Quit Trying to Change Yourself

Compare the simple splendor of a rose in bloom with the tensions and restlessness of your daily life.

The Rose

The rose is perfectly content to be itself. There is not the slightest urge to be a peach blossom or a daffodil or a bird. It does not wish to be white or yellow or red if it is pink.

It does not wish to go back to being a rose bud or move ahead to being harvested for a fragrant pomander for your closet.

It does not wish to be anything other than it is now.

You

When you are tense and restless, always dissatisfied with yourself, always wanting to change yourself, you are suffering a lot. Every effort to change yourself is rooted in the intolerance of the way you are right now.

So if, with effort, you achieve some change, there is always an underlying inner conflict – the non-acceptance of who you are versus the person you wish to be.

On top of that, you suffer when you see others become something and you don’t and achieve something and you don’t.

You suffer when you are tormented by jealousy and envy for those with more knowledge, better looks, more money or more success than you.

If you want to become more virtuous or more loving or live your ideals, and that drive for self-improvement is rooted in judgment that you are not enough: not virtuous enough, not loving enough, not ideal enough, you are still suffering.

And what does the effort to change bring?

What became of those efforts for self-improvement? They either ended in disaster or success, it does not matter which.

Is the cost measured in pain and struggle worth the effort for self-improvement?

What if you let go of this laborious self-punishment of trying to change yourself?

Would it be a relief?

Or would it result in stagnant acceptance, a pinched existence with less than you want?

There is another way.

When you quit trying to change yourself and simply observe yourself, the world opens up.

This observation involves the study of what you do and how you react to people and things without a single judgment or disparaging comment about how you are and without a desire to reform your actions. This allows your observing to be one step removed and not be taken personally.

The observations must be comprehensive and not filter out things due to judgments or fixed conclusions of how things should be.

The observing becomes fresh from moment to moment because you are allowing yourself to be exactly who you are in that moment.

Then marvelous things begin to happen. In fact, a transformation occurs.

The Way of Energy and Grace

When the exhausting self-defeating process of competing, coercing, manipulating, intolerance, inner tension and conflict is gone, what is left is more energy. You are no longer driving with one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake.

The observation of your self becomes un-self-conscious, wholesome and even graceful.

. . . and Change

With this transformation comes change. It can be experienced with ease and grace.

Whether change is gradual or sudden, things may disappear or be swept away.

Nature’s way of transformation is not the same as the violence of self-hatred and intolerance.

Nature’s way involves a bigger picture which we cannot always see from this moment in which the good of the whole is moved forward and what no longer serves is swept away or disappears. And your individual greatest desire is granted as you play your part in the bigger whole.

Just like a forest fire clears out the dead wood and brush so that new seeds can sprout and the forest can maintain itself. It causes a temporary change for the plants and wildlife of the forest and some may be lost, but in the long run the health of the forest, their home, is strengthened. The dropping away of what no longer serves is part of the process.

The rosebud must be destroyed in order for the rose to bloom. And the full blooming rose, after it has opened and wafted its scent and attracted bees and insects and made a lovely display for all to see does not hold onto its blooming. It lives in the blessings of the moment and with no trace of dissatisfaction fades and drops its petals and is gone.

In the same manner, you let go of competitiveness, restlessness, anxiety and control when you are content to be who you are. Fully accepting yourself in this moment allows Nature to change everything for you for your highest desire and for the greater good of all.

Let’s Do It

Let’s practice this right now. If you have read this far, please stay with me. Take a moment, right now before you move away to another webpage. Let’s play a little game. It takes less than a minute.

Right now rest your attention back to watch what is moving through your mind. Just watch it like you would watch a parade going down the street. Allow some distance between you and what you are watching. That way you can simply be curious to what is there. Watch. Where does your attention go?

Watch it now and in 20 seconds return to reading.

Do It Now

Is that a memory of something in the past? Are you devising what you should have said instead? Watch it. (You can watch and read these sentences at the same time.)

Are you worrying about something that is coming up? Watch it now.

Are you aware of that pain in your behind? Watch it.

Did you hear those motorcycles roaring by? Watch it.

Are you listening to the voice in your head commenting on this game? Watch that too.

What did you notice? Did you notice that you were separate from your thoughts, feelings, and sensations? Those were the objects of your observation, so they could not be you.

Or did you think instead of doing it?

Or did you think about this game, and have comment and judgments about it?

Thinking about doing it is not the same as the actual experience of doing it. If you only thought about it, you merged with your thoughts and there is no difference between them and you.

It’s easy to actually play this game now. Simply be innocent and do it. If you caught yourself thinking about the game instead of doing it, do it now.

If you actually did it, do it again.  Just watch for a moment or two. Then continue reading (and you can continue watching!)

Did you watch the commentary?

What causes stress is the commentary about your life, the thoughts that evaluate what is happening, how you feel, and even the judgment about the thoughts that are running through your mind. By stepping back and watching the mind, allowing it in a more neutral way, the stress from the comments about what is happening is dissolved.

This is the beginning of self-acceptance.

By watching the thoughts in your mind and making distance and not mistaking them for you, you begin to wish for nothing other than what is happening to happen.

Dissatisfaction dissipates, any intolerance to the way things are is dissolved, judgment just doesn’t happen and there are no desires for it to be different. It just is this way now. Then it will be different in the next moment, and you can watch it.

Watching not only brings acceptance but also fulfillment

Be assured that Nature will take you in a direction of more life, more success and more fulfillment of your highest desire.

And that way is through less effort, not more. By watching and accepting, you are swimming with the current in the great ocean of life. Only with a great deal of effort you could try not being yourself and swim against the current, but the current will still take you where it is going. Effortless is the way things are meant to be.

Accepting yourself by simply watching your mind paves the way to blossoming like a rose, simple and splendid.

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“Naturopathic Physician Dr. Cheryl Kasdorf is a doctor who listens and has answers with a natural approach that works. She is known as the go-to person to get back your get-up-and-go when it is gone, gone, gone. Get your FREE gift “Dr. Kasdorf’s Health Secrets for Feeling & Looking Great” at drcherylkasdorf.com