Key Lesson: Being able to let go of any negative state takes place naturally as you see that the only thing binding you to it, and its misery, is your own attention.
Do Your Part to Step Out of Negativity
When we see only our own ideas about why we’re feeling negative, and they’re telling us how we’re entitled to be miserable, misery makes up the circle of our lives. But when we can see, within ourselves, that misery loves company, and that we’ve become its closest friend, we’re well on our way to discovering a new and true friend — to establishing a new relationship with life based in a new reality that will not only give us a whole new experience of life, but a whole new self within ourselves that never feels despair or defeat.
Who is this powerful new friend? The light of your expanding self-understanding by which you will discover how negative states come into being and how they have been able (until now) to keep you captive. With each incremental bit of new awareness, you will increasingly see for yourself the evidence of another world within you that is outside the circle of stress you’ve come to think of as being yourself.
How do we establish such a relationship? Any time we are awake inwardly enough, we can choose to consciously direct our awareness. We can hold it where and upon what we wish, which, in turn, can help us to change what we take as being real. When we perceive ourselves as being a captive in some circle of negative thoughts, we can deliberately bring into our consciousness — in that same moment — the awareness of something outside this circle. And if we’ll hold our awareness there, take a deep breath, and just let go of whatever thoughts may have been defining our sense of self the moment before, we instantly exit our formerly negative self and the thought-produced reality responsible for it. In what can be only an instant of inner work we then find ourselves standing in a new world untouched by negativity.
Learn to look at all difficult moments as opportunities to come awake to yourself and a place from which you can practice stepping outside of the attending circle of negative thoughts. In this way, work for yourself and upon yourself. Do your part and be assured: that great day will come when your developing awareness will forever shift from the unwanted world of your negative thinking to the world of inner light. Within its incorruptible reality awaits that safe haven on earth wherein full and final freedom from misery is already yours.
This article is excerpted from 5 Steps to Complete Freedom from Stress.
About the Author: Guy Finley, Your Bi-Weekly Mentor, is the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for spiritual discovery located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. For more information visit www.guyfinley.org, and sign up to receive a free helpful weekly newsletter and other gifts.
Click here to read Guy’s autobiography and find more of his articles posted on The Teen Mentor.