose, inspiration and energy!

Recent conversations have reinforced for me how flexible the mind can be. Taking a certain perspective and entertaining different thoughts can leave us either stressed and at odds with others, or compassionate and sympathetic to our fundamental needs and desires. The thoughts and perspectives we choose regarding events from the past or present can leave us with peace and ease, or they can cause ongoing anger, resentment, worry, and conflict.

This is the old “glass half full/half empty” idea. We can choose how we think about our experiences. We can choose how we interpret whatever events occur in our lives, and this often subtle change in thinking can have profound effects and benefits on our mental and emotional states. I can look at my strengths, count my blessings, consider my good fortunes in life, or I can focus on my weaknesses, poor choices, failures and missed opportunities.

When considering the world around us we can observe that the world is in a state of constant change. This means that at any given time things are breaking down, coming to an end, being destroyed. It also means that new things are constantly being created and new opportunities are becoming available. The fact is that change is inevitable. This is something we all have to come to terms with. How we think about that change is important as it has a strong influence on our quality of life.

The Light Inside Technique (LIT) focuses directly on the power of perspective and thoughts, on the power they have to effect our peace of mind, our interactions with others, and our overall quality of life. With LIT we intentionally practice finding the good in things, re-interpreting things in a positive way, and becoming more aware of thoughts/perspectives that bring more comfort and ease. We can start by simply noticing the good things around us, like friendliness, respect, togetherness/love, happiness, peace, etc. We can then take a challenging current or past event and learn to think about that event in a positive light.

With LIT it’s possible to do this with any situation, including past abuse, trauma, neglect, etc. As we’ve said in other posts, it’s useful (and usually necessary) to identify the difficult thoughts and emotions around the event, and then vent/express/release/share those thoughts/emotions sufficiently, and then return to a positive interpretation and perspective of the event when we’re able to. Here we can see how the negative and positive thoughts and emotions are both fully acknowledged and put to use in creating an overall more positive perspective and experience for the individual.

Perspective changes everything! Use LIT to overcome the negative and disruptive influences of negative thinking and see the world in a whole new light!

LIT is a philosophy and a practice. The philosophy let’s us take a positive, uplifting perspective on life and creation. It sees the primary underlying animating force of everything as love. Love is the spirit that moves us all.

Where there’s love there’s harmony, cooperation, integration and play. We see this everywhere and in everything. The play of the forces of nature creates a harmonious universe with it’s endless expressions and manifestations interacting and creating in a cooperative and integrative way.

What is love? Essentially, love is connection. And everything is connected, so love is everywhere and in everything. But what about our individual human experience? If love is everywhere and in everything, then why do we suffer? Why do we get angry, sad and fearful? Why do we get stressed?

Suffering, to some degree, is normal. We can overcome suffering, though, by returning to love. By asking the question “Why?” and allowing ourselves to vent/express when needed, we can quickly remember that we’re all making mistakes and learning, and that love is the motivation behind every thought and action.

It’s easy, because it’s a habit, to hold a grudge, to get angry, to feel mistreated, to be afraid, to hold grievances. But we can take a new, positive and reasonable perspective and find that forgiveness, compassion and understanding are our new mental and emotional habits that arise spontaneously in times that we might normally feel stress.

Let’s consider a little further how love is our primary motivator. Remember that we all want fun and laughter and happiness and joy. No one wants to feel sad, fearful or angry for very long. The positive emotions happen when the heart is open and accepting, even if just for a moment. So laughter, fun, even excitement and thrill, happen with an open, accepting and loving heart. We also want safety and security because these bring peace of mind, and peace of mind also allows the heart to be open and accepting. We want friends, family and community for the same reason.

What about understanding, though? Why all this curiosity and intellectual debate and learning? How can we say these are motivated by love, or the desire for love? The mind is naturally curious, and wants/needs to make sense of things. Notice that when we can make sense of things the mind can settle down and experience more peace. When there’s peace, the heart is happy, open and accepting.

What about hunger… the actually physical hunger we feel at times? Is love what makes us want to find food and eat? Yes. When we’re hungry there’s a need/desire for food. When we get that need met, we can return to peace (physical and mental), and this is satisfying to the heart.

Can you think of any circumstances, situations or actions where love could not possibly be the underlying motivating force? Can you think of any heinous crimes or offenses in history or current times where love couldn’t possibly have played a role? What about our current political environment… any love there? Anyone ever offend you without the underlying motivation of love? These are useful challenging questions that can strengthen our understanding of love as the primary motivator and goal of all thought and action.

Use the Light Inside Technique (LIT) to return to love on a daily basis. Utilize the negative thoughts and emotions and make peace, passion and positivity your spontaneous responses to challenging situations!

The Light Inside Technique makes good use of inquiry, the process of asking questions in order to find the positive motivation behind all action and speech. I and others have found that through this process of inquiry we can find that we all do what we do because we ultimately want love and peace of mind. This practice of LIT allows us to work through old mental habits that result in anger, fear and sadness and find a calmer, more compassionate state of mind from which to function. But we can go a step further and inquire about who or what we actually are beyond the thoughts, emotions, body, etc. This is an age old practice that many have found useful for attaining peace of mind and deeper insight in the nature of things.

I actually think of self inquiry as taking an inventory of my experience. I ask myself what I find in my experience. I always find thoughts, images, emotions, impulses, sensations, the body, and sensory input from the five senses. And that’s it. Nothing more. I never find a distinct, unique, separate, individual “self” that I always refer to as “me” in conversation. I’ve never had the experience, when doing this practice or any other time, of noticing a self like I notice thoughts, emotions, etc. It just never shows up in the awareness like the other things do.

Maybe the “self” that we refer to is a pattern of recurring thoughts and emotions, certain habits or the uniqueness of an individual personality associated with a specific body. That’s fine to say that what we are is a pattern of thoughts or habits, but we should understand that that idea is just that… an idea. It’s another thought. And we acknowledge that thoughts exist often in our experience. But, I’ve never done this sort of inventory of my experience and come across a “self” like I do thoughts and emotions, a body, etc. It’s just not there.

Other than the thoughts, emotions, etc., I find nothing. It seems that all “I” am is another creation or expression of nature, and the habit of using the terms “I” and “me” is just useful in social contexts. The forces of nature have created an interesting scenario — the thinking that there is something here separate from everything else.

In fact, we’re all very much connected, influencing everyone and everything around us. The situation is quite beautiful and remarkable, I find. Our thoughts, our feelings and emotions, our movements and body language, the words we speak.. it seems all of these have an influence on our interactions with everything around us. As we’re all so connected, we can make use of LIT and make peace with ourselves, others and the world and be a more positive influence on everyone around us.

Join us in creating a more peaceful and compassionate world!

What is spirituality? I started wondering what people meant by this term when I was in my twenties. I would hear that a certain person was very spiritual and I wondered what that meant. I’m still not sure, to be honest.

I did continue to think about it over the years though, and I’ve come to my own understanding of what “spiritual” means.

I now see everything as spiritual. Spirit is what animates things, and everything is animated. Spirit is life, and everything that exists has life (or movement and change). So spirit is life, for me. It’s just the animating force that’s everywhere and in everything.

Obviously, every thing is distinct. Every thing is different. So, every thing has it’s own unique spirit, we can say. Every thing has it’s own unique influence on everything else. We can say this about our thoughts, too. Each thought has a spirit and animates us in a certain way. Each thought is going to have a certain influence on us.

Positive thoughts give us a boost, make us feel better and more at ease. They create a more open and positive emotional experience and tend not to inspire negative attitudes or any desire to cause harm or trouble for others. Positive thoughts bring compassion and respect for others.

So, with regard to spirit and spirituality, the Light Inside Technique allows us to find the positive spirit within us simply by noticing beauty, love, friendliness, peace, happiness, etc., wherever we might find ourselves, alone or in the company of others. And if we have old negative mental habits (thoughts) — and we all do — we can use LIT to release them effectively and to find the positive thoughts that lay underneath. And, as we’ve said, regular practice will make the positive thoughts more habitual and spontaneous, allowing us to spread a more positive spirit and influence in our homes and communities.

In conclusion, we’re all spiritual and all have an influence on everything around us. With an easy technique like LIT, why not increase the spirit of kindness, compassion, peace and positivity whenever we can?