New habits I'm working on that helped me change my old Paradigm
If you don’t know what a paradigm is, I suggest you watch the video Above by Bob Proctor.
This is something the I learned recently that really made me aware of my unconscious habits I never really knew that I had.
Quick Def: A Paradigm is a program in your subconscious mind that controls your behaviour & habits.
Growing up Filipino has so many wonderful aspects and benefits to add to the spice of life, however like every culture, it does have its own negative paradigms that can hold us back in life to being the best person we can be.
One example is that our Culture is prided on guilt and shame. Like, if I was doing something really positive for myself, I’ll tend to start feeling bad like I don’t deserve this kind of happiness. The feeling of being happy was a selfish act, and by doing so, I'll offend others in my community cuz I'm showing off.
Growing up, whatever I’d do, whether it was either positive or negative, I would get shamed for it. Whatever I did was not good enough or bad. Then somehow I ended up thinking that my existence was just bad and felt like I had to always get punished in order to be “Good” again.
An incident would be that I would get belittled for not cleaning my room. When I would clean my room, then get belittled for not doing a good job. All that work and effort and still get shitted on, totally didn’t motivate me to want to clean my room. So I ended up not cleaning my room and the cycle continued. Of course, things like that don’t build your self esteem and character. Then the subconscious mind picks up the vibes that you are not good enough and accepts it.
When there would be a moment for me to shine, I would shun away or fail on purpose because in my mind I didn't deserve it because someone I cared about had to do it first. From those habits I picked up from home I didn’t feel worthy enough to be first. It was like a Sin to be No. 1.
I went through life not being aware of some of these habits holding me back on certain things. I would do the tasks at hand and I knew I did great work, when someone would commend me for my efforts, I would feel like I didn't deserve it in the first place, and shrug it off. I felt bad if I felt proud if someone would tell me I'd so a good job and kill that spark of inspiration.
Throughout my mind awareness journey that I’m still taking, I had some experiences that opened up some blockages and now working on different habits than the ones I had growing up.
Here are just some and in now particular order…
Talk Openly About Finance and Money
Since learning about the subject of Money at a young age, it was such a Taboo. It was such a shameful subject. Like, I was told to never say how much money I was given from my family members to anyone else because they could get jealous and wish bad things on you. That alone is the “Lack” mentality from the get go.
As an adult, if someone asked me how much I was getting paid, I would feel offended, and play the why game? At that time, everyone was making minimum wage anyway or very close to it so really, it didn't matter. Having those thoughts made me hold onto money tight, but somehow I’d still be losing money just as fast and didn’t know why or how? Even though I didn’t want to spend much, I couldn’t even save either. When the subject of money would come up, I would instantly back off and then make some excuse of “I just wanna live my life right now”, not the best way of thinking for a young adult. Talking about money with someone else always bothered me and would give off that negative energy of the topic.
It wasn’t until I read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki that really made me aware of the true concept of money. After reading the book, I learned that I looked at money not the way it was intended to be looked at and that’s why I could never really hold onto it.
With self practice and discipline, I have been working on openly talking about money. In fact, I want to show you the concepts I’ve been learning to help educate you to make good decisions with your own money. *upcoming Articles
Since openly talking about money without any guilt or shame, I found that money is an awesome subject to discuss. That’s only if you allow it, the conversations you have to have with money should be positive ways to use it & ways to grow it. Make ways to have your money work for you and you not work for your money.
The more you talk about it in good ways, the more opportunities money will find you. If you feel money in a negative way ie Money is evil or just don’t want to let it go, opportunities wont find you.
Money should be an open subject to talk about because you have nothing to lose when you learn more about it.
Holding back cuz you'll feel bad on how others would react…
I used to believe that other people should be happy and get to their goals first before me .
Because if I did, I would risk offending other people.They would talk shit about me and not like me. Or I am a selfish person and in the eyes of “God” I should be ashamed of myself for trying because I’m not thinking about others first. I just didn’t want people to think I was showing off, so I didn’t really put too much effort into working on myself.
This is utter bullshit, we should never have these thoughts nor manifest these beliefs. In reality, no one really cares what you do. Most people are so focused on themselves anyway.
If an occasion does happen that a person is offended by what you’re doing, you think they are bettering themselves by feeling this way? They are going about it the totally wrong way.
Ask yourself this…
What are they doing in their lives that is so important to get offended by your actions?
Most of the time, it would be nothing. If they are doing nothing, then their opinion means NOTHING. In return, you do NOTHING back and just continue to do you! If they don’t like you, they don't like you, and move on. Can’t please everyone.
Finally when I was able to start chipping away and breaking through that habit wall, things changed when I started to focus more on myself.
One thing that helped me overcome this habit is self love, I’m not talking about being cocky or conceited. I mean really loving yourself. There’s a difference. This is not my expertise, but you can google it and learn more about the subjects. Let's say I’ve invested in myself to continue to learn about it and later on when I understand it more, I’ll write something.
After a lot of practice, I started to really learn how to love myself first. I was getting this vibe I couldn’t explain, but it felt right. I somehow got refocused in life and didn’t care what anyone else says or does (if it ever happens). My Focus and my Will got stronger. My confidence grew and life really does look different now from this perspective. The change has given me the belief that I will never get cancer again.
There's nothing wrong with loving yourself and when you do, you’ll find so many better ways to help other people.
*Tip - Not everyone is looking for help, so don’t force it. Just be yourself and when the time comes, someone will reach out to you asking for advice.
Working with my Creative Mindset
You needed to have a “Real” profession to have “Made it” was a pretty common thought to me.
At one point I felt I had to put my creative mind aside and focus on my “Career”. The pressure of society to get ready to settle down didn’t sit well with me. Working at a corporate office made me feel like I couldn’t fully be myself. Even to a point where I felt bad listening to Hip Hop cuz no one else in the office really did.
When I sat down and learned about mortgages, I felt uneasy when I saw how long I had to pay for a piece of a building.
With no creative outlet, I threw away a huge chunk of my happiness and did not feel complete. Then the self talk to convince yourself that your creative content isn’t good enough anyway, came up, so I didn't want to create. I felt unworthy to be creative because I felt I had to at least do something that Society approved of first.
I had the “When I’m able to ________ (show society what I did), Then I can Start doing ________ (What I wanted to do). Not the proper way to think.
In a way, by not expressing my creativity, I was at dis-ease. Though I felt healthy physically, mentally I was not. This may have led to my Brain Cancer. (That will be for another topic and discussion)
Since getting back to working with my Creative Mind, I started to feel more complete and has helped me find my purpose through trial and error.
Life became fun again. It’s so much better to have balance and not shun away any creative thought. We were given the gift of creativity to use first and not put in the back pocket. By working with it, you’ll learn so much more about yourself. When I got in touch with my creative spirit again, so many ideas came out of nowhere. Now I don’t have an excuse for not being able to have content. I do my best to write down or audio record my idea before it goes back to the universe.
Always Stay Creative...
Here’s a quote I learned from Bob Proctor who got it from Steve Bow
“God’s gift to us is more talent and ability than we’ll ever hope to use in the life time,
Our Gift to God is to develop as much of that talent and ability as we can in this lifetime."
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Getting past these old habits really helped me grow by really getting to know who I really am inside. Building my new paradigm was no easy task and did not happen overnight. It was many days & nights of Discipline, Self Awareness, and Consistent Repetition. But Seriously, when you do the work, you will see the results!
I guess the main point of this article is that there’s nothing really to lose by Developing new habits to start loving and knowing yourself first. There’s nothing selfish about making yourself happy first. By making yourself happy first, you’ll find it easier to help others first because you’ve already reached your happiness.
You Gotta do YOU!