What I've learned

apexcone

New member
It's been a long beautiful road for us since we became Poly some 24 + years ago. There have been some huge mistakes, lots of pain and some wonderful experiences.

During this journey we have learned many great lessons and gathered some hugely beneficial tools that I'd like to share.

Not nessacarly in order, each being not only important but in many ways all intricately connected.

1. Active listening
2. Serving others
3. Not making things about me
4. I am not my thoughts
5. Creating space for others to be authentic
6. I am responsibly for my own happiness

There are many others the the above 6 stand out to me as key tools.
 
Karen

Nice to connect with you. Most people in the western world live out if their mind, many people have what’s called “busy mind syndrome” where there mind doesn’t stop talking. You are not your thoughts. Eg. if you have an evil thought does that make you an evil person, of course not, if I have thoughts of jealousy and revenge does that make me a jealous and revengeful person? Of course not, however if I create a landing platform for those thought, meditate on them and then act them out, I become the manifestation of my thoughts. Learning these principles had a huge effect on my life.

A great book that discusses the topic in depth is a New York Times best seller called, “The Power of Now”

https://www.amazon.ca/Power-Now-Gui...1&keywords=power+of+now&qid=1582176219&sr=8-1

Kind regards
 
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apexcone;444266... You are not your thoughts. Eg. if you have an evil thought does that make you an evil person said:
Interestingly enough, I had a related conversation with one of my staff earlier this week. The were very worried that the fact that they had a certain dream (and certain reactions in that dream) meant something significant in terms of what kind of person that they are. I am not a believer in "dream-interpretation" although I understand that our dreams may incorporate stressors from our real lives. But dreaming, for example, that you murdered someone and felt justified in doing so doesn't mean that you are a murderer at heart!

Similarly, having certain thoughts doesn't make you a bad person - you have a thought, you can contemplate it, and then decide that it is NOT a manifestation of your true self, just a passing consideration that you have rejected. Having the thought is not indicative of anything other that that your brain can conceive of ideas - how you react to that thought (i.e. recoiling with horror) is a much more telling metric.
 
It's been a long beautiful road for us ...
This is the first time I've seen someone else mention active listening. Hallelujah! I'm assuming this means the same thing to you as the listening part of direct communication? I have a whole bunch of other things I'd love to explore with you both. Can you send me a PM with a separate email where I can reach you? I don't want to get into it all here on this forum.
 
Every emotion starts with a thought. So once I understand that I'm not my thoughts, and I have the thoughts of jealousy I can reject feeling jealous because I'm not a jealous person. When the thought of jealousy enters my mind I reject it because one of the core values I shared earlier was "dont make this about me" jealousy is making it about me. Not good, doesn't feel good and is highly destructive in any relationship. Jealousy also has an element of ownership in it, how toxic is that ?

Then instead of getting jealous I spend time working on myself and dealing with the issues that in me that might give fuel to jealousy. Unresolved hurt, insecurity...... the list goes on.
 
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