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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Phil Stutz
Read between
June 8 - July 17, 2023
The problem is, no amount of approval from others can make you feel worthy—because no amount of validation can eliminate your Shadow.
“Force of Self-Expression.” It has a magical quality: it drives us to reveal ourselves in a truthful, genuine way—without caring at all how other people react.
It’s not an authority that comes from the approval of anyone outside you; it’s the authority you can get only when you’re speaking from your inner self.
projecting the Shadow image, feeling a bond with it, and then silently commanding them to listen as you turn to face the audience.
Inner Authority should be used any time you feel the pressure to perform.
That ongoing cue is performance anxiety.
If you do this consistently, you train yourself to rely on your inner self, not on the reactions of others.
It speaks through you in a way that is unique to you. It gives each of us a distinctive voice—and yet all our voices derive from the same ultimate source. That’s why true self-expression feels like it’s coming from someplace else—and simultaneously makes you more yourself.
“I guess I can’t even find my real self unless I express it.”
it’s when you’re expressing yourself that you’re most in harmony with the universe. You feel you belong to it.
When you embrace the Shadow, it’s actually a tremendous relief.
When the Shadow becomes your partner, its nature changes. Only then does it become the source of free, spontaneous self-expression.
The Shadow brings the ability to express itself with passion—something you can’t do on your own. But you bring to the Shadow something it needs but can’t supply for itself: acknowledgment of its powers.
The people who get the most opportunities to connect romantically aren’t those who make the best partners; they’re those who put themselves out there the most.
Inner Authority lets you express need and vulnerability.
Life has a way of breaking down this facade and putting you in a position where you must ask for help. Those who can’t ask for help risk losing everything.
Inner Authority allows you to connect to your loved ones with more emotion. The way you communicate, especially the emotion you express, is more important than the words you use.
Writer’s block happens when writers become more interested in the outcome of their efforts than in the process of writing.
We like to think we react to the world as it is, when really we react to a world that exists in our own minds. This inner world is so powerful, it overwhelms our ability to see reality. John Milton, in Paradise Lost, expressed it this way: “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”
When you worry incessantly, regardless of the subject, you’re creating a negative energy that hangs over you like a cloud. The Black Cloud screens out everything positive and creates a sense of impending doom. It makes no difference if the doom comes through natural disaster, disease, or human error.
Without a sense of serenity, everything becomes a crisis. With all your energy focused on survival, enjoying life is a luxury you can’t afford.
In the Black Cloud, every problem is of life-and-death importance—but no one can see this but you. You can’t trust anyone to help with your problems because no one takes them as seriously as you do. Inevitably, you’re left feeling overwhelmed and alone.
in real life, positive thoughts don’t have anywhere near the power that negative thoughts do.
Still, we insist we can control the uncontrollable. Why? Because of a basic assumption about the universe that we never question. We assume (because science tells us so) that the universe is indifferent to us. Based only on what we see around us, this is a reasonable conclusion. But it makes us feel alone in a universe that doesn’t care about us.
gratefulness allows you to perceive things you never thought you could perceive.
the universe works—mysteriously—and you’re the constant beneficiary of its generosity.
Stick to things you’re truly grateful for, not things you feel you should be grateful for.
minor items. The answer is simple: although we tend to take them for granted, they’re always there. By forcing us to be aware and appreciative of them, the tool reminds us that the Source is always there as well—sustaining us in an unimaginable number of ways.
Obsessing, no matter what it’s about, is another form of negative thinking that can be arrested with the Grateful Flow.
The point of using the Grateful Flow so frequently is to make you the master of your own mind, the only thing a human being can really control. Until you can control your mind, you’re spiritually immature.
In the material world, you’re always vulnerable; whatever you gain you can also lose.
For peace of mind to be lasting, therefore, it must come from someplace where you are always nurtured and supported.
Because it requires constant work to stay connected to the Source—peace of mind is an active state.
This feeling of lack is a powerful motivator, but you pay a huge price for it. That price is the ongoing feeling that there’s always something missing.
Perspective is the ability to see whatever is happening at the moment without losing sight of the enduring, positive nature of life.
When you have perspective, you can recover quickly from a disappointment because you see that your life is blessed by the Source.
Deep down inside, we all fear that the universe is far beyond our control.
we take refuge in the only activity that seems to offer a sense of power—thinking.
Besides the fact that life isn’t that simple, this kind of regret makes it impossible to move forward into the future. You need a tool that allows you a renewed sense of possibilities right now; only then can you leave the past behind you.
Death is the most powerful reminder that there are only so many moments in a human life. That makes each present moment priceless.
He doesn’t accept the world as he finds it; he brings things into the world that aren’t already there.
Life was forcing me to enter an inner world I never would have chosen on my own. At first, I resented losing my connection to the world outside. I felt like life had passed me by. But before long, I realized the inner world was the real source of life.
the driving force of spiritual evolution is personal problems
This ongoing sense that problems are meaningful is a fundamental difference between a consumer and a creator.
Only a creator can meet the evolutionary demand to change society while he changes himself.
