Today’s quotation:
The one person who most blocks you from a full, happy, and successful life is you. They are therefore wise and make themselves an asset. We can be our own worst enemies or best friends. We can be a source of trouble or a cure for trouble. So if you feel empty, as many do, start by getting free from yourself as the first stop to vibrant living.-Norman Vincent Peale
Today’s Meditation:
In a very real way, I would love to be free from myself. I do limit myself through my fears, my wants, and my beliefs. I keep myself sometimes in negative situations when I don’t allow myself to think past my fear or my worries, or when I feel that something may go wrong and I may get blamed for it. I sometimes act as my own worst enemy when I focus on lack and need rather than on abundance and prosperity, and sometimes I even bring other people down because of my own fears.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though. I can live a full and vibrant life if I allow myself to do so if I allow myself to be my own friend and bring cures for troubles into my own life. I don’t have to “fix” myself, but I would help myself a great deal if I were to focus on the positive things in my life, and focus on making my life full, happy and successful rather than focusing on the limitations that I’ve carried around with me for oh, so long.
Who am I to me? Am I a helpful person, giving myself plenty of opportunity to lead a full and happy life, or do I hold myself back through my own actions, keeping myself from “vibrant living”? It can be a very difficult step to recognize this tendency in ourselves, and an even more difficult step to admit it and accept it, but there is no more necessary step for most of us if we want to live happy and fulfilling lives. I want to be my own best friend in that I never want to keep myself from being happy, in any way at all. And only I can make sure that I stay out of my own way, and make myself one of the greatest assets of my own life.
Questions to consider:
Are you an asset to your own life?
Why do so many people make themselves hindrances to their own happiness and fulfillment?
Why do we cause ourselves trouble? Do we deserve it?
For further thought:
One of the most common words in the invalidating, self-blaming stories we believe about ourselves or our situations is the word “should.” The psychologist Albert Ellis has coined the phrase “Stop shoulding on yourself.” When you tell yourself that you should feel or be another way, you are likely to feel bad
about yourself. As an alternative, try telling yourself that it is okay to feel or be the way you are, even though you have some idea that you should feel or be different. -Bill O’Hanlon