Be the Change You Post on Facebook

In the past twenty years or so I have found myself drawn into the positive mindset movement. I grew up in a religious household, and though I loved the spiritual concepts and moral guidelines that were passed down through generations via the bible, I felt somewhat constrained by religious dogma, or mans attempt to put his rules on how to be a spiritual being. So I went on a journey of discovery, trying to discover if spirituality did indeed exist outside conventional Christianity. To my delight, I found a sea of philosophers and new thought leaders who spoke of spiritual ideals with refreshing clarity, pointing out that spirituality did not exist inside a building, an image created by man, nor by a single book , but that spirituality existed in each and everyone of us, and part of the journey in life was to slowly expose our spiritual essence, layer by layer, until all that is left is our enlighten self.

Oh, but this journey has not without its challenges. Enamoured by the sweet words, the clever phrasing of many an author, I found myself swept away in heady experience of positive mantras, catchy phrases, and postable quotes that I discovered each day. I devoured this experience like a starving man, reading endless books, listen to hundreds of hours of audio lectures from new age sages, scientist and new thought authors like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, and Dr. Amen to name a few. The new vocabulary poured out of me easily, and I found myself dispensing advice on a variety of topics of which I had a new found knowledge of. Of course, receiving the adulation and gratitude of those with whom I was sharing my knowledge with was heady, and I was hooked! I took my new found passion and begin to write on various topics related to self help, spirituality, and anything basically personal growth related.

As time went on I begin to feel an uneasiness begin to develop inside, a quiet voice that continually vied for my attention, but choose to ignore it. The more the uneasiness persisted, the more I read, the more the quiet voice requested my attention, the harder I worked to ignore it. It’s wasn’t until I attend a program called the “Landmark Forum” did I discover where the turmoil was coming from. During the first day of the program I was introduced to a concept called “front of the hand, back of the hand”.
                                                                                                                    

What this meant was that on the front of the hand, figuratively speaking, was the success, the pursuits and milestones of our life. So from the front we look to have the life we have always wanted, perhaps money, adoring public, perhaps a high degree of education or physical stature. The issue it seems is not with the pursuit of success, intelligence or physical improvement, as we all deserve to have more and to be more, the issue was with the back of the hand. It seems that the driver behind much of human behaviour is unconscious, and that the unconscious reasons that propel us to succeed in many areas may also be the main reason for our unhappiness.

For example, if the driver for our desire to become fit is our disgust in ourself for being unfit, it is not uncommon for one to become more unhappy with their appearance as they become fitter and leaner. The reason for being fit was disgust for being unfit, so it simply grew as we put more effort into “not being” unfit. So we train harder, develop more fitness, and become less satisfied with the results. Does this resonate with anyone? Being in the fitness industry for over twenty years I have seen this happen time and time again. It was heart wrenching to not be able to help my clients over this hurdle, for it was hidden below the surface of their consciousness. This drove me even more to find the answer, if an answer did indeed exist.

The more I explored the more I began to understand that what I was doing was not as important was “why” I was doing it. The frustration of feeling like I could never be happy enough, be wealthy enough, fit enough, loved enough or even smart enough, all stemmed from a low sense of self esteem (the back of the hand), the by product of the life events I had experienced during the course of my life. So with the help of the I AM Project technology we developed over the past eight years, and the support of great friends and coaches, I have been able to work on drastically improving my self perception. 

The one wonderful thing I became aware of was that the good things I had accomplished were not negated because of my internal struggles, as my advice was sound, the positive impact on others was real, what changed was my ability to receive, the ease in which I started living the principles I was teaching, as well as give as the place I am learning to live is from a place of abundance, love and forgiveness.

Don’t get me wrong, the old emotional patterns still like to show up occasionally and test my resolve, but I am in a better place and feel for the first time that I have a right to exist, I belong and I have a special place in this universe.

Now I feel that I am more congruent, I am “Being the change I post of Facebook”.