This week the manifestation of my overly high regard for myself that became my focus was the difficulty the difficulty I have changing how I do things. When a thought becomes my idea or my belief, it is like setting it in concrete. It's of course necessary up to a certain point because we need to be committed to certain ideas and meaningful thinking must be self-centered.
Last week, I wrote about how putting things back in their place was a very good way of combating my instinctive way of doing things and a certain sloppiness in my thinking. These maintain my self-centeredness, MY way of doing things. It is a good way to increase my receptivity to spiritual messages, for the more in balance my life is the easier it is to detect more subtle messages.
Last week my fight against self-centeredness was focused on trying to have more intimate conversations with the source of my messages. And although that continues, I want to mention another very concrete practice at the other end of the spectrum that I started at the same time and plan to keep up both for the next year.
This week the manifestation of my overly high regard for myself that became my focus was the difficulty the difficulty I have changing how I do things. When a thought becomes my idea or my belief, it is like setting it in concrete. It's of course necessary up to a certain point because we need to be committed to certain ideas and meaningful thinking must be self-centered.
Last week’s newsletter drew a response that I imagine many of you might have had, for I know many other people myself who feel just this way: “I am busy constructing my life around deeds that have significance! I get tremendous pleasure in doing things to improve on a weak point and reversing it until it becomes an asset.
In those moments when I know how unimportant I am in life, it is almost unbearable. It helps me understand why grandiosity continues despite its ridiculous exaggeration of the importance of my thoughts, feelings and actions. Being mostly retired from psychiatric practice the last few years, however, my own irrelevance becomes more and more inescapable.
We humans have an innate sense of grandiosity that helps us survive and prosper. Galileo's discovery that the earth is not the center of the universe was just the start of a period of scientific discoveries that bruised our collective ego and demonstrated how we are infinitesimally small parts of a minute ecosystem in a vast universe.
This week, my exaggerated sense of self-importance seemed clearest in yet another area as my “sticky thoughts”--the material worries and desires I can't seem to get out of my mind—continued to try to distract me from my spiritual intention.
Two weeks ago, I focused on the importance of waiting out your emotions when they have you in their grips, for they will lessen far sooner than you might expect. By waiting them out, you see for yourself that they are not as powerful as you probably thought.
