Myself and I.

One of the biggest relationships that I think we all struggle with, but yet is the most important, is the relationship between yourself and you. Does that make sense?

If anyone has had the pleasure of reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, you’ll know what I mean. Essentially we have this voice in our heads that is constantly telling us what to do, how to think, and how to feel. The scary part is that a lot of us don’t even realize the voice is there. To become aware of that voice is to take back control of your mind and to be in tune with the driving force behind your actions, thoughts and feelings, but it’s easier said than done.

In Eckhart Tolle’s book, he captured me with this one sentence which I can say in all honesty, it has changed my life. He had written that at one point when things had gotten too out of control in his life, he had said “I hate myself”. This was ground breaking because what he realized is that in that sentence there were two people, the I and the Self. So if the I hates the Self, then who is the I and who is the Self? And why does the I hate the self? …..I can imagine your mind is spinning right now digesting this! Mine was too.

What I realized after reading this amazing discovery is that I have also said similar things as “I hate myself” and as I dug deep in my mind, I realized that there was in fact a voice in my head telling me things (primarily lies), which I believed and acted on. However, because these actions didn’t align with the true person I am, I ended up feeling a sense of hatred towards myself. The voice in my head was constantly overpowering my true self, turning me into someone I didn’t like. Some of these thoughts we might have can take the form of the following:

“Why do you look so bad today, you suck”

“You are embarrassing”

“You’re not good enough”

“Why did you eat that, now you’re going to gain weight”

“You need attention to feel better about yourself”

“If you buy this, you’ll be happier”

This voice in your head is deep. It sometimes takes the form of your subconscious and you might be reading this right now thinking “oh I don’t say those things”. But that’s where the danger is, that it’s so deep in your subconscious you don’t even realize that it’s controlling the way you think and act and more importantly, how you feel about yourself and how you love yourself. What Eckhart Tolle writes about is bringing that the voice out of the subconscious and making the “I” conscious with the “Self”. And perhaps after bringing this concept to your consciousness, you still act on what that voice is telling you, but at least you’re aware of what you’re doing and you know the difference between the voice in your head and your true self.

The world of Social Media

I think that social media is a perfect example of where the voice becomes louder and takes more control. I can’t express how important it is to be aware of your subconscious thoughts and aligning them with your conscious actions because the power of social media is making us all incredibly insecure. It acts as a portal, where our subconscious desperately seeks and needs the attention, but our conscious selves don’t realize the driving force behind our actions.

If you can post a photo/comment/etc. and be able to consciously say, “I know I am seeking attention with this”, that is ground breaking. That is your insecure subconscious thoughts aligning with your conscious actions. That is you taking control of your mind. Don’t ever be ashamed of that. We are all human, and part of being human is to search for connection and outside appreciation. Where it becomes dangerous, is when the subconscious is not discovered and it continues to feed off of the attention, and constantly needs more and more, starving you of any joy you might have in your actions. It then becomes a chore and you are consumed by it.

I also find that when someone’s subconscious has taken drivers seat, that person’s true self is hidden by the actions that the subconscious makes them do. We don’t get to see the real you. In the process of hiding yourself, you also hurt yourself because no one will get to know the realness of you.

Hurting people we love

Another great example, is when you’re getting mad at someone, you need to dig really deep, break the down the wall to your subconscious and ask yourself these two important questions:

“Am I mad because something else is bothering me and I’m taking it out on them?”

“Am I mad because I’m jealous of them?”

I think it’s safe to say that we’re all guilty of not asking ourselves the above two questions. Instead, we've gotten mad at someone we love based on the power that our subconscious had over us. Think of what your actions are when you’re jealous, can you confidently say that you’re in control of your actions? Probably not. Maybe a friend is better than you at the same job and gets a promotion before you. Later you get mad at them over something insignificant. Can you guess what’s happening here?

If you can bring the thoughts of jealousy to the conscious mind, then you can better separate the insignificant event that happened to you from the jealousy, and take control of the situation. In a way you can “check yourself before you wreck yourself”.

Find the voice

Because of the power that the voice can have over all of us and the effects it can have on us and the people we love, the best thing you can do for yourself is to find the voice. Pay attention to it, watch it closely, and be aware of it. It doesn’t mean that you’ll change your actions every time, but at least you can be conscious of it and be in control of your mind.

True peace of mind occurs when the voice and the “I” are aligned, but this takes practice. From having this understanding, it has changed the way I see the world and live my life, and I am so much happier because of it. Let me be clear that I am by no means perfect! It’s a lifelong practice.

The mind is just as important as any other part of your body to take care of, and arguably the most important. Take the time to understand it so that you can treat yourself better. You deserve it.

Knowing the voice can help us understand others

By being able to understand and hear the voice within you, you can start to appreciate how others would be controlled by the voice and how their actions are routed by that voice. It provides us the understanding for empathy when someone is acting out or not being themselves. Instead of becoming upset or hurt or frustrated by them, we can have the sympathy that their actions are driven by their internal voice that they have not had the strength to find it or face it.

A lot of the time our insecurities can drive us to acting out or unknowingly hurting people around us. Some people put others down because they’re insecure enough and by doing that to someone, it brings them up. We need to do ourselves a huge favour and start to see through those types of actions, and start to realize that they have nothing to do with us, but everything to do with that person’s deep subconscious controlling voice. It helps you approach the person and instead of becoming mad back at them or reacting to what they have done or said, you can feel empathy for them and also confidence in yourself to handle the situation calmly and rationally, because you are in control of your mind.

One thing that was told to me a long time ago was that “95% of the time, someone’s actions towards you has nothing to do with you”.

PS. I highly recommend reading The Power of Now, and in case you’re not much of a reader, I would suggest taking a listen to the podcast series of Oprah interviewing Eckhart Tolle. His understanding of the human consciousness is life changing.