Inform Yourself

Now that you understand that you are made up of various parts and have identified those parts and what they mean to you, it is time to focus on them and yourself on a deeper level. This is where the real fun begins!

It is important to note that some individuals have found that their spiritual and religious selves are one and the same, while others feel they are separate. Both views are perfectly acceptable, as they are unique to each individual.

It is now time for you to take some time to discover your own, personal parts. There are many layers of parts, and just when you think you have identified all of them, you will discover more.

This process is like peeling an onion. It is quite easy at first just like like peeling back the dry, outer layers of the onion. The deeper and more detailed you get, the juicier it becomes. Just like peeling the onion, you will experience many different emotions. You will laugh, cry, wonder aloud and ultimately amaze yourself. This is okay; keep moving. You will get closer and closer to defining “Your Blissful Life” with every step you take and with every emotion you allow yourself to experience. This is why I call this step of your journey “Your Discovery.” You are discovering more about yourself than you have ever allowed before or even taken the time to discover about yourself. Embrace your discoveries. They are uniquely you!

You may even want to walk away, take a stroll in the park, listen to the birds and relax with your favorite music. Your mind will continue to discover newer and deeper parts that you have unconsciously pushed aside for years. Allow yourself to do this. Your mind is incredibly powerful. Tap into the power that is uniquely you.

Many of my clients have been overcome by various emotions they discover inside of themselves such as happiness, fear, joy and sadness. They experience these emotions to such an extent that they need to stop to rest. I have even had clients completely walk away from the process for months while they take the time to fully understand their discoveries. Sooner or later, though, they always return to continue on their journey. I compare this time to walking away from the onion because it has become so overpowering that you must rest your eyes until you can see clearly enough to continue peeling. During this time, your mind, body and spirit are also rejuvenated.

You will continue to learn and grow during these rest periods. So take your time, discover, grow and continue your journey at your own pace. You are getting closer to what you want.

As you move through your discovery, you may identify even more parts. This is okay! It signifies your growth. If you do discover more parts after completing this section, simply stop where you are and come back to this chapter and define the new parts. Then walk through the process again until you reach your stopping point.

It is now time to define what your parts mean to you. This process is quite simple. What could possibly be easier or more fun than defining you to yourself? No one knows you better than you.

The discovery of my parts was a very exciting time for me and I immediately embarked upon a journey to understand all of them. This journey led me to various self-help and coaching certifications from various industry leaders around the world. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, this was my journey to discover all of my parts. I finally realized what phase I was in during my time in a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Certification course I was taking in Sedona, Arizona. It was during this class that we had to go through an exercise in identifying all of our parts. Little did I know at the time that his course would change me forever. I also didn’t realize that I would continue to discover more parts even today!

For each part you identified in the previous chapters, answer each of the following questions. They will help you to define what you want so that you will know exactly when you have reached your blissful life.

Is there any part that you have pushed aside even though it is truly important to you?

What does each part that you have identified mean to you?

Are there specific parts of your life in which you desire greater satisfaction? If so, what are they?
How does each of the parts you identified fit into your life?

For each part, consider your previous answers above to answer the following for each of your parts.

What do you want in this specific part of your life?
Be very specific with the details in answering this question. For example: How much money do you want? Where you do want to live? What does your home look like? What do you hear? What feelings do you want to experience? How soon do you want these things in your life?

How will you know when you have satisfied this specific part?
How will you measure your success? When, and by what methods, will you determine that you have achieved your goal? Will you be living somewhere different, have more money in the bank, feel loved and accepted by someone or yourself? Will you finally be sober?

How will others know that you have satisfied this specific part?
What will those around you be able to see, hear or feel once you have achieved your goal for this specific part? Will they see a new car, hear you laughing, or feel better after being around you? These can be friends, lovers, relatives, acquaintances or co-workers. Everyone you come in contact with will notice the difference.

What changes will take place in your life if you get what you want for each part?
As compared to the present moment, what will be different in your life? What impact will getting what you want have on your life? How will your life be different than it is today?

What changes will occur if you don’t get what you want for this part?
If you achieve only a part of the overall goal, what impact will this have on your life? What impact does getting only portions of what you want have on your life?

Is your goal for this part going to be worth the effort it will take to get it?
The time and effort spent on reaching your goal speaks directly toward the effort required by you in order to achieve it. Are you willing to do what it takes—whatever it takes, no matter what—to reach your goal?

What does getting what you want for this part mean to your other parts?
This is your ecological test. How does getting what you want in this part, impact your other parts? Is it congruent with the rest of your desires? Can your other parts accept this part if you get what you want? If not, do you need to adjust anything? If so, how do you feel about it? Can you accept and live with the adjustment?

Now that you have named and clearly defined all of your parts, you now need to rank them in order of importance to yourself. Knowing your parts and what they are is important, but knowing what they mean to you is even more important!

Rank all of your parts in order of importance to yourself. The most important part should be at the top of your list. This process will take time and negotiation. You must be totally open and honest in regard to which parts are really belong at the top of your list. You will be surprised by your results!

This is an important step because it forms the foundation for your pathway to your blissful life. It is the basis on which the remainder of your journey stands!

Focus and take your time on this. There is no need to hurry. You will repeat this part of the process many times before creating your final list. This step may take hours, days, weeks or even months. Why? Because we all place varying degrees of importance on our “parts.” It is also during this leg of your journey that you will identify what you are willing to compromise for each part. Remember, you are only negotiating with yourself, so there are only winners here!

This was a very enlightening and exciting leg of my journey. I had finally given myself permission to rank my parts according to their importance to me, as opposed to their importance to others. I had finally “unlearned” old habits and was now about to draw the map for the rest of my life as I saw it today. Wow! This was another “Ah-Ha!” moment for me. It was very freeing.

Once I had completed my rankings, I was pleasantly surprised at some of the results. I was not surprised that certain parts” ranked so highly but, rather, I finally recognized what I really wanted versus how I had been living my life. I am confident that this exercise will be just as freeing for you.

Now, List your parts in order of importance to you.

The beauty of your blissful life is the simple fact that it is all yours! You, and only you define exactly what it means to you, in every part of your life. There have never been two individuals wanting exactly the same thing in every part of their lives. While they may share some common desires, they will have unique meanings for their respective blissful lives. Just as each of us are a unique beautiful people, so is our definition of our blissful life! As you execute the process of defining your blissful life, you are creating a work of art that is all you. Your work of art is you in all your beauty and glory.

How can each of us have such a unique definition for the same object of our desires? Let me explain;

As I discussed in earlier posts, we are all made up of many parts. Recall also that all of these parts are unique to each and every one of us. It is because of this that we all place different values on our various parts. l place a certain value or importance on my professional career while you place a completely different value or importance on yours. You may place greater importance on your relationship with your friends (your friends part) as opposed to your professional career. Everyone you know such as your significant other, mother, father, and siblings, acquaintances etc. will all place various parts higher or lower on their importance scale when compared to yours.

The importance that we each place on our various parts uniquely defines not only who we are and how we act; it also uniquely defines your blissful life. The reason you are probably reading this article is you, for some reason, feel a need to redefine, re-rank, resolve a conflict within or between your parts, or to define new parts and integrate them into yourself. This is your unique definition. This is how you identify, compare, and take action on a daily basis, in every moment. Everything you do is driven to satisfy and achieve the definition you have for your parts which, when combined, define yourself as a person.

After completing my this and my next two posts, you will have identified all of your parts, ranked them in order of importance to yourself and your life, and what you want your blissful life to look, sound, and feel like.

For me, your blissful life meant a balance between my parts that allowed me to assist others in achieving their goals while providing a satisfactory standard of living. It also means that I have the freedom and permission from myself to continue to grow and discover more about myself and the world I live in, no matter what! To me this means that there are no silly or ridiculous ideas or paths. I have given myself permission to explore all of them, no matter where they might lead. I have learned that in order for me to live my blissful life, I must be true to myself, my ideals, my thoughts, my intuition, and my feelings. When I do this, I can do anything, be anything, and discover anything I desire. When I am doing this and helping others enrich their lives that I am truly living my blissful life.

Take some time now to reflect;

Review your list of parts my previous post Your Blissful Life: The Struggle Within.

Review all of the parts you identified after reading the post.

Now, sit back relax and let your mind wander. Discover all of your other parts.

Have you discovered any other parts? If so, note them here.

You will use these parts in the next few posts in clearly defining your blissful life.

Happy discovering!!

Now that you have learned what your struggle is, and accept that you are dealing with it, it is time to take action to resolve, discover the solution for, or feel better about, your struggle. You can decide to take action, or not. Most of us want so much to be at peace that dealing with our struggle becomes the main focus or main thing of our lives. For most of us, resolving our struggle is the most meaningful, most important journey, and once resolved, the most desirous state of being that we will ever know.

In reality, you have already made the decision to take action. By virtue of purchasing this book you decided to take action to improve, resolve your struggle , or better yourself. Everyone makes these decisions on a daily basis whether we choose to recognize it or not, with every action, decision, or feeling, we decide what and how we move.

Whether you have made your decision to act from a conscious or sub-conscious point of view, congratulations! Regardless of the reason or how you made the decision, the important point is that you decided to move!

You are about to begin the most enjoyable, fulfilling, and meaningful journey of your life. Embrace you decision to move. You are headed in the direction you desire more than anything else in the world. You are about to give yourself the greatest gift ever, “Your Blissful Life”.

The next few posts will provide you the process to follow in discovering, defining, and detailing the actions you need to take to achieve Your Blissful Life. Remember to be totally honest with yourself, totally accepting of your thoughts, feelings, and views along your journey. It is your unique journey. Our journeys are all unique, just as we are all unique. Enjoy yourself and your personal discovery!

For me, my decision to move was actually quite radical. Once I recognized that I was dealing with the struggle and total accepted my uniqueness, I had to take immediate action. It was as if I was being pulled by an incredible force to begin my journey. This force though was coming from within me! I had never experienced anything like it before. As a result, I had my partners buy me out of the Information Technology Company. Everyone thought I was crazy for doing it. GREAT! Little did they know the real reason behind my decision! I was about to embark upon my life changing discovery process. Many did not support me in my decision but it was OK. I was doing this for me, no them. Others were totally jealous of my decision. They wished that they had the where withal to take such actions. There was a very small group that encouraged me to go and grow. Regardless of the group they fell into, perhaps they took their positions based on how much of themselves they saw in me. For me, leaving the environment in which I was operating was an important part of freeing myself.

This type of major decision is not for everyone. You need to decide what actions you need to take in order to place yourself in a position to discover and grow.
Recognize the actions you have already taken. What actions have you taken to get to this place, at this moment in your life?

Do you need to take any further action to enable you to complete your discovery? If so, note them here

If you have additional actions to take, assign due dates to each. When you set deadlines, you are committing to yourself, to your journey

Now that you understand “the struggle” you are experiencing, you must accept it, unconditionally, with all you heart and soul. Embrace your struggle. It is one of the things about yourself that makes you a unique individual. Millions of people around the world, just like you, are currently in the process of, have in the past, or will experience similar thoughts, feelings, and views. Inevitably, everyone at one time or another will deal with “the struggle”. For generations, many people denied their struggle. They live life frustrated, angry, depressed, uncertain, lonely, etc., These are just a few examples of someone not dealing with the struggle. Had they been informed they could have changed their lives to be much more useful for themselves. Perhaps they would be rejoicing today, living every day to its fullest, and being certain of exactly where they are going and what they will.

Your thoughts, feelings, and views are not good or bad, right or wrong. They simply are what they are, your thoughts, feelings, and views. Acceptance of your thoughts, feelings, and views, at this point, is a key component in your moving forward and discovering “Your Blissful Life.

Refuse to judge yourself. When we judge ourselves, we base all of our judgments on another’s or society’s standards. Standards that you may agree with, or not! These standards may be more or less useful for you. We have all learned and used these external standards of right, wrong, good, bad, or even the thoughts, feelings, or views that you should have at this point in your life. We then use them to determine our own internal happiness or blissfulness. However, when we refuse to judge ourselves, we can accept ourselves for who and what we are, unconditionally. When we truly accept ourselves, we then begin to truly love ourselves, to embrace ourselves, only then can we begin to truly improve ourselves.

It is OK to be dealing with the struggle. Accept you for who and what you are at this point in your life. You have experienced many events, thoughts, and feelings in arriving here. Enjoy your unique position on earth.

For me, while I had recognized my difference or uniqueness at an early age, I learned to suppress it in order to fit in with everyone else and society in general. I learned and mastered how to operate in their world. However, without my realizing it, my sub-conscious mind was not letting go of it. No matter how far I repressed it or how successful I was operating in their world, it was still with me. I had sub-consciously learned to operate and be successful in their world. However, it was not my definition of success. Mine was much larger and more impactful. It was not until the a-ha moment while standing in my office did I realize how really important my uniqueness was to me! It was at the moment I decided to embrace my uniqueness and gave myself permission to encourage and nurture this uniqueness that I finally had truly totally accepted myself. All these years, some forty of them, had led me to this place, this moment of total acceptance. This moment was the single most empowering moment of my life to this point.

Take a moment now and complete the exercise that will help you to truly accept yourself for you and what you are today.

Write a note to yourself explaining to yourself how you now accept your struggle.

What does your acceptance give you?

What are you now able to hear, see, or feel that you could not prior to starting your journey?

What will your total acceptance of your struggle enable you to do in working your way through the process of discovering Your Blissful Life?