Your life has purpose… And when you connect with the real you… And begin to move forward… Your new found freedom will help others to journey on the road less travelled.
…Chris T Atkinson
Looking back on life can be such an interesting experience, I’m reminded of what Steve Jobs said at a commencement ceremony; “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
On a daily basis I can find my mind preoccupied with two words; “purpose” and “freedom.” I now study what these words represents and try to more express them in my character.
This all came about from my introduction to personal development, although at the time I would never have guessed that these words would be of such importance.
I started working right out of high school, got a job as a loans officer at a microfinance company and within three months of being there moved from home. This was my major goal as a teenager, to move out of the environment I was living in.
A few months in and I’m struggling, more month at the end of the money. Stressed out, confused and disappointed I started asking, wishing and wanting more control, ease and calm to my days.
The first book I can remember reading was Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which came to me by “chance” through my girlfriend at the time.
“No matter whether you believe in luck or chance, the final decision is always from yourself”
…Stephen Richards
Chance is a strange way of putting it, knowing what I now know; I would have been asking like crazy for a better way. What I now know is that the Universe always answers, however the final decision is always from yourself.
To make a long story short, a seed was planted, just enough to inspire me to find another book from the recommended reading list the author included. The title of this book caught me eyes, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
I started to realize how difficult it was for me to accept the restrictions on my time and the limitations on my income. I began to see how my past conditionings and my environment played a major role in how I was currently living.
This was no sudden insight from within me though, although now I would say, (“everything comes from within you”), at that time this realization came as a result of reading books and listening audios from the self help genre.
This was a bittersweet experience, this insight into my predicament was accompanied by the knowledge that I have attracted these experiences and that its up to me to change them. Which gave me this gnawing sense of anxiety, inadequacy and general self pity.
Just a little reality check before going on, these books at the time took months to complete, I was not the sit and read a book type of guy.
What Rich Dad, Poor Dad did was expanding my awareness just enough to see that financial freedom was a possibility. Financial freedom as Robert Kiyosaki describes it, is once my monthly cashflow from my assets is equal to or greater than my monthly living expenses then I am financially free because my assets are cash flowing and are working for me.
Think and Grow Rich on the other hand, showed me the importance of a definite chief aim, a dream, a life purpose.
“Any definite chief aim that is deliberately fixed in the mind and held there, with the determination to realize it, finally saturates the entire subconscious mind until it automatically influences the physical action of the body toward the attainment of that purpose,” said Hill.
Without purpose, Hill believes people often spread their thoughts and energies in so many different directions that “lead not to power, but to indecision and weakness.”
Looking back now I can see how these two books have influenced my life significantly. One creating a desire for freedom and the other for a more purposeful life. The seed was planted and personal development became apart of my life albeit in a sporadic nature.
It became more like a sedative, something that I could turn to for hope. This hope had its price however, what came along with it was blame, shame and a sense of unworthiness.
A side effect of the self help movement is the not enoughness syndrome. The common formula states; here’s what’s wrong with you and here is how we can fix it. We get bombarded with our dysfunctions and neurosis that we feel we would have been better off not touching a book in the first place.
What I have come to understand is that with an expanded awareness we become unwilling to continually identifying with our self sabotage conditioning and a willingness then arises to take massive action to change this programming.
Those two books open up a whole new world and I have been a student ever since.
Major Key recommendation to my younger self.
A Daily Meditation Practice – If I could go back and advice my younger self this would be my most profound insight. A daily meditation practice helps to rest and refresh our nervous system. The scientific studies on meditation have shown the tremendous benefit that mediation have on our overall well being.
There’s no denying that we live in a fast-paced world, that seems to be speeding up each day. Our nervous systems are overstimulated by the bombardment of incessant thoughts, feeling and actions. Our frenetic lifestyle is too much for our nervous system, which leads to “dis-ease” in our bodies.
Taking the time to focus on our breathe, to sit still in silence, to meditate gives you an opportunity to find a point of stillness. Doing so boosts your physical vitality and immune system because you balance out the overstimulation that you are exposed to each day.
Meditation sparks creativity, there is an infinite source of creativity and consciousness, which is the driving force behind this reality, our thoughts, and the energy that sustain us.
Suffice it to say, taking on a meditation practice was a major key in overcoming the negative self talk and feeling of blame and unworthiness. It created a space for more authenticity and creative expression in my daily pursuits.
Those were the first two books that I read, they laid a path for me which I have been traveling ever since, even when I thought I wasn’t. Personal development is now an aspect of my daily routine, its like taking a shower or brushing my teeth, a daily occurrence.
Its said that our only true enemy is ignorance. Ignorance of who we are and what we are capable of, ignorance of our conditioning and how to can change it. The flip side of the coin is knowledge, which we gain through study and understanding.