Part 2 of a 5 part series on creating a Positive Life Outlook

Robert Elias Najemy

Love is ultimate healing energy. We lack giving and receiving love.

Our feelings of isolation and loneliness breed mistrust, misunderstandings, competition, antagonism and whole series of health destroying emotions such as fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, bitterness, resentment etc. These negative emotions build up a personality complex of their own, and grow out of control destroying our health and relationships.

Learning to accept and love ourselves and others despite our faults, weaknesses, habits and mistakes is a powerful means for healing ourselves and others.

By developing more deeply rooted feelings of security and self-worth, we enable ourselves to understand, forgive and love others and ourselves in more and more situations.

The following thoughts may help us in that process.

We are all souls in a process of evolution.

We are all controlled by our ignorance and fear, which cause us to function in less than perfect ways. Thus, it is logical to accept and love ourselves and others even though we are not perfect and make mistakes.

This can be understood more clearly through some examples.

Two broken legs

If we know someone who has two broken legs and for this reason is unable to carry out his or her responsibilities or be very productive or creative, we automatically understand that they cannot do any more, because they have two broken legs.

What we fail to understand is that many of people who we perceive as lazy, irresponsible or negative and even immoral have in fact two of their "emotional legs" broken. They have seriously impaired emotional legs of "inner security" and feelings of "self-worth".

Their insecurity and feelings of self-doubt cause them to behave in negative ways. We, too, might be such persons who have had their inner strength handicapped by negative childhood experiences. Thus we would do well to understand and love ourselves and others even when we are not able to be who we would like to be.

Accepting ourselves does not mean that we do not recognize and admit our mistakes and weakness and seek to improve ourselves and free ourselves from those obstacles so that we can manifest our inner potential on all levels.

Also, accepting others does not mean that we do not assertively explain to them types of behavior that we need from them.

Half-finished Paintings

Robert Elias Najemy

Situations & Lessons Series

Katherine is very conscientious, a hard worker and reliable in all cases.

At work and at home, she can be depended on to get things done. She often stays overtime, usually alone at office in order to get her work done.

When she gets home, she immediately immerses herself in cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, etc. Although others are home even before she is, they do not even think of helping out. Katherine will do all this.

She is a perfectionist, and although sometimes complains that no one helps, she in fact cannot relax when they do something. First of all, they may not do it right. Secondly, she depends on role of super-responsible and super-capable person to establish her self-worth. She has been programmed that in this way she will ensure respect and love from others. (The truth, however, is that only her boss is happy about it because his work gets done correctly and quickly. Most of her coworkers and family members are annoyed by tension she creates in her super-woman role.)

Even when she does manage to allocate responsibilities to others, her anxiety for it to get done and be perfect forces her to do it before others gets a chance. She is attached to both speed and perfection. She cannot relax when tasks are not completed or when something is not in its place.

Except for putting up with her regular complaining and an occasional outburst of anger, her family members and coworkers have actually got a good thing going. They have very little work to do and depend on Katherine to get it done. Her occasional anger is a small price to pay for not having to do much work.

They sometimes feel sorry for her and want to help her, but they do not know how. They cannot share her standards for order, cleanliness and speed of execution. These are not as important to them as they are to Katherine, and they have never had opportunity to feel those needs because she has always taken care of everything before they could feel any lack.

Katherine?s husband Peter is gradually losing his self-respect and depending more and more on Katherine for things to be done. She even has to take car to get fixed because he leaves it for months. Her super-woman role is gradually sapping him of all his self-worth and he is becoming ever more lazy and irresponsible. He agrees to do things, but literally takes months to do them.

He is spending more and more time with his friends, playing cards and killing time. He avoids contact with Katherine, who is for him is a continuous reminder of his inadequacy. She makes more money than he does, which is a blow to his manhood.

Childhood Programmings

All this could have been predicted by anyone who was aware of messages they received as children. Peter, son of two very active and successful parents, was put off by their hyperactivity and simultaneously very doubtful that he could ever succeed in their eyes and by their measure. He was very fearful of failing. This fear of failure created in him blockages to learning or doing, and he spent most of his time playing games, something he felt he could succeed at.

He heard from his parents on daily basis that he was lazy, incapable and would do nothing with his life. He is now making their words come true.