Tag Archives: Happiness

From Punishing Higher Power to Loving Higher Power

Still searching

Supporting Higher Power I am still struggling with things like the word love and Loving Higher Power. So I keep searching the internet to find solutions and I found this article: finding a new Higher Power.

Find below my first attempt based on the suggested exercise in the article: first describe my current view of God, then my ideal view of God.

What do I think God is right now?

Somehow I still think God is that kind of old bearded man on the pulpit of the “Grote Kerk” in Vriezenveen. It seems I can’t really get rid of that image, that picture in my mind.

So it is a man, a man of like 60 or 70 years old. And he has a long grey beard, like Khomeini. And is giving all these laws, these rules and regulations, rules and regulations that I try to follow, but often don’t manage to follow, like I was not able to keep my relationship and I was not able to keep my jobs.

And some of my own rules, like not getting in debt, not having debt, and paying all my bills. I couldn’t even keep that simple rule, as I lost most of my money and was not able to earn enough. So humiliating.

God right now is almost always disagreeing with everything I do, with everything I want, with virtually every decision I make. And he lets me know, as he lets me fail in almost everything I do, e.g. does not allow me to meet the right partner, does not allow or help me to find the right team members for DoctorsConnect, does not allow or help me find team members and friends otherwise.

It is a very dispecible God as he mostly lets bad things happen to me, gives me hope at first, but then takes things away, like with the dog training recently.

It seems he finds pleasure in making my life as miserable as possible, including giving me these dreadful feelings of anxiety and such so I can’t even work, can’t even succeed, like putting time and effort in things I still want to do, still try to do, including doing Step Work and such.

So it seems my current God of my understanding is more like the devil, not like a loving God, helping me and supporting me. Recently I am starting to wonder why He even created me, as I am doing everything wrong in His eyes anyhow.

The worst of this God is that I can’t even escape Him in death, as He will keep haunting me in eternity, in life after death. So even suicide is not an option, as He will just continue annoying me after I die. He will just laugh at me, like, see, here I am again, here I still am, you can’t escape Me.

The kind of funny thing is that He created everything, and many or most things are really beautiful in this world, in this universe, even though of course there is pain and suffering. But yes, it seems most living creatures don’t suffer as much and as long as I am. Kind of weird, as how important am I to God anyhow. Just one of those six billion people or so, so why would He care to bother me so much, give me so much pain and suffering.

Or is that indeed love, finding a way to get my attention? Well, I guess He got it now. Except I don’t know if so much negative attention is really what He wants or needs from me. Wouldn’t He rather see me happy and satisfied?

Another image of God I have right now is some kind of universal force, but a force that is kind of neutral, a force that comes from ‘energy’, from the things I now know or believe the universe is made of, like strings from string theory.

Strange that that second image of God, of Higher Power, is kind of neutral. That force would not allow me or anyone else suffer so much. It would just be neutral and support any effort to create something, like me creating DoctorsConnect and get rich; or me earning enough in some kind of way.

If I could have anything I wanted, any God I wanted, what would that be?

Supporting Higher Power If I could have anything I wanted, any God I wanted, that God would give me everything I want and need. Or at least He would support me in my decisions and in the things I do. As to me that is what the word love implies: giving someone everything he wants, so he would lead a happy life, would enjoy life.

And of course this God might or would just use the worldly things to help and/or support me, like putting the right people on my path to help me with DoctorsConnect, even though there might be miracles, like letting go away my mental disease of having so much emotional pain and anxiety. And yes, he might let me win the lottery or something, so I could pay my debts and such and live a happy life without being a burden to other people. He would certainly not use my mom to let me survive financially. He would have allowed and allow me to visit her every year or so, by giving me the means, the financial funds to do so.

He also wouldn’t let me wait so long for my ING internet banking code, even though that long wait seems to have helped me with keeping my ABN AMRO account or something.

That God wouldn’t have made me like feeling guilty and ashamed almost all the time to other people and towards Him. As how could I be responsible, especially to Him, about who I am and about the decisions and choices I made?

He would never put me in the embarrassing position I am in now, not even being able to buy the normal daily things from the money I earn.

And I think I am just writing too much here. To me a loving God or a loving Higher Power would just give me anything I want and need to lead a joyful and loving life, being able to enjoy life myself and help others if needed.

And He wouldn’t come with those stupid ideas that I already have enough, that I already have what I want and need.

Yes, of course I have already what I need, like a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in and food to eat every day. I even have more, like a computer and internet access and people around me. But is that really all I need to be happy and joyful?

And yes, looking back He may have given me what I need in the form of suffering, of being poor, of loosing everything, so I know more about life, about where other people stand, how other people live. So yes, that is certainly a good thing. But I guess it is only a good thing if He would somehow find a way to give me the things I want, like money and a car and maybe a nice house again, this time in a way with having the funds to maintain it and such.

Ah, and he would certainly not have let my mom, and my dad before, to suffer financially. Or emotionally, like not allowing me to go home, go to The Netherlands regularly, like every year.

Going back to the exercise as described:

He would sound very nice, maybe whisper to me what I need to do, could do to be successful or something. Yeah, He would whisper guidance to me all the time, so I would make the right choice all the time. He would leave no doubt of what He means, unlike the God from the church, from the bible, who just tells me to be obedient and do His Will, without giving me any clue about what that exactly means.

He would not really think anything of me I guess. He would just let me be me and be successful. He also wouldn’t need to, as I guess He would be busy enough taking care of all things in the universe, so I wouldn’t really need a lot from Him. I can just manage alone, as long as I have enough funds and such. If He would give me enough money now I am pretty sure I can manage most things myself, without needing further assistance from Him. I would just want him to see me enjoy life, see me do good, good in the sense of material stuff I would enjoy, as well as me doing good to other people, do good in the world. He would laugh in a nice way, enjoying seeing me enjoy life, enjoying seeing me travel, build businesses, helping other people be happy and joyful.

Right now He would say about me something like “Hey, see, that is Guus. He suffered so much, but I gave him money, gave him what he wanted, and see him now, see how much he enjoys and how he does good in the world. Take a sample in him, as he overcame all this suffering, didn’t kill himself even, no matter how much pain and suffering I gave him, but he endured and finally got what he wanted and is living a perfect life now, a life as how I meant life to be”.

And I am not sure how He would look like. Maybe like a younger version of me, but then more handsome, like someone I would be sexually attracted to.

Love yourself

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For quite a while I wanted to write here as on certain days I wanted to share something, but somehow I didn’t, somehow it didn’t happen. And today I felt like writing and I started as you can see, but now I don’t really know what to write or how to write it or where to put it. I guess the main reason I started writing today is because I am very much impressed with the work of Louise Hay. As today I listened to one of her tapes and she mentioned some conclusions I also came to by myself, mainly something why many people seem to think or feel they are not good enough. And it seems many of us are just raised like that, raised in the christian tradition about sin and a punishing God and such. And remembering what I also experienced in work environments that I always had to do better. And while writing this I guess had the same attitude to my staff (and to myself) when my company still had staff.

And it still doesn’t fully add up to me as indeed, I want to change, improve myself, get better, be better. But doesn’t that always imply I’m not good enough? Or is change indeed about growth, not about getting better.

Yes, the Universe, everything is changing, continuously, in all kinds of ways, from the very small, the superstrings to the very large, like milky ways; or even smaller or bigger. So what is this universal consciousness and how do humans fit in and how does human suffering fit in there. Like most of my life I felt a lot of pain, emotional pain and I wouldn’t wish that to my worst enemy. And I guess I had more emotional pain than the average human being, but still, while reading a lot of stuff it seems most or maybe even all humans somehow suffer from this pain, whatever it is.

Mmmm, and right now I don’t know where this post goes. And I am starting to feel tired. So maybe just end with something like of course every human being is already good as he or she is just as he or she is. And that there is something like change and something like feeling better.

Flexible discipline and habit

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I am still struggling with going the extra mile and discipline and habit as right now I am tired (again) and don’t really feel like writing a post here and certainly not the next self analysis post.

And yes, I am seeing and feeling the power of habit as I am writing here now. And I am still making the bed every day, even though sometimes, very sometimes, just before I go to bed. But I do it.

And I also feel the habit of doing my little exercise in the morning, even though recently I was not able to do the sets of twenty as is basically my goal, but mostly sets of five that I mostly try to increase over the days.

So yes, these habits have brought me something and they are very powerful. But I am starting to realize I also seem to have developed the habit of being unhappy (instead of happy) and I have no clue how to change that, as all these self help ‘tricks’ don’t seem to help.

And yes, somehow I still don’t feel like I am able to control my thoughts, maybe the most important thing to do in life, maybe the most important message from Think and Grow Rich, from Napoleon Hill.

And I feel like I (still) lost all my desire and recently I lost almost all my sex drive, even though the last always was one of my wishes. But now I have it it’s no fun, as indeed I believe that sex is the major driver of human action, and I am also kind of experiencing that right now, as without my sex drive everything seems so dull, so useless, so aimless.

Ah, and I got back to my daily planning, and it is working, as it gives me some direction for every day and helps me finish things and makes me feel somehow kind of satisfied when I notice that I have all the things that I planned for a day.

So yes, I know all the tricks and even apply many or most or all of them, even keeping a daily gratitude diary.

But no, I am still not living, there is still something missing and I have no clue what, or how to get it, even though I feel it must be there.

So no, not a positive post today, although writing this down, making this analysis, could be the start of finding a solution, the solution. The solution how to live and enjoy life.

Ah, one good thing, as while finishing this post Ulla came to me, the dog that is still alive because,. next to other things, I decided to bring her to the vet, do everything I could to make her survive. And her coming to me just now gave me a very good feeling, even made me kind of feel happy.

Self analysis, question 28

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Am I really different?

Today I was in a meeting from Coda and it made me realize that I may need that type of support more than I want to know. And that it may take more effort than I want or think to get out of this mess I am in. And I keep wondering if I am that different, if most other people indeed have a more balanced life than I have, as most people I know I guess presume I have a pretty good life living in a big house and such. And I guess I am happy living in a big house and still having some of the good things of life like having decent food including snacks and junk food and a nice TV and such. But the price has been high, especially the last few years as I hardly earned anything and neither did my partner, so we got into more and more debt which makes me feeling more and more uncomfortable, especially as my partner keeps throwing out money by the hundreds of thousands of pesos, this time to invest in a new project, a project he really believes in, so again I allowed him, as this time it may be different.

So why am I doing it? Well, I basically have no clue, except that it makes me very uncomfortable, for a long, long time already. But as I have less and less confidence in my own earning power I kind of gave up and this time I kind of threw to him that I don’t know anymore and that I hoped he could take over and do better than me.

What about privacy?

And I shouldn’t be writing about this as it is pretty private and mostly my partner will get unimaginably angry and blame me for sharing things like this to others. And in a way he is right as I also prefer to keep this type of stuff within the relationship. But as I don’t feel supported by my partner and as I am the one who borrowed, or more recently basically stole the money, I have no clue where to go, no one to talk to about these things, no place to go where I could find some kind of comfort.

Blame the other

And somehow I keep blaming my partner, but I also know I am responsible for my own actions, but I just can’t seem to help what is happening, what I am doing, that I keep giving in, even though I believe it is wrong. And I guess that is exactly the codependent pattern I have been reading about for quite a while now.

And again, I keep wondering how other people deal with these kinds of situations. I keep asking myself why I am so much more different, so much more wrong than ‘others’. How did I learn this type of behavior and maybe more important, how do I get out of it? As it (still) feels like something that is out of my control, which maybe is true, if I can believe the things being said about codependency.

But the above is not what I wanted to write about, although the idea of Higher Power as introduced in Twelve Step Programs seems pretty similar to the idea of Infinite Intelligence of Napoleon Hill.

Self analysis

Enough about my personal struggle I guess, but somehow all these programs and stuff including the self analysis questions of Napoleon Hill seem to be related. And aren’t we all looking for the same thing or the same things in the end, like what am I doing here and where will I go and how can I be happy?

So let’s move to today’s question: “Do you make deliberate use of autosuggestion to make your mind positive?”. And I guess the answer is that I don’t do that enough, at least not recently. As recently I have been overwhelmed again by all my fears and trying to fix everything by working hard, by ‘doing’, even though e.g. today I found a bit more peace and decided to NOT finish my daily planning and go back to my feeling, do the things that felt good (and not do the things that didn’t feel good). And it gave me some peace, even though I felt a bit, or even a lot, guilty that I didn’t push through with the discipline and habits I have been so proud of recently, or at least the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

The unseen

This whole exercise does make me see that it may be much more important to pay more attention to and put more time into things like meditation, read autosuggestion. And indeed go back to ‘God’ or ‘Life Force’ or Infinite Intelligence, as somehow the answers may lie there and not in my (own) strength or willpower or discipline or whatever.

As without Gods will, and please read God like any Higher Power that feels good to you, somehow things don’t work, won’t succeed.

So what do You want me to do?

Self analysis, question 16

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A strange question to me for today as it relates to the origin of Inspiration for Success: “Who has the most inspiring influence upon you? What is the cause?” as I didn’t feel inspired especially by my dad and am slowly realizing that it was not only my dad that kind of killed things in me.

So who has the most inspiring influence on me? Well, the first person that comes into my mind is Donald Trump and the second person is Richard Branson; and third Alden Tan. And then I got a flash of Cesar Millan.

And the above makes me think, like it seems somehow I do have people who inspire me where I thought I had none. And there are more, as also Leo Babauta’s e-mails and posts inspire me.

So who has the most inspiring influence on me? Well, maybe Donald Trump as to me he is rich and famous and kind of ‘manly self confident’. And somehow this is strange as somehow I don’t like him at all. And his story is also not that inspiring as he started quite well off and quite successful as far as I know.

So yes, I am still looking for financial riches and I am still looking for fame. But then what is inspiring about Donald Trump? And what could or should I learn from him? Or what do I want to learn from him?

And the last brings me to that I have more and more the feeling that I have to do it my own way, that I need to stop looking to other people, comparing myself to other people, being jealous of other people. As they are not me and I am not them. I have my unique set of talents and weaknesses and whatever a human being has. And that’s got to be enough to find what I am looking for.

Strange, how this post goes…