Do you feel like you’ve been instructed to do certain things, study certain subjects, go to college, get certain jobs, buy real estate, have kids and live a particular kind of life?
Well, if you have been feeling out of sorts with this pre-programmed life that society has concocted, I have a message for you.
Society lies.
Intentionally?
Yes!
Everything you and I have been told has been a lie, but we’ve grown up believing it. We’ve been told these lies since the day we were born and we’ve accepted it without any question.
We grow up believing in these lies because we’ve seen it everywhere from fairy tales to the movies. When you look around you, you see everyone you know living this life.
In western society, there is a pre-designed life path of school, college, marriage, family and retirement.
In Indian society, there is a pre-designed path of student, house-holder, hermit and ascetic.
Anyone in these societies or any society around the world has a pre-planned path by the people living around you who tell you, in no indirect terms, what to do with your life.
Society tells you that if you do x, y and z, you’ll find happiness, meaning and purpose. You’ll be fulfilled in this world.
Unless, of course, you did all these things and found that they don’t necessarily make you happy. When you follow society’s rules and suggestions commands, you might end up in a nice home with a good-paying job, but you might be disconnected from what matters most.
You may have all the externals right, but what about the internal qualities that matter?
Well, this is the subject of a new book that I’m about to release, 7 Sacred Promises: A Practical Guide for Living with Meaning and Purpose, but in the meantime, let’s explore some of these deeper questions.
Why does society lie?
I make two arguments in my soon-to-be-released book about the rationale for the lies.
One, everyone is on the same boat so society gets worried when you’re off the beaten path. When you’re doing your own things and living your own truth, society begins to feel left out. It feels it would be unfair for you to go out there and live your truth when everyone else is living according to a singular set of rules.
It’s not fair if you can pursue your art and creative endeavors. It’s not fair if you can live purposefully and meaningfully. It’s not fair when you get to live the life of your choosing and society has to follow the crowd. There is this inherent sense of jealousy, and society wants you to stay the course. It wants you to do what everyone else is doing.
Another reason that society advocates so vigorously for you to stay the course is that there are many industries and economies built around you following suit. The entire education industry, home-ownership industry, and child-rearing industry makes billions upon billions of dollars from you doing what everyone else does.
Society lies because it’s in its best interest to lie. It benefits and profits when you follow the course it has created. You, on the other hand, believe the lies because you don’t know any other way. When society’s advice is loud, repetitive and all you know, you have no choice.
This book will be your wake-up call to change your existence and how you start living from this day forward.
What to do when society lies?
The most important thing you can do to figure out the lie and shift your mindset about your life is to wake up to the truth.
Awareness is the first step to realizing you’ve been hoodwinked and lied to.
Awareness will be your wake-up call.
Once you realize society has been lying to you and you realize you’ve been living society’s lie, not your life, it will become much easier to take action.
The book is written to ask you to break the promises to society and urges you to keep a new set of promises. Instead of focusing on the external and the material, you will be challenged to cultivate a new set of promises from within.
What is the alternative?
You don’t have to live the lies that society has created for you.
It’s hard to imagine that you can break away because of how loud and demanding society is, but there is a way out.
You can disengage from pursuing a better job, a higher salary, a nicer house and a more luxurious car to pursue the things that matter.
In my new book, I encourage you to let go of society’s promises to you and cultivate a new set of promises.
Instead of going after the promises that everyone else is keeping, start keeping promises to something deeper.
The promises I talk about are all internal ones that will create more meaning and purpose in your life.
In 7 Sacred Promises: A Practical Guide for Living with Meaning and Purpose, I share a new set of promises.
Instead of a promise to your career, why not make a new promise to your art? I urge to you discover and, more likely, accept the gift that each of us has been given, and make the most of it. When you pursue your art, you’ll notice how you’ll start moving closer to your dreams. You’ll start seeing more opportunities and abundance in your life.
Instead of a promise to a straight and narrow career path, I urge you to make a promise to courage so you can follow your calling in life. It’s not easy or convenient to follow your purpose and do what you were put on earth to do. You have to keep a promise to courage everyday so you ignore those around you and move in the direction of your purpose.
In the 5th promise, I encourage you to keep a promise to love so you’re cultivating the love within and sharing your love with those around. When you keep your promise to love, you will learn how to welcome in more joy and connection into your life.
The 7th promise is how to live an ego-less life. How do you let go of all societal constructs and get to your core? How do you breakthrough the noise and live from the most sacred place: your essence?
When you live from this place, you’ll be able to live a more truthful and honest life. When you keep a promise to your essence, you’ll be rewarded with a life of meaning.
Each of these promises in the book won’t just talk about what promises to keep and how to cultivate a new set of promises; each promise will have practical directions and guidance to achieve these new promises in your life.
Are you ready to break out of the known path and start living your life from the inside-out, instead of the outside in?
Pick up the book, 7 Sacred Promises: A Practical Guide for Living with Meaning and Purpose. The book will be released on June 4th, 2016. If you’re on the mailing list, you’ll get an email when the book is released. You can pre-order the book here.
“Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” Robert Gary Lee
I opened my eyes in a hospital room in severe pain, not able to move, pipes in my nostrils and other parts of my body. There was a needle in my hand attached to a blood supply bottle.
When I was 6 years old, a stray dog had been chasing a bull down the road. The bull ran over me. I had been walking across the street towards a toy vendor when I heard a loud thumping. Everything in my head turned black.
I had to go through a major operation due to severe internal bleeding. The operation left a big scar on my stomach, I couldn’t play, laugh too loudly, run and dance like other kids, as it created pressure on my internal stitches.
My Indian family was always worried about who would marry me with that scar. I got fat and had a dusky complexion in my teenage years. I was insecure about how I looked. I lacked confidence. By the time I was sixteen, I came to believe that no man would ever love me and that I would be alone for the rest of my life.
Then I fell in love with the first man who showed me the least bit of attention. He was ten years older than I was, an alcoholic, and critical of me. He made my life miserable with his constant taunts and forced intimacy. He took advantage of my self-esteem issues and constantly threatened to leave me if I didn’t do as he said. I didn’t want to leave the only man I ever had (or, I believed, I ever could have), so I did as he asked until the time I started to feel ashamed of belittling myself so much.
The relationship lasted a couple of years until I came to the realization that it wasn’t worth it anymore. I left him and moved on. I focused on college and dedicated myself to my studies and building a career.
In the last year of my Masters, I met someone in class. He was sweet, charming, devilishly good looking, kind and, on top of everything, he treated me well. He made me laugh, he showed me respect and we found ourselves spending too much time together. For me, he was too good to be true, like a guy straight out of a romantic Bollywood movie who entered my life to take away all my pain and misery.
His presence made me feel better about myself and my life. I enjoyed the initial attention and love, but after a while it started to fade. He got busy with his new job and started pulling away from me. I was always insecure about losing him. For me, he was like a trophy that I could flaunt to prove my worth.
When I became too needy and dependent, he broke it off. In my mid-20’s, I found myself sulking, spending endless hours in my office bathroom crying, calling friends at odd hours to share how I felt and looking for ways to heal a broken heart.
I not only lost him; I lost myself, my purpose and my direction in life.
I lost interest in my work and poured my energy into the breakup. At that time, absolutely nothing made sense to me. I had nothing to look forward to in life. My heart and mind were always heavy and my eyes filled with tears.
I kept replaying the good times we had spent together, the images of romance and the future promises that we had made to each other. I constantly cursed myself for being so needy and for pushing him away. I thought about how my more “appropriate” behavior would have saved that relationship and how it was all my fault that it ended. After blaming myself, I started blaming my parents for bringing me up so critically. I started blaming my career for being so demanding. I blamed myself for being so vulnerable.
My demanding job made it difficult to deal with everything, so I quit that as a first step towards taking charge of my life. I had nothing more to lose, so I focused all my energy and attention on making life a little better than it was.
At one point, I decided to spend a day without using the internet. I wanted to find out what else I would do if I didn’t have WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, Instragram or any social media.
I pulled out a notebook and pen and started writing about how I felt at that time. I wrote about my past life and experiences. I wrote about how being treated critically had made me feel, I wrote about the accident and the impact it had on me. I didn’t realize that I had started crying, and soon my tears were falling on the notebook I was writing in.
I wiped my tears, kept crying and continued writing. Almost six hours passed, but my urge to write didn’t end. I had been sitting in a café since morning and now it was time to go home. As I closed my notebook and packed my stuff, I felt lighter and happier.
My pain has now become my biggest strength in life. Even after heartbreak and pain, I haven’t lost the soft and vulnerable person inside of myself. I just learnt how to deal with emotions in a better way.
Here are a few things I learnt through my painful experiences and how you can grow from your pain:
1) One person cannot complete or change your life.
Your romantic partner is just another addition to your life; don’t make him your life. Pay attention to your relationship, but have other interests and passions to look forward to.
2) It doesn’t matter what others think.
When I quit my job, my family cursed me for being so stupid. I heard their criticism, but stood strong in what I had done, regardless of what they thought about me. Their harsh comments didn’t bother me anymore. The first step to becoming independent is to stop seeking approval from others, especially the people you’re closest to. You can’t live your life according to what others want.
3) Let yourself fall and fail. Accept problems as they come.
Problems, pain and heartbreak are a part of life. It is okay to have them. It is OKAY to make the same mistake twice or even more, but it is not okay to feel miserable about it all the time. Forgive yourself and forgive others to move on.
4) Use pain to learn and grow.
I allowed myself to take chances, feel awful, cry and sulk, but I also understood how to work through the pain. I used every painful experience as a means to learn, grow and introspect. I never became dependent on any one and I didn’t need anyone to complete me, but at the same time I didn’t stop myself from falling in love again.
5) Work on your personal growth.
Have something bigger in life to look forward to. Live a purposeful life. Write your life goals on a piece of paper and stick them in a place where you can look at them throughout the day. Read self-help books, surround yourself with positive people and pay attention to your thoughts. Replace the negative thoughts with positive affirmations. Practice gratitude.
6) See pain as wisdom.
The biggest learning of my life through all these heartbreaks has been the change in perspective in the way I look at pain. I don’t see pain as a negative or unpleasant emotion anymore. I see it as my seeds of wisdom. I don’t feel like pain is holding me back; instead, it’s pushing me forward. You have a choice with respect to your experiences: you can embrace the amazing experiences that unfold, or you can cry over the painful experiences that will naturally come up.
I look back at my life and smile, grateful for being so brave and not feeling like a victim. I feel gratitude for my inner strength, which allows me to deal with pain the best way I know how.
This is the feeling of freedom and true independence. I now see myself as bigger than my problems: someone who is strong enough to navigate life rather than drift helplessly.
Neha is a short story author and novelist. She shares her life experiences through stories at her blog here. You can also email her at nehabindal 999 (at) gmail.com.
Growing up is difficult, especially with a single parent who only wants the best for his or her child. Yet, that comes with its own stresses. Unfortunately, parents sometimes take out these stresses on the child.
Children with this repeated experience, especially females, are prone to dating distant and emotionally manipulative individuals as adults. To many people, who look at just appearances, emotional abuse is not abuse. Yet, the weight of the negative words from these relationships is heavy. I know that I carried my own baggage for years until I read more about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from emotional abuse.
Though life continued happening to me, I was not an active participant. I’d lost the concept of what unconditional love meant. That’s where self-love became important—doing little things for myself. My radical realization about self-love was the fact that I existed and self-love resided within me. To exist means to be, and my journey to self-love focused on reinforcing that fact.
3 steps on my journey to self-love.
1.Feel Present In Your Body
One of the biggest things that helped me was developing a yoga practice. Yoga helped me feel the power and fluidity of my body, to feel present within my body. My yoga practice reduced my anxiety and lowered my blood pressure. My mind had always seemed fixated on someone else’s problems, and in my body I felt like I was floating through life. Yoga changed that for me.
2.Do More Than Just Survive
Those who recognize the powerful but sometimes subtle effects of abuse call you a survivor. While that should be a powerful word, it reflected the fact that I was letting myself barely scrape by. Where was my ambition and belief in myself?
It took time to find out what I was really interested in and to pursue those goals. Picking up hobbies and taking classes was a start. Acting classes empowered me to express myself by taking on the personalities of different characters. Yelling across a stage showed me the power of my voice. I kept track of my financial records and felt like a proper adult. The key is to stop living in survival mode. I look forward to the future, and I haven’t looked back with regret.
3.Get Your Sleep
I decided to do whatever it took to get a good night’s sleep, as I had no real sleep schedule. I wasn’t a night owl or early riser, sleeping for a few hours at a time.
Honestly, anxiety kept me up, and conquering anxiety is going to be a lifetime, uphill battle. Fortunately, this battle only reinforces the knowledge of my inner strength—how I experience emotion so very vividly and am able to empathize with others. Yet, that empathy and anxiety still keep me awake sometimes.
Yoga and meditation before bedtime is my evening ritual. For the last few years, I have kept a consistent bedtime. It’s important for me to spend at least five minutes writing down the complaints and “gunk” in my head. I write down at least one positive thing from the day, and go to bed thinking about that.
When my sleep wasn’t restful, the dreams I had were often disturbing. Fortunately, that changed when I learned better sleep habits to ease my anxiety. Dreams of literal battles or of showing up naked to class ceased; instead, they became dreams involving long hikes and finding myself in a beautiful location that no one else appeared to have disturbed.
It’s easy to be there for others. Why is it so hard to be there for yourself? You’re told so often that love means sacrifice. Does that sacrifice have to come at the expense of your individuality?
When you are so used to questioning your own personal power and validity, self-love seems like a fairy-tale you read as a child. It’s difficult to know and remember that self-love has been with you all the while, which is truly the most radical realization. Seeing it and owning it is self-kindness and self-awareness.
Channel this seedling of self-love positively, in all the little ways at first. If it’s yoga, do it. If it’s a passion that others have always trivialized, pursue it. Live!
Kacey Mya Bradley is a lifestyle blogger for The Drifter Collective. Her love for the world around her is portrayed through her visually pleasing, culturally embracing and inspiring posts. She writes an eclectic lifestyle blog that expresses various forms of style through the influence of culture and the world around us. You can also find her on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
Watch this 2 minute video for 5 visualization exercises to help you open your heart to love and relationships.
I mention this video by my friend, Wendy Irene, on how to cleanse your heart chakra.
Hi, I’m Vishnu
I help people overcome their devastating breakups and divorces and find love again. Instead of visiting the Himalayas, sign up below and join me. I am taking a writing break but will be back soon.
This guide is free. A ticket to the Himalayas is $2000. Your move.
