How Do We Appreciate Negative Aspects of Ourselves? Guest Post by Tim Weichman

On Facebook, somebody asked Guy Finley the following question:

“How do u appreciate something negative about yourself? Do we change our belief system?”

The following comments are a reply from Tim Weichman, a student at Guy Finley's Life of Learning Foundation, reprinted with permission.

 

If someone pointed out a flower you had never seen before, and then asked you to describe the texture of its petals, what would you do? How would you go about answering?

Wouldn't you first take time to look quietly at those petals? To study their contour, their shape, the smoothness or roughness of their surface? Then, after a while, you might even rub one of them gently between your fingers, being careful not to damage it. In short, you would be discovering the nature of those petals by coming into direct contact with them.

In the same way, we must learn what it means to come into direct contact with the negative states that pass through us instead of trying to change them or push them away. Clearly, condemning what we see in ourselves is a form of resistance to what has been revealed. But trying to ‘appreciate' these negative states is still a form of resistance. There's a secret motive that goes something like this, “I don't like what I'm seeing, so maybe if I embrace this part of myself the pain of it will go away.”

When we are quietly aware of these whirling states – in the same way that you were aware of the petals on the flower – pure revelation takes place. And it is that pure revelation that heals.”

If you'd like to learn from Tim's teacher, Guy Finley, then be sure to get your free “7 Steps to Oneness” audio program, here.