Do a reality check. Filter for better. GROW.

Reality check.

Look around you and see where you are right now and expand as wide as you could…(to the universe). What is your current situation? Whatever comes up, be honest and say it out loud to yourself, so you can hear it and admit it finally. Stop blinding yourself with million excuses (especially outside matters that are not related), drama-mellow or avoidance game and quickly run back to imagination or fantasy cave for the sake of safety, certainty and security illusions.

Grant yourself wishes, but be careful what you wish for.

After admitting your situation, you will gain a clearer sight of what you need to do, and keep the wish at the back of your mind till it happens without you noticing and maybe mention it to the shooting star if you see one someday. Wishing after reality check helps you be careful with what you wish for. If you ever heard of:

Hedonic Treadmill — The Art of Thinking Clearly- Rolf Dobelli

On one hand the happiness effects after winning a lottery, having a mansion, luxurious cars, own clothing brands fizzles out in like 3 months, and we don’t feel excited anymore. On the other hand, the negative effects you think you can just grow accustomed to like stuck in the city traffic and spend 2 hours every time you want to go somewhere because you want a car for yourself. (Phnom Penh city, Cambodia situation) We create the situation in our head, predict our own feeling and predict that it will stay. Though the reality is we, humans can’t predict our feeling. In the book as well mention Harvard Psychologist Dan Gilbert called this:

Affective Forecasting: our inability to correctly predict our own emotions.- The Art of Thinking Clearly- Rolf Dobelli

We shall wish for the long-lasting positive effect that comes from what we actively do. What are your favorite activities that bring you joy, get you into the flow, put a smile on your face, expand your heart and light up your head?

A list of activities we enjoy doing. Some people taking it to the next level by making it their living, simply they are living it.

Filter for better.

Check the reality, honestly admit to yourself your situation will help you do the filter out work better from time to time. It contributes to your personal growth and your identity throughout your life journey.

Like booking apps on the smartphone, you can select your options to filter out what you want and what you are looking for and you can change the options later on and frequent as much as you want. It works similarly for life and you can quickly change according to your level of self-awareness.

So what to filter?

Pretty simple, filter out the negativity and toxicity.

Let’s talk about relationships, of course, we don’t want to meet the same abusive or aggressive girl or guy for example, so how to filter those bae(s) out?

We put the proper judgment (not judging somebody without awareness), trust our guts, listen to the beyond communication, observe the behavior patterns, caught the expressions (most happen in the 2 seconds like a slow-motion in the Hollywood movies).

Ask yourself basic questions out of the list like a surgeon. What does he/she really want from me?

What good I can give to him/her?

His/her background and the stories he/she experiences which help us to understand more his/her mindset and belief system.From time to time, you will get better at it.

Why we have to learn to do this? We need to create an energy shield to protect ourselves from falling into the same place again. To GROW.

Let’s do one more with friendship.

We all have this one friend that always brings the sadness and the same old experiences to the table because he or she stuck in the same place and has nothing new or interesting to talk about, but troubles, or walk their pain-body around.

Or maybe you filter out abusive guys and you seem to stay single for quite sometimes and a group of friends you hang out with always asking and talking about boys and put you under pressure for some moments when you are not aware of.

We want to filter them out and strategically stay far from them as long as you can. Maybe they are old friends or live in the same town which is hard to stop communicating with them completely.

Do that so you are less headache and save more energy. And the interesting thing is, these cases don’t always look the same, so it is tricky.

You need to be really aware of its many faces.

I do mention pain-body. If you ever experienced or heard of the whole couple or family drama stories mostly happened on the gathering night. Basically, we screamed, shouted or complained at each other.

What can we do about it?

Chapter 5: Pain-body- Eckhart Tolle, we do not react to it and listen with understanding and compassion, because simply it is the person’s problem and nobody else should take it personally. Reacting to it only to make it worse.

Practicing this and identifying the, “Not my lessons to learn” to say, “No, I don’t want to trap in all of these,” and to stop taking home those negativities.

Separately, identify what is my lesson to learn.

To be responsible for and take ownership of that including any pain patterns, changes or emotions that arise to the surface or happen from time to time.

Sit down with it and observe it when it happens, so you can set yourself free. Gain more inner space that is inside of your control and and learn what allows you to do more every day.

By Stoic, the things under our control are Mind, Choice, and Will. Even the body is outside of our control. So, we do not scream and drama over things that we have no control over.

On that note, I just want to quickly quote an interesting fact from Intelligent In The Flesh — Guy Glaxton because I am someone who is right now learning about how to better connect to my body knowing that it is outside my control as it is important to my personal growth. If you ever heard of Embodied Knowledge.

We do not have bodies, we are bodies. I don’t own it or inhabit it; from it, I arise. -Guy Glaxton

The goal is to connect the mind (which we have the control) with the body (which we don’t have the control) in order to GROW.

Without physical feelings and intuitions, abstract intelligence sheers away from the subtleties and complexities of the real world, and people become “clever-stupid”, able to explain and comprehend but incapable of linking that understanding to the needs and pressures of everyday life.- Guy Glaxton

The same with excitement, broken heart won’t last forever, treadmill illusion.

At the moment you are in pain and you thought you won’t fall in love ever again. Later on one day you get better and you will meet another good person.

If you do not confront them and free yourself from them, those pain seeds you suppressed will come back from the back door someday, and you will be clueless about where they are come from. And discover it is because you kept suppressing avoiding them till you successfully buried them and they are seemingly forgotten.

Always be ready to confront them bravely at the moment like a warrior.