Whether it’s a New Year’s resolution or just a new goal you’ve set for yourself, there are going to be times when we may not be accomplishing what we want. Maybe your job has kept you from going to the gym or you were stressed out or upset and so you ate a fattening comfort food. Or perhaps you just cannot find time for meditation.
In setting out to achieve something we have to be mindful of our sense of perfectionism because no journey is going to go exactly how we think it should. We’re not going to remember every little thought that made up the bits of rationale we followed to making a decision at that time. You may have lost focus, or faith, or maybe you just decided it would be “one last time.”
In these times that we observe a stagnation, or a regression, we can let our internal self-talk turn abusive when we try to scold or shame ourselves back into behaving better by saying things like: That was stupid. Why am I such an idiot? How long am I going to keep struggling with this? What is my problem?
Yet it’s the ego that keeps track of how many times things occur and it’s in this way that the ego can lead us to being stuck. Deepak Chopra has a great video that talks about what the ego does. It’s here: “What Is Ego Video” via YouTube
Basically he says, “The ego is our self image. It’s not our true self. The ego is our true self that camouflages itself by labels, definitions, evaluations, analysis and judgments.”
So when we see a repeated struggle, we may begin to label it as a weakness or a disability and the image we develop of ourselves is therefore affected as being less than what we picture it should be. Or even worse, we could see a reoccurrence as a sign of permanence and may believe there is no chance to change.
But none of that is true. No matter how many times we have to refocus and return to our intention, it’s not a flaw but in fact it’s a sign of strength and persistence.
So forgive yourself and accept these moments of imperfections, of a little indulgence, or just spontaneous self-soothing as a small distraction that led you away from the path you intended and return with gentle kindness, moving forward with a little less ego mind to keep coming back.