I really love this thread! Thanks everyone! OP – I think the adventure your mind and thoughts take is wonderful! It looks like your thought adventure brings out the best in other people’s adventures too. I hope to hear more from all of you. This was fun.

Hi Bruce 🙂

A little saying that helps me is “what others think of you is none of your business”.

I find that when I steal peace from myself through ego driven self talk, I am merely trying to convince myself of my own lies. The tricky thing about my ego which essentially states I am better or worse than others instead of the truth which is ‘we are all equals’ is it uses my own best thinking, my charm and charisma, my whit and intelligence against me! It will do anything to tell me I’m better or worse, and it’s a check mate until I can reach out and release the emotions to my human family.

Once I do that, and offer up a surrender as in “I just can’t win – HELP” I get to hear other people’s thoughts and ANYTHING that offers me a bit of relief from my own thinking which can pin me against the wall and keep me stuck there is such RELIEF!

So the only relief I have to offer you dear, is that we ARE actually all equals. All the thoughts that are playing that tape in your mind that tell you otherwise, and want you to TAKE time from you NOW by going over and over something past… are just little thieves. Shew them away!

Once I get down to the nitty gritty… and think I’m resting on the beautiful boat of equality… more sneaky little bastard thoughts will pry and say “well… what about Hitler? Are you equal to HIM? Well? ARE YOU?” And my ego wants to scream NO! NO! It can’t be! I am BETTER THAN HIM!

But the truth remains constant – and it does eventually provide relief if I LET IT: I am equal to all the Earths Consciousness.
When Hitler was 3 yr old boy – he didn’t wish to grow up and be a mass murderer! Something went terribly wrong for that poor boy, and it’s sad. And I don’t feel it’s his “last life” – or all the people he’s killed. When I think about babies still born and terrible crap like that… I just gotta grab onto some eternal source of love that we’re heading toward, and it doesn’t have to be ‘all done’ here in this life time. Maybe we get a bunch of them? No one knows for sure right? So can’t we just believe what feels peaceful?

I’m not trying to convince you of any sort of religion or otherwise – because I don’t claim any sort of descriptive or label or delusion. For me – I just gotta go with all souls start as love and end as love and the mess in between… well… it’s all part of getting from start to finish, but we all end up back in one universal love and know peace eventually. In this way – I get to feel equal – I get to feel peaceful – I get to feel like I have a purpose, which can simply be finding my purpose right now – and I don’t have to figure anything out past or future – better or worse – right or wrong, I can just relax with who I am and what I am as what it needs to be on the path we’re all on.

So if the paths are all parallel – then you and I were supposed to have this encounter and that’s cool! I enjoyed it. I love not thinking like me for a bit – and you helped me with that. Thanks! 🙂

(Rumi – if I got to know YOU… I would then read YOUR book) 😉

My trust issues are a direct result of my own level of trust for myself.

Can I trust myself to accept that today I made a choice to be with this person and then act like it?

Or will I traumatize myself with my thoughts and feelings of mistrust that are directly related to my own past.

Today is a new day. Everyone has a clean slate. Bringing past or present thoughts into our now is the act of stealing serenity from ourselves IMO.

Trust begins with me. If I behave in ways that allow me to trust myself, mind – body – soul, I will not obsess on ‘if’ I can trust others so much. My happiness and contentment with myself will be enough – having a relationship is the cherry on top the cake – but I provide my peace, happiness and serenity by behaving in ways that contribute to those things.

For me this wasn’t easy. There were a lot of choices I made that were out of the ordinary for me when I started on a spiritual path. One was exactly related to this topic. Trusting my husband. As far as I knew (for sure) he was trustworthy. I was sabotaging our relationship with my jabs toward his trustworthiness – and ultimately it was all in my head. I needed to see the thoughts come, and let them pass – not follow the thought trail. Especially not act on it. This took practice – I was compelled to do things like check his phone or email and ask questions which were directly related to the negativity of my obsession.

It was simply that – an obsession. A way to distract me from me – and all of the feelings I had around my own untrustworthy past. I worked toward resolving those personal issues. I rooted out some of the reasons why I continually betrayed myself in life. Why I acted in ways that did not allow me to trust myself. For one, I was brought up believing I was fairly worthless – so as a result, I did not honor the being that I am. I did not find myself worthy of decent behavior.

The changes started with me. I had to discover my own set of morals and values, and then live up to them for my own sake – not for others. I had to prove to me that I could trust me to behave in those ways so I could begin to feel some self esteem and self worth. When I continually showed up for myself emotionally and spiritually, and started living a more spiritual and principle based life, I began trusting myself to not harm me emotionally.

Beyond that, I realized that trusting others was not so important. I didn’t need anyone to prove anything to me… if they were trustworthy or not no longer affected me so acutely… as I was already providing for myself through self love and growth. If they behaved ‘badly’ or not trustworthy or whatever… I didn’t take it personally. It wasn’t about me – just like my own issues were never about external things or people. They were about me. Nothing people did was AT me – and it didn’t/doesn’t DEFINE me as worthy of love or someone being committed to me etc. I already know that I am those things… because I act like it… like myself… and trust myself.

Ironically – my obsessions in all forms have ceased to exist as I got more in tune with my true nature which was to be kind, loving, honest, trustworthy, compassionate, passionate etc etc.

I no longer shop, eat, drink or clean impulsively – chew my nails or obsess about my husband or other people ‘misdoings’ to me. I focus on my life and my self and what I can do to make it peaceful.

I try to stay in the moment, focus on things that will bring out the best in me and others… and leave the results of all my efforts up to the Universe. By accepting things as they are, and myself as I am as I grow – I find peace and joy in being alive.

Best wishes on your journey
Tash

Self sabotage is pretty prevalent with people that had the rug pulled out from under them often as a child. For me, every time my parents ‘got back together and things were looking normal’ all of a sudden we were packing our bags in the middle of the night again – or dad was walking down the sidewalk with a suit case. It sucked. Soon I was sort of addicted to the choas and excitement of it all – and felt numb when things were normal and boring and needed to spice things up with self sabotage. Beyond that, I had no idea how to just ‘be’. I needed a distraction from myself and alcohol provided that – among other things of course, that was just one of the many ways I distracted me from me and stirred up some familiar chaos.

I also had to live in a state of denial about how bad my childhood actually was in order to not just wander off from my parents – I couldn’t of course, I needed them to survive – so I became this person who constantly had to believe my own lies in order to survive. Over time, this bleed into every area of my life and soon it was all just a lie that I could not distinguish from the truth with out help. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, got some books on ACA (adult children of dysfunction) and started working on my stuff. I learned that it didn’t mean I was an adult in a child’s body – but rather – that I was an adult who met the challenges of life with survival skills learned as a child.

Surviving my childhood was rough. Alcohol was a band aide that really hurt cuz it came ripping off every morning – never worked.

So I feel ya –
Best wishes,
Tash