Before walking this path I spent a lot of my time pointing out the faults of others. I figured I knew how to fix everyone else’s lives, even though mine was falling a part, and like a runaway train heading toward a tunnel of death. But to talk to me, I know better. You were all doing it wrong, or could do it better, and if you’d just listen to me, you’d straighten things out. It’s funny to me, looking back, because I’m sure many people in my life were thinking the same about my life, and they probably had some sound advice, but I would never listen to it, because it was all of you who had the problem, not me. What I didn’t realize at the time is that I was doing that to take the heat off myself. I spent so much time pointing out the faults of others, I didn’t have time to look at my own, and even if I did have time, it was much easier to point out yours than actually look at the issues that were making me, and keeping me, sick. It’s easy to get caught looking at the faults of others, it can start so subtly and can easily turn perverse as we give ourselves self-granted permission to remain comfortably unaware of our own defects.
For me, the sicker I got the more I focused on those around me to find relief my the inner struggle, but the more I focused you, the more my disease grew because my attention was elsewhere, it was a smokescreen that allowed me to get sicker, and the sicker I got, the more focused I became on fixing everyone else.
Today, I know that I need to keep the spotlight on myself, and if my mind wanders and starts to look at the fault of others, I know I need to turn that focus back on myself because there is something I’m avoiding or trying to dodge. When we don’t want to deal with something, or are trying to avoid a feeling, we often will look out to outside things to distract us, or hope it passes, but what we should be doing is facing it head on, looking into why we’re trying to avoid it, and what the root of it is. It goes back to self-respect, honoring who we are and what we need, taking the time to get to know who we really are, it’s only then that we can figure out why we do the things we do and why we may be avoiding certain feelings or emotions. We are on a life long journey with ourselves, it’s up to us to explore, love and learn who we are, and to celebrate ourselves in a healthy and positive way. Playing games with ourselves keeps us stuck, keeps us sick, and can make us sicker if we continue to look around everywhere but inside ourselves. Stop passing blame onto others, judging those around you and avoiding the true issue. What is causing you to avoid who you really are? SLAY on!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you focus on others when you don’t want to deal with your own issues or feelings? How do you do that? Why do you do that? Write an example of when you’ve done that. What was the result? Have people told you to mind your own business? Should you have? Did you after you were told to? Or do you persist and keep meddling in their lives? How do you feel when someone gives you unwanted advice about your life? Do you appreciate it? Or get angry or annoyed? We have no right to judge others, our lives, each of us, is what we’re responsible for, as is everyone else. The more we take that focus off of us and direct that at others, the more we’re in danger of letting our disease, or the darkness, take over while we’re distracted and looking somewhere else, which is exactly what it wants. Once it convinces us to look outside of ourselves it can do what it wants, and if we’re so focused on everyone else, we’re in danger of loosing ourselves. No matter how difficult something may be to face, it doesn’t compare to the pain that is building within ourselves as we try to ignore it and distract ourselves from the real issue at hand, we are giving that pain permission to grow and slowly take over. It’s time to take that permission back, and get in touch with our true selves.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
