When the Guru’s Don’t Work

I have been in the process of changing myself for many, many years now. If I was completely honest with you, it has only been in the last 7 years that I have taken this change more seriously. I guess this would be what many call a mid-life crisis, a point in your life when you begin to question the meaning of life itself and your place within it.

Like most people I began to search, I was raised within the christian faith so that is where I began to search but over time I started looking outside of this faith to see what other people had to say about it too. This lead me to many different cultures and showed me the diversity of how people view life and see their place within it.

I won’t go into detail about what I found but one of the biggest themes in most of them was our thought patterns. Many see our thought patterns as a source of who we become, so if you think bad thoughts then you will have a bad life, but if you want to change your life then you must change your thoughts.

I have tried this over and over again with no lasting results, yes I may have a good day here and there but overall it has done nothing to change my inner self. Actually it is making it worse because I am beginning to feel like a failure, here I am almost 40 and I feel I have wasted a huge portion of my life being unhappy and confused. Don’t get me wrong, I have been making changes on the outside that make me feel happy like planting more flowers and doing little changes around the home but I still don’t feel ‘right’, if you know what I mean.

Today I have been feeling down, I am getting tired of trying so hard just to have myself revert back to my old ways in an instant. I’m tired of fighting my thoughts, which scientist think is a never-ending stream even though you may not realize all of them, I’m also tired of fighting what many religions call my ego.

In this low point I found my answer.

If you want to control your thoughts then you need to control your feelings.

I began to think about this for awhile and I began to realize that it is true, when I don’t like something I feel it first then the stream of thoughts begin. You may think they are happening at the same time but they’re not, the feeling my come only a split second earlier but it’s still first, so I began to realize that my thoughts were only a side-effect of my feelings.

This doesn’t mean I can’t feel at all it just means that I must learn to control it. If you go back through this blog and pay attention to how many times you see the word feel, you will see that my feelings are changing my thoughts and mood which is effecting my overall life in a negative way.

Can you see this as true in your own life?

About Mimic Nature

Hello everyone! I’m so glad to see you! I’m Jana, I’m an eccentric wife and mother; I work 2 jobs and homeschool my kids. With all this going on in my life, I want to focus my attention on the things that make me happy, and the one thing that has made me happy ever since I was a little kid is nature. As my life progressed and changed through my teen years and my early married life, I lost my connection to it. Life took over and here I am living disconnected from nature because of work, bills, and every day events that keep me away. So the next chapter of my life will be dedicated, at least in some small part, to reconnecting to nature; I still have a mortgage, work, and a family to take care of, but now, I will be more aware of nature and my place within it. Each day, I will find some small way to not harm nature. Not long ago I was introduced to something called permaculture and I fell in love with it. Basically, it’s building a small ecosystem in your own backyard that is based off of what nature would do naturally. In turn your backyard helps you, and you help your backyard…with minimal work!! At first it may take more work, but over time, your backyard will become self-sustaining and you won’t have to work as hard…other than harvesting. I love the life lessons that I learn from nature, so what I promise to do is share a lesson that I’ve learned from nature each week, share what I’m learning about permaculture, and share my own personal progress in changing my homestead into a permaculture Garden of Eden. And since it’s hard to make any changes in life, I want to have some free giveaways once in awhile…all nature themed of course, to help all of us remember our ‘green’ family. Read a few articles, see if you like what is there, if you do, go ahead and subscribe. If you don’t like what you see, that’s ok, I’m honored that you took the time to get to know me a little and see my vision for my blog and my life.

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1 Response to When the Guru’s Don’t Work

Alan A. Malizia: Contagious Optimism! Co-Author says:

July 23, 2015 at 4:02 pm

Jana,
I’ve spent 30 years of my life teaching and coaching. So my efforts were not for the expressed purpose of satisfying myself but for the growth and direction of others. The difference in eastern religion and western religion is found in a comparison between Budism and Christianity. We find Buda with his head down and contemplating within. The symbol of Budism is the circle and self contained peace. The symbol of christianity is the cross. It is not contained but reaches out in all directions to the four corners of the universe.
When teaching and coaching I was not absorbed in myself but in others. And I found peace and reward in that denial of self and sacrifice for others’ sakes. I have received awards and acclaim, but never saw them as a possessions to be personally coveted. Rather they are hung on a wall or placed on a mantle as a testament to all who gave of themselves to each other through sacrifice in aspiring to a greater good; the glory of God. He gift’s us with life. Our gift to Him is to live it well. This is accomplished in loving Him first and others second. The second is easy once we accomplish the first.
The only thing that deters the Christian way is a relativistic chaotic world that, if we allow, will pull us here and there in the confusion that is its nature. The world emphasizes decisions based upon feeling rather than common sense that reveals the true purpose of one’s free will; to do what good conscience dictates or to do what one wants. One choice is selfless, the other selfish.
-Alan

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