Who am I really? Fighting with yourself

I finished the downstairs bathroom except for hanging a couple a retro pictures.  I tried to hang them last night but they were crooked and I was too tired to spend any more time on them. My body is tired today but I am happy with the results.

Working on the house gives me the opportunity to listen to audio books. I usually listen to self help or inspiring cds yesterday I was listening to an old Napolean Hill book about how the tycoons of the past and how they found success. I was surprised how much of the principles they talked about are spiritual.  

I love this kind of stuff I think because I didn't have many positive influences in my life I let books and cds shape my thinking. These recordings were and still are my teachers.  Some of the advice is for those climbing the corporate ladder such as practicing greeting people in the mirror. All the little nuances that give someone an advantage.

My love affair with self-help started with counseling and then Al-Anon. Until that time I really believed that you couldn't do anything to change who you are.  Your born with certain personality traits and you were stuck with them. You just had to work with your limitations.

You do inherit certain dispositions mostly habits and some of them are actually good. Like for me my family passed down the task oriented Amish like work ethic. We like to be do something all the time. It is a good trait but it kept me from facing my true feelings and helped me to avoid unpleasant situations in my life.

I lost this doing part of myself during my wandering in the desert these past years.  It was awkward and painful to have no familiar place to escape to. I recently accepted the loss of that person and started to enjoy the coasting I feel I have been doing or at least compared to before.

I guess because I wouldn't voluntarily do this my spirit gave me no choice. Just when I finished grieving the loss of who I was it seems that part of me has returned. Grief is so tricky isn't it?

I do think all that has happened to me spiritually is for a purpose I am not sure what that is yet but for today it doesn't matter I am just happy to have found my way back.

I would like to use my experience to help others see that it is our own ideas our own stories about ourselves that keep us stuck and unhappy. It is hard to give up the identity you have made for yourself but for the most part this identity is only maintained in your own mind and reinforced by the people around you.

You have to literally fight yourself to change these ideas. You are not the sum of ideas you have inside your head this is just entertainment for your mind. A story that every day you work on and you can change that story if it limits you. It is a story based on the habits of the past not the potential of today.

I have am happy today to be released from feeling lost. As I approach the day I can decide who I want be today and this makes me feel light and free.