To understand the ways to empower ourselves it helps if we can understand something about the ‘damage’ which can happen to each part of ourselves, which prevent us being empowered. This understanding is important because if we are mostly damaged in, say, our sense of Self Worth that would require a very different approach to fixing damage to our Self Confidence or Self Respect.
The three aspects of ourselves are very closely interelated, so damage to one part can affect the functioning of the other parts too. For example, damage to our Self Confidence may affect our Self Esteem and vice versa. Just like heavy damage to one leg of a three-legged stool can cause the stool to wobble or fall over. This close connection between the different parts can sometimes make it tricky to tell which part of us is damaged.
Damage to Self Confidence: because our Self Confidence is mostly about how we relate to the world, damage to our Self Confidence is usually about things we have done or said. In other words good old fashioned guilt. The guilt may or may not be justified. It may have been laid onto us by others, or by social pressure which was unfair or biased. Excessive guilt can block us from taking action when action is appropriate. It may even stop us from looking at how we can make amends for some harm which we have done.
Damage to Self Worth: because our Self Worth is mostly about how we relate to our inner world and what we believe we are worth, damage to our Self Worth usually takes the form of shame. It can also take the form of rage. Rage seems to be one of the ways we protect ourselves from the pain of shame.
We may just put a blanket of rage over our shame, so if you see yourself going into a rage for no apparent reason see if there is shame underneath.
Damage to Self Respect: because our Self Respect is mostly about our relationship with God (or spirit, our values, our highest aspirations, etc.), damage to Self Respect takes the form of purposelessness. When our Self Respect is damaged we might feel that life has no purpose and no meaning and that it is is just not worth living. This is so common nowadays – because of the lack of awareness healthy Self Respect is so lacking – that it may unfortunately be considered normal by some and not identified as a problem needing to be dealt with.
How to know where your are damaged.
If you are naturally wary of the ‘world’ and feel challenged by getting setting goals and meeting them it could be that you are low in Self Confidence and probably prone to guilt. It may not mean that you have done anything wrong. If others have used guilt to punish you, or control your behaviour, you may have learned to avoid relating to the world out of fear. If you are more prone to guilt than others this can make it easier for you to feel guilty for even the most minor mistake and this can set up a pattern within you of whereby you eventually become unable to life the kind of life you aspire to. You may have retreated into your inner world.
If you don’t really like yourself and cannot stand to look at yourself in the mirror, then you are probably low in Self Worth. If you are low in Self Worth this may make you often feel shy, as ‘shyness’ can be a form of shame. If you are unsure as to whether there is anything good about you, or are quite definite that there isn’t, these are very strong indications of damage to your Self Worth.
If you often find yourself feeling that life is pointless (not just your own life, but all life) and purposeless you are probably low in Self Respect. Even though there may be wonderful things in your life. You may have a successful career, fabulous relationship and so on, yet it all seems empty and pointless (or you may not have these things but feel your life would be empty even if you did have them). This a sign of low Self Respect.
In all of the above each of the forms of ‘damage’ has a role in maintaining health. It is when they they go too far that the problem arises. If an overly strong sense of guilt, shame or purposelessness had been cultivated within us we will tend to affected by this till be become aware of the damage and repair it.
Healthy guilt can cause us to modify our behavoiur and make amends for a harmful action on our part. Healthy shame can cause us to adopt a wise humility and not cast ourselves as being more valuable than others. Even a sense of ‘purposelessness’ can offer life changing opportunities when if causes us to re-examine our current lifestyle and where it matches our deepest, most heart-felt, values.
Occassional bursts of guilt, shame or purposelessness are normal, but if any of them becomes a constant background feeling that is a sign of damage. Just as these parts of ourselves are interlinked then so too are the types of damage. Damage to Self Worth may cause us to get into a rage, which in turn causes us to do or say something harmful to someone, which in turn causes us to feel guilty – and if we don’t have a strong sense of Self Respect to bolster us – we may find ourselves getting really low and telling ourselve that all of life us stupid and pointless.This is the pits when all the damaged voices are sounding off at the same time.
Archives for August 2007
The Burning Ground
The Burning Ground
Do not try to fulfill your dreams for they are but illusions and so would their fulfillment be also.
Your hopes and dreams are what you create to insulate yourself from the pain of your own transformation.
Allow them to dissolve, for in their dissolving they will no longer blind you to reality.
Allow the Lord of Destruction to work in your life: let that power split your world apart.
Let it evaporate the clouds of confusion that surround you.
You will not like what you see.
For it is then that you will perceive the burning ground on which you walk.
You will see the barren land before you and at the centre of which you stand.
But this too will pass.
For it is then that you will perceive who you are and why you have come.
You will see what is needed and what you must do.
You will bring life to this place with your purpose.
You will nourish it with your love.
You will guide and direct its’ flourishing with your mind.
Then, its pain will be no more.
Your pain will cease too.
For they are the same pain.
So, do not waste the precious gift of time: or squander it on idle and purposeless doings.
More than this is offered you.
Much more.
If you feel, as yet, unready to face your chosen task, then, let it rest for now.
Find your peace as best you may.
For the truth is not a stick with which to beat yourself.
-William Martin.
Interest-free banking: Ecological Money?
I recently attended a meeting about Interest-free banking and found it fascinating. I wonder if it offers a true ecology when it comes to the handling of money.
In the Western world vast amounts of time and energy go into charging and paying interest. Yet none of that time and energy creates anything.
The cost of maintaining such a large financial system is huge. It represents a large percentage of human activity and uses a lot of planetary resources supporting all the people and infrastructure which maintains it.
I get paid interest on my saving account, I pay interest on my mortgage and on my credit card transactions. The banks charge each other interest and pay each other interest. Where does all this money paid in interest ultimately end up?
It ends up in the hands of a very few individuals who sit at the top of the financial pile. Those are the ones who ultimately benefit from interest not you and I. They effectively cream a percentage from global financial activity.
On the personal scale making enough money to afford the interest payments on a house creates immense strain. Interest payments triple the cost of a house. The taxes we pay are influenced by the bank interest rate as the Government uses our money to pay the interest it owes.
Why not do away with interest entirely? You might say that you have to earn interest on your savings. But that is mostly because you have to pay interest on what you borrow.
You might say that you need interest in order to maintain the value of any money you save or inflation will eat it away. But, what is it that drives inflation? Inflation is driven by interest rates. If there were no interest inflation would not eat away the value of savings.
It might be tempting to think that we need a complete overhaul of the whole financial system to make any progress on such a large issue. However, this is not the case.
The JAK bank in Sweden has offered interest-free banking for many years. Also the Islamic banks are normally interest-free as Islamists regard it as usury to make money directly from money (but not from supplying goods and services).
Of course, we will still need a system whereby financial services can charge a fee for what they offer. However, such a fee would be subject to competition and therefore much lower than an enforced interest rate. This would help trim the waste out of the financial system.
It would take a sea change in attitudes before interest-free banking would really take off. However, as organisations, industries and countries are increasinlgy being called to account for their ecological footprint perhaps the time won’t be far off when the financial services industry will be called to account too. Perhaps then we can see a whole new understanding of money and much healthier ecology in how we distribute and handle it.
Ginger: great for motion sickness, fever, infection, weight loss …
I heard recently about ginger being really good for motion sickness, so when my girlfriend sent me an email saying that she was getting sick on a bus journey she was taking fairly often I recommended ginger.
She does not normally get motion sickness, but she does on this particular dramatic bus trip with lots of ups and downs and lots of swerving left and right. So she tried ginger – with remarkable results.
She made some ginger tea and sipped it before and during (as cold tea in a bottle) the journey. Not only did she not feel sick, she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep on the bus. Normally she would get off that bus and have to lie down in the bus terminal seats to wait for her stomache to calm down. Not after taking ginger tea!. She was competely fine with no nausea or discomfort at all. She was delighed and I was her hero – for a little while anyway…:)
Ginger is also reckoned to be good for indigestion, fever, and infection and even weight loss.
I suspect that ginger is a good travel remedy to have around for other reasons too as it helps prevent food poisoning – which is perhaps why the Japanese often have it with sushi.