03. You need not believe in anything; you only need to follow what feels true in the moment.
The trouble with adhering to a certain, set belief system without question is that when you value (or consider) the voices that were implanted into you by someone else’s dogma or teaching, you start trusting that more than you trust yourself, and you’ll end up either very lost or very confused, battling between what you think is right and what you feel is true.
If you aren’t living your life by what you know to be true, you aren’t following your highest good. Allow yourself the ability to expand and grow by thinking (and feeling) beyond what your current dogma “allows.”
04. The ultimate path to happiness is non-attachment.
And before you get all caught up in the impossibility of not caring about the outcome of your life, understand that non-attachment is much more (and yet much simpler) than “not caring” how things turn out.
It’s about the simple understanding that all things serve you. The
“bad” things teach you and show you how to heal to open even
further to the “good” things. It cannot be put much simpler than that.
05. “Doing” is not as important as simply “being.”
Meditative states can be achieved though a variety of practices, but perhaps the most underutilized among them is just “sitting.” The art of doing “nothing” is profound. It quiets the waters of your mind, brings forth what needs to be immediately acknowledged and healed, and keeps you connected to yourself, not the attachments and responsibilities you have in your life.
The point is: You are not what you do; you simply are. Aside from a meditation practice, giving yourself the time to relax, recuperate, and reflect is of the upmost importance.
06. You can be an objective observer of your mind and your life.
It’s one thing to know that you can choose your thoughts, but it’s really more to realize that you can also decide which ones you value, if only you are able to see them all objectively.
Guided meditation practices will often have you observe thoughts as they pass, as a third-party viewer. The point being to teach you that you are not those thoughts. You are not your feelings. You are the being that experiences those thoughts and feelings, who decides which to value and act on.
07. Your natural state is oneness.
The reality we will all return to eventually is that everything is one. (This is the basis of enlightenment.) It is in the illusion of separateness that we suffer. It is playing out the ideas of individualism that we learn. It is to our natural state, unification, that we eventually return.
94
6 SIGNS YOU
have a healthy
SOCIAL
SENSITIVITY
In a world that seems to assume that extroversion is the norm and introverts exist within a counter-culture that needs to be justified and explained at every step and turn, it seems we’ve begun to overthink what a normal, healthy amount of social sensitivity is.
Not liking everybody or desiring solitude or preferring one close friend to a group of many is not social dysfunction. We’re overgeneralizing what it means to be “antisocial” or “socially anxious,” when those are extreme, if not clinical terms that we may want to think twice before throwing around.
Here, a few ways to determine whether or not your social sensitivity is normal:
01. You experience a degree of social anxiety in unfamiliar situations.
Social anxiety is usually having enough foresight to recognize what people may be judging or assuming about you. If not kept in check, it can paralyze rather than keep you self-aware. It is normal, if not indicative of a high intelligence.
02. You desire solitude because being alone is emotionally enriching.
You do not isolate yourself when you’d prefer to be with others, simply because you’re afraid or feel unworthy of keeping company.
03. You only enjoy the company of a few, select people.
You’re not supposed to like everybody. To say that you “like everybody” would be to deny and reject the parts of you that may not genuinely feel that way, and as we all know, disassociation isn’t good. We’re only meant to really love and enjoy a few people and tolerate a few more.
04. You say “no” to plans when you want to say “no” to plans.
You do not go because you feel obligated or pressured. You are able to say “no” to people who you don’t want to see, and to doing things you don’t really want to do, when the cost would be your mental or emotional well-being.
05. You analyze situations because your snap judgments may not be well-informed, not because you’d like to reinforce your anxiety or make yourself feel better through delusion.
You self-evaluate as a means of becoming aware of what (may perhaps) be unconscious choices and habits. You do not over-evaluate with the intention of arriving at a different, made-up conclusion, or to create an alternative perspective that supports an irrational idea: “He looked at me funny; I knew he hated me.”
06. You worry that your social anxiety is abnormal.
Worrying about whether or not you have too much anxiety about being in social situations is probably the most normal thing there is. That’s not a product of “having a severe problem”; it’s a product of wanting to be self-aware enough to handle it if there is.
95
NOW
is ALL
you HAVE
