Coming Full Circle (Self-Transformation)

Children are completely trusting and unconsciously absorb the reality of their adult caretakers. From birth until the age of seven, you absorbed some of the beliefs, habits, and attitudes of your adult caretakers. Moreover, if you did not receive nourishment and unconditional love while growing up, you might be carrying the illusion of “I am not good enough”. This is the emotion of “toxic shame”. Growing up, if you bought into other people’s reality, you might still be stuck in a “comfort zone” of inherited beliefs and habits. It takes strong intention to walk out of this comfort zone to discover your own instinct, authentic voice, and higher potential. Living with our original family, most of us develop coping mechanisms, also called defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms helped you protect your feelings during difficult situations at home or in school. Later in life, these same coping mechanisms turn into unwanted knee-jerk reactions or defensiveness that can block our spontaneity and progress. Here, you will learn to identify your old defense mechanisms that might still keep you guarded against life. In Lesson 1, you will learn about creating and maintaining healthy personal “boundaries”, so you will never be abused or exploited in your personal or professional relationships.

We interpret whatever happens through our beliefs. Everything you have ever experienced has first passed through the filter of your beliefs. A belief is something that is unquestionably true for you, but sometimes our beliefs are not in line with reality. Nearly everyone looks at some aspect of life through distorted lenses. If we see something that does not fit into the framework of our beliefs, we either ignore it or we distort that reality, so it fits into the framework of our beliefs. This is called selective perception, which means seeing what we want to see. In Lesson 2, you will learn how we create beliefs. An event occurs, then we interpret what is happening. Our interpretation of what is happening has much more impact than the event itself. If you come up with negative interpretations of past events, those interpretations add up to limiting beliefs about yourself and life. One’s personal beliefs can turn into self-fulfilling prophecies that can block progress. Beliefs are like software programs in your mind. The good news is that you can change your beliefs, In this lesson, you will learn several techniques for challenging and changing beliefs that are holding you back. Your posture and facial expressions can empower your mind. Learn to walk 25 percent faster while looking at the horizon. Use your smile muscles to plant positive notions in your mind. Learn about affirmations and creative visualization for rewiring your subconscious mind. Learn techniques for stepping outside of your old comfort zone to experience a fresh, joyful reality.

The subconscious mind controls 80 percent of our lives—all of our deepest beliefs, emotions, and habits are buried in the subconscious where we have no access. The subconscious has its own language that this lesson teaches. This part of the mind does not understand the passage of time and understands imagery better than verbal commands. The subconscious obeys each of our thoughts as a literal command and has no preference in terms which of your thoughts (negative or positive) it obeys and manifests in your life. In this lesson, Kambiz teaches us how to access the subconscious, which language to use to communicate with the subconscious, and many techniques for cleansing the subconscious of self-limiting, negative beliefs, emotions, and habits.

The Buddha said, your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts. In Lesson 4, you will learn about self-sabotage, or how we unconsciously hold ourselves back with limiting beliefs, habits, and self-fulfilling prophecies. Here, you learn to identify the underlying beliefs behind self-sabotage. You will learn to visualize what will happen to your life if you continue sabotaging yourself. You will also learn to visualize how your life will improve if you stop sabotaging yourself. You will examine your sense of deservingness. You will understand that any form of self-sabotage is based on a low sense of deservingness. You will complete a short questionnaire to determine how deserving you feel. Do you deserve the best that life can offer? Through exercises, you will identify which circumstances, thoughts, or people trigger your self-sabotage. You also learn that all humans have a joy thermostat - and whenever our level of happiness exceeds our expectations, our joy thermostat is overwhelmed and we sabotage further success. In other words, self-sabotage is designed to keep us in a limited comfort zone.

There are two types of fear: physical fear of your safety, which is good; and psychological fear, which is unreal because it has to do with predicting something bad in the future. Most likely, you are not a fortune teller, and the future has not yet come. More than 90 percent of your fears are psychological. Psychological fear is the voice of a liar in your mind. Every time we listen to fear, our life takes a step backward. In Lesson 5, you will learn how we give our power away to fear. You will also learn where fear comes from, the root-causes of fear. You will understand the price that we pay for fear. We will discuss the Law of Attraction—how intense focus is on a certain fear, attracts those same circumstances that you dread. Fear is like a magnet; many of us wind up attracting exactly what we feared most. In Lesson 5, you also learn several techniques for managing and eliminating fear.

In Lesson 6, you learn to understand and distinguish between self-love, self-worth, and self-image. True self-love has nothing to do with being conceited. People with self-love are quietly humble and content with who they are—they also like who they are becoming. People with self-love uplift hundreds of others. True self-love is not based on your external circumstances such as income, physical beauty, or fame. With self-love you develop an inward gaze and become inner-directed instead of constantly seeking external approval. Self-worth is how much value you place on yourself. Your sense of self-worth determines which job or friends you choose, your posture, the way you dress, and how much abundance you attract into your life. Self-worth defines how much you value the love and friendship you offer to others. One question that this lesson poses is: How much is my love and friendship worth? People with true self-worth are very particular and mindful about who they invite into their lives. Self-image is how you see yourself and how others see you. Some people have an exaggerated notion of their greatness, and others are blind to their wonderful virtues. Another part of self-image is how society views you—this includes your professional, religious, and social affiliations. Lesson 6 contains many practical exercises for strengthening your sense of self-love, self-worth, and improving your self-image. You will learn how to identify your dharma which is the best, most natural life-direction (life purpose) for you—both professionally and personally.

We cannot move into a space of healing and wholesomeness unless we first surrender our old, hurt self. We are most powerful when we surrender the stubbornness of our ego and mind to higher powers. Defensiveness can only hurt us, not help us. The problems of our ego and mind cannot be solved at that same level. Sometimes, we need to relinquish the ego’s controlling ways to the Higher Powers of our heart and soul. Prayer is one such higher power. Through prayer, we ask a Divine Force to step into our life with Her unbounded resources. Prayer involves four stages: 1) Believing that a Higher Power is aware of you 2) Asking for grace 3) Listening in silence for an answer 4) Surrendering to grace with the attitude of thy will be done In Lesson 6, we will review the wisdom of the ages about how to deepen your prayer and enjoy the benefits. In Lesson 7, we will also learn about meditation— the best guidelines for surrendering to your meditation; and which are the most common objects of meditation—such as a mantra, the breath, or a visualization. We will classify various meditation practices into mindfulness meditation and concentration meditation. We will learn about the best hours to meditate, the best posture, and best attitudes during meditation practice. Finally, we will review the common obstacles to deep meditation and how to overcome these obstacles. Being a Kriya Yoga meditation master, Kambiz Naficy refers to the breathing meditation called "Kriya Yoga" which is already featured on InsightTimer.