SPIRITUAL BOOT CAMP: STARVE A BULLY, FEED A CHAMPION
~ by jacob glass
The mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It can be the center of miracles, or of madness. It can be a place of truth, or a place of lies; it can be an environment of peaceful contemplation, or of desperate painful isolation.
The choice is ours to make. No one else is thinking in our heads. As one classic horror movie proclaims, “The calls are coming from inside the house!”
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With all the talk in the world about bullying, the one thing that is rarely considered is that the most vicious monster, the most insidious bully, who is out to terrorize, torment us and steal our joy, is not so much out there in the schools or the workplace or the neighborhood.The bully we cannot seem to escape from is the one living inside our own heads.
Think of it this way, if you have an outer bully in your life, you can always find time away from that person or institution whether it is in the workplace, at school or even in your home. But the bully living in the mind you can never get away from, until you begin to take charge of your inner world through conscious effort.
The awful things another person may say to us, the names we may have been called, even the physical abuse, these hurt in the moment they are spoken or for as long as the bruises and wounds last. The continued torment comes from rerunning what was said, written or done, over and over again in our own minds, long after we have left the presence of that person or situation. And it is not simply that the thoughts are present.
The bully we cannot seem to escape from is the one living inside our own heads.
The real problem is that we BELIEVE those irrational insane thoughts about how we are not good enough or that there is something wrong with us. At that point, WE ARE OUR OWN CAPTORS AND TORMENTORS. It is time to release the hostages!
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Yes, there is a bully living in our minds, but there is also a champion. In what I call “Spiritual Boot Camp” we starve the bully and feed the champion. Our attention
is a kind of energetic nourishment to ideas and self-concepts. Whatever we give our attention to grows and thrives. Our goal is to begin feeding the champion within. A passage from the book A Course In Miricals says, “an untrained mind can accomplish nothing.”
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At the beginning of a new year many people start off with great intentions to make big positive changes, yet they often put the bully in charge of the process. They terrorize themselves into making these changes with thoughts about how they are too fat and lazy, are going to die from disease if they don’t exercise, will die alone if they don’t start socializing more, need to stop being such a loser and start saving some money, and so on.
Bullies are often most active as we toss and turn in bed at night with terrifying thoughts of foreclosure, job loss, illness, and generalized panic. This is why by mid-February most people have given up on their new life program and have gone back to the old ways. Negative motivation is exhausting!
This is why by mid-February most people have given up on their new life program and have gone back to the old ways. Negative motivation is exhausting!
When we decide to feed the champion and put it in charge of our changes, we focus on taking daily positive action as an expression of self-love rather than as an act of fixing a damaged self. We are going toward something we want rather than away from something unwanted. The champion in us is our true spiritual nature coming forth in human expression. Champions need daily consistent positive attention and training in order to prosper and thrive.
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So I welcome your inner champion to Spiritual Boot Camp! What kind of year do you want 2012 to be? Consult your inner champion—what are the dreams, goals, aspirations and intentions for this new year? Your inner champion can get you there in peace, joy and even FUN if you will just spend a little time each day in gentle consistent training.
FIVE OF FIVE:
1. Take five minutes in the morning to mindfully set five positive intentions for that day. Then say to yourself, “I am releasing these intentions to the Universe to accomplish through me today.”
2. Each day compile a list of five things that went well or right that day.
3. Each day keep a running list of five ways that you “got it right” by your own standards of what that means to you: went to the gym, kissed your mate, didn’t lose your temper with your co-worker, took dog for a walk, etc.
4. Keep a daily list of five ways that other people around you “got it right” – your mate, kids, friends, co-workers, etc.
5. At the end of the day take five minutes to quiet your mind and let go of the day – just sit quietly with your eyes closed, gently breathing, dropping the shoulders, relaxing the body and telling yourself, “I am now releasing the day to the Universe as I let go of it as part of my past.”
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Jacob Glass is an author and spiritual teacher who lectures monthly in San Diego, Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara. For dates, locations and other information go to: jacobglass.com.
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