Fight with your demons
There’s a question – who the hell Klaudia is to tell you how to change your life? Don’t get me wrong – I’m not here to tell you what to do, I’m just sharing with you my thoughts and some conclusions which maybe will open your eyes for a new point of view. Maybe you will realize the problems which were always there, but you just couldn’t see them or – otherwise – you used to think that you are the only one affected by them.
But back to the point – what is the reason of giving up, of being insecure? What makes us believe that we are not able to do some things? There we have some daily, common for most of us activities that turn our existence – which should be a lovely journey – into a survival.
How to change your life? Let me show you 7 demons that we all know well, and some advice on how to beat them.
#Planning
Of course going strictly with the plan is convenient and sometimes necessary in many aspects – business, architecture, medicine and many, many others. So don’t misunderstand me when I urge you to leave your “5 years plan” and just improvise with heart and mind open the whole time. Because my advice applies to the sort of situations when you try to get something from somebody, or force your right by arguing with other person. We often put much time to name our expectations, our rules and our desires. We create the vision of something and then we make a plan to get that vision from imagination to reality. Mostly, we choose war as the way to complete our mission. When eventually something goes not the way have been expecting (we used to call it “wrong”) – and unfortunately it mostly goes – the level of our aggression grows really fast. We use our mouth as a machine gun, with the words as a bullets – blanks mostly. Our opponent hides in his or her fortress as well and what we get? We forget about the main objective and focus on the contest. But where is the space for sympathy, for cooperation? Why we are so blind to see that everyone has their own rights, needs? Why just don’t try to meet halfway or during the discussion, create a good option from zero? When we are calm it is also easy to not forget what we actually want and what we are motivated by. The point is to understand that the world based solely on our happiness will never be a happy world. Even word happiness tells us that – happy + ness, ness doesn’t mean me, it means me, you and the rest. So happy means something only when it’s shared. How to fight? When you see that you want to force something so badly that it gets you angry, just give yourself a virtual slap on the wrist and remember that everybody has their own truth – just like you.
#Punishment
This is the demon I compete with every single day, and still keep failing. The most dangerous one, because he ruins my freedom of living moments alive. At first, I misunderstood my desire to punish myself for everything with just being ambitious. It was easier to call it with a different, better-sounding name, than to face it. But that maneuver didn’t work, and the truth – as always – came out. There was nothing left for me, but duty to change something. How does it shows? I’m never fulfilled, never complete. Whatever I achieve, I always think that I’m able to get more. No matter how I get somewhere, in the way of analyzing it I find that I could have made better choices. And these thoughts focused on what I did wrong, or on what I didn’t do, take me far away from being happy because of the freshly completed task. Otherwise, I believe that being arrogant and convinced about our own glory make us stuck and not able to achieve more. So the point is to find the golden mean; there is nothing incorrect to take your one moment in time, the moment of glory to enjoy and celebrate hard work you’ve put in something. And when gains already are there, then is also the time to calculate losses – that’s how progression works – you need to know your weaknesses to improve. But don’t ever let you destroy your own happiness! How to fight? When your plane landed, when the boss just signed your promotion, when you won a competition or whatever else you turned into a success, just take your prize, open the champagne and celebrate.
#Escape
We escape easily. Every time we feel that we’re losing our ground, we run to a “safety room” just to lock ourselves from the inside. But what if we decide to stay in the storm, when it’s pouring? What if we decide to be open for anything what will happen and just be in that uncomfortable situation, facing our fears, contemplating emotions which are caused by and let the rain makes us soaked? Or what if it will be beautiful – different than we have been expecting – and suddenly the sunshine will appear? We will only know if we try. Whatever happens, it’s going to take us another step deeper in our self- awareness. And paradoxically, the unpleasant circumstances in the form of pouring rain, painful breakup, disease or other uncomfortable situation seem to be forceful and cold, but are often also a refreshing shower. How to fight? When you will find yourself trying to rationalize the decision of taking the exit way and looking for aspects that will excuse it – it is the sign that what you need to do is to take a deep breath, then breathe out and face the waves – but don’t fight them, surf them! Just relax and let them take you.
#Silence
It is not my intention to ask you to be loud and boastful. I’m talking about silence in the context of human relations, where it could be a real danger. No matter if it’s your partner, brother, parent or just a friend – it’s always recommended to talk. Regardless of how hard you try to choke something inside, there will come a moment – mostly not the right one – when all of the swamp you had inside will pour out. So instead of waiting for the big boom, it is better to get it done in the beginning. Sometimes we misunderstand each other, we read someone’s intentions in a different way than it was meant to. The expected result could be a disaster in form of fights, injuries, bad mood and other negative things which also simply waste our valuable time. How to fight? – when you’re about to resent, take a moment, form the questions that will clear your objectives, organize the thoughts in your head and transform them into sentences – then use the ability of speaking and make a speech.
This also applies to positive things – it’s always good to share happiness.
#Regret
We love to contemplate what we have done, or we haven’t. We wonder how life would look like, if we could just take one step backwards and change an important decision –we create a vision of a perfect world and in our imagination it looks simply like that one step made differently would change our entire history. Yes, that’s the artistic side of our soul. It happens often. How to fight with that? – be awake, and as soon as you realize that regretting is actually happening to you, take a breath and say: stop. It’s done, past is past. You’re right here, and even if this actual place is not that awesome as you want it to be, remember that some good results are invisible on the beginning. So go back to the point, do your things, hold your heart and mind open and continue your journey. We were brought up with the belief that quitting is something inappropriate, but in many situations there is nothing smarter than just to quit ☺
What is the name of the demon who undercuts your wings and causes our incapability to fly? Sounds pretty lame, but the truth is that demon’s name is also liberator’s name, and it’s your name. And there’s one common weapon to beat them – it’s called awareness. So wake up, don’t sleep –live your life being awake.