Personal growth: The pain and futility of resisting change February 9, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Tao Te Ching.Tags: inspiration, Lao-tzu, life, personal growth program, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, self-awareness, Tao Te Ching, writing
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In our work at implementing our personal development programs and self-actualization plans we may need to be careful not to seek too much control over circumstances outside of ourselves, as trying to influence the outside world may be counter-productive.
We will accomplish more, become more self-aware, and be more effective by embracing the inevitability of change instead of resisting it. The Universe will unfold in its own way at its own pace.
By refusing to recognize that change is inevitable, we will try to hold on to things and situations, and suffer the inescapable pain of loss.
These are some of the implications in number 74 of Lao-tzu’s ancient Chinese classic, the Tao Te Ching, as translated/interpreted by Stephen Mitchell. (1)
Consider the second verse in this selection:
“Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter’s place.
When you handle the master carpenter’s tools,
chances are that you’ll cut your hand.”
… A perceptive insight to consider.
(1) Tao Te Ching, as translated/interpreted by Stephen Mitchell, A New English Version, Harper/Perennial, New York, 1991
— Dennis Mellersh
Personal growth: Applying the power of constructive speech February 8, 2018
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Concept of personal growth.Tags: inspiration, life, personal development program, personal growth program, philosophy, psychology, self-actualization, self-awareness, writing
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One of the popular concepts in current self-actualization thought is that of the effectiveness of saying/writing positive affirmations to improve our well-being, a concept actually promoted much earlier in the early 1900’s but in somewhat different form.
In 1910, New Thought writer Christian D. Larson wrote:
“When you feel that trouble is coming and express that feeling in your speech, you are actually turning in your path, and are beginning to move toward that trouble…Never give expression to what you do not wish to encourage… When you have something good to say, say it. When you have something ill to say, say something else.…”
He also suggested:
“The more you talk about a thing, the more you move it along. Every word that is spoken exercises a power in personal life and that power will work either for or against the person, depending upon the nature of the word.” (1)
By complaining or being straight-out critical we do not improve the situation and can also be harming ourselves psychologically.
An undercurrent in all of this is the idea that if we are saying something, we are usually also thinking the same thing; and saying/thinking enough negative things will turn our overall outlook into a negative one and affect us at the level of our subconscious as well.
For people familiar with the concept of the Law of Attraction, this advice, like much of Larson’s work, has a familiar feel to it.
The idea of enabling positive outcomes by controlling our speech to eliminate all negativity and focus it in only in a constructive and productive direction is one that seems worthy of doing, but it’s more difficult than we might imagine.
As someone who has a grumpy side, I am trying to do this, but it’s surprising how easily critical, non-constructive comments can roll of the tongue when we are irritated, almost from a default position.
(1) The quotations are from Christian D. Larson’s work, Your Forces and How to Use Them, an eight-page chapter which is included in an anthology of Larson’s writings titled The Optimist Creed, published by Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin, New York, 2012.
— Dennis Mellersh
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