Happy Monday !- I hope your a planning an exceptional week.
Last week we began a series on consciousness and personal change and we saw how we often focus on the wrong thing when we try and make changes. View Last Week's Post
Today we need to question
authority. The first step at making lasting change is to discover who or what is your authority. Sounds like a random rabbit trail i know, but who or what says your problem is actually a problem?
When coaching people, I get all kinds of answers. Our families, the law, some influential person, and many people say the Bible or their
church.
- Are family members really the experts on our life?
- Laws change all the time, last year marijuana was illegal, so is that the authority for our best life?
- There are people we trust, but what makes them so reliable as to influence the direction of our
life?
- The bible is only as good as its interpretation, so this is the same as giving authority to the person interpreting.
- Churches used to advocate slavery, and many still see women as unfit for leadership, so do you trust your humanity to a system that uses regressive thinking?
I know
these kinds of questions will cause some of us to bristle a bit. But it's the vital first step in raising your consciousness and awareness of your systems of truth.
I know many who suffer from tremendous guilt or anxiety or unnecessary pain because they have carelessly given their authority away to someone or something that was not
fit. Others simply assume they know what their authority is. Others insist that they have no authority but themselves. Thus we need to figure this out.
Without this teleological perspective, a practical solution to our problems will not be that useful. This is because lasting change comes less from changing what we think, and most from
changing how we think. Recognizing who or what is our authority will be the first window into how we understand reality and why we are perceiving a problem.
Adapted from "Getting Better When You Can't"
