Inquiry on Being Ignored

Posted on July 10, 2013 by admin

A dear friend told me that she is aware of a deep fear of being ignored. She had a conversation with her boyfriend and towards the end of the conversation she noticed that she was ignored AGAIN.

“What can I do? I just couldn’t stand being ignored. It’s just too painful!” she said.

As we look deeper, we found out that throughout the 7-minute phone conversation, they were both laughing and were having great exchange. And it didn’t come to her to feel being ignored until the minute when he had to hang up the phone.

So, what happen to the 6 minutes when you were not ignored, when you were having a good time with him? Isn’t it strange that you were waiting to indict him, to live out your belief that “you will always be ignored”.

Maybe we can see what is truer?

“He did not ignore me”
Yes, he didn’t ignore me. He was giving me his full attention for the 6 minutes.

“I ignore him”
When he said he wanted to hang up, I was angry with him and ignored him totally.

“I ignore me”
I wasn’t taking good care of myself. I wanted him to do that for me.

Life can be a lot simpler when we take time to inquire the truth.

Dreams in Life

Posted on March 5, 2013 by admin

A dear friend told me that she wants to make a lot of money. Her reasoning is that her mom is growing old and she wants to make enough money to set aside for her mom’s medical bills later on.

“Great” I replied. I love how this story is working for her.

I remembered a time when we had a discussion about importance of dreams in life. As we went deeper in the conversation, she told me that she couldn’t and won’t allow herself to not have big dreams in her life. “I can’t move forward”, “I will be like a fool”, she said.

I want what you want. Why would I want you to be otherwise?
This is how self-love feels like, I guess.

Learning to be loved unconditionally or to love unconditionally?

Posted on August 11, 2012 by admin

I recently posted a poll for people in my facebook group to choose between wanting to be loved unconditionally and wanting to love unconditionally. What sparked me to do this is I have come across many courses and books out in the business world and what I noticed is that almost all the methodology implemented were on wanting to be perceived a certain way. And that is also true for self-help books. It’s also about learning what to do to get what we want from others.

And if I have to choose between learning to be loved unconditionally or to love unconditionally, my choice would be to learn to love unconditionally. I find that that is the only sane choice for me. With learning to be loved unconditionally, it sounded like there is something I can learn to do or act to make someone love me. It sounded hopeless and too much work. Everyone is different in their ways of showing their love. If I have 10 friends, I would have to learn 10 different ways. And I would have to wait for them to show me if what I am doing works. Too much work!!!! But if I can love unconditionally, I am already getting the joy that I want and if it is true that the outside is my projections, the more unconditionally that I can love someone and myself, I would have to see that they are loving me unconditionally also.

And the best part is I can’t really know how that would look on the outside. How exciting!

Working with Limiting Beliefs Pt 3

Posted on June 20, 2012 by admin

Let’s say you are aware that you have a belief about money, “I need to work hard for money“. In fact, there is nothing wrong with this belief if it is not stressful for you. It’s working when we know we want money and we work hard to get it. We only investigate and inquire this thought/belief if it is stressful.

So, let’s inquire into this thought using The Work:

“I need to work hard for money“
Is it true?
Yes, it feels true.

Can you absolutely know that this is true?
No

How do you react when you think the thought?
When I am not working hard, I blame myself. I feel pressured. I feel lousy, I think about people who has money and I get upset with them for not sharing their money with me.

Who would you be without the thought?
I would go with what feels right for me. I won’t push myself so hard. I would be more open to be around my friends who have money.

Turn the thought around. I need to work hard for money.
I don’t need to work hard for money.

Is this thought true or truer? Three genuine examples in your life?
My parents paid for my accommodation and food when I was young.
What I am doing is not very hard to do. I actually am having fun.
I had good returns from investment.

So now, the mind comes to realize for itself that there have times in my life when I didn’t work hard for money and still had money. It also comes to witness the suffering that it brings upon itself when it believes the thought. Either way, the amount of money I have hasn’t changed.

We can go on telling ourselves that I don’t need to work hard for money over and over again. But, without realizing this truth inside ourselves, we will still go on living life with the stress and fear of not working hard enough for money.

We have to live out what we believe, not much choice in that. This is the power of thoughts!

Working with Limiting Beliefs Pt 2

Posted on June 19, 2012 by admin

So,the next question you may ask is, “how do we get rid of the limiting beliefs?” Before we do that, let’s understand how our mind work.
“As man thinketh, so is he”. Yes, beliefs are the beginning of all creation; manifestation in all forms start from a thought, that when left unquestioned, will form a belief and over time, becomes our religion, and who we are. And these beliefs are programs that have been installed in us at our early days.

So as an adult, we really don’t have a choice, we just live out beliefs that have been filed away in our mind and whenever the files of belief are triggered in life, we will act accordingly to these underlying beliefs. Our minds are like tape player or mp3 player, it only has rewind, fast forward and play functions.

In my experience, limiting beliefs were adopted in the past, that used to work for us for whatever reasons, and may not be working for us now. So, they are really not our enemies, not something that we have to get rid of! What we can do is to take time to understand it, then it will let go of us. And using The Work of Byron Katie (4 questions and turnarounds) to investigate the validity of this belief has helped me to undo many beliefs that are not serving me in my life now.

So, here are the 4 questions from The Work:

1. Is this thought/belief true?
2. Can I really/absolutely know that this thought/belief is true?
3. How do I react when I believe this thought?
3a.When do I first believe this thought/belief? (sub question)
3b.What do I get for holding on to this belief? (sub question)
4. Who would I be without this thought?

Working with Limiting Beliefs Pt 1

Posted on June 18, 2012 by admin

Every now and then when I attend a talk, a class or a workshop, I would always hear speakers talk about the conscious and subconscious mind, about how the limiting beliefs in the subconscious mind would take over our conscious mind.

And during this past weekend, I attended a workshop on internet where the trainer talked about replacing the negative beliefs with the positive ones. He had us close our eyes and ran a positive affirmation meditation with us. And the participants were left to think that if we believe in these positive beliefs hard enough, our beliefs would be replaced.

But, seriously, does that really work? If you ask me, my answer is, “yes, it may”, during good times in our lives, when things are going the way we want, affirmation always works. But, what happens when things are not going our way, when we lose our job, our loved ones, something of great value to us.

It’s during these time that we get to find out what our beliefs really are and how much we really believe what we have been affirming all along.

Do you believe everything you think, hear and see?

Posted on April 17, 2012 by admin

I have been coming in touch with some reading materials that gave “solid” proofs that the 9/11 attack in New York City was started by Israelis and not by Osama bin Laden’s Al Queda.

As I finished watching the video, I heard a question arising from within, “do you believe everything you think, hear and see?” The mind tried to find an association and solicits an emotion. Should I be angry that we are deceived by the media? Who is behind this? What happens if it is really this group of Israelis that attacked? I have some Israelis friends from Katie’s connection, what does it mean? Would they seem guilty now?

It’s fascinating to track the mind and watch what beliefs it still holds on to that are against our nature.

Waiting patiently to watch what comes up….

Consequences of believing everything you think

Posted on March 28, 2012 by admin

A dear friend wrote me an email. Shared with me his latest discovery in using The Work in his life. Told me that he realized that all these time, he had been doing The Work at a very shallow level, only at the top level, that he has never taken the questions inside of him. And he asked why during all those time together either in the workshop or in teleclass setting that I never told him the right way of doing The Work.

I just love his mind. I love receiving his emails sharing with me his progress in using The Work and his realizations. They are such wonderful gifts.

His email has reminded me of a time when I thought I had “It”, I got it figured out, I “know”, and before long, I was in a box, anticipating another chance of confirming the belief that “I know”. I was no longer free to explore, to be a student again.

So now, every time my mind tells me that “I know, I got it!!!” I smile, I enjoy the thought and am aware of where it will lead me and if I feel that I am “tinted” by this thought, meaning, I can feel that I believe this thought, I investigate it before it gets into a big tantrum having to live it out in the world.

Yes… that is the outcome of believing everything you think!!!

The cost of wanting it our way

Posted on March 22, 2012 by admin

A dear friend was stressed out. She wanted her 5 year old son to live with her while in reality, he is living with his grandmother in the country side. She had the thought that he would have a healthier life with her than with his grandmother. She wanted to do The Work so that she can take away her stress that stops her from having her dream comes true.

“Take this hindrance away from making my dreams come true”. That would be what her mind would say. As I look at her situation, I realized that self-inquiry does help us to make our dreams come true. It definitely can meet her there. However, not in the way that she would think it is done.

If we look at everything we want to do in life, it comes from a thought. In this case, her son will have a healthier life with her. This could be one of the many thoughts that prompts her to want her son to live with her. To me, thoughts are not wrong or right. They are just natural phenomena. The problem comes when we believe them and are attached to them.

If I want my son to live with me but my circumstances does not allow it now, and insist on wanting that, won’t I be killing over myself, blaming for not making that happen… and may even be led onto thoughts like I am not a good mother, or that he will grow up being someone “less than”.

And as I can take the time to sit and find how his not living with me could be as good or better thing, my mind settles and calm down. I get to experience the reality in front of me, the goodness of things happening. And it doesn’t mean I will not work towards getting my son to live with me. It just means I can continue having a life working towards it and not be stuck and paralyzed with the belief that it has to happen now.

Life seems to have more space when we take time to explore the space between our thoughts, emotions and actions.

Exploring Self-Inquiry using The Work with Sue Lee

Category Archives: beliefs