Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Do you ever search inside for the things you don’t want to admit to yourself? It can be an interesting experience. It can bring up a lot of emotions, too. Take a blank sheet of paper, sit down and write out all the things that come up when you think “what are the things I don’t want to admit to myself?”… examples might be – “I’m terrible with money”, “I have a problem with drugs and/or alcohol”, “I can’t stand that person”, or even “I don’t like myself at all”. Once you have a list, see if there’s anything you can do about it. Is there anyone you know who could help? If you’re not good with money, is there a friend or relative that you respect in that area who could help, for example. Would you be willing to be vulnerable enough to show them where you’re at? If it’s a personal problem like drugs, alcohol, or depression – how bad do you see it? Would you be willing to seek counseling? Is there anyone in your life you would feel comfortable sharing those feelings with? And, of course – if there’s someone in your life you really don’t like – is there any way to limit or eliminate contact with them?… but, when we’re talking about being introspective here – with the deep recesses of our minds, where we don’t even want to admit our feelings to ourselves – the idea of sharing them with anyone else can be daunting. The first step is to realize we’ve been doing it to ourselves. We have been purposely not addressing it, whatever it is. Because it’s usually a painful thing – not always, it could also be admitting to yourself that you love someone, or that you want to start a new business, etc… but each person will have their own very personal list. And it will take some brutal honesty to get there. And the emotions surrounding this excercise could be confusing, too – because – let’s say one of the things that comes up is you spend too much on a hobby, or travel, or Amazon, or whatever it is that we all seem to have – that one “money pit” in our lives – the idea of stopping it means stopping all the enjoyment we get out of it as well. Is the enjoyment worth the expense or not?… Maybe you have just the opposite issue – you never do anything nice for yourself. The things we don’t want to admit to ourselves have usually been ingrained over a period of time, too – so they aren’t easy to admit, and/or change at all. But I find that it does pay to periodically ask the question, if even just to get real within yourself. Peel back your mental hood every now and then, and see if there’s anything in there worth looking into.
