Why I am Using the 'Positive Journal' (Hint: it's not to become more positive :) )

Something I have become aware of is my 'Yes's' and 'No's' that come from somewhere deeper than my conscious-mind decision-making process. It started with food, where I was having certain physical reactions to foods, and only later noticed that I would have a full-body 'NO!' come up in me before I would eat the foods I was reactive towards. It would even happen if the food was something delicious that I normally love eating - and I normally would  eat it, ignoring my body's own natural intelligence in order to appease my craving, desire or vice, only to suffer the consequences later - but recently, I have started listening.

As I started 'listening' to this communication more and more, over time it started to make sense.  I began to learn which foods were best for me in which moments, and which were not. And the more I kept listening to my own body's intelligence, the more my relationship to foods evened out, and the more comfortable I became.

I started to expand this communication ability to other areas of my life. It was like clearing away the emotional influence in order to determine what was really best for myself in the moment. For example I would use it to place a guard over my mouth before speaking, or with projects or endeavours - whether I should commit to them or let them go, do one before another, or put it on the back burner till a later time.

When I was gifted the 'Positive Journal' I was surprised to receive a full-body 'Yes' to the prospect of actually taking the thing seriously. My conscious mind judged the book, because I am not at all in to positivity or enlightenment or anything like that. My conscious mind said 'no', but something deeper in me said 'Yes', and I am learning to listen to that something deeper, it is becoming more clear. Even if I don't understand in the moment, it always makes sense later.

It has been over a week now and I have been reading about the book and have started to complete the exercises. As I began integrating the book into my Desteni Process of re-defining and living words, the greater picture of WHY this book is supportive to me in this moment began to become more clear.

One of the first questions from DIP, when I started the course waaaaay back when, was "What is your general self-experience? Positive, negative or neutral?" I immediately answered "negative", because I was constantly stressed, always anxious, struggling, tense, chasing, escaping, living anywhere but Here in my body. That is a part of my life experience that I have brought into my Desteni Process, which created a result of focusing too much on the problems, the issues, the challenges, the obstacles. Yes, it is cool to take things on, push self, challenge self, identify problems and obstacles, but it is also cool and necessary, to take a moment to appreciate Self, to show some self-love, self-acceptance AS ONE IS, RIGHT NOW, IMPERFECTIONS AND ALL! To live some compassion, understanding, forgiveness.

This 'negativity' and constant pushing has driven me in a lot of ways, but it has been a bit of a problem as well. It is not sustainable as it causes me to crash.  I have had increased migraines and I know it is hard on my body, because even when  I would go to relax at times I would not be able to fully let go due to the constant desire to push for 'the next point/project/challenge', always striving for something or some kind of perfection that does not exist.

And as much as I KNOW what it is that I'm doing, I SEE what I must do, I have written it out, I've cried it out, I've come to realizations and done forgiveness - the thing is so deep and so stubborn that I have only managed to chip away at it here and there.

And now I have the 'Positive Journal', which I have redefined as my 'Process Journal', seeing now that I have come to associate my Process with harshness, hardness, difficulty, challenge only, when process is about creating balance, stability, self-expression, bringing out and developing both feminine and masculine living words as expressions of Self, living in a way that is sustainable, that is Best for Self.

The 'Positive Journal' is my bridge of support to create a balance, to bring out and develop my 'softer' side, within and through assisting and supporting me to start redefining and living words such as 'gratitude', 'communication', 'compassion', 'hope', 'meaning', and 'purpose'. In doing this so far, what I have seen, recognized and appreciated almost for the first time are the ways in which I am already living these words, but which went unnoticed because the way I was living them did not fit the accepted dictionary definition that I knew. So when I thought I was not living 'gratitude' and 'hope', for example, leaving me feeling 'ungrateful' and 'hopeless', upon opening up the words I saw and realized that I was in fact living them very much! I was just living them deeply inside myself, and I had never taken the time to put myself into words to gain clarity and insight, leading to opportunities for growing and expanding on these expressions of myself, which just so happens to be exactly what I need right now!

Day 139- Assertiveness and Steadfastness as Breath (pt 3)

I wasn’t completely satisfied with the new definition I had ascribed to Assertiveness in my last post Here. I am re-defining the word so that I could practically apply it in my life and world, without judgment, thus breathing life into the word through my living application and birthing it as a living word within and as me.
I had been thinking about this, but then it really became clear as I was listening to the interview with the cat, wherein, the cat describes how sometimes, in order to be equal and one within assertiveness within a group, one has to ‘lower’ oneself as a bringing oneself down to the level of the weakest or least understood being, in order to understand and communicate with them in an ‘equal and one’ way. This would be to not expect more of them, or for them to ‘rise up’ to your level, if you happen to be more advanced in some way or area. It’s to bring oneself down, humbly, in order to understand the entirety of the being, where they are coming from, why they are that way. To Actually HEAR them, and Listen when they speak. That is what I would want for me, and I certainly have been in situations where others were superior to me in some way and I was NOT treated as an equal. I’ve been in situations where another was superior to me and used that superiority to make me feel less important, less heard, less understood, whether intentionally or unintentionally, as if I didn’t count as much as the more advanced ones. School is very much like this as well. Where slower students are not given the time and dedication they would need to catch up, or to figure out what exactly is the problem.
So, in my previous definition, I had included the word ‘high-ness’, and I found, before I heard the cat interview, that there was too much explaining and defining of other words and conditions. It should be very simplistic, but it wasn’t, and it didn’t ‘flow’. Usually when I re-define words it flows and it comes more easily, whereas ‘assertiveness’ was actually quite a struggle to re-define yesterday.
Once I heard the cat interview I knew it was just ‘off’. It’s cool because, as I was thinking about it before I heard the interview, I realized that I shouldn’t be working with the word ‘assertiveness’, but rather, with ‘assertive’, from which I derived: “A CERTainTy I haVE”, which is cool because the cat emphasized certainty within assertiveness (much like the certainty in a cat’s movement when they are assertive about wanting touch/affection/attention, or food/treats).
Therefore, my new definition of ‘Assertive” is:
I certainty I have, which I build and enhance, through applying the principles of equality and oneness as what’s best for all in my living actions, wherein that certainty would naturally emerge, first as a presence, and then into my living application, as I clarify and stabilize my stand as Who I AM in my Life and World.

To explore yourself and reality through writing, and developing a platform of self-support, try out this free course: DIP LITE