"Keys to a Better Life"
How do you identify what your current values and boundaries are?
My experience tells me we recognise these in two ways, through ‘pain’ or through ‘insight’.
It was Rev. Michael Beckwith who I first heard say,
“People grow in two ways, through pain or through insight. Many people choose the path of pain. They keep bumping their head up against life and then they begin to ask some empowering questions, like, why is this happening to me over and over again?”
I have also recognised that we experience these in two ways, through ‘role playing’ (pain), or through ‘role definition’ (insight).
“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts…” – William Shakespeare
An example of ‘role playing’ could be the conditions that surround Victims and their Abusers, whatever the extent. We cannot witness an incident that results in abuse unless one party plays the role of the ‘Abuser’ and the other the role of the ‘Victim’ - consciously or unconsciously.
These ‘players’ are expressing a set of individual values and boundaries (mostly adopted or inherited by others) through the roles/parts they play on the world’s stage.
"God sends nothing but Angels", says Neale Donald Walsch. Every person, animal, and condition reflects to us the part we’re playing thereby giving us an opportunity to recognise and choose again.
Through ‘role definition’ we can recognise our values and boundaries first and choose instead to define our role and play the part of a self loving, self respecting, self honouring individual. When we play roles that are Love based, we either avoid all together, or find the ways and the means to release ourselves from a part that is playing the role of ‘Abuser’, ‘Bully’, ‘User’, ‘Task Master’, 'Addict', or any other role equally developed from the basis of Fear.
In all instances, when a role we play no longer serves our expansion towards the Joy of Living, we are free to revalue ourselves by redefining our character/role. As we repeatedly do so, we become the next greatest version of us and the world confirms the change.
How do you identify what your current values and boundaries are?
