Use these words for your highest potential

Tenderfoot Yogi Podcast and Audio Blog: Perspectives and Insights for Ease in Your Awakening

You’ve heard the phrase ‘words matter’ before. Most often it’s in the context of what human beings say to each other. The words that we choose when interacting with one another do matter, but words matter at a much deeper level as well. There are conversations that we have with each other, and there is a conversation that happens within us. We use words to speak to ourselves, sometimes out loud but mostly inside our minds. When we learn to pay close attention and choose our words carefully in our internal conversation, it changes us. First, we stop doing damage to ourselves, and then we begin to raise ourselves higher than we ever imagined, even to our highest potential. And then there is of course the greatest conversation of all. Here is what I’m learning…

Listen to the Podcast version of this post below

Part 1: Damage control

Your internal conversation

Before we learn the words to reach our highest potential, we have to simply stop the damage. It is true for most that the first thing we notice when we begin to step away from our thoughts is just how fast our thoughts come at us. The second thing we notice is how some thoughts stick and other thoughts come and go. The third thing we notice is how we immediately judge our thoughts as either good or bad. And so begins the awareness of the conversation that we are having with ourselves for most of the hours in which we are awake and breathing. Soon it becomes apparent how often we judge ourselves, criticize ourselves, sabotage ourselves and otherwise speak to ourselves in a tone of voice and with words that our true kind nature would almost never allow us to use with another person. Our internal conversation is, in a word, unkind. This conversation not only blocks us from our true potential, it does us harm.

Call foul

Once we realize the negative tone that our mind has adopted, we can simply call foul on it. In time we learn to hear this negative voice and to simply ignore it. This may sound as if we are arming ourselves for battle, but no. We are arming ourselves, but only in the sense that we’ll begin to allow that which causes us damage to bounce right off us. If we sit in meditation and are able to notice our thoughts, and are then able to draw our focus back to our breath even if only until we notice the next thought, does that not mean that there is a part of us that is not our thoughts? This is the part of us that we seek to cultivate. This is the part of us that knows the truth and can allow thoughts to come and go with ease. And this is the part of us that can call foul when our habitual thought patterns develop into an internal conversation that does us harm.

Beyond the foul

If we can begin to notice the harmful words that we say to ourselves, then we can begin to rise above them. We can rise to a place beyond the words that tell us that we aren’t good enough, smart enough, that struggle and misery are a necessary part of life, that we cannot do it, that we should not want more, that we don’t deserve it, that happiness is for other people, that we should be ashamed, afraid, that we are obligated by duty and responsibility and all of the other things that we constantly say to ourselves that keep us from our truth. The beautiful part of this is that in time it completely flips on its own. In the earliest stages of this new way of being yes, disarming this limiting conversation is much of what we do. And to a certain extent we must always do it. But in time it becomes less of a job. Calling foul becomes more natural, and in this we can begin to move beyond it. We can begin our inevitable rise. But how?

Part 2: Your Highest Potential

Words

Noticing unkind and limiting words and conversations that we use to our own detriment is an essential first step. Calling foul on those words and even laughing at the absurdity of the lengths we seem to go to limit ourselves, is the immediate and necessary counter-action. Certainly, hearing the internal thought, “I can’t do this” is counteracted by verbally saying the opposite out loud – preferably several times over. But this is damage control, and soon we are ready for more than damage control. Wouldn’t it be excellent if we could have “I CAN do this” as the thing we instinctively say to ourselves instead? We can. The thing is that we don’t always notice everything that we say to ourselves, and we are rarely aware of the subconscious thoughts that form our underlying habitual patterns of thought and behavior. So, thankfully there are ancient practices that use words to shatter our limitations. These are practices that have been passed down to us – and they are as simple as they are beautiful. Let’s look briefly at 4 of them.

Practice #1: Words of Prayer

There is a traditional way to think about prayer, which is to look inside ourselves and to the heavens and ask for that which we desire. This is important. The universal consciousness that is within us and beyond us needs to hear from us and speaking out loud our heart’s desire aligns us with all that is meant for us. But we don’t always know what to pray for, and we don’t always know how to do it. It was not that long ago that this was me. So, the thing to do is to simply choose a spiritual passage that you find meaningful and read it or say it from memory out loud. I still use St. Francis’ prayer for Peace in this way today. I also use the Hanuman Chaleesa, and several others as well. Any time you think of it is a good time for reciting a prayer, but I find it most beneficial to find specific times of day to do it such as before bed or upon waking. It’s OK if you don’t 100% resonate with the words right away. There is a trust and an embedded unfolding involved with all of these practices, which we’ll discuss momentarily, but first let’s get to #2.

Practice #2: Words of Affirmation

In a previous post titled “Focus, Peace and autopilot” we briefly discussed the practice of affirmation. And in that I also provided the following example, which I’ll include here again for convenience.

I have genuine comfort building its residence within me. I labor, rest, and play in joyful freedom.

This affirmation is from one of the blessings that I send to my tenderfoot yogi subscribers – I simply changed the wording from “May you have…” to “I have…” to switch it from blessing to affirmation. Affirmation may be the single most powerful tool that we have for turning around limiting self talk, and at the same time it’s transformational. The reason is this: If we agree that there is a conversation that is continuously occurring in our minds, and if we agree that this conversation arises from inherited and adopted belief systems that serve to judge, criticize, and otherwise limit us, then we do well to turn this conversation on its head so that it serves our highest good. Affirmation does just this. Keep and eye and ear on this space for more on affirmation, but for now you can memorize this affirmation about joyful freedom and say it out loud as often as you can remember to do so. Or take any blessing you like and make it an affirmation by changing it into a statement in the first person. Find any blessing you like in print or online, or subscribe to tenderfoot yogi and I’ll send you a new one each week.

Practice #3: Words of Chant

The benefit of any prayer or affirmation will be increased by giving it a musical texture. The simplest of rhythms and melody is all that is needed. Chanting is an ancient spiritual practice that has been used by all manner of truth seeker. So, chant your prayer. Chant your affirmation. And chant your mantra (see practice #4). Swami Kriyananda as quoted in Ananda’s daily meditator described it this way “Words are thoughts crystallized. Melodies are the resonance of the heart’s aspirations. Harmonies deepen the emotional power of those aspirations. And rhythms ground those aspirations in the present. Combining thought, melody, and rhythm in a spiritual discipline can provide a powerful force for awakening.”

Practice #4: Words of Mantra

In the recent post “Hack your spiritual freedom with a mantra” we went in depth on the subject of mantra. The differences in all of these practices are subtle and are all aimed at the same thing – releasing us from the trappings that prevent our spiritual growth and personal freedom. I think of it this way: A prayer is a devotional conversation. An affirmation is a statement of deep inner truth. A chant is either of the above with the added element of music. All of these practices have repetition at their core, because this is what is required to work it past the blocks in our mind and into the levels of our consciousness. And a mantra is similar. Though a mantra tends to be very short so that it can be said over and over and even continuously, either out loud or silently in our minds. And a mantra also tends to include a word for God, either in name or concept, in one way or another. Let’s talk about this.

Peace, Joy, Universal Consciousness and God

It is true that not everyone is comfortable speaking of and engaging with God. As a matter of fact, in my personal awakening story I spoke specifically of my early discomfort with speaking directly to God or even using this word. But I don’t think that there is a person who does not believe in Peace, or a person who does not believe in Joy. And when we spend time in meditation becoming more aware of ourselves and when we begin to grow our awareness of the energy that is within us and between us and around us, we start to discover something of a universal consciousness of which we are a part. I am not the first person by any means to suggest that all of these things are just one thing. Joy is Peace is Universal Consciousness is God. And anything else that is of our highest potential and our highest good. In this, it really does not matter whether our mantra uses a name for God or the word Peace or the word Joy. It does not matter whether our chant is a prayer to God or is an affirmation for our innermost courage and kindness. And it does not matter whether we practice to reach our highest potential and live our best possible life, or if we practice to know God. Because again, it’s all the same thing.

Trust, practice, rise

Just a moment ago, you may have found yourself skeptical. You may have found yourself skeptical about any or all of the 4 practices and about the connection between our inner peace, our highest potential, and God. This is OK. This is how our minds work – mine included. In our modern world where we value our intelligence and our ability to decipher, assess, determine and prove, it only makes sense that this would be our starting point. The thing to do here is to develop some trust in those who have come before us. None of these practices are new ideas. They are ancient. We don’t need to believe in anything right now. We only need to trust and practice. The practices themselves do the work for us, because they are the right practices and it is in their design. Even the most spiritually illuminated devotees go through times of disbelief, and these are precisely the times for which these practices are designed. We can learn to rely on them. Even in our lowest times we can speak the words and let them do the work for us. We can trust them. We can trust ourselves. And so we rise.

For what it’s worth, and for the knowing that all is well.

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