A Message from my 90-Year-Old Self to Myself Today
This is my response to @reewritesthings' post, 4 Years Later, Reading a Letter From Myself to Myself.
In any attempt to impart what we have learned to our younger selves, the bottom line is that we humans are hard-wired to judge everything around us, but we need to take care not to judge ourselves or other people, or at least to leave some slack in those judgments, because we humans deep down are contrary beasts.
I try not to judge, but I still find myself doing it all the time, so I go back to Byron Katie's questions regarding any specific judgment:
Is that true?
Can I absolutely know that to be true?
And, (since all judgments are beliefs), who would I be without that belief?
It is simply amazing how much space those simple questions allow us, and how much our perspectives can shift by simply asking them, with the willingness to really allow the answers to come of their own accord, rather than trying to force them.
As for trust, there is a quote from Woodrow Wilson that I absolutely love, but as I can't find the actual quote, I'll have to paraphrase it.
His take was that, by approaching someone (or something) from the position of trust, you are approaching from the position of strength.
But to approach the same person or thing from the position of distrust and fear, you are approaching from the position of weakness, and you are effectively giving away your strength, and keeping none for yourself. Not the best perspective to adopt.
Which explains a LOT about why our government's decisions to rule by fear keep backfiring spectacularly, and will continue to do so, because ruling by fear and lack is an inherently weak position. Always.
I was very fortunate, in that my parents from the start taught us that the way to approach others was to trust first, and if they proved unworthy of that trust, to adjust at that point.
And what I found over the years was that, if I gave someone my trust, they felt that, and far more often than not, they rose to the occasion. It was the exception when someone abused my trust and violated it, and when that happened, it was usually true that I had actually withheld my trust in them on some level.
Last year, I took a course through Mindvalley.com called "The Quest for Personal Mastery," led by Dr. Srikumar Rao, who has been leading business leaders to greater effectiveness in their lives through increased attention and mindfulness.
The course is forty-five days of simple yet profound lessons, beginning with videos that are anywhere from three to maybe fifteen or twenty minutes long, followed by a writing exercise that takes maybe another half hour or less to complete.
Each lesson builds upon the last, and as I was taking the course concurrently with reading Vishen Lakhiani's book "The Code of the Extraordinary Mind," one chapter of which is based on Dr. Srikumar Rao's teachings, I was blown away by the depth of the insights I was gaining in the course of the work.
On Day 29 of the Quest, the exercise given was one I found to be quite profound, which was to imagine what wisdom my 90-year-old self, older, wiser, and nearing the end of my life, would impart to my younger self today?
This is what I came up with:
"Exorcise anything in your life that doesn't add to your life.
If it makes you feel good: keep it.
If it makes you feel bad: get rid of it.
If it leaves you neutral: let it go, you don't really need it.
Only keep what is necessary to feed your soul."
This is particularly meaningful to me, as I inherited a great deal of "stuff" from both parents when they died, and from my sister as well; some of which I have yet to go through thoroughly, even though it has been years.
And this doesn't even take into account all the stuff I have accumulated myself.
All three were hoarders in training, and it is long past time that I should pass along those things I neither want nor need, in order to make space for that which will serve me and my goals far better. And, in passing along these things I no longer need to someone who actually wants them, how much the better?
The real bottom line, which is true no matter what issue you are facing, is to be true to yourself, and being so, everything else will work out of its own accord.
Life is wonderful. ;-)
And I would love to hear your take in the comments.
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Feeling So Grateful – Day 85 – Daily Haiku
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I hope to do this soon in the future. I am pretty sure your 90 year old self is very wise. I am striving to stop doing the things that make me sad or upset or just get rid of the negativity but somehow, life keeps challenging me to keep my cool. Maybe I need to try meditation. Sigh Thanks for the advice 90 year old Cori! <3
I know the feeling . . . unfortunately our society and culture fosters negative thinking, and on those occasions when we do manage to leave it behind, and to feel really good, we are often made to feel as though we are being unrealistic or that there is something wrong with us.
The heck with them. WE are meant to master our thoughts.
I strongly recommend Byron Kate's book, "Loving What Is," and Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now." I wish I had found them decades ago; I would be MUCH further along in attaining those goals which are most important to me.
These books are both profound and practical roadmaps to staying in the present moment, releasing negative thoughts, and realizing that they are illusion anyway, no matter how real they seem at the time.
And this is in no way belittling those thoughts, or anything that is happening in your life, but instead realizing at the deepest level that it is our judgments of events that give them power over us, and create our suffering.
When we remove our judgments, and accept that we really can't know everything anyway, it is very freeing.
And even though I've been traveling this path for decades, in many ways I am still a neophyte, just as in other ways I am already a master. As are you. You have yet to learn how very much you already know, innately, deep within, but these books can help you get there.
The books you mentioned sound amazing. I will try to look them up so I can deal with my issues easily. Maybe the books can help me in some way. <3 Thank you so much! :)
You're welcome, @reewritesthings!
I went to visit a friend last night, and she just bought "The Power of Now," so we're going to make a study of it on a weekly basis, the better to "get" the concepts on a deeper level.
I've introduced Byron Katie's "Loving What Is" to her as well, so we may do that next.
Marek has listened to both audio books, and told me that a few days ago, in keeping with Eckhart Tolle's teachings, he told his conscious mind that he was going to meditate, so it could take some time off, as it would simply be bored. And he said he had one of the best meditations in his life, without his monkey mind constantly butting in with unneeded thoughts.
Who knew it was so simple?
As for meditation, I highly recommend it, and can say without hesitation that it has helped me immeasurably in my life. It may well have saved my life, more than once.
I started meditating when I was seventeen, thanks to a class I took with my mom, and in addition to allowing me a place of calm within the proverbial storm, it has also given me the ability to gain a more realistic - and helpful - perspective than anything else I've tried. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Jose Silva, of The Silva Method, initiated a study in the 1960s, where they got a group of people to meditate on peace at specific times over the course of a month or so. Sure enough, the crime rate in their city dropped measurably over that period of time.
They did another, with the cooperation of NASA, where they got a group of people to meditate on slowing the orbit of a satellite, again at a specific time, and once again there was a measurable change.
The human mind is far more powerful than we've been led to believe, especially when we work together. ;-)
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