Tian Dayton

Today I recognize the futility of trying to change someone else’s behavior. If I postpone my own growth and happiness until such time when others close to me recognize what I am doing, approve of it and act as I wish they would, I might wait forever. If someone else could act better, they would act better. What they are doing is all they can do. If they
are behaving in unenlightened ways, it is because they are not able to do otherwise. They lack self-awareness. Their awareness will come to them in their own time. What I can do is change my behavior. If there is a dynamic that I do not like, I will do far more to alter it by clearing up my side. When I don’t engage in my part of a difficult interaction,
it transforms into something else.

I will change myself.

Growth is the only evidence of life.
John Henry Newman

I am part of a larger plan, the evolution of the human mind. If evolution is natural to the species of plants and animals, then I must be evolving as well. The true scholar seeks to build on what has been developed. He or she continues to test and prove, to grow theories and then to pass them on in good order to the next generation of researchers and learners. I will be a good scholar of life today, a competent researcher of the human soul. I will do my part to expand in the
accumulated knowledge that I have access to, to experiment and add to a body of information and then to pass it lovingly on to the next generation.

I am part of the evolution of spirit.

“Cardinal Sebastian,” he continued, “the Manuscript describes the progress of succeeding generations as an evolution of understanding, an evolution toward a higher spirituality and vibration. Each generation incorporates more energy and accumulates more truth and then passes that on to the people of the next generation who extend it further.”
James Redfield, “The Celestine Prophecy”

Fearful as I can be of repeating painful history, it is important for me to understand that in a very fundamental way, it is impossible-the forces of nature are against it. In this alive world, billions of neurons are passing through each moment, altering the probabilities constantly. If I can release my self-defeating patterns, nature will do the rest. Dysfunctional patterns get passed on when I am in denial of my real self, when I can’t look at and be with who I really am. If I was hurt by a certain behavior from someone as a child, I need to feel that hurt and own it as my own; otherwise, I will constantly see the world as doing it to me. I will project my pain and continually re-create the experience. There is no need for me to do this if I am willing to feel all my feelings surrounding a particular situation. This is my best weapon against repeating dysfunctional patterns. This teeming universe can come in and fill the  vacuum created by my release and fill the space in me where an old wound used to be.

The world will help me to heal.

You could not step twice in the same river.
Heraclitus

Today I will not avoid an inner hell in order to live constantly in heaven. When I refuse my deepest fears and nightmares, I keep the best of my inner life at bay as well. The demons that I fear the most gain life while I hold them in the darkness within me. When I face them fully and bring them into the light they shrivel up and die. Part of my
psychic and spiritual growth lies in my willingness to know all – all that is outside and all that is within. Running from any part of me creates distance from my soul – if I wish to walk a spiritual path and come closer to myself, I need to face all that is there. There is nothing ugly about me if I hold it in the light of compassion, love and forgiveness; no hell on earth or within me is more powerful ultimately than love.

I wil1 face fully what is inside of me.

Hell has three gates: lust, anger and greed.
Bhagavadgita

I will not shrink from experiencing the ups and downs of my life. In the little disequilibriations of the day, soul energy is activated. Today I will pay attention. Rather than “get over it,” I will “get into it.” I will lengthen the moment of contact with my own individual soul. I get to know soul, cultivate and work with it in my own life by paying attention. My reactions, likes and dislikes map out my journey toward self. When I follow my own bliss, as it were, I am following me – I am moving in a direction of my own leaning, where more of me will be available to grow with and into; I am going with the flow of my own inner being and working with my intuitive self, the self that leads me toward soul.

I cultivate my own soul.

Every day, every more or less average human individual experiences the appearance of this energy in its most  embryonic stage. Whenever there is pain or contradiction, this energy of the soul is released or “activated.”
Jacob Needleman from “The Soul” by Phil Cousineau