Hi, This is Tamara Johnson at www.GetOutoftheMud.com with your Weekly Quote and Assignment.
Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see.
- Bernard Baruch
Bernard Baruch has it right when he says that we must know ourselves in order to see the world clearly. The difficulty is that it is not always easy to know where our blind spots are unless we keep consistent contact with ourselves - it must be a continuous effort. To know ourselves, we must remember that we will have thought and feeling responses to every event we experience in our lives. Some of those events will cause us to experience feelings that are uncomfortable. It is during those moments of discomfort that we must remain courageous enough to allow ourselves to experience, explore and express our thoughts and feelings in a way that acquaints us more and more intimately with our own responses, feelings and beliefs. The better we know ourselves, the more easily we can respond to the world without out-of-proportion reactions. The more our responses remain in proportion with reality, the better we become at seeing the world clearly.
Your challenge for this week: Notice your personal reactions within your relationships. If something bothers you, try to spend some time understanding your own reactions. If you are typically prone to quick responses, slow down and take some extra time to evaluate your internal reaction to the situation before saying anything to the other person. If you are typically prone to withdrawing, explore that part of yourself that would rather not engage in the conflict. See if you can figure out where that comes from and take some action to deal with your concern directly rather than withdrawing.
Remember to tune in to my podcast at GetOutoftheMud.com two days from now, Wednesday, November 21 to hear my conversation with Crista Salvatore about the process of Knowing and Loving who we are as women! This is Tamara Johnson. Thanks for listening!
