The negativity that’s most stark in many brains is the sense of “unworthiness” which usually translates into a lack of self-confidence and development of patterns of self hatred. This sense of unworthiness is the most toxic negativity on can ever hold, simply because it single handedly spawns most other forms of negativity like suppression, meekness, jealousy, greed, neediness and exploitation. Even the mildest form of non-acceptance, of yourself, is a case of self-hatred and stands in resistance to allowing the well-being of your life-stream. Most self-help books talk about self-acceptance as the core topic, and thus are useful in bringing this dysfunction to the light of your awareness, but most of them end up giving techniques like positive affirmations (forced self appreciation), or even self hypnosis (possibly using sublimal programming), which don’t provide any concrete results especially when you have a strong momentum of negativity going within you.
The reason why positive affirmations are not very effective when it comes to removing a sense of unworthiness is because the simple truth remains that the mind can’t fool itself. A negative mind cannot use a technique to become positive simply because the very base/motivation of taking up the technique is a belief in the negativity – only because you strongly believe in your unworthiness/self-hatred that you are “trying” to remove it. So your mind already has a strong belief in the thoughts of self-hatred and any technique it applies stems from this place of negativity, hence it cannot create a positive effect. “Forced positivity” not only is ineffective, it’s quite harmful in that it makes you afraid of facing your negativity leading to more suppression and hence more resistance. Self-hypnosis again is a technique of “unconsciousness”, where you are trying to make yourself unconsciously positive which doesn’t work because you can hypnotize the brain, in some manner, but your “negative emotional energy”, present in your inner space, cannot be hypnotized and it will keep recreating the negativity in the brain (in new forms).
When you gain some level of awareness, you easily understand that techniques are not the answer to releasing negativity – the mind cannot solve the mind. The one who created the problem does not have the capacity to truly resolve the problem, it only keep “re-creating” it in new ways. What’s required is to bring in an “intelligence”, or space, other than the mechanical intelligence of the brain in order to solve its conflicts/negativity – this intelligence comes into fore by letting go into a space of awareness.
Don’t fight thoughts of self-hatred
People who start gaining some awareness about how negativity attracts a negative reality (usually by reading/learning about the law of attraction) mostly start a fight against the negative patterns in the mind to get rid of them in a hurry. This starts a new form of negativity which can simply be termed as “suppression” of negativity. Suppression of negativity is like adding a resistance on top of a resistance, thus serving no positive purpose. That’s the reason why so many books written on how to “use” law of attraction, by using techniques of forced positivity, just end up leaving a person feeling more negative than before, and also cause the creation of a new negative habit of constantly suppressing negative thoughts.
The truth is that the mind doesn’t have to “use” law of attraction, through any practices or techniques, it just needs to let go into the attraction force generated by the pull of your life-stream. Your life-stream is already a point of attraction summoning your well-being, it’s constantly focused on manifesting the desired reality which is your natural expression – so in simple words your life-stream is already using law of attraction to create your desired reality, all that’s needed of you is to let go into this pull. All the techniques you use as a frantic effort to get to your desired reality in fact just become means of resistance because they are all stemming from a place of lack – so to let go also includes letting go of all your “forced positivity” techniques.
The paradox is that self-acceptance arises automatically when you stop trying to accept yourself forcibly. Self-acceptance is the most natural state of being because life inherently is in full acceptance of itself. It’s only the negative momentum generated in the mind that creates the idea of self-hatred (mostly out of patterns of comparison). When the mind’s momentum reduces, and the cloud of past negative energy is released, you realize that you naturally don’t feel self-hatred in your being – in other words your being is already free of self-hatred, you don’t have to force it. So how to reduce the momentum of the mind? Just remove the foot from the accelerator and the car comes to a halt on its own, the way to remove your foot from the accelerator of the mind is just stay as a space of relaxed awareness allowing the “motor” of your mind to slow down and finally ebb away in force. (You can read this post about Relaxed Awareness)
Relaxed awareness is not a practice
It may look as if relaxed awareness is a practice because it seems as if you are “doing” it. But in truth relaxed awareness means you just let go and stop “controlling”. All practices require a control, whereas relaxed awareness is about letting go of control, and hence it’s not a practice. It’s actually a natural state of being where you are in sync with your life-stream, in an effortless manner – this is what it means to be in the flow of life. The reason why I even ask people to “do” relaxed awareness for 30 minutes a day is simply because most people are addicted to asking for a “structure” or a method, rather than just understanding the real reason behind how open/relaxed awareness dissolves negativity – once you understand the “logic” (or science) behind it, it would be your way of living and it won’t be some practice that you strictly follow.
Letting go is a way of living because it’s about releasing your egoic need to “get there” and just opening up to allow your life-force to take over. Relaxed awareness, letting go, open awareness, openness, staying surrendered to your life-stream, staying as a space of awareness – these are all pointers that I use, and they all mean the same thing. Something in you already knows what I am pointing to, it’s just that the mind keeps jumping in with a “how do I do that” and you just fall for this question again and again, instead of just staying open. It’s the simplest thing to stay in a place of letting go, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean that it’s “easy” because initially its very difficult to just stay allowing – especially because so much suppressed negativity starts getting released as you open up, and this release can feel over-whelming.
How does relaxed awareness create self-acceptance?
As I mentioned, your being is already free of self-hatred because its natural vibration is akin to love which translates to self-acceptance and self-love. Once your accumulated negativity, in the mind, ebbs away, you become privy to this vibration of self-love. So it’s only about waiting for the past negative momentum in your brain to die away – it does take time, after all it has been accumulated over several years. The higher your negative momentum the more time it takes to ebb away, but on an average even a mind with a high negative momentum ebbs away in force within 6-8 months as you stay in an open awareness without fighting it or forcing it.
It’s feels quite miraculous, initially, to just wake up one morning and sense that a lot of negative patterns are no longer running in the mind and that there is an automatic sense of growing self-acceptance. Initially you even wonder how the negativity got dissolved on its own, but soon you realize that open awareness is “silent intelligence”, it’s not noisy, it does not argue, it does not fight, it just converts anything it touches into its natural vibration of wholeness. When you are in open awareness you are allowing the intelligence of life to touch your mind – for a while it may feel as if nothing is happening, and it may even seem as if the negativity has increased (because a lot of suppressed negative energy starts getting released), but at one point you just start feeling stable, you start sensing an inner wholeness and the pull of negativity is no longer an active force.
Not everyone can trust this space of letting go, especially having been brought up in a society of “do it yourself” and “just do it” mentality. The mind can do a lot of mechanical things but it can’t solve its negativity without the help of an intelligence outside the mind – the intelligence of awareness. So, for people who can’t trust this space of staying as open awareness (some people also express concern about becoming “lazy”, because open awareness feels like you are doing nothing), it helps to understand the real dynamics behind negativity in the mind and how open awareness works. Developing this understanding can help you gain trust in letting go more and more until you reach a place of total openness in your being.
Sen,
When you are in a state of open awareness (I tend to make it into a daily meditation), should you still disassociate with the negative thoughts that come? I often find it hard to disassociate myself from negative thoughts and when certain negative thoughts arise (ones that cause the most suffering), I find it very difficult to simply not be interested in them, thus I am fueling them further. I find myself getting carried away with certain thoughts, being “drawn in” by them, and sometimes it feels impossible not to be taken in by this pull. Should I simply allow this to happen, or continue trying to detach?
Eternus, you don’t have to “try” to distance yourself from any thought. Just be allowing of the thought to play out in your awareness, and if you get dragged into the thoughts it’s fine – it takes a while for awareness to become stable and you will need to give yourself that time. The space of your awareness has just started to grow, and it will take time before it stabilizes. Even the smallest awareness of a negative thought ensures that you are not totally lost in it, and hence are not fueling it completely – this awareness keeps growing in strength ensuring that negativity loses its grip on your being.
Thanks Sen for the article…!
Can you pls clarify on below 2 points:
1. As you say ‘not’ to fuel the thoughts which is quite negative in nature.
2. Be aware and stay in a space and ‘allow’ all thoughts which generates in mind.
I feel above 2 points are quite contradict in nature.. Please advice, when you reach a space of awareness and when you allow all thoughts to touch your life stream of being, aren’t we knowingly or unknowingly fueling all the negative thoughts in our mind?
If context of above 2 statements are used in totally different phases of awareness, Pls explain those phases.
Thanks,
Satish
Sat, hopefully you’ve come to realize that there are two aspects in you – “the being” and “the mind”, that’s we are called a “human being” – the “human” part is the mind and the “being” part is the space of awareness that watches the mind quite literally. The “being” is always aware, you can’t switch off awareness – it’s aware all the time. The “mind” (or brain) is not always active, it has periods of silence and periods of noise, it’s just a physical machine – the biggest problem is that we make such a big deal out of what the mind thinks, instead of just seeing that its a machine and it can think whatever it wants as long as you are not pulled around by it into unwise actions.
When you know yourself as the “being”, you have to choice to not believe everything the mind says – this is what I mean by don’t “fuel” negative thoughts. You can’t stop being “aware”, because as I said, you can’t switch off awareness – the being is always aware. Awareness by itself does not fuel thoughts, it’s only when you “believe” a thought that you fuel it – just re-read this statement, so that you can really understand how thoughts are fueled. Your belief is what fuels thoughts, your unconscious identification is what fuels thoughts – just being aware of a thought does not fuel it, in fact how can you not be aware? Awareness is always “on”. Awareness is like an open sky, and thoughts can pass through it like clouds. Unconscious attention/focus/belief on a thought is what fuels it, without your belief a thought loses its hold on your consciousness. So just allow the thoughts to happen in this open awareness, in your being, without giving it the fuel of your belief/identification. In simple words, Awareness is an “impersonal” space – thoughts can pass in your open awareness. Attention makes it “personal”, when you latch onto a thought you make it personal – for example, when the mind creates a fearful thoughts, there is no problem as long as you are not latching onto the fear by becoming fearful of it – if you just stay as open awareness the fear will just pass. If you don’t fear the fearful thoughts of the mind, the the fearful thoughts loses hold on your being.
Again you can’t “knowingly” fuel a negative thoughts – it’s like saying that you are eating stale food knowing that it will make you sick, once you know the food is stale you don’t eat it. It’s only “unknowingly” or unconsciously that we fuel negative thoughts. Anyone who has an iota awareness will stop giving fueling to negative thoughts by not giving it belief. You are already becoming aware of the mind’s negativity, so you have the choice to not fuel it with your belief in it, and just allow it to dissolve in force. A negative thought has the fuel of past momentum, so it will keep coming into your awareness as long as it has this past force – all you can do is just “allow” it, and slowly it will lose its force – instead if you try to suppress it or you run away from it, you are indirectly fueling it with your fear.
Sen, all your articles are really great.
Since many years, I have feelings of insecurity, unbelongingness. I feel disconnected from others and situations and places. I feel less loved and unworthy. After reading your articles I understood that “I” am part of Wholeness. I would like to have your insights into having a sense of belonging.
Thanks a lot.
Nisha, you are not just a “part” of wholeness, but you are wholeness of life itself because inherently there is no separation in life-energy – energy is free of boundaries, it just vibrates as different forms in this physical plane. To have this understanding is to help you realize that you are one with the universe, and are not isolated or orphaned by life. The reason you feel less loved or unworthy is because you are identifying with the thoughts of the “ego” which is always looking at itself as separate from everything – the ego by itself is a thought of separation. The ego is fine, and it has a value, as long as you are not totally identified with it and its thoughts of separation. Quite literally, you need to let go of holding on to the ego structure so firmly, and allowing yourself to just fall back into the space of your being. The more connected you are with your being, the more whole your vibration becomes, and the more you attract positive realities.
Thank you so much, Sen
Thanks a lot Sen for giving the clarification. It’s a wonderful explanation.
Sen this is the most important problem I deal with. I go through intense periods of self loathing where I just blame myself for everything and say the worst possible things to myself. On one level I know its unfair and irrational, and that it does not last forever. The challenge is that even though I watch my mind, because of the intensity and the frequency of my thoughts, they do hurt me. I try to be in a state of allowing. I watch my mind, and there is an automotic dialogue that occurs, where the mind will contest the negative thoughts it produces, which actaully fuels them further.
Is there anyway to deal with such periods of intensity, where almost every thought is a negative one about oneself, where I lose almost all perspective and gets very much fearful and upset by whats occuring. In periods of less intensity negative thoughts are easily left alone. Its just I keep regressing back into these negative periods.
many thanks
Anon, basically what you are saying is that you find the mind to be “overwhelming” in its negativity at times. The only reason the mind is “overwhelming” is because it has a lot of momentum present in it still. And basically, you just need to wait for its momentum to die down, by doing what you are doing now, by staying in this state of open allowing. If there was a shortcut I would’ve give you that, but there is no shortcut, because life works in a liner way, its pure physics – the momentum that the mind has gain over all these years of your unconscious attention to it, will need to allow the time for it to dissolve. When you stay in this space of open allowing, its the fastest way to allow this dissolution – but it still, obviously, needs to run its course, the more past momentum it has the more time it takes.
Sen ji,
The awareness you are creating about self…..is really great, unexplainable in words. just a day back i got to know about your articles while randomnly surfing about my excessive thoughts….Believe me i have started to just see all my thoughts as a third person and its really working wonders to me. iam just treating my thoughts, as being generated by brain bcoz it has to do its work. this simple solution has given my mind rest for most of the day . and iam sure of being aware of myself slowly.
Thanking you
Hi Sen,
As Rumi said: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
I perceive the barriers mentioned to be self-decrepitating beliefs, where one has to consciously question those beliefs to come to peace and freedom, which entails a certain amount of ‘doing’. Of course, like you mentioned, and Einstein as well, that we cannot solve the problem that is created at the same mind level. That’s when awareness comes in and ‘non-doing’ to allow the mind to settle before any ‘doing’ can proceed.
I’m just wondering, like you said, it’s possible to come to this space of peace without any ‘doing’ at all? Wouldn’t those barriers still be there?
Star, that’s a very accurate pointer that Rumi gave that it’s not about seeking wholeness but just removing the cloud of negativity and coming to the natural vibration of your wholeness beneath it, which is always present permanently. You don’t have to achieve wholeness, just need to let go of negative and you fall into wholeness automatically. The only way to permanently dissolve a negativity is to allow it to run out of momentum by no longer fueling it through identification or suppression – this is why the pointer of “let go” or “do nothing” is given to point to a simple state of open awareness where you are not trying to get “rid” of the negativity but just allowing it run out of its momentum, on its own. Your awareness of its movement keeps you from being lost in it, or being over-identified with it, and staying as open awareness means you are not trying to suppress it either.
Questioning beliefs can also become a mind activity, where one belief gets replaced by another belief, but if you just stay aware of a certain belief you can start seeing through it on your own without requiring the activity of questioning. Awareness is like “silent intelligence”, no amount of effort is needed to remove a negativity, just a simple open awareness of it – you can say that being aware is also like a “doing” but that’s just a perspective. The value of a pointer is just give you a clue, or a recognition, of how to dissolve a negativity, over-analyzing a pointer again becomes another mind activity. The whole pointer of “let go doing” is to point towards letting go of trying to get rid of the negativity which arises and just staying as open awareness which is like a “non doing”. The energy behind trying to get rid of something comes from a place of fear/hatred, which indirectly fuels the very negativity we try to get rid of.
Thank you for your clarification 🙂
I actually have been doing this without being aware of it. I felt this path was best to get myself to my best self. I’m glad someone put it so eloquently and I’m almost instantly at peace just knowing I’m not completely alone or wrong with this thought process.
Can we talk to our life stream? Obviously not in the sense of “Want to go for lunch?” but asking for help with the dissolution of a tough pattern or something. I “prayed” (if you can call it that) a few days ago for help bringing up anxiety, then I finally got a wave of it come up that night.
I’m not getting anything back now, though.
Hi Sen!
I have already begun the phase of release, and I have a few questions as I work upon myself.
1. Is it alright to give yourself affirmations like “You are a peaceful,joyous being..etc”especially when you are unduly tensed in a particular situation?(The process of release has been started ,mostly limiting it to 1-2 hours when I actually get time for myself.)
2.Have you read the book by Louis Hay which delivers promising self healing methods?The first question comes after reading this book. It says ,as we develop self limited concepts about money,happiness,unworthiness etc,we should gradually de-condition ourselves when such a need arises.But Is it alright to do these things during the phase of release?
If you could please clarify….
Thanks and regards!
Marcy, the phase of release is required to bring a balance towards the light and dark nature/aspects in you – imbalances can be towards the light nature or towards the dark nature, and a balance requires an integration of the light and dark in oneself. The affirmation you cited about “You are a peaceful joyous being” is an example of a light-natured affirmation, and these affirmations can act as a technique to suppress dark nature aspects from arising (for example, when agitation arises in you, you will need to allow the agitation to arise freely instead of suppressing it through the use of light-natured affirmations).
Before you can “de-condition” yourself of the limiting beliefs, first you need to release the momentum of the mind/emotions that have been built up over the past. While going through the phase of release you don’t have to “try” to de-condition yourself, rather you just have to allow the conditioning of the mind to arise freely in your awareness without suppressing it or getting identified with it – in this state of allowing the momentum of the mind starts ebbing away on its own. Once the mind loses its momentum, its “conditioning” no longer has an imbalanced pull over you, and you can work on “replacing” any conditioning that you wish to change through focus.