by Tara Joyce | Sep 29, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
It all depends on how long you keep telling yourself the story that is feeding your anger. Your emotional reaction, your anger, it is a result of your conditioning. By nature, it only lasts a few moments. But if you feed the reaction, through your thoughts, it keeps going. And growing.
What was once an momentary emotion grows into something bigger. A story begins to build. An emotion can become a mood. The mood becomes a temperament. The temperament transforms your personality. Your day/year/life is now “ruined” not because of X occurrence, but because of what you are still telling yourself about X.
It’s the story that’s hurting you.
Oh yes, the emotion may be painful, but if you can experience it fully, in the moment as children do allowing it to pass without a story and without attachment, you can have your experience and be over it in a matter of moments. You can be over it not because you got what you wanted and not because it wasn’t painful, but because you know how to experience your emotions and discipline your thoughts. You know their importance and their place in your life.
While not a simple thing, not needing to create a story to spur your emotions on leaves you free to fully feel them and to thoughtfully express them. Finding yourself unattached to your emotional reactions and the stories they may arise, you allow them to pass, rightfully returning to your default state: happiness. Authentic happiness, which likely isn’t the storybook kind.
photo credit: Robyn Budlender
by Tara Joyce | Sep 23, 2016 | Cultural Creativity, Self/Business Growth
Our true nature, who we inherently are, is expressed in all that we do. Yet most of us live without an awareness of this truth, and the practice of expressing who we naturally are becomes difficult to realize.
Instead, we find our selves striving, pushing, giving up; actions driven by our confusion over who we naturally are.
When we express our true nature, we are human beings — we are what we are. When we do not express our nature, we don’t know what we are. We are confused. Deluded.
We don’t know what to call ourselves. In our minds, we are something else other than what we are. We do not exist. We’re ghosts of our self.
We live in this ghost-like state, our true nature eluding us, until we find the courage to know our self (again). Open to being what we are, our true nature resumes itself.
We are found once again, through our own awareness of our self. Now, we know the true value of allowing ourselves to be what we inherently are.
photo credit: Laurent Henschen
by Tara Joyce | Aug 25, 2016 | Cultural Creativity
How do I balance my innate human desire to estimate how long something will take, with the reality that I often have little control over this truth?
Is the point to do my best in estimating, to get a general sense, and then to leave it? Is the point to do some planning, but to never decide that my expectations are true and correct? Is the point to create motivation to work towards the goal, rather than attaching to its timeline?
Perhaps our time estimates are funny games we play with our Self and with each other, in support of our motivation. If we think it’ll only take 2 years to realize, this feels more motivating than the 7 years it actually takes. Perhaps, we’d never undertake the action if we truly knew how much we’d need to put into it to achieve it. Perhaps, our collective need for estimates and time projections is simply a trick we play on our mind and ourselves, to encourage us to take the action in the first place.
We want to feel it won’t take that long to realize. We want to believe that other things in our life won’t arise and take us away from that goal, at least temporarily.
We, in our culture of instant gratification, want so badly for our dreams to be as easy to manifest as the things available to endlessly consume. We’d love to realize our dreams NOW. We’d love to bypass all the other work we haven’t factored into our plan. We’d love if we didn’t need to work on our Self in order to realize our dreams.
We’re only human. We can’t know until we know. But perhaps in coming to accept how arbitrary our timelines are, we can provide that understanding to others. Perhaps, because of this, one day, we’ll find ourselves relinquishing the power Time has over us.
When used kindly, timelines and estimates inspire us into action. When used unconsciously, they leave us feeling not good enough. We’ll likely never meet the exact timelines we set, so why not see and set them more truthfully? Let’s own that we create them to feel more in control of something (Life) than we truly are.
Your timelines and your planning undeniably support you in starting and in making movement, and yet it’s likely your goal will take longer than expected to realize. It seems this is the way it is. Be weary of yourself or anyone else who leaves you feeling less than because you haven’t yet reached your goals. Remember, as long as you’re working towards them, you’re a work in progress and you’re on your way.
photo credit: Scott Akerman
by Tara Joyce | Aug 12, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
When we unite with another, we create something greater than we could create alone. Coming together, we increase the talents and efforts we have available to create something meaningful. From business to friendship to romantic relationships, partnering with another can be a powerful tool for growth.
Everyone in our life is a mirror reflecting back the parts we love and dislike about ourselves. Partnering with another, we face our reflections. And it takes courage and awareness to look at them honestly. Denial, shame, and blame can often be easier routes.
The partnerships we choose matter. We need to be conscious and intentional about them, as acting from any other space can be hard to recover from. Rushing into a union. Preventing our self from entering into one. Looking to another to fix or complete us. Another looking to us to fix or complete them. These are all actions that do not serve our partnerships. Considering beyond our immediate needs to our intentions underneath, we prevent ourselves from creating dependent bonds.
Taking space to get clear on our intentions, we have the potential to choose unions that truly support and enhance the best of who we are. A union where we can face our true self, supported by our partner, is where we create the possibility for growth through our partnerships, as they offer us the ability to transform and to be accepted. Finding this interdependence with another, we sense the strength and fertility of its foundations, and we naturally invest in it and nurture it. Together, we sense we’re creating something greater than we could alone.
Forged from our clarity around what we need and want in partnership, and grounded in remembering we are our own source of happiness and fulfillment, we have the tools to shape healthy partnerships. In tune with our self, life becomes a collaborative effort, and much of what we do and who we are is enhanced through our partnerships.
photo credit: Redd Angelo
by Tara Joyce | Aug 5, 2016 | Self/Business Growth
Not wanting to feel it. Apathy towards the whole thing.
Why bother?
Isn’t it curious how we can love something. Someone. So much.
And feel so completely rejected and disappointed by them.
Two sides of a coin.
Love and pain.
How can I care so much, and yet desire to care so little?
Apathy. An easy option filled with complications.
Eventually, the truth will catch up with me.
Apathy. A dangerous act to perform.
It’s hard to keep up. It takes its toll.
Especially when masking the pain of rejection and disappointment.
How long can I pretend before I forget, and the mask falls from my face?
Can I trust myself? Am I that good of an actor?
What if I wore my rejection, my disappointment, without shame?
How might that change things? If you and I were to know the truth?
No reason to hide.
The love and pain, revealed.
Vulnerable. Exposed.
It is what it is. Equanimity. Towards my disappointment and my rejection.
I can learn to love them, as I do you. You’re intertwined, one. Ever present.
All of what I feel deserves to be felt.
Equally acceptable is my love and my pain.
photo credit: Karla Cantu
