Day 368 - Learn to Smile without Guilt

I remember when I was in South Africa in 2009 and Bernard said to me:  “You have to learn to smile without feeling guilty.“

As always I could not immeditaley grasp the full extent of what he was saying. I reflected on his words and realised that I indeed did not feel comfortable smiling – and that I saw smiling as a way of ‚selling out‘. Because (my belief was that) I was not ‚being true to myself‘. Because ‚why do I have to smile‘?

This goes hand in hand with the apprehension I had towards the system in general and the world of money in particular. Because in the world of money, everything was about ‚smiling‘ and keeping up a ‚positive image‘.

So, why should I ‚smile‘ ?

Later on when I would be working at a job back in my country – I started to realise the meaning of what he said. In essence, smiling was neither positive nor negative. Smiling was simply a way of expressing myself by using my face. Now what I found is that the more I would practice smiling, the more I would start enjoying it.  Meaning, I would be able to put on a big smile at will, and within that actually enjoy myself. I remember one day we had to participate in a photo shoot for work because marketing needed our profile pictures and people generaly appreciated my photo because it was astounding how much I was enjoying myself on the picture.

There was no more uncomfortableness, no more ‚guilt‘.

This is also a point of walking through “morality“ regarding the rules I had imposed on myself in orther to be an “authentic person.“ I found that when I smile, the expression of me enjoying myself was authentic. It was not fabricated. Within me smiling was my genuine expression. This is also a statement that I am cool with enjoying myself – that I am ok with me having fun. There was nothing to hide and nothing to pretend.

Since then, I have continued to play with my ability to smile and used it as much as I could with people in my world. I found that when I allow myself to smile in this way people will be much more open with me and much more willing to share themselves with me. Therefore, smiling is also a way of opening yourself up to the world and stepping out of isolation.  

This is therefore a nice way of applying a ‚behavioral correction‘ within yourself and your world as support for an ‚internal correction‘.  

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For more information about writing, self-forgiveness and applying self-change, visit: http://desteni.org

For the Free online self-forgiveness course, visit: http://lite.desteniiprocess.com

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Day 367 - Late at Night in the Rain

I was driving through the streets at night with heavy rain. I had to drive very carefuly because of the weather and because there was still trafic at this hour. On the road, almost towards the middle of my lane I saw a big white trahsbag lying. It was full and had probably fallen off the sidewalk, where more trashbags were lying on a heap. I had to quickly drive around the trahsbag as my thinking was that I would rather not drive over it. At this point there was a man walking on the sidewalk.

When I had passed the trashbag I looked in my rear window a moment later and saw how the man noticed the trashbag, picked it up from the street and put it on the sidewalk. I thought he must have realised that the trahsbag could be a hindrance and so he took the initiative to go and pick up the trashbag to avoid any problems. Even though it was not ‚his situation‘, he made it ‚his situation‘.

In this moment I spoke words of thankfulness out loud in my car, because I would have done the same and I could see how the potential to do what is best in a situation exists in everyone, which is a point of 'innocence'.

That would be so cool, if we could genuinly rely on each other. Imagine a world in which we can trust eachother at all times to do what is best for all – that is when life will be born.   

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For more information about writing, self-forgiveness and applying self-change, visit: http://desteni.org

For the Free online self-forgiveness course, visit: http://lite.desteniiprocess.com

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