Daily Positive Morning Affirmations for Personal Transformation

Dr. Romance on Winning the War Within

Do you sometimes feel locked in a struggle with yourself? I know I do. Why is it that we know what we want to do, but it's such a struggle to actually get it done? Even Saint Paul writes, in a letter to the Romans, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do." Even the most successful people wind up struggling with procrastination, overeating, overspending, drinking too much, saying things you don't mean, or getting involved with the wrong people. As I work with my clients, the issue of internal struggle comes up over and over again. #0160; What's going on? It's inner warfare: a fight with yourself.

Internal warfare produces a constant noise in one's mind, as the voices of opposing thoughts become locked in never-ending argument, which makes clear thinking almost impossible. Whenever the inner war rages, you will use poor judgment in the important decisions of your life, because a substantial part of your thinking ability is hampered. Just imagine trying to think in a room where two people are arguing about everything, most of the time!

When you can't think clearly:

* You are not able to understand the intuitive information you are receiving that could tell you who is trustworthy and who is unreliable;

* You are not able to evaluate all the options available to you and make clear decisions; and

* You cannot sort out the difference between realistic options and options that are too pessimistic or too optimistic to serve as the basis of a good decision.

In addition, the exhaustion resulting from constant turmoil causes you to "forget" or feel unable to think clearly about your circumstances and your actions, which leads you to be dependent on others to do your thinking for you.

As long as it goes on this way, the inner war is unwinnable, since all sides feel equally right, and equally powerful. Even if one side could win, you'd be operating at half power, unable to think clearly, or unable to feel feelings; which is what happens to many people. Just as in wars in the external world, both sides inevitably pay a heavy price.

When you learn how to manage your thinking and get all sides to negotiate and work together, you create a problem-solving team that is both intuitive and rational, creative and practical. Only when your internal war is settled, and both sides form a working partnership, can you use the full power of your thinking ability.

To achieve this inner teamwork, take small steps in the beginning:

* When feelings of embarrassment, unworthiness, shame, or fear arise, just slow down and give yourself a chance to relax.

* Don't push or criticize yourself, but reassure and encourage yourself past the problem.

Discussing issues with yourself, asking yourself questions, and comforting yourself are hard concepts to understand, because part of you is focused on others, not on yourself. Even once you understand how to confront your inner feelings, you may resist at first, because you feel confused, ashamed or embarrassed. Old, ingrained subconscious beliefs that your feelings are frightening, and that you're unworthy of attention are fighting with your new, rational adult knowledge that you are important to you.

Once you negotiate an internal truce, you can become a new kind of person, within whom both the intuitive, feeling part and the rational, acting part work together for the common good, without a "good guy" or "bad guy", or winner and loser, but seeking to solve problems so that both sides are satisfied. Negotiation, communication. and partnership become an integral part of your relationship with yourself, producing a sense of wholeness and power that give you the confidence to take risks and the motivation to get things done. It truly takes the self-image of a warrior, at times, to continue the hero's journey toward fully living life.

I wish you peace: within yourself, within your family, within the world.

Tina B. Tessina, Ph.D. is a licensed psychotherapist in S. California since 1978 with over 30 years experience in counselling individuals and couples and author of 13 books in 17 languages, including It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction; The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again; Money, Sex and Kids: Stop Fighting About the Three Things That Can Ruin Your Marriage, The Commuter Marriage, and her newest, Love Styles: How to Celebrate Your Differences. She writes the "Dr. Romance" blog, and the "Happiness Tips from Tina" email newsletter.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10083397

The Universal and the Particular

When you write or speak about personal growth you encounter two jostling rocks which you need to negotiate your way through. On the one hand, in your attempts to systematize or plot a course in order to give some form to the inner journey, you specify and simplify elements and sign posts. On the other hand, you must never lose sight of the individual's uniqueness. So for almost every generalization you recognize that what you propose as the rule to follow may just as easily be broken and prove to be the exception. Generalization versus uniqueness! Yet it is just this point that distinguishes authentic art and real creativity from mere daubing, hack art, and empty contrivance.

The great books, paintings, sculptures, and dramas tend to have this single point in common - they express the universal through the particular. The impersonal appears out of the personal! And this is how it should be, because in the deepest darkness of the human mystery known as the psyche an impersonal seam of truth lies awaiting the convulsions of the land of the soul and spirit, an earthquake of the power and magnitude of those that erupt and reveal mighty huge crystal caves that lay for thousands of years beneath the earth's surface.

Deep within us are the luminous, crystal caves of the soul. Reaching into them is a journey of daring. Not all receive the call to this adventure. But for those of us who are called there is an intense rightness about the path to the core of ourselves, an intense and growing realization that, without the discoveries the call yields, we remain unborn and denied the fresh vistas of life's treasures, which are so expansive, so deep, that our previous life pales in comparison.

It is as if we are waking up - and must wake up -- to some new dimension of life and, as with all calls to new life, the process begins with an invitation, a gateway, to change and transformation. This gateway is an archetype - recurring patterns in human behavior, universal symbols and motifs. But the reward demands a certain effort.

Let us draw on the myth of the heroic journey that essentially is comprised of these three elements: the call to adventure, the adventure with its trials and initiatory events, and finally the return with the gift for collective society. The journey requires willingness, receptivity, courage, resilience, faith, and surrender.

For many however, resistance or refusal to hear the call is the first challenge. For human beings are prone to delusions of safety and security. These delusions stand between them and the adventure of change and transformation. The more radical and great the adventure they are called to, the more resistance and struggle they are liable to experience. Psychologically this is known as attachment. Our first attachment is to our mother and the dynamics of the relationship and the narrative of how that evolved in our early lives comprises the familiar and "safe" holding pattern that is likely to preside over our lives.

We are shaken out of our attachment to our ordinary world. The life we have structured and scheduled around this familiarity is our comfort zone and our comfort zone can easily become the stagnant pond of our lives. We may fear the call to the unknown, hesitate at the risk involved, grow fearful of what we must give up and leave behind, feel apprehensive about what others might think of our reckless behavior, and falter at the perceived cost to ourselves and the life we have known. As we track back we can see the times in our lives when we were called to new adventure to change, to the new gateways of developing life. Perhaps a letter or an email, reading an inspiring passage in a book, or hearing a catalytic speaker who opens us up, the sight of a person we haven't met before, a challenging job offer or a promotion, the chance to move to another country... or of course starting therapy.

For those of us who persist in to the further reaches of personality work we encounter the ultimate call on the childhood egoic level that call is to finally release all.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10083934