Practically Recognizing my Own Potential: DAY 6

Practically Recognizing my Own Potential: DAY 6

The Desteni of Living – Utmost Potential (Part 6)

The Principle of Realising and Living my Utmost Potential

In this post and posts to come, I am discussing what ‘Realising and Living my Utmost Potential’ practically means – through showing how I have (and still do) live and realise this Principle.

STEP 1: Recognizing my own Potential (Self Forgiveness)

Obviously this MOMENT where you step back, access your potential/being/awareness, assess the thoughts and emotions and then CHANGE – the CHANGE PROCESS, is a process in itself as well…and this I will continue with in the next post, together with a practical example of moments during the early years of my process that were significant when I started accessing my potential, my me and started growing as the seed of potential, of awareness…eventually into and as LIFE.

When I was 18 / 19 years old – I was a VERY emotional individual. The smallest of things that I would take personally would affect me to such an extent that I could in a moment breakdown and cry. I was definitely ‘over sensitive’…without a doubt. I did not have any strength or stability within me when it came to people saying things to me / about me that I would take personally.

I had this tendency to want EVERYONE to like me and expected people to respond to me in a specific way, which lead to me always wanting to PLEASE everyone…in a strange way knowing that if I play on people’s likes / preferences and please that, they would respond to me in a good way and so really like me, which would ensure that I don’t have to face my fear of people not liking me and/or saying things towards me/about me behind my back that I would take personally. So, essentially – I had this massive fear of being disliked…I couldn’t handle it.

I remember how, throughout my life in my teenage years, if anyone said anything that I would interpret as ‘bad’ towards me / who I am / how I dress/behave – I would really take it to heart. Interestingly enough, I defined myself MORE in relation to the ‘bad’ things people would say about me behind my back / directly towards me than any of the ‘good’ things / compliments I would receive. It was as though within myself I had this ‘mind sponge’ that would automatically sponge up any and all negative / bad comments to which I would emotionally react extensively and then actually use that to try and ‘better myself’ / ‘make myself more likeable’ / ‘change myself FOR others’ to please them for them to accept me / like me more / invite me back into their group / invite me to parties etc. I was very insecure within who I was in all facets of my life and used the bad / negative comments/statements of other people to define everything of me…so much so that it was very difficult to even accept a good comment / compliment, it was like I couldn’t even believe it as I was so much more inclined to believe / accept and so use the bad / negative comments/statements…

So, over time I developed this MASSIVE fear for people not liking me, when it fact – I feared my own emotional response to not being able to handle / deal with other people’s bad / negative comments/statements about me. So, it wasn’t so much that I feared other’s words – it was in fact more that I feared the exhausting process that would be ahead of me if I did have to face another’s words, how it would emotionally affect me, how I would experience myself, how I would have to change myself…so I used the protection/defence mechanism of rather exhausting myself in a positive way, which was to just immediately PLEASE and be PERFECT in the eyes of others. Now, obviously the outflow consequence here was that: this didn’t always work…it would hit me even HARDER when I did go through the exhaustive process of pleasing and still…the bad/negative comments would come.

This was one of the first things I changed about myself within this process of walking self-forgiveness, where I started with speaking self-forgiveness within myself, silently when the thoughts and emotions would come up inside of me the moment someone would say something to me that I would interpret as being bad/negative. Like, even when I would receive ‘constructive criticism’ that would benefit me in expanding myself, in learning and bettering myself, I would take this personally, because in my thoughts I would say to myself “you failed in their eyes, you’re a disappointment, you made SUCH a mess of things, you made a HUGE mistake” – like, I started internalizing the bad / negative comments of others throughout my life into and as my OWN thoughts / backchats and emotions…

So, when I started the process of forgiving myself for accepting and allowing such thoughts, for accepting and allowing the emotions to overwhelm me, for accepting and allowing myself to immediately take another’s words personally – especially with an emotional starting point…my eyes started to open to what I was in fact doing to myself and how little I could in fact trust my own thoughts and emotions when it came to listening to them and automatically believing them in this context of taking another’s words personally…instead of taking that step back, HEARING their words, considering them and then responding with commonsense.

This I will continue with in the next post…