Old Tools – Same Old Results

You can’t change the things used to respond to life by using the old tools that you have in place. If you truly want to change what’s reached for, a new set of tools will have to be developed.

What we use to respond to life occurrences is what creates our facade. Its when we learn to stop reaching and we are still, that’s what truly defines us. Here is a very practical explanation of the process of how my life changed and the methods used for it to be possible. I had a normal upbringing and had parents who loved me and gave me all the opportunity a person could have asked for. One of the things I really got in touch with six years ago, which was the beginning of my awakening, was while I was in grammar school my conditioning was really being influenced and taking shape. The smart kids and the athletic kids were always made out to be special, so where did that leave the ordinary kids like me? I wasn’t a bad kid, my conditioning manifested in behavior issues, like being the class clown or doing things for attention that others wouldn’t do, but that was basically the extent of it. This conditioning developed tools that were used to control the way I responded to life occurrences. Unless I learned how to use different tools my response would always be the same. Inwardly things were never going to change unless the tools I used changed. I became aware of this six years ago.

It is this awareness that allowed me to go beyond my perceived inadequacies. What happened six years ago is a modern day miracle. Here is an individual who always felt inadequate and struggled with this his entire life and I was now learning how to stop doing this. How was this being done? By changing my view of looking out there for all my answers to one of looking inward. What this did was slowly allowed me to become aware of all the diversions I used throughout my life to create my facade. When you are looking outside to fill an internal need this can’t be seen because of the outer diversions.

I understood I needed to learn how to use a different set of tools because the ones that were in place didn’t work for me. My tools were faulty. So what is a person to do? This is when I discovered it was my own mind that was causing my problems and I started finding a way to change my old tools for new ones, ones that were more beneficial to me. The most important tool is the disciplining of an undisciplined mind. Without developing a method to do this, the awareness to notice you need new tools will not occur and you will stay a self righteous individual who is always right because the outer view always makes others wrong. Without the mind settling, change can’t occur because there won’t be the space needed to allow it to occur. If the world learned how to do this it would be much different, but instead tools are used to satisfy selfish desires. So you have a choice, don’t develop discipline and keep using the tools you have in place, regardless if they are working or not. Or develop enough quietness through disciplining an undisciplined mind to allow you to see that a new set of tools will be so much more beneficial for you to live your life. And the benefit being, you won’t be dependent on reaching outside yourself for anything for your sense of completeness even though you may not be the smartest of most athletic person in the world.