~ My Cognition ~

  Life is evolutionary, and we are all “works in progress.”

• The purpose of live is to awaken and expand our dirmant capacities for love, creativity, and intelligence.

• When you get in sync with this natural evolutionary urge, you will immediately feel more at peace with yourself – you are no longer purposeless.

  The joy that comes from growth itself is enough to keep you interested in life.

• To seek personal evolution means you must work on your yourself.

• Many people tend to make a mistake when beginning to work on themselves.  It is normal to question one’s life, and perhaps decide that changes are required, but questioning can carry over into a non-productive habit – the habit of excessive thinking.

  Working on yourself is not constantly thinking about yourself.

• The issue of excessive thinking is crucial.  Working on yourself is not primarily analyzing yourself and your motives, or being thoughtfully introspective, or trying to control yourself and do better, or trying to be something you are not.

  Using the mind in this manner is self-defeating.

• You must learn to subsitute feeling for thinking.  You must learn to sense “what is” through the feeling centre, rather than project “what I expect” through the thinking centre.

• Many people who think they are working on themselves are deceiving themselves, because they do not have an accurate understanding of what is required.  They spend their time in constant self-evaluation, which merelt makes them absorbed in themselves.

  One gains the ability to evoke healing power from within, through self-love.  There is no longer craving or searching for love outside oneself; one is complete as one is, feeling love from within.

• Relationships are approached as a vehicle through which the love within is expressed, rather than as a context in which one seeks to be loved.  Life has become essentially, miraculously changed.

• Processing is non-dogmatic and compatible with any humanistic psychology with which you may be involved.  As you learn processing, you will gain a technical knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of powerful psychological principles.

• If you have no personal teacher, assume that you don’t need one at this point in time.  You will surely draw someone into your life at the right time, if you need such a relationship.

  Acceptance means opening to your feelings.  It means that we are open to the experience of the event.

• Acceptance does not mean automatic approval of any event, whether an inner feeling or the interaction with another person or happening in the outside world.

• We may retain our intellectual discrimination, preferring that something be different from the way it is now manifesting; however, we do not allow our preference to interfere with the experience.  Because experience takes place on a feeling level, not an intellectual level.

• As we open ourselves to the full experience of something, on the feeling level, we accept it.

• The capacity for feeling is of utmost importance.  Feelings are our connection to life; without them, we are stale, hollow, and cut off from true fulfillment.

• Self-blocking occurs on the feeling level, not the mental or intellectual level.  The feeling level is where we are most unconscious.

• People who have achieved self-acceptance have developed the capacity for feeling deep, without resistance, whatever is happening in their inner life.  Most of us do not do this, but block feelings from entering consciousness, resulting in emotional imbalance and confusion.

• When we interact with a person who is self-accepting, we sense that this relationship differs from most.  A self-accepting person has the ability to accept others, to be open to others, and to receive their energy without resistance.  A person who is not self-accepting, cannot do the above.

• When we meet a self-accepting who accepts is, who does not unconsicously resist us, we experience a revelation.  We can feel that we are being accepted on a deep energy level.  We sense love.  Love is noting more than acceptance, whether of yourself or another person.

• When unconditional acceptance is part of the therapeutic encounter, it supplies the power of transformation.  Healing occurs because of the power of love.  Psychological blocks dissolve; there is no need to fight them.

• We all want to be whole.  We are too familiar with the sensation of being split, working against ourselves in spite of our best intentions.  When we learn exactly what is to be accepted, confusion and doubt may arise.

• We all have some concept of ourselves as we would like to be – without certain faults, limitations, or emotional “problems”.  We fight these conditions, fight unhappiness, expecting to be happier if we could get rid of the negative aspects of ourselves.  In fact, by not accepting our negative feelings and conditions; we perpetuate negatively instead of releasing it.

• Acceptance is a difficult concept to grasp, because we have been trained to resist and fight what we don’t like.  We often ask ourselves these questions: How?  How do I accept my anger?  What does it mean to accept my fear?  How can I resolve my problem if I accept it?

 Feelings are painful and become problems only because they are not accepted, or integrated.  We create pain through resistance and non-acceptance.

• To go beyond pain, and to enjoy wholeness, we must learn to integrate those parts of life we find painful and would like to avoid.  Once integrated, they are no longer painful, they will add new dimensions to our acceptance.

• Life becomes richer, resulting in real, not pseudo, spiritual and material prosperity consciousness.  Happiness becomes unconditional.

  Acceptance does not mean you must try to like something you don’t.

• The essence of processing is to accept your feelings, whatever they are, even your feelings of dislike.  The problem is that you usually resist and reject the feelings, thus creating the pain.

  Unconditional acceptance can be startling and transformative.

When I accept myself and my feelings as they are, I become whole. I am no longer split – fighting or condemning part of myself. The power of self-acceptance and self-love builds within me. I acquire the ability to heal myself and the conditions of my life. I awaken the power of transformation.

• The shift of motivation can be subtle, but can still result in hampered creativity and eventual self-defeat.

  You can change your mode of perceiving so that life is not seen as something outside yourself that you must battle and control.  Life becomes a reflection of yourself, which you may either accept or reject, in turn accepting or rejecting yourself.

• When you perceive with acceptance, you allow creative process to begin.  You become the artist, with life as your canvas.  You become the witness to creative information.  You experience the exhilaration of the creative act, and find beauty in the most miserable parts of existence.

• When you perceive with acceptance, something else is accomplished.  You learn that acceptance is love, and that in accepting yourself and your feelings as they are, you build the experience of love for yourself in a way that could never be done through any other means.

  Loving yourself becomes the healing power that transforms your inner world.  Loving yourself is the highest art.

I understand that my love for myself is the greatest possession I will ever have. Love for myself comes into being only when I accept and experience my feelings as they are, at this very moment, both pleasant and unpleasant. As I welcome my painful self, it heals. Loving myself provides the power for transformation.