“Waking Up To Your Self” by Patrick Marando
Do you know who you really are? No, not your name, but who you are underneath that name, underneath your beliefs about yourself? Who you are in the space between your thoughts. Your internal being that is independent of culture, gender, sexual orientation, or appearance. Your core self underlying your temperament and personality who is witness to all the roles you play. The part that endures throughout your entire life no matter how your mind or physical self changes. The you who knows your deepest wants and desires and exactly how to reach them or allow them to emerge. Who is the true you?
Waking Up To Your Self: A Guide to Living Your Truth was written to provide these answers and to assist you in not only connecting to this part of yourself but also to help you live from that state of truth.
The true self is the awareness part of us within. Some people call this part of us spirit, some call it soul, yet it may go by many other names such as the higher self, inner being, super-conscious, wise mind, authentic self, Buddha nature, consciousness, Christ consciousness, inner awareness or inner essence. Many of us have been taught to ignore this part of ourselves and instead taught to live from our raw self (our instincts, innate personality, temperament, and reactions to life situations) or our conditioned egoic mind (all the conditioned thoughts, responses and behaviours we have absorbed through living life). If we choose only to identify with these parts of us, it will eventually lead to pain and suffering. When we live from the state of the true self however, it can free us from our identification with this pain and suffering, and allow us to live a happy, content, peaceful and harmonious existence.
The true self attempts to gently motivate us to live from its perspective—one of peace and love. It softly urges us to wake up to it and act from that part of ourselves, to change how we perceive things, and to bring our view of the world more clearly in alignment with it. It communicates to us through our intuitive thoughts and emotional states, motivating us to either change our belief patterns to realign with it or act upon our emotions to create the life we truly want. Our job is to learn how to differentiate between communication from the true self and the raw and conditioned egoic parts of us.
Waking Up To Your Self explains that one of the best labels to describe the true self’s communication is ‘self-love’. Self-love is a combination of internal thinking patterns and external behaviors toward ourselves, others, and the world that encompasses how we think, talk, relate, and act. If these internal or external behaviors make us feel worse about ourselves, another or our lives, then they are not likely to be self-loving and are the communication of the conditioned egoic mind. Contrarily, if they do make us feel even a bit better, they are most likely more self-loving and coming from the place more closely aligned to the true self.
Self-loving is our natural state; it is through our life experiences and how we were treated by those around us that we learn how to treat ourselves differently from our natural state. Loving ourselves as the true self does, involves choosing thoughts or behaviours more aligned with: self-care; compassion and self-compassion; self-respect; self-encouragement; self-forgiveness and forgiveness; appreciation and self-appreciation; self-acceptance; self-encouraging; acceptance and surrender; self-trust; having courage or bravery; meditation; allowing emotions; and choosing more peaceful thoughts. While these seem like great qualities to have, many of us have overly identified with our conditioned egoic minds and find them difficult to do, which then keeps us more disconnected from our true self.
The conditioned egoic mind is not entirely negative as it also serves a functional purpose: Its job is to keep us alive and to help us feel better emotionally. To do this, it has developed many useful tools of thought and behaviour that can increase our chances of survival. assist us to make our lives easier, and also help us thrive. Some of these behaviours include problem solving, worrying, comparing, creating judgements, avoidance, distraction and even getting angry. Knowing how to recognise and then discern whether to utilise these tools for our greatest benefit will assist us in living from the state of the true self. If we over use them or use them unconsciously however, we are going to be at the mercy of the conditioned egoic mind.
While understanding our minds and behaviours can help us live our truths, it is also imperative to understand each emotion and its distinct function. Having awareness of the emotions we feel and when they arise can minimize our suffering and assist us to wake us up to our true self in any situation. Our goal in understanding our emotions is to learn to differentiate between those triggered by our true self in order to help motivate action and those created by our conditioning which may not assist us in having a life of well-being.
Our emotions can be divided into different groups, or ‘families’. These are: Happy/Sad; Pleased/Hurt; Relationship-with-Self; Relaxed/Anxious; Calm/Angry; and Freeze-Response. In general, the Happy/Sad, Pleased/Hurt, and Relationship-with Self families of emotions are our primary sets of emotions. They are our most vulnerable feelings and leave us feeling tender and exposed when they occur. The Anxious, Angry, and Freeze-Response families are more resistant emotions. They are designed to save our lives or to minimize the pain of the primary emotions. While emotions can be divided into their families, it is important to realize that any emotion we feel is just one end of a continuum of its opposite emotion. They are not two distinct emotions but one emotion with two sides. Therefore, happy and sad are a single emotion on an emotional continuum, just like feeling pleased or hurt or any of the other emotions. It is impossible for us to know one side of the emotion without the relative point of the other side. In general, feeling the shadow or unpleasant side of the emotion will motivate us to do something to move toward the lighter, more pleasant end on the continuum.
Even if you become a complete specialist in living your truth, it is normal to fall out of alignment with that part of yourself. These times can offer opportunities to learn and choose to realign to your true self using self-loving techniques. Getting to know your beliefs, emotions, behaviors, and our true self can take a whole lifetime, maybe even more! It is a journey of discovery, a journey of openness and honesty with ourselves. We are here living this thing we call life; none of us came here with a manual of how to live it, until now. We did what we were taught, what we observed, and what we thought and felt was best. We stumbled and fell, and yet we still keep on moving. No matter how many times we have failed, no matter how much shadow we have experienced in our lifetime, we keep on moving. While we may have doubts about the light at times, remember the shadow cannot exist without the light. Our shadow emotions can offer an opportunity to push us forward, to help us to listen deep within, to that inner part of us that is always whispering, to change our beliefs and move us toward our heart’s truest desires. To help us live the most peaceful, content, rich, and full life of the true self. A life of well-being that includes both shadow and light. No one can tell you what your truth looks like; it is your unique and individual flow. But Waking Up To Your Self provides a guide to understanding who you truly are to assist you to discover and live from that state of truth to create the life of well-being, peace and content that you were born for.Your job is to be you. It cannot be any other way. Your truth is yours to discover, it is yours to enact, it is your gift to yourself and to the world. Be the gift, accept your shadow, live in the light, and wake up to your true self.
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“Waking Up To Your Self: A Guide to Living Your Truth” by Patrick Marando is available from www.o-books.com or from wherever books are available.
PRE-ORDER Waking Up To Your Self today for a July 1st, 2024, release.
BOOK LINK: Waking Up to Your Self from O-Books (collectiveinkbooks.com)
To connect with the author please visit www.patrickmarando.com or
Instagram: @patrickmarando