Starting to say and think less things that weaken you is a first step towards waking up and being successful. In the long run, it has also beneficial effects for your health.
Jordan B. Peterson, a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology but also teaching or referring about many other life and human concerning things, had a nice 5-minute speech on the topic of how to properly talk to yourself and in general. He uploaded a lot of videos of his lectures or interviews, which are very informative, inspiring and full of wisdom.
Describing a fundamental aspect of waking up.
His description of his process to stop saying things that made him weak explains a part of a process and an important and fundamental step of it, that enables the highest attainment of several religions or philosophies, that has happened to many other people, but still, very view in comparison with the majority of all people, that you can call awakening or waking up. Or also referred to as attaining Nirvana, Satori, Moksha or realizing one is Atman and Brahman similarly.
The yogis refer to it as starting to wake up from Maya, which means magic or illusion, representing a force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real (and not merely a part of the interconnection of the outer and inner parts and rather a mirror of the inner one.) and makes humans forget what they essentially are.
On the individual level, Maya is the human ignorance of the real nature of the self, called Ajnana, which is mistaken of the empirical and personal ego, but is in reality identical with “Brahman”, which is for the majority of Hindu concepts comparable with the western concept of God, or the Universe.
Waking up means in Hindu concepts becoming more and more aware of being Atman and Brahman at the same time. That they are identical but Atman is your soul’s “personal” note of that connection. The connection and union of the limited, the empirical and personal ego, with the unlimited, the Atman / Brahman aspect of oneself.
The Buddhists refer to it as a fundamental step towards ceasing to create unnecessary suffering, for yourself, as for others, and towards leaving the circle of suffering-laden and continuous cycle of death, life and rebirth – called Saṃsāra and attaining Nirvana or Moksha. However, the terms moksha and nirvana differ and mean different states between various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. But both refer to the liberation of illusion and unnecessary suffering.
Which is a state of consciousness and being than a geographic place somewhere over the clouds of Tibet, after you leave your physical body and falsely seemingly solely dualistic experience of life.
Jordan B. Peterson’s on his process of stopping to say things that weakened him.
Here is his beautiful explanation: What is put in parenthesis, are comments of mine. As already what was above in parenthesis.
Jordan B. Peterson started to pay attention to what he was saying.
“Be very careful what you say to yourself because someone very important is listening.. YOU!”
John Assaraf
He started to recognize the development of a split in his psyche. ( Between the limited and unlimited )
One part, his old part, was talking a lot and liked arguing and ideas. ( The limited one )
The other part was watching the talking and arguing part with open eyes and just neutrally judging.
Watching the talking one and saying things like “That isn’t your idea, you don’t really believe that. You don’t really know what you’re talking about. That isn’t true.”
Interesting and at first uncomfortable was the fact that it was happening to 95 % of what he was saying. ( The talking and limited one )
He started to ask himself which of the two is him. The normal verbal one or the one that was saying things like
- “No, that’s not you, you just saying it to impress people.”
- “That’s a lie, you just trying to win the argument.”
He decided to go with the critique. ( The watching and neutrally judging one )
He learned to stop saying things that made him weak.
But he is still trying because he is always feeling when the words he is saying making him align or making him come apart.
He thinks alignment is when you say things as true as you can say them.
What happened when he started to practice to stop saying that made him weak and come apart was that he had practically to stop saying almost everything that he was saying.
According to his feeling about 95 % of what he was saying.
It was a hell of a shock to him that he was mostly out of “deadwood.” Asking himself if he wants to burn it off.
Getting the idea that going for the rest of it, that is solid wood, was a good idea exactly to want to happen.
He recommends to become aware of the motives of what you say or are about to say.
Asking how much trying you’re trying to cause with your talking.
He argues that if you’re not doing something important with your life, by your own definition, because that is the game we are playing and you get to define the terms, at least initially, maybe that is why you are proned to cause trouble, because you have nothing better to do. Because at least trouble is more interesting than boring. Dostojewski said that if you don’t push yourself to the limits of your capacity than you have plenty of left-over of will-power, energy, and resources to devote and causing interesting trouble.
He sees it similar to a diagnosis of an illness that is stoppable.
For doing that, you would have to give up your resentment, hatred and all that’s really annoying because those emotions are very easy to engage in and engaging, therefore. They have this feeling of self-righteousness with them, that goes along with them.
He argues that to stop saying weakening things and giving up resentment, hatred and all the rest of what is really annoying, you do this in order to “separate the wheat from the chaff” until you leave everything that you don’t have to be, behind.
What is left is solid.
What about you? How to start differentiating and burning.
What, of what you are saying, (or thinking) is deadwood and what is solid?
Are you able to not only watch or better listening to your own talking and judge it as neutral as you can?
Are you able to differentiate the solid from the untrue and weakening?
Being alone and in a quieter environment helps a lot to better do that in the beginning.
Ideally, you take notes of your new insights on what is solid and what is dead and the resulting decisions you have. The more you burn by identifying it as not true to you, the more your solidity appears.
This process of differentiating never stops. But not having it comes close to imprisoning oneself.
Therefore, it can lead to liberation.
From mainly self-created illusion, negative thoughts, and feelings, unnecessary suffering, and self-weakening amongst much more.
Which results amongst much more in a higher self-esteem and confidence, a higher quality of thinking (due to its mindfulness), feeling and acting or reacting and therefore life, clarity of what one wants in life and its different aspects, as well as much more peace of mind, harmony and balance.
“Evidence is conclusive that your self-talk has a direct bearing on your performance.”
Zig Ziglar
Enjoy the burning of your deadwood and whatever you create out of the solid wood that is left behind.
“The inner speech, your thoughts, can cause you to be rich or poor, loved or unloved, happy or unhappy, attractive or unattractive, powerful or weak.”
Ralph Charell
