Your True Nature

Image: Picking wildflowers by Jonathan Phillips
When you live your life from awareness and not from your personal identity (ego and all of its attachments), you naturally feel peaceful and joyful. 
Your true nature is peaceful and joyful. Peace and joy can be felt when you live your life from awareness, with a quiet mind, and when thoughts do come, to keep that peaceful and joyful feeling, only allow positive, uplifting thoughts into your consciousness. 
To Feel Better, Think Better.
If you focus on lack, you will get lack. If you focus on negative, you will get negative. If you focus on being grateful and compassionate, then there is no room for lack or self-pity. The more your thoughts are on being grateful and on having compassion for others, helping others, volunteering your time, being kind to others, the less you will be focused on what you perceive to be missing in your life, such as what you think you don’t have and that would make your life better, how your life would be better if you had this or that, or if you had a relationship with a particular person, your life would be better, you would be much happier, or what your idea of a perfect partner would be, what they would look like, if you only had that perfect relationship, how much happier your life would be. 
Be grateful that you are alive. Be grateful for your friends, for your family.
The primary thing that detracts from our peace and joy is our mind, our thoughts, our thought patterns and beliefs. Peace and joy is not about acquiring anything, adding to yourself, adding to your identity, to your status. It is about letting go of mental blocks, thought patterns and beliefs that create mental conflict.
If you have a mental barrier in your mind, that barrier becomes your reality also in the physical world. It prevents you from living a peaceful and joyful life. It prevents you from living your life to the fullest. The only way to break down your mental barriers is to become consciously aware of your thought processes, so that you can change them and release any destructive thoughts and beliefs you may have, and remind yourself to live from awareness, live in the present moment. If you are not used to doing this, the best way to start is by putting up notes around your house to remind you; because, when this is new to you, it is easy to forget about the present moment and be stuck someplace else in your mind, dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, thinking negative thoughts, etc.
Check out an excellent article on 15 Styles of Distorted Thinking: Avoid cognitive distortions that may skew the perception of your self, your relationships and your world.
By Pamela J. Wells
Copyright © 2013 Pamela J. Wells. All Rights Reserved