Monday Motivating Mindset

THE HYPE

This weeks Motivating Mindset will help you help find stillness and inner peace.

THE CHALLENGE

Your Mindset challenge this week is getting in the habit of asking yourself:

"What is the true source of my suffering?"


THE PROMISE

Ask yourself this question as many times as you suffer each day and you will become aware of the source of your salvation.


THE TIPS

As you go about your day today ask yourself "What is the true source of this suffering?" whenever you feel down and out.

Try to limit asking this question to situations where you feel negative, versus times that you are just thinking negative.

Negative thinking can lead to the feeling of suffering but it is important not to dwell too much on the source of negative thinking.

There is really no sense in trying to determine the source of each negative thought that you have because there will always be another negative thought to replace it.

Negative thoughts are repeated in the mind throughout the day as if on autopilot, hence the term A.N.T.'s, for Automatic Negative Thoughts.

Negative thoughts are something that we cannot avoid and will never go away fully, no matter how enlightened, successful or positive you are.

However the most enlightened, successful and positive people have came to one crucial and critical realization.

What they've realize is that negative thoughts pose no inherent danger to anybody, in fact a negative thought itself has never caused a single negative event.

Negative thoughts must first be acted upon in order to create negative events, situations and suffering.

Therefore, there is no problem with negative thoughts if one learns to ignore them, however the problem with most people is that they believe they are their thoughts.

How frequently you believe your negative thoughts will determine how often there is pain and suffering in your life.

If most of the time you believe that you are your negative thoughts then you are extremely likely end up on a psychiatrist's couch or in a psych ward.

This is because the more firm and passionate we are about our beliefs the more emotional energy we encode into our experiences.

When we believe a negative thought passionately we give power to our negative thoughts which generates negative emotions.

Our negative emotions are interpreted by the body as negative feelings that inevitably motivate us to take negative action.

Negative actions are action, often sub-conscious, that are taken in the heat of the moment and that move us away from our highest hopes and dreams.

If this happened to you, you might be thinking well at least I took action, and besides... at the time it felt like it was the right action to take...

Beware of the beast called Justification... Justification sneaks into every situation and sedates the suffering with apathy.

Justification clouds the truth, like in this case hides the fact that you are taking action from a negative state of being and expecting to get a positive result!

How can you ever get a positive outcome to result from a negative intention? It's like squeezing an orange into a glass and expecting apple juice to come out!

Once you realize that the end of suffering comes as a result of many small paradigm shifts you will then be more encouraged to seek out and feed only your positive thoughts.

You will definitely invite more happiness in your life by putting your energy, attention and focus on areas of your life that are more positive.

Ask yourself "What is the true source of my suffering?" to uncover areas in your life that may need some attention shifting.


THE SECRET

The secret to ending your suffering is to first realize the true source of your suffering.

Suffering is not some invisible phenomenon that is floating around in the air waiting to attack its victims.

Suffering does not happen randomly to certain people while arbitrarily avoiding others.

Suffering happens as a direct effect of a cause, the cause being because you allowed it.

The reasons why people allow suffering into their lives is as varied and diverse as there are people.

This is because suffering is subjective, meaning that what makes one suffer does not necessarily make another suffer.

Suffering happens as a result of your beliefs, a belief that a person, thing or situation should be a particular way.

When the person, thing or situation does not conform or meet the standard you've imagined suffering is created.

For example, let's pretend that you drive your significant other to work everyday and it takes five minutes.

Pretty soon, after a few months of driving like this you would start to believe that 5 minutes was how long it takes.

Let's just say that all of a sudden traffic jams start happening due to construction and the drive now takes 45-minutes.

Many people just like you would be very upset with the new commute, and rightly so, because of how it would affect the rest of their day.

In this case when asked "what is the true source of your suffering?" you might reply something like "the incompetent city or slow construction!"

What you aren't realizing is that the source of your unhappiness and suffering stems only from you being attached to something.

In this example you have become attached to a particular way of thinking, the belief that the drive should only take 5-minutes.

However, what you would have failed to recognize is that the real source of suffering is the failure to update your current reality with new information.

Since the fact has become that the drive now takes 45-minutes, believing that it should take only 5-minutes is an attachment to an old and false belief.

It doesn't matter if 999 times in a row that the drive took only 5 minutes, the new reality is that the drive now takes 45 minutes.

When you fail to update your reality and try to operate with your old reality in a world where only a new reality exists, this undoubtedly creates suffering.

Imagine a butterfly trying to eat the same food in the same manner as it once did as a caterpillar, it wouldn't survive long after transforming would it?

Believing in your negative thoughts generates negative emotions and that suffering in turn produces a vicious cycle of more low energy and negative feelings.

To avoid the slippery slope of stinking thinking ask yourself "What is the true source of my suffering?" and look inside for answers.

Inside of yourself holds the key to everything you ever need in life, including the answer to the salvation of your suffering.

The Buddha summarized this best when he said "All unhappiness stems from attachment".

Once you realize that the true cause of your suffering is the result of attachment to a belief your mind you will feel more empowered to work with and release that belief if necessary.

In fact, every time that you come across suffering, by evidence of your experience, you should learn that it means its time to let something go.

Letting go of your attachments is the true secret to success.

Therefore, finding what you are attached to in the first place is the first place to start.

Asking yourself "What is the true source of my suffering" will help you uncover clues to your attachments.

Once you have found the source of your unhappiness ask yourself "What am I prepared to do about this?"

Stay strong to see the truth, be courageous enough to let go and always find a way to move forward from what is holding you back.