Living with an Independent Mind
Favor and disgrace seem alarming.
High status greatly afflicts your person.Why are favor and disgrace alarming?
Seeking favor is degrading:
alarming when it is gotten,
alarming when it is lost.Why does high status greatly afflict your person?
The reason we have a lot of trouble
is that we have selves.
If we had no selves,
what trouble would we have?Man’s true self is eternal,
yet he thinks, I am this body and will soon die.
If we have no body,
what calamities can we have?
One who sees himself as everything
is fit to be guardian of the world.
One who loves himself as everyone
is fit to be teacher of the world.~ Wayne Dyer version
“It’s crucial to remain independent of both the positive and negative opinions of other people” – Wayne Dyer
I have spent most of my life being run by the positive and negative opinion of others, sculpting my behaviour and life in order to gain approval or avoid disapproval from others.
And I know I’m not the only one!
I think it’s a rare thing to find a person not motivated on some level by the opinion of others.
I am learning as the years go by to not be so worried about others’ opinions of me, but I still find it drives much of my life whether I’m conscious of it or not.
From the clothes I wear, to how tidy my house is, to how I parent, and how I run my professional life, all are influenced in one way or another by the positive or negative opinion of others.
Fashion is a classic societal construct that infiltrates most people’s lives, and I am no exception.
Oh, the horror outfits I wore in the 80s because a group of people somewhere decided that “this year’s fashion” included fluorescent socks, tops and headbands, big fluffy permed hair, leg warmers and bubble skirts!
I laugh now as I realise it literally is a group of people deciding each season what’s in fashion and what’s not.
A long time ago I learned much of the in-fashion garments did not suit my body shape or skin colour, so I rarely get pulled in by the current fashion these days unless it happens to suit me.
But that doesn’t mean I wear terrible, mismatched outfits (my sisters may argue this point!). No, I still wear ‘socially acceptable’ outfits – just ones I like and that I think suit me.
So, in a way, maybe I am listening to my inner voice when I choose my clothes and footwear (and hairstyle – no perms these days!) 🙂
In the spirit of the Tao, your true nature will replace the pursuit of external favor with the awareness that what others think of you is really none of your business! ~ Wayne Dyer
“What’s my own nature if I have no outside forces telling me who or what I should be?”
I asked myself this question a couple of weeks ago while at the beach.
Working out what my true, inner nature is, unencumbered by all the social conditioning of 43 years, is challenging, but I believe it is connected to being in nature, so I chose my weekend away at the beach to take on Wayne Dyer’s suggested “Do The Tao Now” exercise for the 13th Verse.
Ask yourself right now, What’s my own nature if I have no outside forces telling me who or what I should be? Then work at living one day in complete harmony with your own nature, ignoring pressures to be otherwise. If your inner nature is one of peace, love, and harmony as a musical genius, for instance, then act on just that today ~ p. 63, Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living The Wisdom of the Tao, p. 61
I didn’t force anything. I just did what felt right.
I started my day in ‘Mum’ mode, playing host in a Family Feud board game for S and her friend (perhaps wouldn’t have been my first choice of daily activity in my ‘natural’ state, but it did feel right once I got into it).
Then I did the following:
- Walked to the beach to do some yoga and meditation
- Walked back home for a quick lunch
- Back to the beach for a one hour swim/float
- Some more meditation as I watched the girls have fun in the water
- Read my book for a while
- Walked home
- Had a shower while listening to music
- Had a 2-hour rest/sleep (NOT natural but it is in my current state of health)
- Cooked & ate dinner
- Went for a solo walk on the deserted beach at low tide (like a walking meditation)
- Took some arty photos for a short while
- Had a cuppa with my former in-laws who live next door & own the beach house I stay in
- Watched some comedy TV with the kids
- Did dishes (NOT natural!) 😉
- Wrote this!
Reflections of my most ‘natural’ times
As I reflected on my day I recalled that the time I felt most connected to my true inner nature in my adult life was in 2002 when I spent 10 days on a yacht in the Caribbean.
Don’t let the supposed glamour of this fool you! It wasn’t glamourous, but it was beautiful in many ways.
There were 8 of us – all family – on my aunt and uncle’s 39-foot yacht that we sailed ourselves (four of us having done no sailing before!)
After recovering from one horrendous night of open water sailing during a ‘tropical wave’ (aka blooming rough seas!) and the equally horrendous seasickness I had for 22 hours, we spent 6 days ‘camping on water’, with a little sailing in between.
We woke with the sun, swam, snorkelled, cooked, read, sailed and generally reconnected with nature and bonded with family.
We were out in the heat of the Caribbean July sun, diving into the warm water to cool off, occasionally ‘showering’ on the back of the boat, and generally roughing it, apart from the fact we were in a world-renowned glamourous location on a very expensive yacht.
I don’t deny some of the spots we visited were divine and exotic – Google Prickly Pear Cays and Marina Cay for a pic of Paradise – but it was generally quite glamour-less as we basically washed in the ocean, had to crew the boat (so lots of pulling of ropes and stuff I can’t even remember), cook our own meals (mostly) and use a hand-pumped toilet with a maximum of one sheet of paper (any excess was put in a bin next to the loo!).
It was stinking hot, especially downstairs, and it truly was like camping in summer.
BUT it was the most memorable, beautiful adventure I’d ever had.
AND I felt the healthiest I’d felt for years (by then I’d had 10 years of ME/CFS).
Living out in nature like that, rising with the sun and resting with the moon certainly made a difference to my body, mind and soul.
Being with 7 other people, albeit it family, was a bit crammed at times, but the ability to swim when we weren’t sailing allowed us all our own space.
I remember reading while on the boat, and I definitely wrote a diary and took photos, so all that was part of my experience, as was connecting with my family on a deeper level.
Music played a part too. I remember one night sitting in a secluded bay in St Barths with John Williamson’s iconic Australian song “True Blue” blaring and all of us singing along very nostalgically for our home country.
It was far from all play, as we sailed every few days, but it was hardly factory work either! 🙂
My recent day at the beach sort of reminded me of that holiday – free of the pressures of work, in the days before iPhones, iPads etc (and parenting!).
I think, if anything gives me an indication of my ‘own nature if no outside forces (are) telling me who or what I should be?’, those 10 days on a boat in the Virgin and Leeward Islands would be it.
Sun, water, wind, family, photography, reading, writing, a little videography (interviewing each person about their holiday), home-cooked meals, music, swimming, laughing, sharing meals with loved ones and being a bit adventurous.
Not too dissimilar to the day I spent in Queenscliff the other day.
Though I think I’d enjoy the silence of the sailing more next time …
(PS I said there’d never be a next time! Great experience but not a lover of sailing. My cousin who captained our yacht that time – at 18 – then went on to become the youngest captain of the youngest crew to complete the treacherous Sydney to Hobart yacht race, and later he mentored Jessica Watson to beat his record. I don’t share his love of adventure and life-threatening seas! …. But as I write all of the above I question whether I might try sailing again. The yacht now resides in Townsville, Queensland, and since hand-writing this post I’ve been invited up there in June to accompany my Grandma on a holiday. Either way, I’ll definitely enjoy all the natural elements available up there – especially the opportunity to see the Barrier Reef for the first time!)
Every passionate thought that you have regarding how you want to conduct your life is evidence that you’re in harmony with your own unique nature ~ Wayne Dyer re the 13th Verse of the Tao
Keep smiling my friends, and please join us in our 7-day challenge – currently this one – and join our Closed FB Group if you haven’t already.
Louise 🙂