(no subject)
Reading an article about self-love. I've read this article before, months or years in the past, and I remember it fairly well, specifically as being lengthy, but also as being genuine and down-to-earth, two things I very much like.
So I'm re-reading it. I don't know what this line means:
"When you don’t love yourself, you are basically telling the Universe that you are unworthy or undeserving of any love or positive outcomes that have the same vibrational match as love."
The only way I can conceptualize this is to say that the phenomenon they're really giving a nod to is the tendency of human beings to see what they expect to see. In other words, if a person doesn't consider himself lovable, it is unlikely he will see evidence for his lovability in other people's eyes, words and actions. I can't say if that's what the author actually means.
We don't really give ourselves enough credit. We don't know how. Many of us simply don't know how to focus on the positives in general, and we actually believe we're being silly and stupid to allow ourselves to believe many of the things that make us happy. "That's not true happiness--that's just self-deception." In other words, we discount the legitimacy of someone's feeling good by virtue of whether or not the cause of their happiness--always their beliefs and perceptions--are congruent with reality. I understand this perspective all too well. But, really, who are we to say that that's not true happiness? When you get right down to it, happiness is a subjective feeling-state originating in the physiology of our bodies and brains. It's got nothing to do with truth, necessarily. We too often confuse the two. Truth and happiness are not the same thing. If they were, we wouldn't have separate terms for them, and when we gave people scientific assessments of the accuracy of their perceptions, we wouldn't find that depressed individuals are far more accurate about reality than happy people are.
This is a finding that, obviously, needs more investigation, but the implications--my god!
But that's another rant, and another journal entry.
Perhaps the confusion about happiness and truth comes from the idea that inaccurate perceptions of reality supposedly always lead eventually to people making mistakes. Well, I think this is fair with regard to many aspects of reality. You ought not to ignore things that have implications for your longer-term happiness in favor of things that are gratifying and pleasurable to you in the present moment. At the same time, perhaps we as Americans too often forget that neither should we sacrifice every present moment on the altar of future advantage. Certain things should not be ignored. I get that. However, what I find is that we as humans too often forget that there is always a lot of positive to acknowledge about ourselves and our situation. This is the key. What we have not been taught is where these positives are, how to look for them, and which ones are "safe"; in other words, which ones are not delusions that will harm us in the longer term, but are really valuable--truly priceless--attitudes and notions that will buoy us up in life and hold us safe and unflagging above the ominous currents.
There are certain "positive illusions" that are not harmful but actually help us to function, and scientific inquiry seems to support this notion. As previously mentioned, individuals regarded as "clinically depressed" are more accurate than normal, non-depressed individuals about their level of control. This is just in one study that I know of, mind. It's certainly not enough to stake a thesis on. What single study is? However, it's just so profound a piece of the puzzle. As you can see, I already believe it, because it fits into my framework for making sense of the world. It's difficult not to allow your beliefs to self-reinforce themselves. Which is actually a tenent of positive psychology.
The terrifying fear is that we will choose destructive beliefs. Isn't that our worst fear? It is mine.
If we selectively pay more attention to evidence that supports our pre-existing beliefs, isn't it quite frightening to think, "What if we start out on the wrong path? It will lead only to gloom." Intuitively, it makes sense. Scientifically, there is evidence for this idea as well. See studies done on mood and memory, and how the mood we're in powerfully effects the kind of memories we recall, the way we read situations and people, and etcetera. Virtually, we make the world. In our minds.
Someone once said there is no good or bad, only what works and what does not. We must be very careful to select only what works for us. We must be aware of what our thoughts, feelings and beliefs are such that when we adopt a new one, we know it, we acknowledge it, and we more importantly test it to see if it helps us or hinders us.
This self-awareness is not easy to come by. It is not only self-awareness that is needed, either.