being yourself

To remain in the now you have to love yourself, part 2

Authenticity is passive.

Mostly.

There are times when you have to actively be yourself. But there are aspects of authenticity you can’t “do.”

You cannot deliberately experience joy, for example. You can only allow it to happen.

And experiencing joy is part of being you. No matter what you might think to the contrary. (If you do think to the contrary, you need to practice staying in the now.)

Because being yourself is a byproduct of cultivating presence. Of residence in the now.

We all need to experience our own beauty as often as possible. And we can’t do that hypothetically. We have to step into the present moment, again and again, and take honest account of what we find.

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Filed Under: Becoming Human Tagged With: being yourself, loving yourself, self discovery, the now, transformation

To remain in the now, you have to love yourself

By Peter Crowell 3 Comments

The past is one second ago. The future is one second away. The now is now, and only now.

No matter when that is.

No matter what’s going on.

And the now is where everything happens.

It can be a painful, scary place. And it can be ecstatic. Or it can be calm, steady, almost unnoticeable.

Our level of penetration into the now is called presence. We are only present to the degree that we can bear being in the now.

If the now is too painful, all or part of you will tend to check out. And there are lots of ways to check out.

Not checking out comes down to your ability to relax.

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Filed Under: Becoming Human Tagged With: being yourself, full self, inner obstacles, Love, loving yourself, self discovery

Self love is crucial to developing your talents, part 1

By Peter Crowell 15 Comments

Devoting time and energy to a talent or an idea is an indicator that self love is present.

Developing your talents is crucial to discovering, experiencing and revealing who you really are.

If you are not doing this, then huge regions of your being go unexplored and your sense of self is not what it could be.

You may have created a safe, small world for yourself, where you are in control and things are comfortable.

Or you may have done the opposite. You may have created a world filled with stress, frustration, a job you hate or a relationship that keeps you on edge.

Either way you’ve blocked out your talents. A huge part of you is simply not present.

Because it doesn’t fit in the world you’ve created.

You’ve constructed or become trapped in a world where essential elements of your being are simply not welcome.

But you’re not really trapped. There’s a way out.

Or in, if you like.

It just feels a little dangerous.

Love others, yes. But love yourself first.

By Peter Crowell Leave a Comment

In order to fully realize your potential as a human person, you must allow the unobstructed flow of God to pass through you.

It happens through your talents, your ideas, your relationships.

The energy that brought you into being and holds you there, also empowers you to reveal it to the world through your thoughts, words and deeds.

And you can participate in that on purpose, if you choose to. That’s how you love other people.

You take that flow of the love of God through you and you point it at other people.

But to do that, you have to love yourself.

Because self love is the love of God activated through you. And it is the source of the love you give to others.

The risk and opportunity of being alive: relationship with pain, part 5

By Peter Crowell Leave a Comment

The word Odysseus has been translated to mean son of pain. Pain given and pain received. Odysseus seems to have become himself through the rigors of life.

Rigors he endured, and rigors he inflicted on others.

It’s a mixed process and we’re all in it. It is impossible to get through life without experiencing both sides of this coin.

And trying to is a colossal waste of time.

So self actualization is not easy. Whether it’s meant to be or not is difficult to say. At this stage in human evolution, it isn’t.

It’s hard.

And this is especially true when you are trying to be yourself and live a life of your own making.

The ancient drive to be you: relationship with pain part 3

By Peter Crowell 2 Comments

When you are fully yourself you tend to treat people with the kindness and respect. Courteous behavior goes hand in hand with true individuation.

It comes from having a strong sense of self.

But that strength only happens when you undertake the inner journey of discovering what is true about yourself, good or bad.

And the risk of allowing the world to see it.

Not on purpose, necessarily. What I mean is, you own it when it pops out.

The inevitable mistakes.

In how you treat others.

In how you treat yourself.

In how you let others treat you.

Manifest your full self by establishing a relationship with pain

By Peter Crowell 2 Comments

There are no bombs going off in my neighborhood.

I’ve never known hunger I did not choose, or lack of shelter or clean water.

I’ve never lost a person close to me. I’ve never experienced life threatening disease or serious bodily injury.

The pain I deal with every day is the every-day pain of being human.

Financial pressure. Also the sense of mortality that strengthens as I grow older. And the concerns for my family that can activate fear.

But most of all I feel the urgency that goes with having a vision for my life.

Unleash your full self by practicing the now, part 3

By Peter Crowell Leave a Comment

Engaging in the now is a rigorous undertaking. It’s where all experience happens: pain and pleasure, insecurity and fear, creativity and joy.

The more time you spend in the now, the more you experience yourself as you really are.

No matter how distracted you are, nature will drag you into the now from time to time, with sudden sudden pain or joy.

By developing your sense of self, you can learn to return to the now on purpose.

You can engage in the rigors of the now willingly, more frequently, until residing in the now comes to characterize your experience.

It takes practice and it takes work.

But you can become at home in the now.

And doing that has a huge positive impact on your life.

Unleash your full self by practicing the now, part 1

By Peter Crowell 4 Comments

The present moment is the glue of the universe.

It’s where all creativity becomes anchored. It’s where all relationships happen. And it’s the dwelling place of our real, unvarnished selves.

You can tap into that underlying energy and channel it into the world. But you can only do that in the present moment. Because that access requires conscious, deliberate choice.

To be in the present moment is to participate in the energy that underlies all things.

Love.

The present moment is love itself, abiding, watching us come an go, lamenting our departure, awaiting our return.

To practice the present moment is to allow the Great Making to extend itself through you, to take on unique, specific, unrepeatable shape in the form of you.

How loving others helps you be yourself

By Peter Crowell 2 Comments

Image by Heikenwaelder Hugo www.heikenwaelder.at

Love holds you together physically, emotionally, spiritually. It’s the basis of our being. It’s a bit like water in that respect, because human beings are mostly water.

But even water is held together by love, too, molecule by molecule.

So the more love there is around, the better things are for all of us.

We need it the way we need water. Only more so.

Lucky for us it’s infinite. It’s present at every moment, in every situation, in every corner of everything.

But accessing it and extending it doesn’t just happen. You have to do it on purpose.

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Filed Under: Becoming Human Tagged With: being yourself, inner obstacles, Love, Loving others