Author: martylux

Hrvatska verzija dolje ↓

Name three things that would make you happier. Go ahead, do it. This post is not going anywhere.

May I try to guess what you were thinking of? I bet you named at least one of the following things: more money, bigger house, better car, better relationships with friends/colleagues/people in general, better job, less trouble with my husband/wife/kids/family members.

Now read the list again. Notice how most of the things (if not all) are OUTSIDE of yourself. Was there even one thing on the list that is an internal quality?

We are constantly given information how happiness is dependent on outside qualities. Not only happiness, but actually anything that we want in life. No matter what you could wish for, you need someone else or something else to give it to you. Do you want to have money? Get a job (at someone else’s company). Do you want to loose weight? Eat exactly this, do exactly that. Listen to these trainers, to those nutritionists. Want to feel loved? Find someone to love you. Want knowledge? Go to the university or a course and get a diploma (that someone else must certify).

No matter what you want in life, anyone else, but yourself is good enough to give you that. You are not good enough to start your own business and make your own money. You are not strong enough to bring yourself back to health. You have no knowledge enough to know which food makes you bloated or causes cramps. You cannot tell yourself which exercises you enjoy best. You are not capable to love and know your own value yourself. You cannot decide for yourself which knowledge is of greatest interest and best use for you.

Think about your job for a second. Where did you learn those exact skills? Did they teach them to you in school? Or you learned them on the job, from your colleagues, by experience? School doesn’t really teach us how to do any job. It’s extremely ineffective in that. Yet, we still believe in university diplomas like it is a holy cow. Why is that?

Another beautiful example I love is medicine. For whatever symptoms you might be experiencing in your body, they have already invented a pill. Take this one, take that one. Most of the times it works. What they don’t tell you is that for most of those times that a pill worked on you, you didn’t even need one! Your body has the ability to cure itself. Every single research involving placebo pills has proven that. In every study with placebo pills, both patients who took the real pill and those who took placebo pill were feeling better. How is that possible? Because YOU are the placebo! Your thoughts, your beliefs are the placebo. If you KNOW you can cure yourself, you will. Your body knows how, but living in this world made you forget that.

That is not surprising. Since we were little kids, that was the message given to us. There were always rules made by the others that we were supposed to follow. No questions asked. There were always parents’ wishes that we were supposed to fulfill, otherwise we would be made to feel guilty for not doing so. I wrote about guilt last week, and its devastating consequences on us. All standards ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘horrible’ came from the outside. No one ever asked us to make our own. No one ever made us connect with ourselves and be free to understand what was best for us. Naturally, once we grew up, we were completely disconnected from ourselves, and we knew no more even those things that kids intuitively know.

Kids possess the powers. They know that they have the power and they can do anything themselves. Problem is that that power doesn’t get strengthened but gets killed instead by our parents as we grow up.

Our parents also forgot about their powers and adopted what their parents taught them – that power is outside of themselves. So, they see their kids the same way – powerless and incapable of making good decisions without them. They see them as undeveloped little creatures who have no knowledge, no wisdom, and need to be told what to do. That cannot be further from the truth.

‘You will fall from that tree!’ screams petrified mother. She runs like the wind to scream at her son and shame him for even daring to climb up there! ‘You will fall! You will break your arm!’ she continues. ‘Get down immediately!’, she demands.

So what if he does fall? What if he breaks his arm? His wound will heal in no time. That’s how it works with our young flexible bodies.  What that mother doesn’t understand is when she is screaming ‘You will fall! You will break your arm!’, she is actually saying: ‘you are incapable of knowing what is good for you, only I know that and you should listen to me’, ‘you cannot keep yourself safe’, ‘it is not OK to be playing and exploring the world’, ‘the world is not safe’.

By blocking his wish to climb that tree and shaming him for it, she is killing all the ambition in him. Depending on the shock this episode was for him, he might never dare to try to climb again. He will not dare to climb that tree, nor to climb anything in life, really. He will always be too scared to make any step forward. No matter how desperately he would want it, he will not go for it anymore. He will be paralyzed in place with that fear that you engraved into him. Great job, mom!

If you let him climb, he will lean on his natural intelligence and learn his own lessons by himself. He will learn that it is OK to be who he is, and it is OK to explore the world. He will learn he can trust his own judgment, and in case something happens, he has a safe place to go to and there will be his parents to comfort him and help him heal. He will be happy to explore because he will not be scared of failure, he will not be scared at every step that he will break his arm. He will not even think about that. So, believe it or not, his chances are much slimmer to get hurt by himself than when you are imprinting this picture of his broken arm into his mind.

If you think a little bit about it, in your life you never really learned anything from what other people were telling you. You always experienced it yourself. So, it is not other people who taught you something, but it was you, yourself who learned by using their lessons as tools. Remember that. Use your outer world as a tool, but don’t forget that the one who makes it all happen – is YOU. The only thing we can learn from other people forcing their life lessons on us is guilt.

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Zašto ne vjerujemo u sebe

Nabroji tri stvri koje bi te učinile strenijim. Ajde, učini to. Ova objava ne ide nikud.

Mogu li pokušati pogoditi što si zamislila? Kladim se da si nabrojao barem jednu od sljedećih stvari: više novaca, veća kuća, bolji auto, bolji odnosi s prijateljima/kolegama/ljudima generalno, bolji posao, manje problema s mužem/ženom/djecom/članovima obitelji.

Sad ponovo pročitaj listu. Primjeti kako je većina stvari (ako ne i sve) IZVAN tebe. Je li se na listi našla brem jedna od tvojih unutarnjih kvaliteta?

Konstantno nam daju informacije kako naša sreća ovisi o vanjskim kvalitetama. Ne samo sreća, već zapravo bilo što što želimo u životu. Bez obzira na to što bi želio, treba ti nešto drugo ili netko drugi tko bi ti to dao. Želiš imati novac? Nađi posao (u tuđoj firmi). Želiš li smršaviti? Jedi točno ovako, radi točno onako. Slušaj ovog trenera, onog nutricionistu. Želiš se osjećati voljeno? Nađi nekoga tko će te voljeti. Želiš znanje? Idi na fakultet ili na tečaj po diplomu (koju netko drugi mora izdati).

Bez obzira što želiš u životu, bilo tko osim tebe je dovoljno dobar da ti to pruži. Nisi dovoljno dobar da započneš svoj vlastiti biznis i zaradiš svoje vlastite novce. Nisi dovoljno jak da se sam vratiš u zdravo stanje. Nemaš dovoljno znanja da znaš koja ti hrana izaziva nadimanje ili grčeve. Ne možeš odlučiti sam koje vježbe ti se najviše sviđaju. Nisi sposoban sam voljeti sebe i znati svoju vrijednost. Nisi sposoban odlučiti koje je znanje najkorisnije i od najvećeg interesa za tebe.

Razmisli o svom poslu na trenutak. Gdje si naučio te vještine? Jesi li ih naučio u školi? Ili si ih naučio putem vlastitog iskustva, na poslu, s kolegama? Škola nas ne uči zapravo kako raditi ni jedan posao.  Škola je vrlo neefikasna u tome. Bez obzira na to, mi još vjerujemo u fakultetske diplome kao da je sveta krava. Zašto?

Još jedan primjer kojeg ja jako volim je medicina. Za bilo koji simptom koji osjećaš u svom tijelu već je izmišljena tableta. Uzmi ovu, uzmi onu. Većinu vremena funkcioniraju. Ono što vam ne govore je da za većinu puta kad je ta tableta funkcionirala, niste ju zapravo uopće trebali! Naše tijelo ima sposobnost samoiscjeljivanja. Svako istraživanje s placebo tabletama je to potvrdilo. U svakom istraživanju s placebo tabletama, obje skupine – i ona skupina koja je pila prave tablete i ona koje je pila placebo tablete izjavili su da su se osjećali bolje. Kako je to moguće? Jer TI SI PLACEBO! Tvoje misli, tvoja vjerovanja su placebo. Ako ZNAŠ da se možeš sam izliječiti – izliječiti ćeš se. Tvoje tijelo zna kako, ali živeći u ovom svijetu učinio si da ono to zaboravi.

Sve to nije iznenađujuće. Otkad smo bili djeca, to je poruka koja nam je davana. Tu su uvijek bila pravila postavljena od strane drugih koja smo trebali poštovati. Bez pitanja. Tu su uvijek bile želje naših roditelaj koje smo trebali ispunjavati. U suprotnom, učinili bi nas da se osjećamo krivo. Prošli sam tjedan pisala o krivnji i njezinim razarajućim posljedicama na naš razvoj. Svi standardi ‘dobro’, ‘loše’, ‘prekrasno’, ‘užasno’ dolazili su izvana. Nitko nas nikad nije pitao da postavimo svoje standarde. Nitko nas nije naučio da se povežemo sa samima sobom i dao nam slobodu da razumijemo što je najbolje za nas. Prirodno, jednom kad smo odrasli postali smo potpuno nepovezani sa sobom i nismo više znali čak ni stvari koje djeca intuitivno znaju.

Djeca posjeduju moći. Oni znaju da je posjeduju i da mogu postići sve što požele. Problem je što se kod djece te moći ne razvijaju već ih roditelji ubijaju kako djeca odrastaju.

Naši su roditelji također zaboravili njihove moći i prihvatili su ono što su ih njihovi roditelji naučili – da je snaga i moć izvan njih samih. Prirodno je da onda i oni tako vide svoju djecu – nemoćne i nesposobne da izaberu najbolje za sebe bez njih. Oni vide svoju djecu kao nerazvijena mala stvorenja koja nemaju znanja ni mudrosti te im treba biti rečeno što da rade. To je vrlo daleko od istine.

‘Past ćeš s tog stabla!’ vrišti prestravljena majka. Trči kao vjetrom gonjena vrištati na svog sina i posramljivati ga što se uopće usudio popeti. ‘Past ćeš! Slomiti ćeš ruku!’ nastavlja. ‘Dolje, smjesta!’, zahtjeva.  

I što ako padne? Što ako i slomi tu ruku? Njegova će rana zacjeliti dok si rekao keks. Tako to funkcionira s našim malim fleksibilnim tijelima. Ono što ta majka ne razumije je da kad vrišti ‘Past ćeš! Slomiti ćeš ruku!’, ona zapravo govori ‘ ti ne znaš što je za tebe dobro, samo ja to znam i mene trebaš slušati’, ‘ti ne znaš kako paziti na svoju sigurnost’, ‘nije u redu igrati se i istraživati svijet oko sebe’, ‘svijet oko tebe nije siguran’.

S time što je spriječila dijetovu želju da se popne na stablo i posramila ga zbog nje, ona ubija ambiciju u njemu. Ovisno o tome koliki je šok ta epizoda izazvala, on se možda više nikad neće penjati. Neće se usuditi popesti na to drvo, niti se popeti igdje drugdje u životu, zapravo. Uvijek će biti prestrašen da napravi bilo koji korak. Bez obzira na to koliko strašno bi to želio, više se neće usuditi. Biti će paraliziran tim strahom koji si usadila u njega. Odličan posao, mama!

Ako ga pustiš da se penje, osloniti će se na svoju vlastitu inteligenciju i naučiti vlastite lekcije. Naučiti će da je OK biti ono što jest, i da je OK istraživati svijet. Naučiti će da može vjerovati svojoj vlastitoj procjeni, a ako se slučajno nešto dogodi, ima sigurno mjesto gdje ga čekaju roditelji koji će mu pomći da se oporavi. Biti će sretan istražujući jer se neće bojati neuspjeha, neće se bojati na svakom koraku hoće li razbiti ruku. Neće ni pomisliti na to. Vjerovala ili ne, njegove su šanse puno manje da se sam povrijedi nego što su sada kada si usadila u njegovu glavicu tu sliku razbijene ruke.  

Ako malo razmisliš, nikad u životu nisi puno naučio iz onoga što su ti drugi govorili. Uvijek si to sam doživio. Dakle, nisu doista drugi ljudi koji su te naučili, već si to bio ti koji si to naučio koristići njihove lekcije kao alate. Zapamti to. Koristi svijet oko sebe kao alat, ali ne zaboravi da onaj tko to zapravo čini mogućim – si TI. Jedina stvar koju možemo naučiti od lekcija kojima nas na silu hrane je krivnja.

Hrvatska verzija dolje ↓

Gult and shame are embedded in us since we are born. When we are small innocent children, we are not burned by the expectations of society. We are what we truly are. We are running around freely trying to experience the world around us. We are trutful to ourselves and the world around us. We are expressing ourselves freely, and openly. We are not worried about what will others think of our behavious. When we draw we are not preoccupied if others will think that we are not talented. We dance, we sing, and do not care if anyone approves of it. Being girly we climb trees like boys, and being boys we dress up like girls. There are no bounderies, we are all-accepting and all-integrating. We are playful with the world around us, and we are experiencing pure joy.

As time passes, and we are subjected to growing up in nowdays society, our freedom is tamed. Our parents are the first ones who restrict our freedom. In our society their role is to domesticate us, to shape us to the expectation of the society. All of a sudden, you cannot run around freely because ‘that is not allowed’. Soon enough you will not be able to dance and sing as you please because ‘you are disturbing others’. Slowly, one by one all your pleasures will be restricted, and your joy taken away from you – you will become adult.

The system by which your dreams are crushed and your joy is taken away from you is shame and guilt. Soon after you are able to speak, understand and resonate for yourself, your caretakers will start slapping you with shame and gult. Things that were natural to you until yesterday, and long before you were done playing with them and exploring them, you will be served your first portion of shame. You will be innocently playing around in the park, and one of a sudden you will feel like catching that bird. As you start running towards it, your mother will catch you angrily and start shouting at you, shaming you for your behavior. She was worried that you will end up on the road. She is harshly pulling you back to the center of the park and giving you an accusing look. You had no idea what it meant to do something wrong, but now you know. Now you clearly know that you should be ashamed of your desires. Now you know that you are not valid the way you are, and you are gulty for being who you want to be.

When I was four years old I was sleeping with my parents in their room. I had a baby bed with wooden fence which was already too small for a 4-year old. I hated sleeping in that bed. I felt alone and left out. At night I used to sneak over the fence and wanted to wiggle into my parents’ bed. If my father noticed that, I was sent back with angry comments. I was  imprinted with guilt for wanting to be close to my parents, and shamed for even trying to fulfill my desires.

Even though you will still not understand what all that was about, this will be the first stamp of shame and gult inside of you. It will be the first of million episodes where your parents will teach you that you are guilty for wanting what you want, and ashamed of your desires. Soon enough your talents will be dissected, and you will be judged whether your singing is nice enough, and whether you have a ‘talent’ for dancing. If they conclude that you don’t, you will feel ashamed for even trying to do it. That is how guilt is embedded in us from the very beginning of our existence. Here is where we part ways with trust in ourselves, and start trusting that what we need to please others.

Our parents’ gult is the first type of gult that we encounter. That is how it all starts. Somewhere around the age of seven we encounter the second type of gult – societal guilt. Around that age we start being more aware of the society around us, and we start interacting with it. We join school and our parents are not the only world for us anymore. Around that age we start being more independent, and we start making our own friends, choosing our own model figures, and start using our cognition in a more sophisticated way. Starting from that age we will encounter societal gult everywhere around us: on TV, in school, among friends, our neighbours. Everywhere we turn, there is someone telling us that one thing or another that we did was wrong.

They teach us one thing but then when we want to adopt our version of it, for some reason we are not allowed. There was always one person or another asking me if I have a boyfriend while I was growing up. I guess that was some kind of cute thing to ask a 6-years old. When this 6-years old becomes 11 and thinks she is quite grown up now, she decides to finally call that boy she likes in school her boyfriend. One of a sudden, that is the equivalent of slapping someone in the face! One of a sudden, when you are 11 years old, you are too young to have a boyfriend. Shame on you! Guilt! Bam!

We grow up in such contradictions and are not even aware of them. Everywhere we turn, we are faced with one message: our desires are not valid. We are not valid because of them. By the age of 21 or so, we are grown up enough to start an independent life. Here is where we are imposing on ourselves the third type of guilt – our own. We take everything that we learned so far from our parents and society and we embark on our own journey. Everything. Shame and guilt included. We don’t even realize it, but we are now shaming ourselves for the same things that someone shamed us for when we were 4 or 11 years old. We adopt the shame and guilt system and are proceeding with punishment ourselves. Last week I already wrote about how the society is conditioning us to do that (read last post here). We do not realize that that imposed guilt is now ruling our lives and is behind every feeling of inadequacy and behind every thought that says we are not good enough.

These three types of guilt are what is blocking us from realizing our dreams. Actually, from doing anything we want in our lives. Guilt creates fear. Read my post about How our fears are keeping us captive.

You are more than a grownup by now. You might even have your own children already. It is time to stop believing everyone else and start believing yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with your urges, your desires and your dreams. If you are having them, they are valid, and they are here for a reason. You are valid together with them. You are worthy always. It is time to stop believing lies that others created about you and to live your life free of guilt. Free to do whatever you want to do and act on your desires. It is time to realize that the only person who is now keeping you in chains is yourself. Best part is: you are also free to decide otherwise.

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Krivnja i sram – zao sistem kontrole

Krivnja i sram su utisnuti u nas otkad se rodimo. Dok smo mala nevina dječica, nismo opterećeni očekivanjima društva. Ono smo što doista jesmo. Trčkaramo okolo pokušavajući doživijeti svijet oko nas. Iskreni smo sa sobom i svijetom koji nas okružuje. Izražavamo se slobodno i otvoreno. Nismo zabrinuti oko toga što će ljudi reći o našem ponašanju. Kada crtamo, ne brinemo oko toga što će ljudi misliti o našem talentu. Plešemo, pjevamo i ne brinemo hoće li se nekome to svidjeti. Curice se penju na drvo kao dječaci, a dječaci se oblače kao curice. Nemamo granica, potpuno prihvaćamo i potpuno integriramo svijet oko nas. Igramo se njime i živimo punu radost.

Kako vrijeme prolazi i kako smo sve više podvrgnuti odrastanju u današnjem društvu, naša je sloboda oskvrnuta. Naši su roditelji prvi koji ju ograničavaju. U našem društvu njihova je uloga da nas pripitome, da nas oblikuju prema očekivanjima društva. Odjednom ne možeš trčkarati unaokolo jer ‘to nije dozvoljeno’. Uskoro nećeš moći plesati i pjevati slobodno jer ‘smetaš drugima’. Polako jedno po jedno, sva će tvoja zadovoljstva biti ograničena i tvoja će ti radost biti oduzeta – postati ćeš odrastao.

Sistem kojim su tvoj snovi uništeni i tvoja ti je radost oduzeta zove se sram i krivnja. Vrlo brzo nakon što naučiš govoriti, razumijevati i samostalno misliti, tvoji će te staratelji početi šamarati sramom i krivnjom. Stvari koje su ti bile prirodne do jučer i puno ranije nego si ti završio igrati se s njima i istraživati ih, tvoja će ti prva porcija srama biti servirana. Nevino ćeš se igrati u parku i odjednom ćeš odlučiti da želiš uhvatiti tu pticu. Čim počneš trčati prema njoj, tvoja će te majka ljutito zaustaviti i početi vikati na tebe, posramljujući te za tvoje ponašanje. Ona se zabrinula da ćeš izletjeti na cestu. Nasilno te povlači prema sredini parka gledajući te optužujućim pogledom. Nisi imao pojma što to znači učiniti nešto krivo, ali sada znaš. Sada jasno znaš da se trebaš sramiti svojih želja. Sada znaš da nisi vrijedan onakav kakav jesi i kriv si zato zbog onoga što želiš biti.

Kad sam imala 4 godine spavala sam sa svojim roditeljima u sobi. Imala sam dječji krevetić s drvenom ogradom koji je već bio premalen za četverogodišnjakinju. Mrzila sam spavati u tom krevetu. Osjećala sam se sama i ostavljena postrani. Po noći željela bih se iskrasti preko ograde i uvući se u krevet svojih roditelja. Ako je moj otac to primijetio, poslana sam natrag uz ljutite komentare. Bila sam otisnuta krivnjom zbog želje da budem blizu svojih roditelja, posramljena zato što sam čak i probala ispuniti ono što bih toliko željela.

Iako još uvijek nećeš razumijeti o čemu se tu radi, to će biti prvi pečat srama i krivnje unutar tebe. Biti će to prva od milijun epizoda u kojima će te tvoji roditelji posramljivati i učiti da si kriv zbog toga što želiš ono što želiš. Vrlo brzo i tvoji će se talenti naći na procjenjivačkom stolu: pjevaš li dovoljno dobro i imaš li ‘talent’ za ples? Ako zaključe da nemaš, osjećati ćeš se posramljeno čak i pokušati. I tako je krivnja utisnuta u nas od početka našeg postojanja. Tako se odvajamo od vjere u sebe same i počinjemo vjerovati da trebamo zadovoljavati druge.

Krivnja naših roditelja prva je vrsta krivnje koju susrećemo. Tako sve počinje. Oko sedme godine upoznamo i drugu vrstu krivnje – društvenu krivnju. Oko sedme godine postajemo više svjesni društva oko nas i počinjemo s njime stupati u dodir. Krećemo u školu te naši roditelji više nisu naš jedini svijet. Počinjemo biti samostalniji, nalazimo svoje prijatelje, biramo svoje idole i koristimo sofisticiraniji sistem zaključivanja. U toj ćemo dobi početi nalaziti društvenu krivnju svuda oko nas: na televiziji, u školi, s prijateljima, susjedima. Gdje god se okrenemo, tamo je netko tko nam govori kako je ova ili ona stvar koju smo učinili kriva.

Uče nas jednoj stvari, ali onda kada mi želimo stvriti svoju verziju naučenog, iz nekog razloga nije nam to dopušteno. Dok sam odrastala, uvijek je postojala jedna ili druga osoba koja me pitala imam li dečka. Pretpostavljam da je pitati to šestogodišnjakinju nekako slatko, pa ljudi to rade. Kad ta šestogodišnjakinja postane jedanaestogodišnjakinja i pomisli da je sada poprilično odrasla, odluči dečkića koji joj se sviđa u školi nazvati svojim dečkom. Odjednom, to je ekvivalent tome da je nekome opalila šamar! Odjednom, u dobi od 11 premalena si da imaš dečka. Srami se! Krivnja! Bum!

Odrastamo u takvim kontradikcijama, a da ih nismo ni svjesni. Gdje god se okrenemo, suočeni smo s jednom porukom: naše želje nisu vrijedne. Mi nismo vrijedni zbog njih. U dobi od oko 21 godine dovoljno smo odrasli da započnemo neovisan život. Tu započinje treća vrsta krivnja – ona koju sami sebi izazivamo. Uzimamo sve što smo do tada naučili od svojih rditelja i društva oko nas i krećemo na vlastito putovanje. Uzimamo sve. Uključujući krivnju i sram. Nismo toga ni svjesni, ali sada se sami posramljujemo za ono što su nas drugi posramljivali kad smo imali 4 ili 11 godina. Integriramo taj sistem krivnje i srama u sebi i sami se kažnjavamo. Već sam prošli tjedan pisala o tome kako nas društvo kondicionira da to činimo (pročitaj taj post ovdje). Nismo svjesni da nam ta nametnuta krivnja upravlja životom i krije se iza svakog osjećaja neprimjerenosti i svake misli koja kaže da nismo dovoljno dobri.

Ove tri vrste krivnje su ono što nas spriječava da ostvarmo naše snove. Zapravo, spriječava nas od svega što bismo željeli postići u životu. Krivnja stvara strah. Pročitaj moju objavu o tome Kako nas strahovi drže zarobljenima.

Sada si više nego odrastao. Možda čak već imaš i svoju djecu. Vrijeme je da prestaneš vjerovati svima drugima i počneš vjerovati sebi. Ne postoji ništa što nije u redu s tobom. Sve je u redu s tvojim porvima, tvojim željama i snovima. Ako ih imaš, oni su vrijedni i tu su s razlogom. Ti si vrijedan zajedno s njima. Ti si uvijek vrijedan. Vrijeme je da prestaneš vjerovati laži koje su drugi stvorili o tebi i počneš živjeti život bez krivnje. Slobodan da radiš ono što doista želiš. Vrijeme je da shvatiš tko je taj tko te drži u okovima – to si ti sam. Najbolja stvar u tome je da si također TI taj koji može slobodno odlučiti drugačije.