Thursday 8 November 2018

You Know What's Best for You, So Stop Giving Your Power Away

a post by Shona Keachie for the Tiny Buddha blog


“Insight is not a light bulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.” ~Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

If there is just one thing I would absolutely love every person on this planet to understand, it is their own inner knowing. And if I could have two things, I would add the power that inner knowing gives to each of us.

When it comes to what’s best for you, your own opinion is the only one that counts—and you can use it to change your life.

It’s easy to be brainwashed in this society because right from the get-go, when we have no choice but to be dependent on others, we are taught to believe that others know better. This inadvertently teaches us to suppress our own desires, feelings, ideas, and opinions about the world.

My parents, probably like yours, had very strong views about what was right and wrong. If I stepped outside those boundaries I was punished rather than left to experience the natural consequences of my thoughts and actions. That introduced self-doubt into the equation, and other damaging emotions like worry, anxiety, fear, guilt, and so on.

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My mother was the one with the strong views and I am, to this day, 30 years after her death, not sure whether it was her sense of right and wrong or her concerns about what the neighbours would say.


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