The Love Factor – Part 3

There seems to be an assumption in self-help circles that if you attain or achieve a certain thing, such as wealth, then all the happiness and sense of happiness, fulfilment, security, significance and self-worth that you mentally associate with it – will also be yours to possess. But many people have experienced that even when they get that promotion and pay-rise, romantic partner or even fame and fortune that they have always dreamed of – it does not change who they are and how they feel.

So if we take all these things into consideration, it seems that Self-Talk, although promising and potentially useful – could actually be rather imbalanced and incomplete, unless we factor love and the development of character into the equation.

When it comes to love, I believe that The Work of Byron Katie is the best thing I’ve ever come across. The Work does not seek to give people formulas and principles to live by; neither does The Work give you a whole lot of New Age spiritual-sounding theories. The Work is like a framework within which you question your own anxious thoughts with four questions and a “turnaround” – to discover that what you thought was true, is not true. The real wisdom that you gain from Inquiry is from within your own heart – not necessarily from someone else’s theories.

The anxious mind says…

• I need this or that to be happy.
• I need to work harder so I can achieve more.
• People should appreciate me more.
• So-and-so should be like this or that.
• I’ll never, I can’t…

Inquiry refutes all of these things and more, bringing you to the “turnaround” which is just as true as or truer than the original statement. Inquiry is a process of self-discovery and freedom from the fears, taboos, ideals and grudges that have held you captive for so long.

In the past, people have assumed that love is making an effort to be nice to a person; a warm, “gushy” feeling on the inside; or a strong attraction towards a person. But reality, love is much more than these things. I believe that love has a lot more to do with acceptance: of yourself as you are now, of other people as they are and of your current circumstances. Fear tries to predict the future and control circumstances. Love embraces the present and seeks to make the most of now. Fear looks to the other person to make more of an effort, to be different, to change to be someone they are not. Love accepts the other person as they are and seeks to change the way you see that person from a negative to a positive light.

Inquiry seems to be the premier method of changing attitudes and garnering love by finding truth from within. However, I don’t believe that Inquiry is suitable for re-programming your subconscious mind – that is where Self-Talk comes to the fore.

All in all I believe what will work to change a person’s life by changing the way they think – is by somehow channelling the results of Inquiry back into your Self-Talk scripts. In this way, the wisdom you discover within yourself in relation to your anxious thoughts can be used to re-programme your subconscious mind. Otherwise, you run the risk of one of two things:

1. You use Self-Talk or other affirmations method to re-programme your mind, but you are to busy trying to meet goals, achieve the impossible and get more money - than developing character and love.
2. You use Inquiry to discover the truth behind your stressful thoughts. You come to see that those thoughts aren’t true. But for some reason, those anxious thoughts keep on cropping-up, time and again, with just as much stress as before.

One of the results of this combination between Inquiry and Self-Talk will be a set of Self-Talk scripts that might differ somewhat from what you would normally expect. There will be the usual affirmations of achievement and believing in yourself, but there will also be affirmations which see things from a different perspective.

I will hopefully post some examples of these alternative Self-Talk scripts soon.