Heroic Self-Compassion: Here’s Your Flashlight AND Your Hammer (Heroic +1 #1,518)

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last few plus ones, Yogananda has been dropping his intense Yogi wisdom hammer and showing us how to be victorious in life. Today we're going to talk about heroic self compassion. Let's get straight to work. Yogananda tells us, and I quote him again, learn to analyze yourself, looking at both the negative and the positive. How did you come to be what you are? What are your good and bad points and how did you acquire them? He continues by saying, then set about to destroy the bad harvest. He tells us, remove the tares of evil traits from your soul to increase the crop of the good harvest. And as you recognize your weaknesses and scientifically remove them, you become stronger. Therefore, you must not allow yourself to be discouraged by your frailties. To do so is to acknowledge yourself a failure. You must be able to help yourself by constructive self analysis. Those who don't exercise their discriminative faculty are blind. The native wisdom of the soul has been eclipsed by ignorance. This is why people suffer. So, pop quiz time here. I've asked this question a number of times and come back to it again and again and again in our daily 101s. So if you've been following along, the answer should be obvious. Here's the question. What is the fastest way to change your life? Think about that for a moment. Seriously, think about that for a moment. What's the fastest way to change your life? Here's the answer. The fastest way to change your life is to stop doing the things you know aren't wise. We need the wisdom to know the game we're playing and how to play it well. The courage to have the loving curiosity to look at what's not working and what is working. We need the wisdom to know the game we're playing and how to play it well. The courage to have the loving curiosity to look at what's working and what's not working. And then the self mastery to do the things we know we could be doing and to stop doing the things we know we should stop doing. Repeat that spiraling up forever. Now, all of that requires a healthy level of heroic self compassion. We talked about this in another plus one in which I called it heroic self encouragement. Check it out. We bring the flashlight and the hammer to the party. We shine a bright light of curiosity on the stuff that needs work, and then we bring the hammer of discipline to change our behaviors. Now another somewhat obscure 20th century teacher comes to mind in the power of your supermind. Vernon Howard tells us, encourage yourself by remembering that any detection of negativity within you is a positive act, not a negative one. Awareness of your weakness and confusion makes you strong because conscious awareness is the bright light that destroys the darkness of negativity. Honest self observation dissolves pain and pressures that formerly did their dreadful work in the darkness of unawareness. He continues by saying, this is so important that I urge you to memorize and reflect upon the following summary Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act, but a courageously positive act that makes you a new person. So spotlight back on you. What's working for you? Pause. Celebrate one thing that you're crushing and feel its positive benefits in your life. Nice work. That's like you and what needs work and what will you do about it? Pause. Think about one thing you know you could be crushing and feel the positive benefits that you'll experience when you dominate it. And then take the next step in installing that habit. Here's your flashlight and your hammer. Get to work, hero.

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