Trusting Your Self - Body and Mind: 5 Facts You Were Never Taught in School
Wed, Nov 30 2011 11:40
Of all our relationships, none is more critical than the relationship we have with our self. Without a strong sense of self all of our decisions, actions, and emotional reactions tend to be determined by things over which we have little or no control. Without a strong self we are left at the mercy of a world filled with people to whom we easily surrender our confidence in our ability to think and to reason, to whom we look for permission to act in order to avoid potential mistakes and criticism, and to whom we give the power to control how we feel about the life we have been given.
Without a strong sense of self, we are left feeling at the mercy of a world filled with events and challenges that we have little or no ability to handle. Without a strong sense of self, life is often bewildering, unknowable and frightening.
The roots of this tendency to disconnect from ourselves, from our personal abilities and strengths, lie in unexamined and unchallenged destructive ideas about the nature of existence and reality. The feeding your being... facts are:
- Life is yours to live. Living is being yourself - your thinking, feeling, doing self. A strong self is the foundation for a life that is full, effective, and happy.
- Strengthening the self requires redefining your relationship with you. It involves developing a basic trust in the accuracy of your senses and in your capacity to take in the facts of reality. It involves developing a basic trust in your ability to apply the power of your own mind to think, to reason, to evaluate, and to decide what to do to live your life according to your own unique, individual, and personal sense of living.
- Trust your senses - you have the capacity to evaluate the facts of reality as well as anyone. Trust what your eyes see, your ears hear, as well as the information provided by the rest of your senses.
- Rely on your mind - you have the ability to analyze and evaluate the facts of reality as well as anyone. Trust your mind, your ability to reason, and your ability to find the answers to any question.
- Be confident in your actions - you have the ability to use what you know to produce the results you desire. Taking in the facts of existence, applying thought and reason to what you learn provide the foundation upon which to base your actions. So long as your actions cause no direct harm to others, your free choices must direct your life activities.
With a strong sense of self, your life is directly available to you - not an "indirect experience" requiring the review and/or prior approval of those you now think superior to you in their ability to "see reality," "to think, reason and evaluate," and "to act."
When you trust yourself, your total self - your body's ability to sense the world and your mind's ability to understand what you sense, your life becomes knowable, manageable, and truly your own.
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The Most Powerful Piece of Equipment on Earth
Wed, Nov 30 2011 11:38
"When you first realize that you, and all men and women, possess the innate ability to reason, you have an inkling of what slaves throughout history must have felt when finally released from their shackles. Not that you think you're free. In fact, for the first time in your life you realize just how unfree you really are. But your mind is free -- free from the enslavement of confusion, of doubt, of irrational rhetoric.
'The noblest pleasure,' said Leonardo, 'is the joy of understanding.' The pleasure of understanding produces a high, which no artificial stimulant could provide. An indescribable exhilaration comes over you. You're so excited that you want to spread the word. For the first time, morality and ethics and virtue and love have meaning to you."
Restoring the American Dream
Robert J. Ringer
Birds head south. Bears hibernate. People build fire.
On the spring day I decided to write this essay (6/14/01), I came upon a bevy of quail in the parking lot of my office. There were approximately 12 to 15 little ones and their seemingly doting parents. I was captivated by the wonder of this bird family. Quail have always captured my focus and fed my capacity for affection. Soon, however, I noticed that all was not well in quail paradise.
The course of their journey had led to a barrier. The tiny quail children were unable to get over a six-inch curb separating them from their larger and more athletic parents who were leading them to "quail freedom" in the field behind my building. I watched as one by one the children struggled to overcome that curb, blocking them from their opportunity for a "full quail life." I watched as the mother quail repeatedly jumped into the parking lot and then back up and over the curbing as if to say, "hey guys, here's how it's done."
Watching quail, as mentioned earlier, gives me great joy and in repayment I decided to give them action motivated by heart and mind. I went to the office basement for "bridging material," finding a suitable piece of lumber. Carefully placing the board near the babies and the curb I watched. To my dismay, but not my surprise, they seemed not to notice the path provided for their salvation. They just continued their unfocused, frenetic, compulsive, unsuccessful jumping. Happily, by now a number of stronger one's had made it up and over on their own. With my own "life's work" beckoning, I left this "nature drama" for a short while.
On return, all but one of the quail children had scaled that barrier separating them from their opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of "quail happiness." Reappraising the situation, I positioned the board such that the only option for that little straggler was escape to freedom. Happily, for me at least, up and over he went. Victory – I thought. Later, however, I returned to find that little guy wandering, once again gripped in the jaws of defeat, on the wrong side of that concrete barrier.
Realizing his potential fate, and I guess only partially resigned to reality and the facts of existence, I said to myself silently, "if only he could think."
I know not what happened to my tiny-feathered friend, as I did not see him again that day. I optimistically choose to think him well.
Birds' fly, bears hibernate, people think - each verb a basic tool of their survival according to their unique nature; each verb a piece of equipment specific to birds, to bears, and to people. For birds and bears, their basic tools of survival are instinctual, automatic, and hard-wired into their nervous systems. The operation of their tools of survival guaranteed, though the results not insured.
For people, their basic tool of survival – thinking - is not instinctual, nor hard-wired, nor automatic, and never guaranteed to operate without the effort of focus, attention, concentration, and thought. Human thinking requires conscious choice, commitment, and work if it is to perform the tasks insuring biological and psychological survival - the tasks making life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness possible.
Your brain's capacity to think and reason is indeed the most powerful piece of equipment on earth - the maker of fire, the producer of food, the solver of problems, and yes… the builder of bridges. Always choose to use your most basic tool of survival - your key to life and all it has to offer. Use it often. Use it well. And you will never find yourself like our tiny feather friend, hopelessly stuck in the parking lot of life.
"It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can hold the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect."Anthem (1938) - Ayn Rand
Why I Write - 10 Reasons Just to Name a Few
"I decided to be a writer at the age of 9, and everything I have done was integrated to that purpose. I am an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to America, because this was the country where one could be fully free to write."
Ayn Rand
Why I Write
"Why I write" is inspired in part, by the above quote by Ayn Rand. It is from the documentary film "A Sense of Life." The film reveals the story of this complex woman, and the unfolding of her remarkable, but controversial 77 year long life. I have watched it numerous times over the years, each time leading to a better understanding of her thinking. Her philosophy has been criticized for not being an "academic." When compared to what I learned in college about philosophy, her common sense trumps academia many times over.
She wrote many books, both fiction and non-fiction centered around many concepts and principles. She is most well known for her novel "Atlas Shrugged." Reading it led to my watching the documentary. As they say, one thing leads to another.
This article emphasizes the concepts noted in the quote, of integration, choice, conviction, and freedom. They offer a cornucopia of valuable verbal nutrition for the care and feeding of growing minds.
I am also inspired by another remarkable woman, Linda Shrock Taylor, who writes for LewRockwell.com. She is a teacher with a deep love of children, classical education, and freedom. Recently I read an article she posted, titled "Literacy's Last Hurrah." Her article is the stimulant behind "Why I Write" this piece today.
Now to the feeding your being... list.
I write because:
- I can and am free to do so. I do not take this most valuable freedom for granted.
- it makes me feel more connected to the world, other people, and myself. Life is about relationships; relationships with people, places, and things, and my internal and external responses to them.
- it helps me integrate my thoughts, actions, and emotions. The more integrated I am, the more clearly and effectively I think, do, and feel.
- it is a stress and tension reliever. Fast paced modern life causes a dangerous build up of tension and stress. Managing your stress is healthy for both body and mind.
- the written word is like a mirror reflecting back from the outside, what is going on inside. This reflection provides other perspectives on why I do what I do, and why I am who I am ... both for the positive and... the "not so much."
- it helps me catch personal contradictions and conflicts so I can work on them.
- it helps me congratulate myself, on those rare occasions that such congratulation is justified.
- putting pencil to paper stimulates my brain in a way no other activity can. The benefits of energizing your brain's neurons is an entire other list.
- it pulls me back from myself, like zooming out with video camera, reminding me of how small I really am. This is a great "inflation fighter." Or by zooming in, pushing me into myself, helping me better understand the intricate details affecting my inner life.
- it is nutrient rich source of food for my brain.
How I Write
For a long time, infatuation with computers took me away from pencil and paper. I found this infatuation to be the cause of fragmented thoughts, interference with completing meaningful tasks (like writing short articles), or not tuning in to important emotions.
I now write at least one page a day. Remarkably, it is dramatically restoring, de-fragmenting, and re-integrating my mind.
I use a lead pencil with eraser and a sheet of 8 by 10 1/2 inch narrow ruled notebook paper like I used in high school years ago. I always write in cursive. I try to write slowly enough that my progressively deteriorating penmanship, the result of no use, might also be rehabilitated. Once again, the improvement in my penmanship is noticeable. The payoff for writing is looking at something created by my own hands that looks half way decent. It makes me feel good.
Another casualty of the computer has been my spelling. Where I once was a decent speller, after years of using the spelling checker, anything produced by hand led to misspellings that would embarrass a first grader. And worse yet, my memory was weakened by the lack of practicing those hard to spell words. Spelling and memory are now both improved.
So I write for many reasons. I discover more every day. The result is more integration, better choices, clearer convictions, and greater personal freedom.
The more I do my daily writing exercise, the more I value it.
Try it.
I think you will too.
Try it.
I think you will too.
