Hello boys and girls. Today Gommy wants to talk about trying to decide which way is the 'right' way to move forward in life. There are many 'forks' in the proverbial 'road of life' and it can be very gut wrenching when the decision has a time limit on it. Gommy will explain more about the 'gut' part later on......
Gommy has always been a firm believer in the - 'there are 3 sides of every story' angle of things. There is the his/hers or Its' (meaning the choice) and then finally the TRUTH. And the truth can be interpreted as the 'right' way to go. But the 'right' way is different for each of us. Gommy's way may not necessarily work for Susie or Sammy or whomever. There are extenuating circumstances for each and every situation in which we find ourselves.
When we can learn to 'go with the flow'.....another belief Goms has learned to live by....we find it is easier to calm down and think rationally. Gommy once told in an earlier blog, of another time while hostessing a baby shower, that in wanting desperately (maybe too desperately) for everything to go just 'right'.... that a guest at the party referred to Gommy as a 'Shower Nazi'. Ouch....did that hurt.... But you know what? She was right. Gommy was over orchestrating every aspect of the shower to the extent that it was more like a painful 'can't wait to get the heck out of here' experience for the guests. Even though Gommy just wanted to make everything 'perfect'..... from the food to the games to the gifts being opened.....it seemed more like a regimented event to the guests who should have been enjoying themselves. Gommy can look back now and thank that woman (who Goms didn't even know because she was the mommy-to-be's friend). The woman turned out to be one of the 'teachers in life' brought to Gommy to learn a lesson from.
NOW.... Gommy is a 'recovering' worrier, over-achiever, over-organizer, etc. Sometimes it takes a slap in the face (not a real one but an emotional one) or a glass of cold water in the face (again, just pretend) to wake up to how we are acting and how we are being perceived by other people. If that woman hadn't said anything...Gommy would have thought that everyone was having a good time and might not have made the 'correction' (note to self) to LIGHTEN UP GOMS!!!!! If that 'teacher' hadn't brought it to Gommy's attention.....Goms might still be thinking the way to MAKE everyone have a good time is to do it the 'XYZ' way (actually it was Gommy's way) or else everyone wouldn't have fun.....Of course the honoree of the party would never have said anything except thank you for such a nice party and Goms would have smugly thought.....'Mission Accomplished' and oh-boy did I do a great job on that party. NOT!!!
So, the lesson to learn here is that we may have our heads down and plow through life the way we 'feel' it should be lived or..... we can look up every once in a while and BREATHE.....and see that everyone has their own frequency tuned into the way THEY feel they want to live. It isn't any of our business how someone else raises their children, earns a living, listens to their favorite kind of music.....etc. and on and on. But we should take the time to assess how WE are doing along the way.
If there is a 'fork' in your road coming up soon.....think of how you feel about it in your head. Mull it over.....then think about how you feel about it in your heart....it will probably feel stronger when emotion comes into play. THEN....here is the big secret we usually miss.....lastly, think how you feel about it in your GUT. This is the 'gut part' Gommy referred to in the first part of today's blog. Your gut will never lie to you like your head and your heart does. We all have a built in radar....intuition.....or whatever it is that keeps us safe (or tries to at least). It is the feeling we get when we enter our house and think that a light is on that we didn't leave on.....or a looming dread about moving to a different state or a new job, or believing that spouse or lover whose story (you can insert alibi here if appropriate) doesn't jive.We usually listen to our hearts first.....then our heads start reaffirming what we have brought emotion into and can end up making some pretty yucky situations for ourselves to sort through. But if we listen to our guts...our intuition is usually 'right on'.
Gommy suggests that when and if the next decision that comes up in your lives is puzzling you...listen to your gut and if you just can't make up your mind after that......let go of the oars and ask God to take over. I hear He is pretty good at making things work properly. And if we do make a mistake.....guess what? God always allows U-Turns. Have a great week boys and girl. Gommy is pulling for you. ((-.-))
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Sustainable Happiness
Hello boys and girls. Goms wants to talk about being happy today. Wouldn't it be great if we could just be happy all the time? Just this morning, Gommy went to the store and ran right into a Grump-Bucket. Now, it was very early....about 8 AM so Gommy wondered how this clerk got so grumpy so early in the day. So as not to be 'grumped upon'.....Gommy looked at the clerk and asked her, "How are you today?" You would have thought Gommy had asked her if she would like a slap in the face. Not that Gommy was thinking anything like that..... Her shocked response was a terse, " FINE." Geesh....she didn't act as if everything was fine.
Now, Gommy knows there are morning people and there are people who don't especially love mornings...in fact they act as if it they are IN 'mourning' until sometime in the afternoon. Gommy's advice to the latter group of people is.....STAY HOME AND AWAY FROM OTHER HUMANS UNTIL YOU CAN BE CIVIL. O.K.???? Deal??? If you don't like people...try being a veterinarian's helper, or overnight stock person, or hey....here's an idea....how about a funeral home? Not too many people there who would expect you to be perky or even to smile much.
Upon further examination of why some people are so darned unhappy, Gommy wondered how we could try to establish a sustainable happiness. It seems that once people get in the place where they are certifiable 'Grump-Buckets'...they tend to stay that way. It is probably because not many 'regular' people enjoy being around a grump-puss for very long so they just seem to wallow in the slop-pond of nastiness forever. It would be great if there was this great big Neon Sign that pointed out, "This way to happiness". But, sadly, that isn't how it works. But the good thing is that if we practice being happy.....and ACT like we are happy.....we sometimes find that we become happy by accident. You know....fake it till you make it....OOPS, that is another subject. But faking happiness can work that way too. There was a study that showed if you smile, you have a harder time thinking unhappy thoughts. Now Goms knows we can't be in blissful happiness all the time, but when we notice we are hopping on the 'nasty-train'....we can try to self-correct.
You can begin by smiling at people at your job. You can say good-morning to perfect strangers. Why do they call them perfect......when we don't even know them??? Sorry, Goms went veering off there for a minute. You can look people in the eye and nod towards them in passing. It is all really a matter of civility. It doesn't cost a red cent and it could end up making you or the other person feel a little bit nicer for the rest of the day. Same goes for a compliment. It doesn't take anything away from you to tell someone they look nice or they did a good job and it just may be the nicest thing that anyone has done for that person in a long time. Don't we all like a little recognition or a pat on the back at times? Gommy does :=]
Gommy lived in a time when the people who worked at stores were supposed to be nice to the customers. It was mandatory. Maybe that seems funny.......forced or expected to be nice. What happened to wanting to be nice? And where in the heck did all that niceness go? Were we all just faking it? Well, if we were.....it worked. Just proof of what Gommy said about practicing being happy or nice and eventually you might accidentally find yourself being happy or nice. Remember....your attitude is contagious. Are you sure yours is worth catching? Maybe you should vaccinate yourself against being a grump puss.......with a smile and a shot of the niceness! Try it. It really isn't all that hard. You turn your lips upward instead of frowning and looking mean. Smile, smile, smile, practice....practice....practice. Good job boys and girls. Gommy is proud of you ((^o^))
Now, Gommy knows there are morning people and there are people who don't especially love mornings...in fact they act as if it they are IN 'mourning' until sometime in the afternoon. Gommy's advice to the latter group of people is.....STAY HOME AND AWAY FROM OTHER HUMANS UNTIL YOU CAN BE CIVIL. O.K.???? Deal??? If you don't like people...try being a veterinarian's helper, or overnight stock person, or hey....here's an idea....how about a funeral home? Not too many people there who would expect you to be perky or even to smile much.
Upon further examination of why some people are so darned unhappy, Gommy wondered how we could try to establish a sustainable happiness. It seems that once people get in the place where they are certifiable 'Grump-Buckets'...they tend to stay that way. It is probably because not many 'regular' people enjoy being around a grump-puss for very long so they just seem to wallow in the slop-pond of nastiness forever. It would be great if there was this great big Neon Sign that pointed out, "This way to happiness". But, sadly, that isn't how it works. But the good thing is that if we practice being happy.....and ACT like we are happy.....we sometimes find that we become happy by accident. You know....fake it till you make it....OOPS, that is another subject. But faking happiness can work that way too. There was a study that showed if you smile, you have a harder time thinking unhappy thoughts. Now Goms knows we can't be in blissful happiness all the time, but when we notice we are hopping on the 'nasty-train'....we can try to self-correct.
You can begin by smiling at people at your job. You can say good-morning to perfect strangers. Why do they call them perfect......when we don't even know them??? Sorry, Goms went veering off there for a minute. You can look people in the eye and nod towards them in passing. It is all really a matter of civility. It doesn't cost a red cent and it could end up making you or the other person feel a little bit nicer for the rest of the day. Same goes for a compliment. It doesn't take anything away from you to tell someone they look nice or they did a good job and it just may be the nicest thing that anyone has done for that person in a long time. Don't we all like a little recognition or a pat on the back at times? Gommy does :=]
Gommy lived in a time when the people who worked at stores were supposed to be nice to the customers. It was mandatory. Maybe that seems funny.......forced or expected to be nice. What happened to wanting to be nice? And where in the heck did all that niceness go? Were we all just faking it? Well, if we were.....it worked. Just proof of what Gommy said about practicing being happy or nice and eventually you might accidentally find yourself being happy or nice. Remember....your attitude is contagious. Are you sure yours is worth catching? Maybe you should vaccinate yourself against being a grump puss.......with a smile and a shot of the niceness! Try it. It really isn't all that hard. You turn your lips upward instead of frowning and looking mean. Smile, smile, smile, practice....practice....practice. Good job boys and girls. Gommy is proud of you ((^o^))
Sunday, July 4, 2010
How Will You Have That....Simple or Complex???
Happy Fourth of July everyone! This is always a happy holiday. Friends and family getting together to celebrate our Nations' birthday. Picnics, yard games, beach parties and then......FIREWORKS!!! Hope everyone has a marvelous day.
Now, onto a more introspective thought. Gommmy has been searching for why we think and behave certain ways and there are quite a few very wise people out there who are generous enough to help us find those reasons if we really want to get to the bottoms of why we do what we do.
It turns out that we have to ask ourselves some pretty hard questions and be brutally honest with ourselves with the answers. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who is studied by many for his theories on modern psychology and psychiatry said, "Our most important problems cannot be solved......they must be outgrown." Besides Sigmund Freud, no one has had a bigger impact on these studies than Carl Jung.
Carl Jung considered the process of individuation necessary for a person to become 'whole'. This is a psychological process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious mind, while still maintaining conscious autonomy. This process was the central concept of analytical psychology.
If you have read any of Gommy's Goodies before, you know that Goms is big on talking about the monkey-talk we all have going on in our minds every moment of every day. Those thoughts can be positive or they can be negative. Sadly, for most people, the thoughts are negative. But, if we can ask ourselves the four 'Simple' questions to the very 'Complex' monkey-talk junk that we make ourselves miserable with, we may just get off the 'crazy train' and be able to live with ourselves in peace. Isn't that a grand concept? Carl Jung said that, "the pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong."
Byron Katie, an American speaker and author, who teaches a method of self-inquiry called 'The Work', has shed light on a very important process to rid ourselves of unnecessary stress and sadness. Byron herself, was severely depressed in her early thirties and even contemplated suicide. She suffered for years until one day, she said she had an epiphany....she found that when she believed her thoughts she suffered and when she chose not to believe her monkey-talk (Gommys' words) she didn't suffer and that was the beginning of finding joy in her life and the end of suffering as she had known it. Byron Katie has come up with four basic questions we can ask ourselves to use as a paradigm (a pattern or a model) to turn around the self loathing we have, the insecure us, the sad us.......etc. Ready? Question #1) is the thought you are thinking true? #2) can you be absolutely SURE that it is true? #3) how do you react and feel when you think the thought? #4) who would you be without the thought?
As an example, let's say the thought is that you need approval to live your life a certain way.......referring to the first question, is it true? At first, you may or may not say yes.....then go on to the next question.....Can you be absolutely SURE that it is true? Gotcha' there....because there are no ABSOLUTES in the world, so no one can be absolutely sure it is true. Next question....how do you react when you think that thought? You probably feel insecure, stressed, not at peace, you might feel someone or a group of someones won't like you if you aren't like xyz, you become self-conscious of your actions, you may act out to gain attention, or worst of all.....you change who you really are and you try to be more like xyz so you can fit in....and when you do that, you aren't you any longer, so you don't like you and then it really gets confusing because if the 'people' don't like you......they aren't really even seeing the real you because you have covered up the real you with this facade (imitation)of who you are trying to be.
WHEW!!! That seems like an awful lot of work to do to hide your authentic self. Why not try just being you? It is a whole lot more simple and when you ask yourself the last question....who would you be without the thought?....the answer would be LESS STRESSED AND MORE AT PEACE. Wow...you didn't even have to go through all that stuff and stress to begin with. You could have just been you to begin with before the monkey-talk started. Byron Katie also says that when you argue with reality.....you lose. But only 100% of the time.
Gommy wonders why so many people try to keep all the 'facade balls' up in the air all the time anyway. If you question someone about why they don't do the steps to change so they can feel better about themselves, they always come up with excuses. Wayne Dyer wrote a book called "Excuses Be Gone". His premise is that we have these excuses that won't allow us to do the steps it takes to examine why we do what we do that isn't making us 'happy campers'. Suffering is always caused by a deeply embedded belief about ourselves or or our situation, that we aren't comfortable about living with. Or a state of blind attachment to something you think is true and for some reason, you are not willing to give up at this time. He says there is the 'I don't have the time to do the work' excuse - there is the 'it's going to be too hard to change' excuse - or the 'I'm afraid of what I may find out about myself' excuse - or the 'I'm not smart enough to figure it out' excuse......etc. , etc., etc. Or, to put it another way, YADA,YADA,YADA!!! BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!!!!
If we try to live our lives for other peoples' approval, or we aren't happy with what we have and are trying to always reach for something else, we can never find happiness. Happiness is wanting what you have....not having what you want. And it's not striving for something other than your reality to find happiness. Wayne Dyer tells a parable about a very poor woman who lived in a shack by the side of a river. She had none of the things most people think they need to be happy. She had a sack with some bread in it and she was sitting by the water one day and saw a beautiful precious stone reflecting back at her in the water. She picked up the precious stone and being as poor as she was, she realized this stone would allow her to have abundance and prosperity for the rest of her life. She put the precious stone in her bread sack and just then an itinerant man who was poor as well, came up to her and said he was very hungry and could she give him something to eat. She said of course and reached into her sack and brought out a piece of bread. As she did this, the traveler noticed the precious stone and said to the woman, "I would like to have that stone. May I have it?" She said, "Of course." and she handed it to the man. The man knew instantly that this would bring him much money and was the very success he had been looking for all of his life and he walked on with his journey. The next day, the man came back to the woman and handed her back the precious stone and said, "I'm giving you back this stone.....but I want something more valuable than this from you." The woman looked at him in amazement and said, "But, whatever could that be?" She knew she had nothing else that was as valuable as that precious stone. The man answered, "I want what you have inside of you that allowed you to give me that precious stone."
We already have what is most important in our 'Life'......right inside of us. It may take a little work to get at it.....but it is really worth the effort boys and girls. Gommy's wish for you all is that you may find your peace with yourself and your 'Life'. We are Blessed with so much....but we take so much for granted....we struggle with things we don't need to struggle with.... If we could only realize that our only purpose in being here in this wonderful life is to be blissful. That is really all that God wants for us. Just as we want that for our children and loved ones. That is why He gave us so much beauty to enjoy, great foods to eat, love to find, and on and on and on if we just look up once in a while and appreciate and be grateful. Let's give it to Him..... what do you say? Have a wonderful life folks. You can do it. Gommy is pulling for you. You'll have to excuse Goms now.....I have some beach to enjoy and some fireworks to ohhh and 'awe' over later on.......Toodle- ooh and Hugs & Mush !
Now, onto a more introspective thought. Gommmy has been searching for why we think and behave certain ways and there are quite a few very wise people out there who are generous enough to help us find those reasons if we really want to get to the bottoms of why we do what we do.
It turns out that we have to ask ourselves some pretty hard questions and be brutally honest with ourselves with the answers. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who is studied by many for his theories on modern psychology and psychiatry said, "Our most important problems cannot be solved......they must be outgrown." Besides Sigmund Freud, no one has had a bigger impact on these studies than Carl Jung.
Carl Jung considered the process of individuation necessary for a person to become 'whole'. This is a psychological process of integrating the conscious with the unconscious mind, while still maintaining conscious autonomy. This process was the central concept of analytical psychology.
If you have read any of Gommy's Goodies before, you know that Goms is big on talking about the monkey-talk we all have going on in our minds every moment of every day. Those thoughts can be positive or they can be negative. Sadly, for most people, the thoughts are negative. But, if we can ask ourselves the four 'Simple' questions to the very 'Complex' monkey-talk junk that we make ourselves miserable with, we may just get off the 'crazy train' and be able to live with ourselves in peace. Isn't that a grand concept? Carl Jung said that, "the pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong."
Byron Katie, an American speaker and author, who teaches a method of self-inquiry called 'The Work', has shed light on a very important process to rid ourselves of unnecessary stress and sadness. Byron herself, was severely depressed in her early thirties and even contemplated suicide. She suffered for years until one day, she said she had an epiphany....she found that when she believed her thoughts she suffered and when she chose not to believe her monkey-talk (Gommys' words) she didn't suffer and that was the beginning of finding joy in her life and the end of suffering as she had known it. Byron Katie has come up with four basic questions we can ask ourselves to use as a paradigm (a pattern or a model) to turn around the self loathing we have, the insecure us, the sad us.......etc. Ready? Question #1) is the thought you are thinking true? #2) can you be absolutely SURE that it is true? #3) how do you react and feel when you think the thought? #4) who would you be without the thought?
As an example, let's say the thought is that you need approval to live your life a certain way.......referring to the first question, is it true? At first, you may or may not say yes.....then go on to the next question.....Can you be absolutely SURE that it is true? Gotcha' there....because there are no ABSOLUTES in the world, so no one can be absolutely sure it is true. Next question....how do you react when you think that thought? You probably feel insecure, stressed, not at peace, you might feel someone or a group of someones won't like you if you aren't like xyz, you become self-conscious of your actions, you may act out to gain attention, or worst of all.....you change who you really are and you try to be more like xyz so you can fit in....and when you do that, you aren't you any longer, so you don't like you and then it really gets confusing because if the 'people' don't like you......they aren't really even seeing the real you because you have covered up the real you with this facade (imitation)of who you are trying to be.
WHEW!!! That seems like an awful lot of work to do to hide your authentic self. Why not try just being you? It is a whole lot more simple and when you ask yourself the last question....who would you be without the thought?....the answer would be LESS STRESSED AND MORE AT PEACE. Wow...you didn't even have to go through all that stuff and stress to begin with. You could have just been you to begin with before the monkey-talk started. Byron Katie also says that when you argue with reality.....you lose. But only 100% of the time.
Gommy wonders why so many people try to keep all the 'facade balls' up in the air all the time anyway. If you question someone about why they don't do the steps to change so they can feel better about themselves, they always come up with excuses. Wayne Dyer wrote a book called "Excuses Be Gone". His premise is that we have these excuses that won't allow us to do the steps it takes to examine why we do what we do that isn't making us 'happy campers'. Suffering is always caused by a deeply embedded belief about ourselves or or our situation, that we aren't comfortable about living with. Or a state of blind attachment to something you think is true and for some reason, you are not willing to give up at this time. He says there is the 'I don't have the time to do the work' excuse - there is the 'it's going to be too hard to change' excuse - or the 'I'm afraid of what I may find out about myself' excuse - or the 'I'm not smart enough to figure it out' excuse......etc. , etc., etc. Or, to put it another way, YADA,YADA,YADA!!! BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!!!!
If we try to live our lives for other peoples' approval, or we aren't happy with what we have and are trying to always reach for something else, we can never find happiness. Happiness is wanting what you have....not having what you want. And it's not striving for something other than your reality to find happiness. Wayne Dyer tells a parable about a very poor woman who lived in a shack by the side of a river. She had none of the things most people think they need to be happy. She had a sack with some bread in it and she was sitting by the water one day and saw a beautiful precious stone reflecting back at her in the water. She picked up the precious stone and being as poor as she was, she realized this stone would allow her to have abundance and prosperity for the rest of her life. She put the precious stone in her bread sack and just then an itinerant man who was poor as well, came up to her and said he was very hungry and could she give him something to eat. She said of course and reached into her sack and brought out a piece of bread. As she did this, the traveler noticed the precious stone and said to the woman, "I would like to have that stone. May I have it?" She said, "Of course." and she handed it to the man. The man knew instantly that this would bring him much money and was the very success he had been looking for all of his life and he walked on with his journey. The next day, the man came back to the woman and handed her back the precious stone and said, "I'm giving you back this stone.....but I want something more valuable than this from you." The woman looked at him in amazement and said, "But, whatever could that be?" She knew she had nothing else that was as valuable as that precious stone. The man answered, "I want what you have inside of you that allowed you to give me that precious stone."
We already have what is most important in our 'Life'......right inside of us. It may take a little work to get at it.....but it is really worth the effort boys and girls. Gommy's wish for you all is that you may find your peace with yourself and your 'Life'. We are Blessed with so much....but we take so much for granted....we struggle with things we don't need to struggle with.... If we could only realize that our only purpose in being here in this wonderful life is to be blissful. That is really all that God wants for us. Just as we want that for our children and loved ones. That is why He gave us so much beauty to enjoy, great foods to eat, love to find, and on and on and on if we just look up once in a while and appreciate and be grateful. Let's give it to Him..... what do you say? Have a wonderful life folks. You can do it. Gommy is pulling for you. You'll have to excuse Goms now.....I have some beach to enjoy and some fireworks to ohhh and 'awe' over later on.......Toodle- ooh and Hugs & Mush !
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
EGO -SCHMEGO !
Hello boys and girls! Gommy was wondering why there are some people who just think they are 'all that and a bag of chips' and then there are others who think they aren't worth doodley squat and then there seems to be others who are just content to roll along day after day and are quite content to do so.
Goms thinks it boils down to our Ego. Ego is nothing more than the thoughts we keep telling ourselves over and over and in time we believe them. Ego is what defines who we 'say' we are in our thoughts. When we identify with the stories about 'us' that we have told ourselves so many times that we believe them, the end-product is 'me' (or you, as it were). If you have been telling yourself that you are ugly, fat, lazy, a loner....(or have had it told to you while you were still a child by some idiot), then you come to believe that is who you are. If, on the other hand, you were told that you were bright, pretty, diligent, industrious, etc. you would have that 'belief' of yourself and your ego.
Remember, a 'belief' is something you have been told or told yourself repeatedly until you finally do believe it. Another thing to remember is that we tend not to see how things are but how WE are by our thought processes that have been rehearsed in our minds. Another way to picture it is the monkey-talk we talk in our heads all the time. It has been studied and found that 90% of what most people monkey-talk to themselves is negative dribble...."I know I'm going to be late.....or....they're never going to give me a raise....or.....he's not going to ask me out.....or....she looks so much thinner than I do." And on and sadly on......!
Our egos like to keep our past alive and well in our 'now' presence, because without something to hash over and rehash over.....the ego gets pretty bored. The past is really nothing but a story. A story that has been shaped by our own filters, thought patterns and beliefs. Actually, you could say it is our thoughts 'conditioned' by the way we told our story to ourselves. But if you don't like your past (the story)....don't dwell on it and give it life every day, or give up or give in......just turn the page. The ego is always looking in the wrong places though to stay interested in our current lives. It is more interesting to the ego to find something to be negative about.
This is evident in some people who NEVER seem to be able to be made happy......It is because their ego is always looking for an 'a-huh moment'.......or an 'I gotcha' situation', because they have an unhappy ego from years of telling themselves stories full of negative junk, i.e. "Nothing good ever happens to me...... I'm always so unlucky....or nobody ever likes me.....or happiness is for everyone else." These negative people could be on vacation and check into a very nice motel or hotel and they just aren't going to be happy until they find that ONE thing that isn't absolutely perfect. You can actually see them scouring the place for one thing, person or circumstance to be a grump-bucket about. They are like, "I am so upset.... it/they shoulda, woulda, coulda done xyz...or look at that comforter...it's on crooked, or I'm going to tell the management that it took five whole minutes for the bell boy to come for our luggage." Geesh....if that is all that is wrong in their little part of the world....they don't know how really Blessed they are. But it is their ego that is nudging them on to be unpleasant. They love the DRAMA! It makes them the center of the Universe....or so they think. If they only could see themselves through everyone else's raised eyebrow eyes.
If we could all just appreciate things and people a little more and not nit pick as much, we would be a whole lot happier in this wonderful journey we are on. One meaning of the word appreciation is: increase the value of. That applies to the other meaning of appreciation which is feeling gratitude. If we really do feel gratitude.....we increase the value of our time here. To feel more appreciative, we need to stop looking back and not wishing for a better tomorrow. What we do have and all that we are guaranteed to ever have is NOW. Be present and focus on your 'NOW'. Take the time to notice all we have to be grateful for and notice the beauty of life, the flowers, the oceans and lakes and our family and on and on.
When we have a mental picture of who we are and someone questions that mental picture....we can come unglued. Say you picture yourself as a "Good Christian' and someone says that you weren't acting like a good Christian that day you did xyz. All of a sudden, you become defensive and maybe the 'SO-SO Christian' in you comes out. They didn't comply with the way you and your ego pictured yourself and them are fightin' words, aren't they? Or say you see yourself as the 'perfect' mother and someone questions the way you disciplined your child or let them stay up longer at night than the other person thinks is appropriate or some other questionable scenario.....you might just 'fly off the handle' and let them have a piece of your mind. Now, in reality, we all question (only to ourselves - for crying out loud) if we really are that picture of the choir member Christian or that perfect mother and when someone says something that brings it out in the open and to the surface, we become uncomfortable and want to defend our image.
Maybe we aren't all that perfect....maybe we do let our halo slip once in a while....but if we want to know if we are on the 'right track' and aren't veering too far off the 'reality train', we should notice how we are feeling and just how much of a reaction we may be having when someone questions our motives, actions or the way we picture our self in whatever 'role' it is. The farther your 'authentic self' is from the role you are playing...the more of an emotional toll it will have on you and the bigger the reaction you will have when your behavior or your choices are questioned. The closer you are living to your authentic self, the less it will bother you what any one's opinion of you is. No one wants to be revealed as being a fake. But the truth of the matter is, we all play roles in our lives. We are moms, dads, sisters, brothers, friends, teachers, bankers, doctors, etc. Each role acts and interacts differently with the other. We all know that we can let our guard down when we are among friends and family. But let the preacher or teacher come to our homes and ..........YIKES.....we are all righty-tidy and prim and proper. Or if we want a loan from our banker or we are applying for a job.....you can bet your sweet bippy that 'F-Bomb' will never slip out of your mouth during the interview. These are roles we play.......
How you are feeling in your life and with the roles you are playing, is a barometer to how authentic you are to your true self. If we are constantly struggling to 'BE' a certain way or to feel we are trying to live up to someone else's wants on how we are living.....we will be 'UN-happy campers'. Allowing someone else to live YOUR life is a pretty big sacrifice. We should be slightly selfish in life.....and by that Goms means that if we aren't happy.....we can hardly be expected to make anyone else happy. Back in Tennessee, there was a saying that is pretty prevalent in the Deep South...."If Mama ain't happy....ain't nobody happy!" But that is really the case no matter what part of the world we live in.
Sooooo, long story LONG......be happy. Be the real you. Make yourself happy and it will be a whole lot easier to make someone or anyone else happy. Don't believe all the negative junk you have told yourself all these years. Leave that sad, sad story of your past exactly where it belongs....in the PAST. If you had a great childhood, you were told you were a Gold-Star human being and you feel as if you are 'going with the flow' of life....go with that. But remember if you get too far from your authentic 'YOU'.....and you become upset when someone criticizes you or your choices....ask yourself if you are being the real you or the 'masked you'. You'll know. We always do.....some of us just don't want to admit it.....Happy days to all of you boys and girls. Remember what Gommy always says.....'Happiness....it IS a choice". Hugs and Mush, Gommy
Goms thinks it boils down to our Ego. Ego is nothing more than the thoughts we keep telling ourselves over and over and in time we believe them. Ego is what defines who we 'say' we are in our thoughts. When we identify with the stories about 'us' that we have told ourselves so many times that we believe them, the end-product is 'me' (or you, as it were). If you have been telling yourself that you are ugly, fat, lazy, a loner....(or have had it told to you while you were still a child by some idiot), then you come to believe that is who you are. If, on the other hand, you were told that you were bright, pretty, diligent, industrious, etc. you would have that 'belief' of yourself and your ego.
Remember, a 'belief' is something you have been told or told yourself repeatedly until you finally do believe it. Another thing to remember is that we tend not to see how things are but how WE are by our thought processes that have been rehearsed in our minds. Another way to picture it is the monkey-talk we talk in our heads all the time. It has been studied and found that 90% of what most people monkey-talk to themselves is negative dribble...."I know I'm going to be late.....or....they're never going to give me a raise....or.....he's not going to ask me out.....or....she looks so much thinner than I do." And on and sadly on......!
Our egos like to keep our past alive and well in our 'now' presence, because without something to hash over and rehash over.....the ego gets pretty bored. The past is really nothing but a story. A story that has been shaped by our own filters, thought patterns and beliefs. Actually, you could say it is our thoughts 'conditioned' by the way we told our story to ourselves. But if you don't like your past (the story)....don't dwell on it and give it life every day, or give up or give in......just turn the page. The ego is always looking in the wrong places though to stay interested in our current lives. It is more interesting to the ego to find something to be negative about.
This is evident in some people who NEVER seem to be able to be made happy......It is because their ego is always looking for an 'a-huh moment'.......or an 'I gotcha' situation', because they have an unhappy ego from years of telling themselves stories full of negative junk, i.e. "Nothing good ever happens to me...... I'm always so unlucky....or nobody ever likes me.....or happiness is for everyone else." These negative people could be on vacation and check into a very nice motel or hotel and they just aren't going to be happy until they find that ONE thing that isn't absolutely perfect. You can actually see them scouring the place for one thing, person or circumstance to be a grump-bucket about. They are like, "I am so upset.... it/they shoulda, woulda, coulda done xyz...or look at that comforter...it's on crooked, or I'm going to tell the management that it took five whole minutes for the bell boy to come for our luggage." Geesh....if that is all that is wrong in their little part of the world....they don't know how really Blessed they are. But it is their ego that is nudging them on to be unpleasant. They love the DRAMA! It makes them the center of the Universe....or so they think. If they only could see themselves through everyone else's raised eyebrow eyes.
If we could all just appreciate things and people a little more and not nit pick as much, we would be a whole lot happier in this wonderful journey we are on. One meaning of the word appreciation is: increase the value of. That applies to the other meaning of appreciation which is feeling gratitude. If we really do feel gratitude.....we increase the value of our time here. To feel more appreciative, we need to stop looking back and not wishing for a better tomorrow. What we do have and all that we are guaranteed to ever have is NOW. Be present and focus on your 'NOW'. Take the time to notice all we have to be grateful for and notice the beauty of life, the flowers, the oceans and lakes and our family and on and on.
When we have a mental picture of who we are and someone questions that mental picture....we can come unglued. Say you picture yourself as a "Good Christian' and someone says that you weren't acting like a good Christian that day you did xyz. All of a sudden, you become defensive and maybe the 'SO-SO Christian' in you comes out. They didn't comply with the way you and your ego pictured yourself and them are fightin' words, aren't they? Or say you see yourself as the 'perfect' mother and someone questions the way you disciplined your child or let them stay up longer at night than the other person thinks is appropriate or some other questionable scenario.....you might just 'fly off the handle' and let them have a piece of your mind. Now, in reality, we all question (only to ourselves - for crying out loud) if we really are that picture of the choir member Christian or that perfect mother and when someone says something that brings it out in the open and to the surface, we become uncomfortable and want to defend our image.
Maybe we aren't all that perfect....maybe we do let our halo slip once in a while....but if we want to know if we are on the 'right track' and aren't veering too far off the 'reality train', we should notice how we are feeling and just how much of a reaction we may be having when someone questions our motives, actions or the way we picture our self in whatever 'role' it is. The farther your 'authentic self' is from the role you are playing...the more of an emotional toll it will have on you and the bigger the reaction you will have when your behavior or your choices are questioned. The closer you are living to your authentic self, the less it will bother you what any one's opinion of you is. No one wants to be revealed as being a fake. But the truth of the matter is, we all play roles in our lives. We are moms, dads, sisters, brothers, friends, teachers, bankers, doctors, etc. Each role acts and interacts differently with the other. We all know that we can let our guard down when we are among friends and family. But let the preacher or teacher come to our homes and ..........YIKES.....we are all righty-tidy and prim and proper. Or if we want a loan from our banker or we are applying for a job.....you can bet your sweet bippy that 'F-Bomb' will never slip out of your mouth during the interview. These are roles we play.......
How you are feeling in your life and with the roles you are playing, is a barometer to how authentic you are to your true self. If we are constantly struggling to 'BE' a certain way or to feel we are trying to live up to someone else's wants on how we are living.....we will be 'UN-happy campers'. Allowing someone else to live YOUR life is a pretty big sacrifice. We should be slightly selfish in life.....and by that Goms means that if we aren't happy.....we can hardly be expected to make anyone else happy. Back in Tennessee, there was a saying that is pretty prevalent in the Deep South...."If Mama ain't happy....ain't nobody happy!" But that is really the case no matter what part of the world we live in.
Sooooo, long story LONG......be happy. Be the real you. Make yourself happy and it will be a whole lot easier to make someone or anyone else happy. Don't believe all the negative junk you have told yourself all these years. Leave that sad, sad story of your past exactly where it belongs....in the PAST. If you had a great childhood, you were told you were a Gold-Star human being and you feel as if you are 'going with the flow' of life....go with that. But remember if you get too far from your authentic 'YOU'.....and you become upset when someone criticizes you or your choices....ask yourself if you are being the real you or the 'masked you'. You'll know. We always do.....some of us just don't want to admit it.....Happy days to all of you boys and girls. Remember what Gommy always says.....'Happiness....it IS a choice". Hugs and Mush, Gommy
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Why Do People Hate?
Hello boys and girls. Gommy's blog today is asking about why people hate other people just because of their skin color, religion, their culture or their beliefs. There were two instances this week where Gommy was very uncomfortable in situations where the people I was with seemed like your every day normal person and everything was going along just hunky-dory and then BAM....the color of someones skin crept into the conversation in a manner that made Goms squirm inside.
The first person Gommy ran into this week that made for an uncomfortable feeling said something unflattering about President Obama, and then tried to cover it up that they weren't referring to his skin color....DUH...but Gommy got the ugly, unspoken intent behind it. Then just today, someone said something about some African Americans who were playing golf and asked if they were going to have fried chicken and watermelon at the luncheon afterwards. How small minded do you have to be to think that a whole class of people only like a certain food? That is like saying, at a while persons' buffet..."Are they going to have mashed potatoes and gravy?" ha,ha,ha...We whiteys must all only eat mashed potatoes and gravy, right? And even if that was the case....why is that supposed to be so funny? Gommy doesn't get it.
I have heard people say that they don't like African Americans because they are lazy. Geesh, I've never met a lazy white person, have you? And someone else has said that they don't like a certain group of people because they steal.....same analogy applies here. I guess they don't know that there are several white prisoners in our penitentiaries.
What it really boils down to is that bigotry is a learned emotion. Just as child abusers are often 'victims of victims' the same holds true for racism..... people who hate someone just because of their skin color are normally 'haters from haters'.
The other thing that really gets Gommy is that I can't tell you how many Christians Goms knows who say that disgusting "N" word.....Don't they know that true Christians are supposed to teach and live in love? And not just with people of their same color. How ironic is that? Doesn't the Bible supposedly say..."God so loved the world......." I don't think it said, "God so loved only the white people."
I bet you are wondering how Gommy reacted when these people were so nasty-talking about other fellow human beings? Without going into a lecture or preaching, where it would probably just make the other people get defensive......Gommy didn't answer them at ALL. The silence spoke volumes and was quite deafening, because they had to sit there with those ugly words that just came out of their mouths and become uncomfortable themselves with the knowledge that Gommy didn't agree with them and was just letting them sit in it and stew. Sometimes we have to gag on what we want to say because we are in situations that could make matters worse, i.e. it could be our boss, our customer, our extended family who say unkind things about a group of people. In those instances, the very best answer is no answer at all and to just sit there and look them squarely in the eye and let the foulness just linger and hopefully they will feel like the ones squirming, which is how they should feel.
So, the next time you feel you just have to say something nasty about someone to someone else....put a filter on it and think that not everyone else in the world thinks the way you do. And the very next question you should ask yourself, is why do you have such a terrible feeling about a whole group of people. If you go back far enough, you may just find that you 'inherited' that feeling. Some things just aren't worth that kind of inheritance. Many people deny being called a racist but don't mind acting like one. Try to be better than that. There are all types of people in every group of nationalities, ethnicity's, religions or cultures. Wake up peeps. You don't have to repeat history if it was BAD history. Remember that God loves you.....and He loves EVERYBODY ELSE TOO! Hugs & Mush, Gommy
The first person Gommy ran into this week that made for an uncomfortable feeling said something unflattering about President Obama, and then tried to cover it up that they weren't referring to his skin color....DUH...but Gommy got the ugly, unspoken intent behind it. Then just today, someone said something about some African Americans who were playing golf and asked if they were going to have fried chicken and watermelon at the luncheon afterwards. How small minded do you have to be to think that a whole class of people only like a certain food? That is like saying, at a while persons' buffet..."Are they going to have mashed potatoes and gravy?" ha,ha,ha...We whiteys must all only eat mashed potatoes and gravy, right? And even if that was the case....why is that supposed to be so funny? Gommy doesn't get it.
I have heard people say that they don't like African Americans because they are lazy. Geesh, I've never met a lazy white person, have you? And someone else has said that they don't like a certain group of people because they steal.....same analogy applies here. I guess they don't know that there are several white prisoners in our penitentiaries.
What it really boils down to is that bigotry is a learned emotion. Just as child abusers are often 'victims of victims' the same holds true for racism..... people who hate someone just because of their skin color are normally 'haters from haters'.
The other thing that really gets Gommy is that I can't tell you how many Christians Goms knows who say that disgusting "N" word.....Don't they know that true Christians are supposed to teach and live in love? And not just with people of their same color. How ironic is that? Doesn't the Bible supposedly say..."God so loved the world......." I don't think it said, "God so loved only the white people."
I bet you are wondering how Gommy reacted when these people were so nasty-talking about other fellow human beings? Without going into a lecture or preaching, where it would probably just make the other people get defensive......Gommy didn't answer them at ALL. The silence spoke volumes and was quite deafening, because they had to sit there with those ugly words that just came out of their mouths and become uncomfortable themselves with the knowledge that Gommy didn't agree with them and was just letting them sit in it and stew. Sometimes we have to gag on what we want to say because we are in situations that could make matters worse, i.e. it could be our boss, our customer, our extended family who say unkind things about a group of people. In those instances, the very best answer is no answer at all and to just sit there and look them squarely in the eye and let the foulness just linger and hopefully they will feel like the ones squirming, which is how they should feel.
So, the next time you feel you just have to say something nasty about someone to someone else....put a filter on it and think that not everyone else in the world thinks the way you do. And the very next question you should ask yourself, is why do you have such a terrible feeling about a whole group of people. If you go back far enough, you may just find that you 'inherited' that feeling. Some things just aren't worth that kind of inheritance. Many people deny being called a racist but don't mind acting like one. Try to be better than that. There are all types of people in every group of nationalities, ethnicity's, religions or cultures. Wake up peeps. You don't have to repeat history if it was BAD history. Remember that God loves you.....and He loves EVERYBODY ELSE TOO! Hugs & Mush, Gommy
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Because.....It's the Law!
Gommy was in a doctor's office this morning and a man was checking out in front of me. He was the sort of person who takes up more space than needed. NO, he wasn't fat....he just wanted to be noticed, he wanted to be more important than he felt he was to everyone else so he just took up more space than need be. His demeanor seemed to bother me so much that it appeared I may have to just look into the whys of it....
There are many things Goms has learned about myself and just 'stuff' in general since exploring this Spirituality thingy.....and one of the things that I discovered is that we all have these numerous lessons to learn about ourselves. One thing is that the more someone or something bothers us, the more we should question why they/it bothers us and if we go even further.... we could ask if the reason is that person's trait is mirroring a trait of our own that we possess and that we dislike about ourselves or maybe we have tried to disown.
There are Universal Laws (or Natural Law) that govern the process of how the Universe operates. The main thing to remember though is that the Greatest Law is that God is the Energy and that He is the Sheriff of all the Laws. That is how Goms chooses to picture it anyway! There are seven Universal Laws and there are also twelve Spiritual Laws ( and 21 Sub Laws which control human characteristics) that explain the orderly method of an omnipotent God. The Universal Laws consisit of seven Laws: 1) The Law of Perptual Transmutation 2) The Law of Relativity 3) The Law of Vibration (Law of Attraction) 4) The Law of Polarity 5) The Law of Rhythm 6) The Law of Cause and Effect and 7) The Law of Gender. The twelve Spiritual Laws contain the seven Universal Laws with five more Laws added, they are: 1) The Law of Divine Oneness 2) The Law of Vibration 3) The Law of Action 4) The Law of Correspondence 5) The Law of Cause and Effect 6) The Law Of Compensation 7) The Law of Attraction 8) The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy 9) The Law of Relativity 10) The Law of Polarity 11) The Law of Rhythm and 12) The Law of Gender. Now you don't have to believe Gommy that these Laws rule what goes on in the Universe, but your very circumstances and the life you are living are fact because the Laws are always working whether you believe them or not. You can change your circumstances if you just learn how and why the Laws work and apply them to your life.
Now, you are probably wondering why Goms went off on that tangent...The reason is that Goms was wondering if the character trait the man displayed in the doctors' office was a trait that I have myself. I hope it isn't....but the Laws say that it is..... but which Law is it? Goms thinks it may be the Law of Attraction: That which is alike....attracts to itself. But we do have free will and if we choose to change our lives, we can search for the 'tools' (Laws) that will help us change things.
Like, if Gommy really doesn't want to be the sort of person who is obnoxious (like the man in the doctor's office), then a little effort will have to be put into 'disowning' that trait. But the tricky part here is to not go overboard because another Law will kick into effect to balance things out. If you are sending negative energy out to someone, it increases negative or disempowering energy in both of you. The harder you attack, judge, criticise, argue, pressure, blame.......the harder the other energy will fight back. What you resist...persists! Get it? You know.....Karma, Reap and Sow....the stuff Goms is always talking about!
For example: Goms knows you have experienced someone who is really mad and someone else just gets in their space and the negative energy escalates and sometimes a fight ensues....or take the opposite energy......you may have had a fight with someone and you can see it isn't going in the right direction or you see the person is getting close to erupting, so you just back down and say..."You're right." But not in a sarcastic way. You can immediately see the othe person calming down. And you can see there is no resistance anymore....there is no reason to escalate the situation any longer. Poof....it's over.
So the remedy for dealing with unpleasant people or situations then would be to what.... be positive? That is soooo darn hard isn't it? But it makes sense. You have to step back and observe why you are having such a hard time with the concept, argument or person. The more positive energy you put out to another person and/or situation, the more you are balancing the positive energy in both sides and it enables the Laws to balance the energy. Sometimes it is hard to change the way you feel about something and you dig in with both feet, but that rarely works if you really want a compromise. If you really do want harmony and peace, you sometimes have to reassess your stance. Like Wayne Dyer says...."When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
What this boils down to is that Goms has to be observant that I am not becoming obnoxious and taking up too much room or insisting on having too much attention paid to me when I am observing that in someone else. And the way I must do that is to not judge other people, criticise them or not feel those negative emotions when I come in contact with those sorts of people and maybe some of my positive energy will rub off on them instead of having their negative, obnoxious, yucky energy stick on me. Ewwwwww.
So....lesson for today boys and girls....look up the full definitions of the Laws and see how they really do affect everyone and everything around us. If we can just step back far enough and try to apply the Laws to our lives to work in our favor, we may be able to change the 'yuckies' in our lives and not get any cooties on us from those who haven't been willing to look into it yet.....We can do it, Goms is pulling for us.....Uhhhh...you'll have to excuse Goms now, I have some soul searching to do....Hugs and Mush....Goms ((^.^))
There are many things Goms has learned about myself and just 'stuff' in general since exploring this Spirituality thingy.....and one of the things that I discovered is that we all have these numerous lessons to learn about ourselves. One thing is that the more someone or something bothers us, the more we should question why they/it bothers us and if we go even further.... we could ask if the reason is that person's trait is mirroring a trait of our own that we possess and that we dislike about ourselves or maybe we have tried to disown.
There are Universal Laws (or Natural Law) that govern the process of how the Universe operates. The main thing to remember though is that the Greatest Law is that God is the Energy and that He is the Sheriff of all the Laws. That is how Goms chooses to picture it anyway! There are seven Universal Laws and there are also twelve Spiritual Laws ( and 21 Sub Laws which control human characteristics) that explain the orderly method of an omnipotent God. The Universal Laws consisit of seven Laws: 1) The Law of Perptual Transmutation 2) The Law of Relativity 3) The Law of Vibration (Law of Attraction) 4) The Law of Polarity 5) The Law of Rhythm 6) The Law of Cause and Effect and 7) The Law of Gender. The twelve Spiritual Laws contain the seven Universal Laws with five more Laws added, they are: 1) The Law of Divine Oneness 2) The Law of Vibration 3) The Law of Action 4) The Law of Correspondence 5) The Law of Cause and Effect 6) The Law Of Compensation 7) The Law of Attraction 8) The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy 9) The Law of Relativity 10) The Law of Polarity 11) The Law of Rhythm and 12) The Law of Gender. Now you don't have to believe Gommy that these Laws rule what goes on in the Universe, but your very circumstances and the life you are living are fact because the Laws are always working whether you believe them or not. You can change your circumstances if you just learn how and why the Laws work and apply them to your life.
Now, you are probably wondering why Goms went off on that tangent...The reason is that Goms was wondering if the character trait the man displayed in the doctors' office was a trait that I have myself. I hope it isn't....but the Laws say that it is..... but which Law is it? Goms thinks it may be the Law of Attraction: That which is alike....attracts to itself. But we do have free will and if we choose to change our lives, we can search for the 'tools' (Laws) that will help us change things.
Like, if Gommy really doesn't want to be the sort of person who is obnoxious (like the man in the doctor's office), then a little effort will have to be put into 'disowning' that trait. But the tricky part here is to not go overboard because another Law will kick into effect to balance things out. If you are sending negative energy out to someone, it increases negative or disempowering energy in both of you. The harder you attack, judge, criticise, argue, pressure, blame.......the harder the other energy will fight back. What you resist...persists! Get it? You know.....Karma, Reap and Sow....the stuff Goms is always talking about!
For example: Goms knows you have experienced someone who is really mad and someone else just gets in their space and the negative energy escalates and sometimes a fight ensues....or take the opposite energy......you may have had a fight with someone and you can see it isn't going in the right direction or you see the person is getting close to erupting, so you just back down and say..."You're right." But not in a sarcastic way. You can immediately see the othe person calming down. And you can see there is no resistance anymore....there is no reason to escalate the situation any longer. Poof....it's over.
So the remedy for dealing with unpleasant people or situations then would be to what.... be positive? That is soooo darn hard isn't it? But it makes sense. You have to step back and observe why you are having such a hard time with the concept, argument or person. The more positive energy you put out to another person and/or situation, the more you are balancing the positive energy in both sides and it enables the Laws to balance the energy. Sometimes it is hard to change the way you feel about something and you dig in with both feet, but that rarely works if you really want a compromise. If you really do want harmony and peace, you sometimes have to reassess your stance. Like Wayne Dyer says...."When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
What this boils down to is that Goms has to be observant that I am not becoming obnoxious and taking up too much room or insisting on having too much attention paid to me when I am observing that in someone else. And the way I must do that is to not judge other people, criticise them or not feel those negative emotions when I come in contact with those sorts of people and maybe some of my positive energy will rub off on them instead of having their negative, obnoxious, yucky energy stick on me. Ewwwwww.
So....lesson for today boys and girls....look up the full definitions of the Laws and see how they really do affect everyone and everything around us. If we can just step back far enough and try to apply the Laws to our lives to work in our favor, we may be able to change the 'yuckies' in our lives and not get any cooties on us from those who haven't been willing to look into it yet.....We can do it, Goms is pulling for us.....Uhhhh...you'll have to excuse Goms now, I have some soul searching to do....Hugs and Mush....Goms ((^.^))
Monday, June 21, 2010
A GEM of a Mistake!
Who would ever think that a mistake was a GEM? Well, guess what boys and girls....the mistakes we all make really are gems....Why, you ask Gommy? Because, Gommy answers, mistakes are gifts.....opportunities to reevaluate your approach to how you have been handling situations. Mistakes are lessons that we can learn from. Lessons that we all need to learn while we are acting out this 'play' called Life.
The biggest problem most people make is their unwillingness to 'accept' that they have done anything wrong. The other problem with making mistakes is that we sometimes continually beat ourselves up over the mistakes we made. Either scenario is moot. We have to remember that WHAT IS / IS.....It ain't gonna change....You have to put your big girl/boy panties on and deal with it. Then the rest of your life can change for the better. This is also when we can do as the wise adage says..."Be the change you want to see in the world." And Gommy's favorite...."It's Never Too Late to Live Happily Ever After."
There also is a statute of limitations on how long you can blame everyone or anyone i.e. mom, dad, upbringing, being poor, living in a bad neighborhood......The past is the past.....and the people who didn't make it into your 'now' didn't make it for a reason. There is no time for the blame game...either blaming yourself or anyone else. It happened....get over it and get on with it. But whatever you do, learn from it and it will not be for naught.....(that is old talk for "nothing").
You can take the opportunity, after you have made a mistake, to notice when you seem to be going down the 'same old path'....(because we are creatures of habit and we tend to take the easy way, most of the time).....But when you find that you are self-correcting a tendency to go the wrong way, you are actually building self-esteem and character. Character is that real stuff you can't buy in life. It is earned.....but can also be the easiest to lose when you keep doing the same stupid stuff. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. The new definition is "duh"!!!!
Gommy has had sooooo many life mistakes in my life and the hardest part was digging down deep inside of myself and face what part was my own fault. Guess what part it was? ALL of it. We all have choices and when you decide on something, it is you making that choice. Be it either to be a grump-bucket, a pleasant person, a back-stabber, a nice co-worker, a good boss....any and all of those things are a choice we make as we go along. Goms admits that the reasons we make them aren't always clear to us though. Gommy didn't realize what a doofus I was until I started questioning the 'whys' of my life.
We all are a bit robotic when it comes to how we act and react to the stimuli in our lives. If we were complacent when we were little, we probably just let life happen to us.....if we were argumentative as children, we probably questioned everything that came up in our lives, if we had domineering or abusive parents or parents that didn't know how to show us that we were loved, we probably tried to make ourselves very 'small' and not take up very much room in our lives. The sad part is that it repeats itself... because it turns out to be generational. We are what we lived as we were growing up......our belief system is what we were told they were by our parents. Unless we wake up and examine why we did and what we did............. and why we may still be continuing to make the same mistakes over and over and over, they are going to keep happening.
Whatever the formative years presented to us, is how we usually act and react when we get older. But there is no law that says we can't take a look at things when we are more mature and try to figure out if - 'it' - (our way of doing things) is working for us or not any longer. If it isn't working.....get rid of it. That goes for our attitudes, our lifestyle, the people who we let into our lives....all of it. If it ain't broke...then as the saying goes, 'don't fix it'. But there is usually always something we can tweak in our lives to help us feel better. Another saying I like is...."Don't try to reinvent the wheel...just get a realignment once in a while." And we should always make sure we are acting and living the way that is comfortable for us and not to impress anyone else. If someone doesn't like you for who you are....pooh on them....(that is a technical term in psychology). Gommy has had a mantra for years that, "People only treat you the way you allow them to treat you." So if you don't like how someone is treating you......stop allowing it. And while you are at it.....look in the mirror because you may not be acting so wonderful yourself. We all pretty much get what we dish out. It is the old Karma is a Charma, Reap what you Sow, Spitting in the Wind and any other of those sayings, religious psalms and other philosophies that keep making sense because they hit the nail on the head.
Soooooo, boys and girls, think about some mistakes you have made in the past. Be totally honest and fess up to being a huge part of the hows and whys of them. Then......learn the lesson....even if it is years since it happened. It's never too late to learn. Be on the lookout for those blunders that may turn into further mistakes. But always see that mistakes can be 'building blocks instead of stumbling blocks." Good luck to all of us....we can do it.....Gommy is pulling for us. Hugs and Mush ((^.^))
The biggest problem most people make is their unwillingness to 'accept' that they have done anything wrong. The other problem with making mistakes is that we sometimes continually beat ourselves up over the mistakes we made. Either scenario is moot. We have to remember that WHAT IS / IS.....It ain't gonna change....You have to put your big girl/boy panties on and deal with it. Then the rest of your life can change for the better. This is also when we can do as the wise adage says..."Be the change you want to see in the world." And Gommy's favorite...."It's Never Too Late to Live Happily Ever After."
There also is a statute of limitations on how long you can blame everyone or anyone i.e. mom, dad, upbringing, being poor, living in a bad neighborhood......The past is the past.....and the people who didn't make it into your 'now' didn't make it for a reason. There is no time for the blame game...either blaming yourself or anyone else. It happened....get over it and get on with it. But whatever you do, learn from it and it will not be for naught.....(that is old talk for "nothing").
You can take the opportunity, after you have made a mistake, to notice when you seem to be going down the 'same old path'....(because we are creatures of habit and we tend to take the easy way, most of the time).....But when you find that you are self-correcting a tendency to go the wrong way, you are actually building self-esteem and character. Character is that real stuff you can't buy in life. It is earned.....but can also be the easiest to lose when you keep doing the same stupid stuff. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. The new definition is "duh"!!!!
Gommy has had sooooo many life mistakes in my life and the hardest part was digging down deep inside of myself and face what part was my own fault. Guess what part it was? ALL of it. We all have choices and when you decide on something, it is you making that choice. Be it either to be a grump-bucket, a pleasant person, a back-stabber, a nice co-worker, a good boss....any and all of those things are a choice we make as we go along. Goms admits that the reasons we make them aren't always clear to us though. Gommy didn't realize what a doofus I was until I started questioning the 'whys' of my life.
We all are a bit robotic when it comes to how we act and react to the stimuli in our lives. If we were complacent when we were little, we probably just let life happen to us.....if we were argumentative as children, we probably questioned everything that came up in our lives, if we had domineering or abusive parents or parents that didn't know how to show us that we were loved, we probably tried to make ourselves very 'small' and not take up very much room in our lives. The sad part is that it repeats itself... because it turns out to be generational. We are what we lived as we were growing up......our belief system is what we were told they were by our parents. Unless we wake up and examine why we did and what we did............. and why we may still be continuing to make the same mistakes over and over and over, they are going to keep happening.
Whatever the formative years presented to us, is how we usually act and react when we get older. But there is no law that says we can't take a look at things when we are more mature and try to figure out if - 'it' - (our way of doing things) is working for us or not any longer. If it isn't working.....get rid of it. That goes for our attitudes, our lifestyle, the people who we let into our lives....all of it. If it ain't broke...then as the saying goes, 'don't fix it'. But there is usually always something we can tweak in our lives to help us feel better. Another saying I like is...."Don't try to reinvent the wheel...just get a realignment once in a while." And we should always make sure we are acting and living the way that is comfortable for us and not to impress anyone else. If someone doesn't like you for who you are....pooh on them....(that is a technical term in psychology). Gommy has had a mantra for years that, "People only treat you the way you allow them to treat you." So if you don't like how someone is treating you......stop allowing it. And while you are at it.....look in the mirror because you may not be acting so wonderful yourself. We all pretty much get what we dish out. It is the old Karma is a Charma, Reap what you Sow, Spitting in the Wind and any other of those sayings, religious psalms and other philosophies that keep making sense because they hit the nail on the head.
Soooooo, boys and girls, think about some mistakes you have made in the past. Be totally honest and fess up to being a huge part of the hows and whys of them. Then......learn the lesson....even if it is years since it happened. It's never too late to learn. Be on the lookout for those blunders that may turn into further mistakes. But always see that mistakes can be 'building blocks instead of stumbling blocks." Good luck to all of us....we can do it.....Gommy is pulling for us. Hugs and Mush ((^.^))
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)