What Super Heroes Teach Us About Personl Growth

I have always enjoyed super heroes. Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, and many others. My favorite of all time would have to be Superman though. Superman always amazed me because he is one of the few super heroes who has to put on a costume to be normal. He also has the ability to have anything he wants, including complete rule over the earth if he so chose, but instead decided to use his powers to help people. There is one major flaw in almost every single super hero though. That one flaw is complete selflessness. Let me explain.

In our society we believe that anyone who is selfish at all is a bad person. For some reason we have picked up the idea that anytime someone does something selfish that they are commiting a sin. Now I am not saying that people should be selfish all the time and never give, however, there needs to be a balance. We should give of ourselves in any way we can to help others live better lives. However, if we don't first take care of ourselves, and if we always have others in mind with every thought, word, and deed, we will never get what we need to live a happy fulfilling life. If you only have ten dollars left until next Friday, it would be silly to give half or all of it to someone else who needs it.

It is not a bad thing to be selfish as long as that selfish is not effecting other people in a negative way emotionally, menatlly, or physically. Each and every one of us has to take care of ourselves as no one else will do so. If you give away your last meal, you will starve to death. If you are always focused on making others happy, you will never express yourself in a way that makes you happy. If you are always doing for others, when will you have the time to do for you. You need to take time to make sure you are providing for yourself on a mental, emotional, and physical level. It is the only way you will ever get closer to your goals and dreams, and hopefully you are providing for others by getting closer to your goals and dreams.

No one does anything for nothing. There is no such thing as a completely altruistic act. The return may be smaller than what is given, but nothing is done for nothing. When you donate money to a non-profit organization you don't do it completely void of emotion. You do it because it makes you feel good for one reason or another. When you stay over time at your job when you don't have to you don't do it so others can benefit. You do it because you feel a sense of duty, or you like to move forward, or for a million other reasons. Nothing we ever do is without some form of self serving reason. We tithe at church because we believe it is the right thing to do and we want to support our ministry. So be willing to be a little more selfish. Superman saved thousands of lives, but at the end of the day he had little left for himself. Often times he pushed his own happiness away so he could help other people. None of us are super heroes, but we can accomplish super hero deeds, as long as we remember to take time for ourselves.

No Matter Where You Are At In Your Life, You Can

I was reading through some statistics regarding depression and the percentage of people suffering from this has increased substantially. And I remembered what I often hear from people: 'I have failed in my life' or 'I have not achieved anything,' or 'I experienced such and such in my past and it will jeopardize my entire life,' or 'I have made a lot of mistakes,' or 'I have been feeling depressed or anxious for so many years and I can't change.'

Do you think if we have such thoughts we are going to feel good? Well, no. We actually make ourselves depressed.

Now, the truth is that no matter where you are at in your life right now, no matter what your past has been, no matter what your present circumstances are, no matter how you have been feeling for years, no matter the mistakes you have made, you can change your future. That is for sure.

The thing is that sometimes we don't know what can help us to change, so here are some ideas.

The first thing to do is to take total and full responsibility.

You are the only person responsible for your actions, for your behaviours, for your thoughts, for your emotions, for your health, wealth, happiness, inner peace, etc., for your life. You might have heard about the great movie 'The Secret' and how it shows how much power you really have. Your thoughts create. It is the Law of Attraction. Everything that has happened in your life, everything that is happening, you create. For some people it might be a little uncomfortable to take this on board, but it is the truth. Blaming or complaining is simply giving your power away. But this also means that you can change anything you want in your life by a simple shift in your awareness. Every bit is really down to you.

Now, let us consider things in order.

If you have experienced a difficult past, time line therapy is very helpful. Whatever you have experienced in the past, time line therapy does not go back into the past and analyze it; that would keep you there. Instead it gives you the power to feel free from your past and empowered to create your future. It enables you to relive it with more empowering resources and change the memory of it.

If you feel, for example, depressed or anxious, NLP and hypnosis are incredibly powerful tools to enable you to take control of your emotional state. All emotions generate from thoughts, beliefs, the meaning we give to events, self-talk, and you are the master of your own mind. But the thing is that nobody has given us a manual of how the brain works, so when we do not feel good we do not know what to do. If we buy a PC we are given a manual, and your brain is an extraordinary computer! Once you know how the conscious and subconscious mind works, you can take control of your emotional state, and so choose how to feel.

Now, another thing to say is that if we do the same things, we get the same results. So, sometimes we feel stuck in our life or our habits, but if we want to change we need to change what we do and think. So, if you are doing something that makes you feel bad or does not work, stop, right now, and do something different, and you will get different results.

Guilt is a very powerful and damaging emotion, and what I have often found with clients is that we have a strong tendency to beat ourselves up harshly. Now, everybody makes mistakes, and what we need to do is recognise them, take full responsibility, learn from them and grow. One aspect of this is taking full responsibility for our behaviour; a very different thing to feeling guilty about it. The way we treat ourselves has a very strong impact on our emotional state. And if I were to ask you: 'Would you treat another person as harshly as you treat yourself?' I am sure your answer would be no. So, please treat yourself with the same compassion as you would your best friend. Now, do you think God would want you to beat yourself up? No, no, no. Please be kind to yourself. God loves you unconditionally: forgive and love yourself. Strive for excellence, not perfection. And always remember you always do the best you can at all times with the resources you have got.

Now, one of the reasons why we do not achieve what we want in life is because we do not know what we want. Many people live a life by default, they react to what happens, but are they going to make themselves happy? Maybe, maybe not. How about if you could work more smartly? If you could know what makes you happy and create it in your life? So, establish a vision of the life that you really want, establish goals toward that vision, and actions to take. And if you know what you want and you focus on it, the Law of Attraction says it will manifest, without exception.

So, what are you going to do today to become the person you want to be and create the life you want to live?

© Copyright Piercarla Garusi 2007- All rights reserved.