Stop Driving Yourself Nuts!
Key Lesson: Just as a squirrel checks the quality of a nut before burying it for later... so too should we examine any thought we pick up before putting it away in our mind. Learn this lesson and stop driving yourself nuts!
Liberate Yourself From Self-Limiting Thoughts and Feelings
The only thing that discouraged feelings do is to keep you busy doing nothing except feeling sorry for yourself, which is the perfect guarantee that your sorry situation will remain hopelessly the same. Enough is enough! You don't have to put up with one more discouraging moment, let alone a life filled with its darkness. That's right. There is another choice you can learn to make besides falling into those familiar feelings of failure. Use this next higher idea to help you start thinking about those old discouragements in a new way.
Whenever we suffer over what we aren't able to do, have, win, or work through -- our attention in these moments is riveted on our own thoughts; thoughts that are busy telling us we're somehow stuck. Maybe you can recognize some of these heavy-hearted inner voices. They say in one way or another...
"I'll never get out of this mess." "I'm too stupid to learn these things." "I must have done something terrible to deserve this!" "There's no point in going any farther." "This is definitely hopeless."
Now, on the surface of things, these all-too-familiar whispers of defeat -- these dark voices that reach our inner ears, speaking to us with our own voice -- seem to be genuinely concerned with our unfortunate condition. But a deeper look into this covert operation reveals these troubled thoughts are up to something totally different. There is an unseen "conspiracy of limitation" taking place within our own consciousness! Follow the next four ideas all the way to their stunning conclusion. They show us that self-illumination and self-liberation are one and the same power.
1. The more these gloomy voices talk to us, the more discouraged we feel.
The more discouraged we feel, the more certain we are that we have no other choice but to feel that way.
The more convinced we are that we have no choice, the less choice we have.
The act of identifying with this dark inner dialogue actually produces the dead end we fear!
There are no dead ends in real life. Of course you must prove this bright fact to yourself, and here's a good place to start: in any given moment there is always something higher you can do with your life than sit there and suffer over what you think you can't have -- or do, or be. Why wallow when a small amount of interior work will literally act to change your reality?
Instead of falling into those familiar feelings of futility over yourself, work to deliberately drop those discourage-filled thoughts telling you the limit of your present view is the limit of your possibilities. Who you have been matters only to those dark states that want you to remain that way so that they can continue to rule the day. Refuse to dwell in discouragement over who your own thoughts are telling you you'll never be. Just get started working on who, and what, you are right now!
In other words, do what's in your power and refuse to be discouraged about anything else. And keep repeating this new conscious action one step at a time, over and over again. It is in your power to learn whatever it takes -- one lesson at a time -- and make it all the way to your designated goal.
Here's one last special thought to help summarize this important life-lesson in liberating ourselves from the limitations of discouragement: Any conversation you permit yourself to have with discouraging thoughts guarantees you'll wind up with a good reason for feeling discouraged. When it comes to any negative thought, the first word you have with it is the same as giving it the last word with you.
Practice this higher lesson in self-liberation until you're free of all feelings of futility. You'll soon see how this new action gives you the last laugh on discouragement.
