Pathwalking 169
I am particularly adept at identifying my own faults.
I can see what I am doing wrong, I can see how I am choosing poorly, I am completely aware of my errors and mistakes. I am my own greatest critic.
While there is validity in being able to see and own up to your imperfections, it is of greater importance that you do not let them linger.
It is very easy to berate myself. It takes as little effort to blame myself as it is to blame anyone else for my woes. It is very easy to be angry with myself, to reproach myself, to let myself become depressed over the faults I allow to entrap me.
It is hard enough when outside influences interfere with your Pathwalk. It is even harder when you are in your own way, and continue to be your own greatest obstacle.
This is another aspect of self-sabotage. But more than giving in to my fears, this is about allowing my perceived shortcomings overwhelm my paths.
I have spent a great deal of my life dealing with depression. I have used many methods to cope with this, including medication, meditation, and therapies. By-and-large I have this in check, but once in a while the depression gets the better of me, and I find myself down.
When this happens every single mistake, every flaw, every imperfection in my choices and my paths becomes crystal clear. I become angry, lethargic, and resentful. Negative emotions are quickly magnified, and I become the single largest obstacle along my path.
In addition to seeing my own issues, it becomes very easy to let situations that are outside of my control further distract me, and to drive my anger and other negative emotions to far higher levels. I manage as well to make villains out of people, upon whom I can cast aspersions I might otherwise never so empower.
This happens to pretty much everyone. To a lesser or greater severity, I have never met anyone who did not have moments of this sort of doubt and disappointment in themselves. The hard part is to break free of this negativity, and to shake it off rather than to linger upon it and examine it ad nauseam.
How do you move past this, and not give the negativity all your focus? This is what I am working on now. How do I let go of this feeling, rather than give it my focus and attention? How do I move past and beyond this?
Here are the steps I am going to take in this process. Bear with me if this seems rough, this is an unrefined notion, and this is on-the-spot analysis to find answers.
First – I need to deal with the part I have least control over. I need to take my focus off of the things that are outside of my control. I need to stop giving energy to my perceived villains, and I need to instead take back my power, and disempower them and take back the power I am giving them to distract me from my paths. This part should be easiest to achieve.
Second – I need to acknowledge my faults, but not focus on them. While nobody is perfect, truly that is what makes everybody perfect. We are all perfectly imperfect, and that is what makes us each unique individuals. If we all shared in the same perfection, why would we have any need to interact with any but ourselves? How could we develop and grow not only as individuals, but as a race of intelligent beings?
Imperfections and faults are a part of who I am. I need to do what I can to fix those I can, to embrace and manage those I cannot, and to not let my faults take away my empowerment. I am not my past, I am not my mistakes and imperfections…unless I choose to be.
Third – mindfulness. It is so easy to neglect the things I put upon my own path as I share it to help you as well as myself. I do not meditate daily as I desire to do, I do not always remember to write out and feel gratitude for at least three to five things daily, I do not ask myself the necessary questions that will keep me focused on my path choices.
The important thing about this is not to let this anger and upset me…it is for me to take a deep breath, not regret my choices or poor choices or lack of choices, and move on. If I linger here, if I hold my focus to these errors and mistakes I continue to empower them. I need to not just work on acknowledgment and being less negligent…I need to wholly change my internal dialogue.
So long as I view myself as a failure, overweight, idiotic, negligent buffoon – this is the reality I will perpetuate. I need to change my inner dialogue, and instead talk to myself about the successful, healthy, wise, empowered wit – this will help draw in a new self-image. Because when all is said and done we are all our own greatest critics, and it is the image we hold of the self that we project not only outwards, but inwards.
The ideas are here – so how do I enact them? Every day is a new day…so I need to remember, daily, to empower myself, use the tools I have available to me, and to think more highly of myself and know I am worthy.
New day. Do I face it expecting new problems, or new challenges? What do I see before me? What do you see before you?
This is the one-hundred sixty-ninth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my personal desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available in print and for your Kindle.
Follow me here!
