Our deepest fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?… Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory … within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

Whenever I read this beautiful piece I feel inspired, exalted, as if I were 3 meters tall. I want to shine with all that I have in me and want to see "shining" people all around me: people who don't wear masks, who dare being who they are, who feel good and deserving of love and respect and who treat their fellow men with respect.

So why don't I see more shining people around me?

 Fear is the first emotion we have and the most important one, since it's a life saving emotion: it teaches us to stay away from danger.

But what happens when we become hyper-sensitive and we identify innocent things as danger? That is one of the reasons why human beings have many fears and in the future I will try to address some of them.

But I wanted my first post to be about the kind of fear which is mentioned above. And that is because I believe that overcoming this fear will allow us to have wonderful life: because when we won't be afraid to feel deserving we will be able to be happy.

An analyst would try to give reasons as to why we have this fear:

Maybe we don't want to stick out because we want to be just like anyone else. Or perhaps it's because we're afraid people will be jealous of us and therefore won't love us. Or could it be the famous Judeo-Christian culture which raised us to be modest and humble and reject compliments?

But I'm not an analyst and I feel sad about so many people in this world who try to play down their virtues and qualities, try to blend in, "be just like everyone else".

None of us is just like "everyone else" – we are all unique and special. But we're afraid this will make us lonely, isolated: if I'm unique than I don't have anything in common with other people. Of course this isn't true and we have a lot in common with other people, but it is our uniqueness which enriches our relationships and the world.

How wonderful would it be if this world will be full of people who walk tall and don't need to make anybody small in order to feel good about themselves.

People who feel sure about themselves and therefore are calm, pleasant and generous.

I hope you give yourself permission to shine and be proud to be who you are, allowing yourself to be special and allowing the world to enjoy your uniqueness.

Emotional supermarket

In one of the previous posts "don't get mad" I've talked of getting upset and expressing it. When I get upset with a close friend or family, there is a consequence to it.

And I mainly refer to emotions now.

For instance, I know that if I get upset with a friend who I feel didn't treat me well (for instance, arrived late without informing me in advance), there will be a price to it – that friend in turn, might get upset with me, since I make them feel uncomfortable, guilty or in the wrong here.

The situation could be uncomfortable for both of us, might even cause a quarrel between us. These possible results are the price tag on expressing my emotions (In the future I will address the subject of expressing emotions in an adequate and constructive way, but this isn't the topic now).

But what is the price I pay for NOT showing how I really feel about someone who doesn't treat me well?

There are 2 options here

1) Not giving myself permission to FEEL the way I do.

2) Not giving myself permission to EXPRESS MY FEELINGS.

In the 1^st option, I'm telling myself it's ok, no big deal. Actually, I'm lying to myself, either knowingly or unknowingly, i.e.: not being aware and not acknowledging my true feelings. But since life is indeed a supermarket, there will be a price for it: I will feel tense, I won't know why I don't feel at ease with that person, I will let this unaware anger to accumulate inside of me, and suddenly, without any apparent reason, I won't feel like being kind to that friend, or I'll snap at them, out of the blue. The friend – and I – won't even know what's wrong with me. And so I will be the person who suddenly behaves strangely or even badly, for no reason.

The 2nd option is that I feel anger, I'm aware of it, but I don't show it. I need to pretend that I'm ok (disimular) and try to behave "normally".

But knowing myself (and now it's not the "generic me", but I'm talking as ME, Miry, a person who's been working for many years on increasing my level of awareness and trying to live as authentically as possible), each time it gets harder for me to pretend I feel  something I don't (or pretend I don't feel something I do). It creates a lot of tension in me, and sooner or later this will take its toll: I might not want to meet that friend again if I can't be myself with them. Or I'll be cold and distant, trying to mask my feelings until I will seem and feel awkward. Or I'll keep collecting "anger-motives" towards them (I will look for excuses to get upset with them), until I'll explode, in a way that will seem over proportionate in a given moment.

So, yes: it's not always easy to turn to a friend, a relative or a work colleague and say "I am upset with your behavior/I am uncomfortable with you/please stop doing this thing". But I've discovered it's much less easy for me to keep swallowing frogs (I'm more of a roast chicken person). Or in other words – the price I pay for being sincere about my feelings seems much lower than the price I pay for pretending.

And how about you?

How true are you to yourself? How sincere are you in expressing yourself? And how much does it cost you?

Life is a supermarket – Prices

Last time I've talked of how life is like a supermarket in the sense that we can do (shop) as we please, but in the end we get to the cashier and have to pay – these are the consequences of our actions.

If life is a supermarket, I think that as good consumers, we must learn to shop wisely. And the first step is to understand the concept of PRICE.

When I was 19 I spent 2 months in Geneva and discovered there an amazing thing – the concept of "price per kilo". At first I didn't understand it and saw it as another eccentricity of the Swiss. In face of the huge variety of cheese in all tastes, shapes and sizes, I would simply buy what I thought to be the cheapest cheese (I was a young student on a limited budget). But I wondered  why would the Swiss waste time, money and ink on writing the price per kilo? This is when I've realized that it's the only indication as to the REAL PRICE of things. Not always the lowest price was the cheapest: sometimes I paid less because the piece of cheese I got was much smaller or the quality of cheese was poorer.

Well, the same can be applied to life: only when we're aware of the "price per kilo" we can make a wise choice.

But how do I calculate it? I'm not sure there's just one answer, since I think it has to do with the context and also with the person involve. And there are so many kinds of "coins". But one idea which helps me work it out is the concept of "trade-off".

A simple example: it's Sunday afternoon and a friend invites me to go to the cinema and watch a movie I'd like to watch. Another good friend, whom I haven't seen in a long time, tells me the only time he's available in the next few weeks is just on this afternoon. And I'm a bit tired so I fantasize of a long siesta. So – the price of any activity I chose is the loss of the other activities.

That is a (sad?) fact of life.

But – if instead of stomping with anger at the need to give up on things I'd look at what I've chosen, what I've gained, I might not only learn about the price of things, I can learn about the VALUE of things.

Because my choices, their consequences and prices, are the image of who I am: my values, my priorities in life. Seeing how much I'm willing to sacrifice in order to get something, shows me how important it is for me.

For instance, working overtime earns me money and prestige but make me loose precious time with my spouse and children.

If I think it's too high a price, maybe it's time to reconsider my shopping cart.

But – if I do stand behind my "shopping choices", it might restore value to many of the things I forgot to appreciate.

And what of those who can't decide?  Are you such a person? Do you really want something or someone else, who doesn't take your personality, value, likes and dislike into account, to make decisions for you?

Because those who don't decide let chance or other people chose for them. Maybe they feel it exempts them from responsibility, but it definitely takes away their control over their life. And they still have to "pay" (bear the consequences of what "happen to them"), only they didn't chose this product themselves. That is why I think they pay the highest price.

Are you ready to look carefully at your cart and check those prices? I wish you a pleasant shopping experience.

Life is a supermarket

When I was a child my mother told me "life is like a supermarket. You can put whatever you want in your shopping cart, but in the end you reach the cashier and then you have to pay for it".

What she meant by it was, that we have lots of freedom in the choices me make, and we can do (almost) anything we want, but there are consequences to our actions, and we can't escape them.

I know it sounds almost trivial, but in reality, many times we don't want to pay the price, or we live as if we're not aware of the fact that our actions – or lack of action – bear consequences.

Examples are ample:

·         Politicians who steal money and think they can get away with it to no end;

·         Publicity which promises us we can eat what we want and not gain weight thanks to some magic pills (does anyone knows what are the long-term effect of these pills?)

·         Global warming, inflated prices, constant cases of cancer, allergies, respiratory problems

All these things are related – they are the sign of a society in which people live the day like there's no tomorrow…and feeling cheated when tomorrow does arrive and with it, the bills.

I'm not here to preach, I'm in a different profession – I try to help people live in a more balanced, healthy, integrated way.

When we wake up the next day and find out the consequences, we feel fear, confusion, anger – nobody ever mentioned consequences, we were suppose to seize the day, weren't we?

Accepting that there is always a price to pay is not only embracing reality, it's also what makes us think carefully before we put something in our cart, makes us assume responsibility over our life, but it also allows us to feel mature and independent. Because I don't need to ask for permission, I don't have to be afraid of whether it's OK or not. If I have enough "money" in my pocket, I can do it.

And this is a very important point, because alongside those who fill up their cart with piles of things, there are people with the opposite problem: they're too aware of the price of things. So aware that they can't make any decision, since the price of it seems too high.

There is a lot to say about decision making, and how to make it easier, and along the next posts I'll address it from many more aspects, but here there's a very important thing to realize: NOT DECIDING IS DECIDING! And there's a price to not deciding, too.

Because as much as seeing people with huge "carts", piled up with so many products that it brings to mind metaphorical bulimic, think how sad it is to see other people, going through life with empty "carts", not daring to pick anything, choose anything, for fear of the price which might be too high for them.

To those I'd like to remind that there are very few things in life which are irreversible. I can actually think of only two: the birth of a child and death. Everything else is reversible: there is a return policy. Remembering it helps me feel I'm not trapped when I take a decision, make a choice.

How about you?

What did you put in your cart lately? How much is it costing you?

If you don't know, in the next post I'll be talking about prices.