The life-changing choice: practice your way to a friendly truth

The most important decision you ever make is whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe, according to Einstein’s great genius. So, either you see the world as a positive or a negative environment, you are right. After a lifetime of struggling with depression and a constant feeling that I’m not supposed to be in this world, not long ago, I found myself facing a life-changing choice: would I be defeated by my pain and misfortune or would I completely change my life, discarding all expectation that someone else (or the Universe, or God) is responsible for producing the miracles in my life? And only after a painful experience I can truly stand by this statement: if you’ve chosen the latter several times and after a while you’ve gone right back to disappointment, depression and feeling hopeless, then that was your mind’s signal that you’re not doing it quite right. In order to succeed in making a transfer from a negative reality you feel powerless about to a reality that serves your best interest and purposes, first of all you need to get out of your comfort zone and explore what lies beyond the pain, the frustrations and the disillusion. That means conquering the old patterns and habits that keep you locked up in negative thinking for God knows how long. Here are the basic steps to climbing this apparently impossible mountain, that worked out miraculously for me: 1. Want it with all your heart! The first shift is produced in your inner self. Don’t make plans and lists, these won’t last, instead turn to your higher self, look for guidance from your inner voice, who embraces past’s mistakes as precious life lessons and is seeking a productive outcome, rather than stumbling on the faults’ pattern and playing the victim. Understand that your life patterns are trying to tell you something. Therefore, if you truly want a new reality for yourself, first you must let go of your personal history and get different results in your present and future. 2. Work with your subconscious. This is the first step towards changing a negative thinking pattern. Your limiting beliefs are not something your inner self holds, they have been implanted in your subconscious throughout your childhood, by your parents, your teachers and other influential people around you. And the best way to access these negative beliefs and replace them with empowering ones is by working directly with your subconscious. NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), theta healing and meditation are several ways to rapidly work with the patterns you want to change. Begin with replacing the affirmations that constrain you from achieving your purposes (such as “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t deserve to receive love and abundance” or “I have always been a failure, that’s just the way I am”). 3. Tame your fears. Change has not yet occurred because of the restrictions imposed by fear. But fears are not real, they are a product of the mind and the meanings it projects on the outside world and its dangers. You have the option of refusing to think fearful thoughts, through the process of reframing: changing the frame in which a person perceives events in order to change the meaning. When the meaning changes, the person's responses and behaviors also change. 4. Shift your perception. It’s not necessary that you remain stuck in the chains that force you to move exclusively in the vicious circle of your obsessive focus on the problem. The best way to free yourself from the problems is to focus on the solutions. Try to detach yourself for a while from the emotional involvement and be the observer of the problem. From the observer position, you are no longer in conflict with that what concerns you, because conflict always generates an unproductive response. A relaxed mind produces the best solution for you. Just try this strategy on a small issue that bothers you and see how it works. The result will empower you to work your way up through more important aspects that don’t let you sleep at night. 5. Remove judgment. You are used to perceive the faults in the world and in people’s behavior only if you are a self-judgmental person. Usually those who find fault with everything around them, are very tyrannical with their own flaws and project their resulting frustration on others. You are living in denial, because it is much more comfortable to put your attention on the world’s liabilities than acknowledge the aspects of your life that you need to improve, in order to shift from frustration to happiness. But once you take that step, you will notice how forgiving can your mind be, first with your own defects, which you will no longer perceive as negative parts of yourself, but rather as natural manifestations of the human being you are. Then you will start to have tolerance towards other people, simply because you have already relaxed your mind and loosened the burden of living with those “unbearable” flaws. 6. Be stubborn enough to work with yourself every day. It would be awesome if you could turn your self-development into a passion! Maybe the shift in your perception on reality will not happen overnight. Maybe you unsuccessfully tried so many times to change and you are tempted to think it’s impossible. I am telling you with all my heart: DON’T GIVE UP! If the Universe sees how stubborn you are in your objective, it will eventually open the doors for you… and once you’ll take the steps inside, there is no way back! If you’re having a tough time believing it, watch the inspirational movies on this topic, such as The Pursuit of Happyness or Conversations with God. 7. Do not sabotage your success! But be grateful instead. Gratefulness will bring you happiness, simply because it teaches you to be focused on the good. When you surprise yourself being satisfied with every little progress you have made and enjoying life rather than struggling with it, then congratulations: you have created the path of your new reality! And don’t forget: your power is where your attention is. You get what you focus on!