Morning Reflection: Are you addicted to this?

Are you addicted to this?

As I look around in the world, I see more and more people suffering from addictions. Some are addicted to drugs, both prescription and illegal; some are addicted to status with their brand labels and designer tags; some are addicted to their electronic worlds which provide endless distraction often at the expense of value.

But most of all, I see addiction to certainty.

People like certainty. It provides a buffer against the chaos of the universe, but it also provides protection against possibilities. The possibility of being wrong, the possibility of being hurt, the possibility that things are not as you believe them to be.

We like certainty because it feels good. Calming. Comfortable. Controlled.

But certainty addiction can also create blockages on the pathway to peace. Being unwilling to let go of a certainty, and embrace possibility, is often the greatest blockage to truth. Truths that are now accepted were once taken as heresy. Things we are certain of today will eventually be shown to be wrong.

I invite you to become comfortable with uncertainty. Know less, listen more. Only with an open mind, and a heart willing to listen, can you progress beyond where you are at.

This does not mean that you have to change who you are. Rather, be willing to listen to an opposing point of view with honest sincerity; be willing to examine your own views before trying to break down those of another.

Above all, be willing to give up your certainty about who you are, and instead embrace who you can become. When you learn to identify with principles rather than labels, your life and service will change.

Trees survive the storm, because they are rooted but flexible. Certainty is stiffness, being willing to trust and become comfortable with uncertainty is flexibility.

Flexibility is growth, and growth is peace.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbmusings

Morning Reflection: The Eye in your Identity

The Eye in your Identity.

It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Truly a miracle, our eyes speak as loud, if not louder, than our words. Joy, pain, hatred, love; all of these are communicated to the outside world by the very thing that we use to see that world.

Unfortunately though, we don’t always trust what our eyes show us. Even though our vision shows us as we are, many of us suffer with a picture of ourselves that is not supported by the things that we actually see.

Why don’t we trust the picture in the mirror? Why do we see others as better, and ourselves as the perpetual underdog in a competition that exists nowhere outside of our minds?

Seeing is believing they say, but we seem to have a hard time believing what we see when it speaks to our value, our worth, our goodness.

Today, I’d like to invite you to see yourself as if from another’s perspective. To do this, strip away all the negative self beliefs that you have, and really focus on all of the good things that you could see about yourself, if you really wanted to.

If you will allow it, there will come a feeling of peace as you being to see yourself as a true reflection. The world tries endlessly to make you feel less than you can see.

But only when you see and understand that you are enough, will you be able to find a sense of calmness in your soul, and be able to reach out to others with everything you have.

Today, see you. The real you. See your goodness, see your love, see your worth.

And believe.

-- Dr. Alan Barnes

@maddrbmusings

How do you identify yourself?

Dr. Alan Barnes

@losingtowin120