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Have a real dilemma on my hands in terms of a selection of attitude. Most of the new age material out there points towards listening to your emotions, and following your bliss and utilising a passion frequency as fuel for living life and as a compass and map for how beliefs are in life. Beginning of the year I purchased a course entitled "Developing a Military Mindset" by a guy who teaches street based martial arts. His thesis of the material was that by becoming more mentally tough (in life), and by having a thicker skin in the face of pain and being able to internalise a belief that "pain is not necessarily bad, discomfort is not necessarily a bad thing" that people will be able to accomplish their goals and live lives they really want to live. The solution? Have a willingness and intention to face discomforts that arise in life, and battle through them. However this seems to be the opposite of what is circulated on the Abraham emotional guidance scale; where we are taught to interpret that good is good, and bad is bad. Where does "discomfort" fit here? Is it bad or good? Say I "follow my joy" and discomfort arises? What to do now? Admit something else needs to happen or push past the discomfort? Should we stop interpreting pain and discomfort as bad? |
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I went through a similar phase of questioning the apparent conflict between Stoic philosophy and the "New Age" / LOA philosophy before realising that there is no contradiction, even though there appears to be. First and foremost: We are all programmed to seek a better feeling all the time. Otherwise there is no point in living. With that out of the way, let's explore pain. If you regard discomfort and pain not as your enemy, but just something that you will deal with every now and then with a positive outlook, then a) you have adopted a mindset of acceptance, b) when the "painful" situation finally arises, you are already prepared and it hurts a lot less (if at all). In equivalent New Age parlance, because you have already accepted a potentially negative outcome and the pain around it, you have released your resistance around the outcome, and the chances are now very slim that the negative outcome would actually occur. Thinking of a negative outcome or pain and then accepting it is a very valid mental posture, and leads to good results. It functions in a manner similar to Focus Blocks, because you are effectively doing the same thing. The key is to accept the outcome and not process it too much through our wasteful undirected mind chatter, like most people normally do. Because if you do that, then you are just asking for trouble. Finally: I would personally avoid adopting a mental posture of 'battling through pain', because a battle means an enemy, and an enemy is something you detest / hate / dislike. It's much better to adopt a posture of "What's the worst that can happen?". 1
Funny you mention stoic philosophy because the producer of the material I studied heavily recommended to take up stoicism, Spartan attitude and cynicism, and says we are need of such paradigms more than ever in history with our information abundant and instant gratification abundant lifestyles. I understand what you mean in that there is a freshness of accepting a painful outcome, which paradoxically, reduces (I wont say eliminates) the pain.
(22 Dec '17, 06:08)
Nikulas
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And predicating and foreseeing a really bad negative outcome I also think can help people out. In the Samurai script Book of 5 Rings by Musashi, he quotes as advising all his would-be-students to become fearless in battle by already accepting and entering death, saying, "actively visualise your head being stomped on my horses, and you will become undefeated." Extreme, but takes resistance away from the situation. I will ponder your answer a while longer. Thankyou kindly.
(22 Dec '17, 06:12)
Nikulas
@cod2- After contemplation and reviewing the material from my course, I can say that the course is marinated in the theme of, "push past all obstacles, take action, get your goal." Which is strictly different from a lot of Abraham speak of "feel good, swim downstream, get your desires." Whilst I get a massive sense of empowerment from my course, I can sadly also see this sort of "ignore your feelings" attitude, even if it means discomfort, pain, or fear...I also purchased a Bashar download...
(25 Dec '17, 19:23)
Nikulas
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....a few months back and recall Bashar saying, "in this day and age of your time, one thing humans are going to have to accept is that sacrifice and suffering are no longer necessary to get what you want or function in your society." Having done a 30 day experiment of "follow your excitement" some months ago, and liked the effects, I will try this out again for a while and abandon the military mindset course for the time being.
(25 Dec '17, 19:25)
Nikulas
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From the Abraham-Hicks quote-of-the-day list...
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This answer is marked "community wiki".
To play devils advocate) Is their not a sense of empowerment and pride associated with an ability to transcend discomfort? Eg: By following psycho-cybernetics model of developing a self image and concept that sees one as a tough, strong being whom isn't afraid of life? I see some massive self empowerment involved with this.
(23 Dec '17, 08:33)
Nikulas
Author Geoff Thompson explains how he was so afraid of life that he went to superhuman depths to face all of his fears in a systematic fashion. His fear was of confrontation and he went to uncanny lengths to become a nightclub bouncer just to get over the fear. His final comments was that fear never disappears but one learns to become accustomed to it. Whilst my gut agrees that phobic type fears and intuitive "negatives" should be avoided, I also praise someone who finds peace confronting fear.
(23 Dec '17, 08:40)
Nikulas
@Nikulas - "empowerment and pride associated with an ability to transcend discomfort?" - I think what's happening there is "I'm scared of doing this thing >> I did it >> Now I'm scared of it a bit less"...there's still fear there though...as in "fear never disappears but one learns to become accustomed to it". That's not the same thing as joyful empowerment which is what Abraham promote. See Amazing giving pain gives pleasure
(23 Dec '17, 18:31)
Stingray
@Stingray- I've pondered this a while and read some more Abraham. My conclusion is, it seems our society is heavily discouraging people getting in touch with their feelings....And I also guess when someone does something that other people judge as "brave" (worthy), that that is their judgement, and probably what the person is doing isn't an act of bravery at all but just inspired action. Thanks for the link and the feedback.
(25 Dec '17, 19:20)
Nikulas
Hey @Stingray, I notice here you've mentioned the importance of respecting ones sensitivity, but in other Abraham-related quotes you've mentioned training yourself to feel good no matter what. Can you explain the difference for me? Is there a subtlety here that I'm missing?
(30 Mar '22, 19:42)
Bluebell
Hey @Bluebell for me respecting ones sensitivity and feeling good no matter are perfectly compatible ... i like to keep in mind that everything happens for a reason and it helps us, though sometimes we can feel disrupted which is normal when vibs start to change for something better :)
(01 Apr '22, 04:07)
jaz
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@Bluebell - "Is there a subtlety here that I'm missing?" - The way I like to explain it is in terms of thinking of a spectrum of colors. Assuming you only want to see the color red (and not the other colors), you could first eliminate/destroy the other colors so only red is left - a hard, painful and destructive approach. Or, you could instead get so good at focusing on red that the other colors just seem to fade into the background - a much more elegant and sensitivity-keeping approach.
(02 Apr '22, 12:56)
Stingray
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Hi Nikulas, I was just looking up something for another question, and it seems to answer your question instead. :) That is an answer from @Rindor several years ago, recommending Larry Crane's release technique. http://www.releasetechnique.com. I just tried the little experiment in his answer, and enjoyed the release of some old stuff that I hadn't really acknowledged still bothered me. The quote that caught my eye was "Love yourself and say "Yes" to your emotions. Let them escape." Your feelings will stay with you until you give them the attention and respect they demand. If you don't really see them clearly, look for a headache, backache, bad temper, troublesome confusion, or heartache. Look deeply inside these, and you'll find the emotions you did not allow the light of day. Several folks here taught me to respect my emotions and recognize them as my strength and guide in life. Before this I had viewed them only as my weirdness, the shameful, embarrassing part of my self, that part which needed to be fought off or at least kept well hidden. Since I learned the true value of my own emotions, I have still often had to remind myself not to push them aside, try to deny or demean them as something shameful, useless, or weak. Your feelings are an asset, not a liability. They are really everything that makes you human, if you think about it. They are your superpower! Learning to pay close attention to every nuance of your emotions puts you in touch with all the wisdom you seek. Lol sorry @Nikulas, long answer just to say - my vote is listen to your emotions! Love, Grace :) @Grace- and @Pink Diamond- Nice to see both of you on this website after a long time.
(04 Jan '18, 12:13)
Zee
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