A Balanced Relationship

My initial frame of reference for a relationship was not a balanced one.  The role I played in my family of origin was one of care taker and peace maker.

After rebelling against this as a teenager, I fully embraced it as an adult and repeated the pattern many, many times.  But as my awareness grew, my choices for relationships improved because I started to develop my fairness guide.

This guide is about stepping back and analyzing the big picture (not just the day-to-day activities) to make an evaluation on fairness and balance in the relationship.  When considering an adult relationship, it is important overall to invest the same amount of work as the other person to achieve balance, and this can always be accomplished by contributing more or less effort.

Love Those Differences!

Since I've gained inner peace, I started noticing why things used to bother me.  One of the big challenges was my family because I'm so different.

Family reunions used to be so hard for me.  I always felt like an outcast, but my last one this month was fantastic!

I truly enjoyed learning about everyone and not feeling threatened by their differences.  These obvious differences used to make me feel judged and question my sanity.

Now that I have inner peace, I feel confident, accepting and relaxed.  So when differences arise and people are surprised or uncomfortable with my responses, it doesn't bother me at all and I can enjoy the experiences.

Who Runs the Show?

Many people, myself included, have found themselves in undesirable situations and wondered how they got there.  Our minds are like computers, when they work the way we want, it is wonderful, but when they do not; it can be a mess!

Everyone receives programing from the surroundings as soon as the senses start working and the brain can process the information, which then begins our unconscious.   This automatic integration of data into the mind is the most prevalent during childhood because of the brain waves children use the most.

Once we become adults, our unconscious part of our mind is about 95% with conscious at only 5%.  This "unconscious partner" is usually the one making the decisions; but when a problem occurs, it is our conscious part that wonders what happened!

Real Success

The world we live in defines success by an economic level based on the theory that this acquisition of money, things and comfort will create happiness. All of my life, I have searched for happiness through both external and internal experiments.

While materialistic societies can give a good argument, I discovered that the journey to real happiness actually becomes an internal success story, not rags to riches but fear and anger to love and peace.

Change: Easy or Difficult?

After my 30 years of searching, I discovered that the process of changing my thinking was easy.  The difficult part was deciding what beliefs to eliminate and what replacement thoughts to use instead.

Just like writing a story, painting a picture or decorating a house, I started with getting in touch with my feelings.  Being aware of emotions and asking "is this really me, who do I want to be and why do I feel this way" led me to create my real-me foundation.

The sorting and sifting of the "who I was born to be" from the "what others said I should be" information can be time consuming and difficult, too, depending on the unbeneficial amount.  But whether it is easy or difficult, the happiness is well worth the effort!

The Three Keys for Changing Your Thinking

1) Always replace unhelpful beliefs with beneficial, realistic ones that connect with the original thoughts you want to change.

2) Tell yourself to turn on the switch by making a conscientious decision to change.

3) Repeat new thoughts often enough (20-60xs a day) to create the change you want.

Joys of Parenting

One of the wonderful joys from parenting was how much I learned from my child.  In any good relationship, learning flows both ways.

Since children are born into this world with unique temperaments, personalities, likes, dislikes and talents, they will have their own opinions, comments and questions about everything.  This exploration of their world enables us, as parents, to also see it with new eyes.

This fresh look at life made me feel so excited!  Enjoy this time while it lasts because very quickly children are off to school for adjusting to society's standards, and this innocence will soon disappear.