Your Inner State, Self-Love & Choice

It's simply impossible to feel good all the time. Too many things happen. People are unfriendly or even angry. Long lines at the bank or supermarket. Congestion on the expressway. Unexpected or unplanned snafus at work. Delays in shipping, meaning that a vital piece you need in order to continue has still not arrived. The recession. Wars. Suicide bombers. Greedy banks. Climate change. Politicians. Major embezzlers that get away with a rap on the knuckles. Your favorite sports team loses. You have a bad hair day. Your life partner is looking anxious and requesting 'space'. Your son was not accepted at his first choice of college. Your daughter is dating a loser. You lost a major client. You can't sleep. You have an ominous looking mole on your cheek. There's a leak on the roof. Truly, looking at it like that, it really is simply impossible to feel reasonably good all the time.

False. You read that right. It's false.

In a world where we're socialized and programmed into believing everything is always the fault of another or of something out there that is happening, we are taught from a very early age that the health of our inner state depends on the outer circumstances being tolerably good, and furthermore, that it depends on how much we are able to control those outer circumstances. And that is simply wrong.

One of the most important things we are not taught (along with a toxic lack of creativity in so many of our schools in so many countries), is to love the self. We are not taught this essential element to basic well-being by our parents (mainly because they themselves don't/didn't know how to love the self), by our churches (who tend to preach that loving the self is selfish), by our schools (how could they, if those who teach there also do not know how to love the self), and certainly not by our culture, our society, that is so determined to make us love outer satisfaction and outer filling of our needs, most specifically by consumption.

You see, when you truly know how to love the self in healthy ways, you will always - without fail - be aware of inner and outer circumstances and events, thoughts and feelings that are not energetically aligned with an inner state of well-being. Please note: it's not so much happiness I am referring to, as inner balance, harmony, equanimity. This implies having access - or being able to return to - an inner state that allows you to feel well despite turmoil, problems, stress, and chaos. To do this is simply not possible if you do not care for and love the self. I go to great lengths to explain this in my book The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self because of the fact that most people simply don't know how.

Imagine you had not been taught to read and write when you were a child. Clearly, if you are now an adult, you would need to practice a great deal in order to master such skills. Having access - or being able to return to - that inner state referred to above that allows you to feel well despite turmoil, problems, stress, and chaos is also a question of practice. One of the simplest ways of doing this is by becoming aware of yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings. Becoming aware can be accomplished by numerous methods, but one in particular that is quite simple - assuming it is practiced diligently - is mindfulness. The same practice also - once it is being done on a regular basis - what lies at the bottom of the potential for that continual state of inner well-being. I have written about this before. 

To refresh your memory, have a look at these:

• Remembering to Remember
• A Daily 15-Minute Relaxation

So now you that you are aware of your own decision-making power in the quality of your inner state, and now that you know the absolute importance of loving yourself, you are faced with a continual choice: how - and how quickly - do you choose to bring your inner state back to a place of balance and harmony?  This lies in your hands. This is something you can learn how to do. It is not even particularly hard. It simply requires the intention to want to apply it over and over again, until it becomes so engrained (because of old neural pathways you will have eradicated and new ones you will have forged), that it almost happens as easily as you breathe. Start today. Care enough about yourself to do so.

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Also visit my book website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books. My new book Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin is now out globally on Amazon in print & Kindle. You can also obtain it (or any of my other books) via Barnes & Noble.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is Rewiring the Soul so named for my first book. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.

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