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KAL_9171

Sometimes....no...consistently and persistently...we need to take a good hard look at ourselves.  I call this the practice of introspection.  Introspection has served me so well over the years.  In the beginning it allowed me to simply identify feelings.  I had them, everyone does, but mine had been shut down for so long it was impossible for me to feel them, or identify them when I did.  I had two default feelings:  anger and numbness.  Those  were defaults I installed myself in response to early childhood stuff.  I got to change those defaults later on in life, and I am so glad I did.  Life isn't very satisfactory when we can't identify what we are feeling.

Lately I've been thinking about defaults again.  Defaults are like beliefs:  we sometimes don't even know we have them, and yet, they are powerful things that have the tendency to shape and mold our very existence.  If life is happening and we aren't happy about the way it is happening, a good hard look at the default settings we have might serve us very well.

One such default setting is:  Life is hard.  It's supposed to be hard.  Mom and dad told us life was hard, so did society.  Hardship is the only way we gain strength and wisdom.

The only problem with such a default is that that we find ourselves continuously in a state of hardship.  Because we think life is supposed to be hard.  And we can pat ourselves on the back by looking at how much hardship we have overcome, how much strength we have because we have overcome SO MUCH!

I've done that.  And I have news for you.   It isn't true that life is supposed to be hard, and it isn't necessary either. That default, whether we programmed it ourselves or whether someone else installed it for us, is nonsense and it needs to be changed.

Changing a default can be done, awareness is the key and the first step.  What is your default?  I'd love to hear about it.