How Are You Developing Yourself Today?

Do you perceive yourself as absolutely perfect? If not, do you have clarity on what is available to you to work on within yourself, how you respond to specific circumstances and situations, how you think about things, which judgments you make that might be attached to fear or a scarcity mindset, etc.? The loved ones around you who give you helpful, honest feedback can also act as a mirror to recognize areas of improvement available to you. The things that trigger you are an excellent guide, and they are often associated with what you care about most (spouse, children, work, etc.).

“Improving” yourself can be a bit tricky if you don’t have a clear “North Star” you’re pointing towards to begin with. Religions, with all their problems, can be very helpful in this regard to point towards something better. Philosophies which explore virtue, ethics, and such can also help. For me personally, I benefit from using the “Fruit of the Spirit” from Christianity as a guideline: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That’s a pretty good list for me to focus on. Other traditions like Buddhism, Stoicism, etc. might have different ideals, but they do seem (to me) to ultimately have as their outcome increased well-being for the individual and the community they are in. Sure, there’s all kinds of stories we can tell ourselves about the experience of life we’re living, but the basics seem rather universal to me and well-being shared within community works as a container word for that mutual understanding.

Some people are clear on who they want to be, but beat themselves up with shame, guilt, and judgment for always falling short of their own expectations or the expectations of others. They feel stuck, but they don’t have to stay that way. There are many wonderful tools for self-improvement available for those willing to do the work necessary to benefit from them.

It’s very easy to fall for the “I’m just too busy right now to focus on any of that” trap. No, you are not too busy. How can I make such a definitive claim? Beucase in the next few minutes or so you are going to take at least one breath. You are going to breathe. That breath can be conscious or unconscious. It can be taken while doing any number of tasks. That breath can be used as a gateway, bringing you closer to a better version of you. You can slow it down, draw it out, extend the exhale, clear the mind and note the sensations within and around the nose as it takes place. You can use it to clarify what is going on within you. In a world where you control next to nothing, you can control that one breath. And then another. And another. Pretending we are too busy is just an avoidance pattern and distraction from what matters most. The chaos of life is there to drive you towards something better, something you prefer and those around you who you share life with prefer within you also.

If there’s pain, trauma, Shadow and such to get through, then your path is clear. Start there. Again, there are many tools to help you along your way, and it may take some time and sacrifice to seek those tools out to find what resonates with you personally the most, but you can always start with the breath. Improving yourself is the one activity you can do which improves every other activity you can possibly do for the rest of your life. Exponential rewards beyond anything money can buy. By working internally on yourself, you ensure your external work is pure and not a striving projection outward based on some inner avoidance.

I share these thoughts not because there’s anything particularly new in them, but because it’s what I feel like doing. They help me, and I hope they help others also. I hope you have a lot of conscious breaths today.

(image generated via deepai.org)