The Value of Self

For many old age now, I have got kept a journal. And for the past twelvemonth or so, I have got been journalling about how I can possibly larn to value myself. Because I didn't, you see. Coming from a traumatic childhood, I never believed I had any value. And Iodine finally began to see that my day-to-day actions were telling me just how small I thought of myself. But I didn't cognize how to change!

So, I began to watch people. People I knew. People I didn't know. People on the street, in the malls, everywhere I was, I watched what people did, how they treated themselves, what picks they made--even little ones! And along with watching people, I began to read about how to value myself. I read that people who value themselves do good picks for their ain lives. They understand how to make things (like imbibing and eating, for example) in moderation. They understand how much they can manage in a day. They understand their work habits, and they take attention of their physical body. They do good nutrient choices. They exercise. They acquire enough rest. I read all this and more than about how a individual acts in their day-to-day life, when they believe they have got value.

As I read all this, I watched people whenever I went out to the promenade or to the park. I saw the smugglers in their athletics gear, running along the pavements or down the street. Why make they run? They run because they care enough about their wellness to desire to maintain their organic structures in good shape. They desire to have got more than energy. Because they value themselves, they run. Amongst other things. Whenever I would travel to the nutrient carnival at the mall, I would watch people. I watched the picks they made in foods. I saw the healthy looking people choosing healthy nutrients in most cases. Why? Because healthy nutrient maintain their organic structures looking and feeling strong. And people who value themselves care enough about themselves to desire to remain healthy and energetic as much as they can.

And me? I believed I had very small value and I treated myself as such. I ate the incorrect things most of the time. I sat on the sofa most of the time. I overworked myself when at work, and then beat out myself up for not being good enough. I stayed up too late, I didn't kip well at night, sometimes I would really bust out on nutrient until I felt ill to my stomach. And other modern times I wouldn't eat at all. I battled dependences because I didn't cognize how to make things in moderation. I didn't cognize what was good for me and what was bad for me. And what's worse, I didn't really care. I was a mess! I looked bad, felt worse, and I hated myself. I lived mostly in 'overwhelm' mode. Why? Because I had NO thought that I was valuable. No 1 had ever told me! It was a atrocious portion of my life, and I'm glad to state with each passing play twenty-four hours Iodine am putting it behind me.

As I read, and as I watched, a few things became clear to me. I began to see that a individual that values themselves makes good things for him/herself. They handle themselves WELL. A foreign conception to me. They cognize who they are, how they feel, and what they need. And they do certain they acquire it. They give themselves ONLY good things! And it would never traverse their heads to mistreat themselves. That would be a foreign conception to THEM!

One more than thing I have got learned about people who value themselves. They handle themselves WITH RESPECT! They are gentle and sort to themselves. Instead of whipping themselves up if something didn't travel as they'd planned (as I would do) they LOVED themselves through it. How could I larn to make this?

I learned to make this with the aid of a very fantastic counselor. She introduced me to my 'inner child'. And she asked me to handle that kid as I would any child--with loving attention and concern. And patience. It was a hard thing to learn. When I began bashing myself over something, I would seek to believe of the child--would I really handle a kid this way? When I saw myself as having an interior kid that needful love and care, I began to change. It took time. tons of time. But it's one manner I have got got learned (and am still learning) that I have value. I am valuable! And I rate to handle myself with love and respect. I also began to talk to that portion of my kid that 'didn't care'. I had to admit her feelings. I had to seek to understand why she didn't care. And I've had to state her that it's important to care!  So very, very slowly the kid in me is learning that it's important to care about self.

It's a procedure I'm calm learning. But slowly I'm beginning dainty myself as if I matter. In my twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours life, that is. Iodine am making better choices. I am loving ego more. I am keeping promises to myself more than often--instead of making and breakage promises like I used to. I am giving myself permission to be happy, and to desire good things for my life. It's been life-altering, truly it has. And I must acknowledge it experiences really, REALLY good to finally get to care.....about ME.

The Gift of Death

About 10 calendar months ago, I was told by my physician in Capital Of Thailand that I had three different types of cancer, a tumour in the brain, one in my left lung and tegument malignant neoplastic disease on my human face and other parts of my body. At the same time, my married woman was planning to go back to United States to take attention of her female parent who was dying from cancer. Talk about your "three-strikes-and-you're-out" rule! I told the physician that I did not desire to hear any more. I did not desire to cognize the prognosis, what were option treatments nor how much clip he thought I had left. I told him I needed to take a walking and make some thinking. I never went back nor have got I ever looked back. I went to a beautiful nearby parkland and walked, prayed, meditated and did some serious thinking.

I had to do some important decisions. The first determination I made was not to state my wife. Whereas I knew this would make a state of affairs that would be highly problematic future on, the first precedence was to acquire her place to her indisposed female parent who did not have got much clip left. I did not desire to put her in a place in which she was forced to take between being with me and her mother. She had been detached from her household for 10 years. Her female parent and father needed her more than than I. Arsenic things turned out, she did acquire place and was able to take attention of her Ma until she died. She is still there now taking attention of her father, who also have cancer. Regardless of the possible repercussions, I experience I made the best pick for her, given the options. True love always put the individual we love as the figure 1 priority.

Thus began a personal journeying that have been most interesting and rewarding. I was forced to discontinue working and our fiscal state of affairs deteriorated rapidly. I began having terror and anxiousness onslaughts and flashbacks. I couldn't eat or sleep. I was lonely, afraid and became totally isolated. I lost touching with all my friends. I rarely ventured out of my bedroom. I could not pay my rent nor did I have got enough money for groceries. I was on my manner out. I packed my back pack and set it by my door, determined that I would pick it up when the clip was right and caput off into the mounts to decease alone, just as my ancestors, Native Americans, had done in the past. I had accepted decease but hadn't yet learned how to encompass it. That was a lesson yet to come.

One night, I received a totally unexpected phone call from a friend life in Phuket. He told me his Tai married woman had "seen" me in a dreaming and knew I was in trouble, urging him to name me immediately. I told him I was all right and that I had made the determination to head for the mountains. I thanked him for the old age we had been together as friends and workmates and wished him well. Then I hung up.
Two years later, he showed up on my doorstep, arranged to hive away most of our property with a friend of his and told me he was bringing me to Phuket and would take attention of me as long as necessary. I was in no place to argue, I must admit. We flew to Phuket the followers eventide and I was introduced to my current surroundings, a nice 8X12 ft room where I now reside. I have got a great position of the mountains, sundowns and dawns and it is quiet, clean and comfortable. I pass a great trade of clip in meditation, supplication and thinking. I am so thankful for my friends' generousness and love.

At first, I was preparing myself to die. It is not the first clip I have got faced death, but it was the first clip I had clip to believe about it. The other incidents that decease and I were engaged were the consequences of armed combat or sudden accidents. One day, not long after my reaching here, I realized I was taking an entirely incorrect approach, accounting for my uncomfortableness with reality. It came to me during a speculation and would change my life forever. I was focusing of dying while I should be focusing on living.

I thought of Henry Martin Robert Frost's phrase, "Miles to travel before I sleep," and experienced an contiguous transmutation in my thinking, therefore my life. I believe most of us, aware of approaching death, have got a inclination to look to the past in order to analyze our legacy. While I may not always have got made the perfect determinations in my past, I am comfy that I made the best I could, considering my options and ability at the time. Our bequest is not words etched in stone, but our actions and is establish in the hearts, heads and liquor of those we have got touched along the journey. I am comfy with what I have got accomplished in that regard, having dedicated my life to helping others. As for the future? It stays unknown but whose hereafter ever really is? And is it all that important? No. The lone thing that is of import is what we make with the here and now.

Are we making the most of each and every moment? Each breath? Each thought? That is what life is all about. That realisation helped me grip the existent significance of life and recover a sense of intent and passionateness that had abated over the former few months. I felt re-energized and filled with an expanded awareness, gratitude, joyousness and love, not to advert renewed intent and passion. My life isn't over. It is just beginning.

I stopped viewing my status as a curse word and began perceiving it as a gift. By embracing death, I had learned how to live, not just survive. By embracing and accepting death, I was free to dwell to my fullest potential. I stopped worrying about malignant neoplastic disease and welcomed it, even to the point of now referring to it as "my gift." It maintains me focused on the here and now. As soon as I changed my thinking, my life also changed.

During day-to-day meditation, I direct my disease love, rather than fighting it. As a result, I have got gotten stronger. The terror and anxiousness onslaughts no longer assail me. The incubuses and flashbacks of warfare ceased. I have got got arrived at one of the most big determinations I have ever made.

I love Thailand. I left United States 10 old age ago by pick and have got enjoyed life here very much. I never intended to go back "home" again. Kingdom Of Thailand have go my home. However, it is clip to leave. For one thing, I desire and demand to be with my married woman again. We have got been apart too long. We did not put 38 old age into our matrimony in order to dwell apart and alone during our future years. She cannot leave of absence her father so it is clip for me to travel to her and share the duty of taking attention of a fantastic adult male who have always given us so much.

Secondly, there are still many people in the human race who could still profit from the doctrine of Transformational Thinking and there are three people in United States who desire to larn how to learn it to future generations. It is clip to learn them. There is another friend from Republic Of Ghana who is very actively involved in an international attempt to assist larn immature people how to go leadership of tomorrow who also desires to learn how to learn Transformational Thinking and he is currently staying in America. Oddly enough, he wrote me last nighttime telling me he had just received word that his female parent had died in Republic Of Ghana and I spent hours on-line with him helping him work through his grief, hurting and shock. Iodine was glad I was here to assist him.

We waste material far too much clip and energy chasing the replies to the two top enigmas of life: Why are we here and what haps when we die? I have got finally establish the reply to both: It doesn't matter! Living with intent and passionateness in the here and now takes attention of the former question. We can and must each make our ain intent and prosecute it with unbridled passion. As for the second, living life to the fullest and with expanded consciousness do the latter inquiry a disputed one. I simply don't have got the desire or clip to worry about the future.

I will be leaving my darling Kingdom Of Thailand in less than three weeks. Another friend in the United States have generously offered to pay my airplane menu from Phuket to Garrison Lauderdale. What am I going to make when I acquire there? I don't know. I will calculate that out when the clip comes. Right now, I am only focused on the here and now. I am totally free! I am filled with happiness, gratitude and fulfillment. I am ready to get the adjacent leg of what have always been an exciting escapade of find and learning. I am alive! What a fantastic gift I have got been given!