Commitment to your Creations

This past week I got the chance to embark on the journey of a mirror meditation during my 300 hour teacher training. The awakening that took place post staring into a mirror and looking at myself for 20 minutes was profound. After peeling back the layers of my inner critic and getting to the root of where she was sourced, I found myself deep in the midst of an Ah-ha moment! “My desire to create is greater than perceived criticism or praise.”

This was huge for me. As someone who has major resistance to feedback or criticism of any kind and is well aware of the where and the why for this trigger point it was quite frankly groundbreaking to come to this realization. I could go on and on about my inner child wounds, how criticism registers in the brain the same as physical pain, and why we shouldn’t do it, but that's not what this blog is about. This blog is about overcoming your fears, the stories in your head, and making a greater commitment to the work you label as your “dharma” or lifes purpose. So often we find ourselves in spirals of analysis paralysis that look and sound something like… “but what if they say this?” “but what if I fail” “but what if this-insert negative worst case scenario cognitive distortion here” you get the point. When if we took a breath, took a pause, and allowed ourself to shift our perspective to “but what if I succeed?” “but what if they love it?” “and why not me?”

At some point we have to make the decision that the work we have come here to do, as in our spiritual being's life's purpose, is more important than perceived criticism, or praise. Yes if we’re valuing our work and our purpose more than criticism and the ever-wavering projections and opinions of the fluctuations of the human mind; we must also value our work over perceived praise. Because. Annica. Impermanence. Upekka. Equanimity. Santosha. Contentment. Mudita. Sympathetic Joy. Karuna. Compassion. and Metta Loving Kindness. Everything is temporary. And we can find contentment in the present moment. Sympathetic Joy for others. Compassion for others. and Loving Kindness for others in fact we must start with ourselves. We can be impeccable with our word. We can take nothing personally. We can do our best. We can cease to make assumptions. Because really what other people think of us or our work is none of our business. And so if we look at our work as something…