Topics Include: Feeling inferior, negative, jealous & angry

Ask the Author: Question and Response

I feel jealous and angry with everyone, I feel like a failure in life although I have an average life. I feel inferior to most people, constantly feel negative and only want to feel confident and at peace with myself.

- Lorraine, Ireland

My friend, who you are today is simply a result of who you have allowed yourself to become. Who you are today is an assemblage of belief systems that have been taught to you, you have accepted as true, and now use to define and react to the outside world. This assemblage is now the principle tool you use to define your reality, and your reaction to your reality. There are parts of this assemblage that are hurtful to yourself and others, these parts are the ones we will be inviting you to release.  You will be invited to release them because they are not part of your true essence. 

At first, they may be difficult to put down, yet do not despair. You have become addicted to what they do for you.  For example, you might be unconsciously choosing to feel inferior, because that way you do not have to place yourself in a position where you may be judged by others, this in effect is a way of hiding without experiencing the feeling that you are hiding. Thus, in this case the ‘reward’ you get by feeling inferior is that you hide and not get judged.  Regardless of how counterproductive you believe some of these collections of beliefs are, you are actually getting some reward by supporting them, which is the reason you continue to hold onto them regardless of how painful they are to you. 

If it is easier to envision, imagine this assemblage as a large group of sub-personalities. For example, feeling inferior is one sub-personality. Feeling jealous is another sub-personality, and so on and so forth.  This way we can divide, understand, and conquer.  We can deal with each one, one at a time, and figure out what the ‘reward’ you’re getting is. Then work on that specific area of your life, and replace the sub-personality that’s hurting you with a sub-personality that will bring you more peace of mind and joy to your life. Although you can attempt to do this by yourself, the wisest way to figure out and get to the root of all these sub-personalities is to find a professional therapist. If you, for whatever reason, have some ‘aversion’ to therapists then you can work with a life coach.  A professional therapist and/or life coach has the time and knowledge to assist you in this self-discovery process.

Somewhere within, you know that the feelings you express in your question are really not part of your true essence.  It almost feels as if you’re carrying an old, worn out, heavy backpack around that’s not really yours.  Once you return home, into your true essence, there is no longer the need to carry this excess weight with you. Take a deep breath in, then breathe out and put down what you desire to no longer carry.

Being who, in truth, you are is an effortless accomplishment. What is hard is being who you are not. And this, my friend, is what you have been doing. Anytime you react with anger and jealousy - you are being who you are not. Anytime you feel inferior to your brothers and sisters - you are being who you are not. Anytime you feel negative or stressed - you are being who you are not. Somewhere within, maybe deep within, you feel that what I’m saying is true. And this truth does not come from me inventing this idea, but from you beginning to recall it.

All that you are not, what you have taught yourself you are, is such a giant learning feat that once you begin to recognize what you have done, you will never again question your power to learn. You have practiced the lessons endlessly until you made truths out of illusions. Do not underestimate what you have created. The world you see is the world you have made.  It is the world as you have taught yourself it is. How difficult is the world you learned?

You have been taught and learned that God’s son is guilty, that God’s son and daughter are worthy of your anger and jealousy. With every judgment you have sentenced them to the prison within your mind. You jailed them, holding them prisoners behind the same walls that chain you to your belief system. You have become a slave to guilt and regret, to despair and confusion, you carry these energies with you and then wonder why you constantly feel negative, angry, lack peace and confidence.

How much longer are you willing to support this assemblage, the belief system you have learned? How much more pain will you take defending this insane belief system?  Your ability to withstand pain is high, but it is not without limit.  There must come a time when you look deep into the mirror and tell yourself, “Enough is enough, that there must be a better way.” My dear friend, this day is coming, for your question is but the knock on the door that will open a whole new, yet somehow familiar world to you.

We will begin the journey by doing the opposite of what has brought you feelings of jealousy, inferiority, negativity and anger. At first, maybe even the first month or so, you will find what I ask you to do difficult, yet the more you do it the easier and more rewarding it will become. You will begin to work on and strengthen mental, emotional, and spiritual muscles you have chosen not to use. There will be soreness, but it will be a soreness that will be taking you in the direction you truly desire to go.

Rejoice my friend, for the day is coming when you will look again towards your brothers and sisters and smile.  Your appreciation for their presence and participation in your life will flow through your body like a drink of hot chocolate on a cold, cloudy Irish day. Once you again feel love and kindness flowing through your body, you will want no other way.

Once you again remember that God’s son is innocent, you will begin to see another world.  Become still in an instant, and forget all things you ever learned that have brought you nothing but pain, sadness, anger and regret. Put down, even if it is for only awhile, every preconception of what things mean or what their purpose is. My dearest friend, I promise you that if you choose to do so, you will never again walk alone. Choose not to walk in front or behind your brother, take his hand not in anger, but in love. All that God asks of you is this: Offer peace to obtain it.  Every brother and sister offers you the opportunity to obtain peace. Give this gift to them to make it yours.

As negative as you are currently perceiving your situation, you wouldn’t continue to support it unless it is bringing some type of value to your life. Be still and ask yourself, “What am I gaining from feeling this way about myself? What or who am I protecting myself from? What or who am I hiding from? Why do I continue to torture myself? If someone else, day after long day treated me in the manner that I’m treating myself, would I not sooner or later say enough is enough and fracture the relationship?”

To achieve a goal you must proceed in its direction, not away from it. Peace, happiness and self confidence are not found by following roads away from them. Do not ever underestimate the power of a small step forward. Every great journey begins with a small step.  For now, concern yourself not with the end goal, but with the next step you need to take.  The more you take these small simple steps, the closer you will come to achieving the desired goal.

Jealousy, anger and any other negative feeling, emotion, actions or reactions are some of the roads this world offers that take you away from where you truly desire to go.  They may seem innumerable, but the time will come when you will see how alike they are to one another. They are all alike in that they all take you away from where, in truth, you desire to be.  Seek not another signpost in this world that offers yet another road in their direction. No longer look for hope where there is none. 

All roads that lead away from you extending your true essence cannot offer anything but confusion and despair. Yet do not despair if you once again find yourself traversing these roads, but every day promise and say to yourself this, “Every day I will try to catch myself sooner and sooner when I find myself traveling on these roads. And when I do, I will not judge myself, but I will simply stop and remind myself that the road I am now on is not the road I desire to follow.”  Promise yourself this every day, and little by little you will find the time you are spending on these roads diminishing. 

Ok, now how do you try to apply the above into your every day? 

1 - Try the following. See yourself as one person with two main personalities: one, we will call the Godself, the other one we will call the ego-self. Within these two personalities there are numerous sub-personalities.

Your Godself  is your true essence, the only real part of you.  When you’re being your Godself, some of the sub-personalities you experience and extend are peace of mind, joy, happiness, love, kindness and compassion to yourself and others. 

Your ego-self is the complete opposite of the Godself. The ego-self is your programmed self, your manufactured self, the illusionary mask you use to defend yourself against an illusionary world. Some of the sub-personalities you experience and extend in this case are jealousy, anger, you feel like a failure, inferior, or experience any other ‘negative’ emotion. Any and every ‘negative’ emotion has been learned, it is not part of your true essence.  The good news is that you can unlearn what you have learned.

In every possible experience you have during your day, have the Godself be your guide on how best to act, react, think and be.  Instead of just reacting how you’ve been trained to react, now first ask your Godself how to react, and then react. Ask your Godself how best to act, and then act. In my personal life, many times throughout the day, I ask questions and say to myself, “What would Jesus do?” “How would Jesus see this person?” “God, help me see this person as you do.”

2 – As your day begins, take 5 minutes for yourself.  Think about the kind of day you want. Whenever you can, remind yourself that you are in control of your thoughts and actions.  Stay in the moment. Decisions are continuous. So far you have only reacted to your environment as you have been taught and trained to do by the ego. How is this working for you? Is it now not time to try another way? Your day is not set at random, but by whom you choose to live it with, by whose teachings you choose to follow. Each and every moment you decide to view the world through your Godself’s eyes or through the ego’s eyes. Knowingly or not, you always ask advice before doing anything, before reacting to anything.

3 – As often as possible throughout your day say, “Today I will make no decisions by myself.” What you believe to be your instinctual response is not instinctual but programmed. Learn the true difference between your instinctual response and your programmed response. When you react instinctually the result is one of peace of mind, joy and love. When you react through your programmed response, the result is of judgment, stress, anger, confusion and regret. 

Knowingly or not you always ask advice before you do anything, advice of either the ego or God.  Do not judge situations in which you believe a response is necessary. Now before judging a situation, stop yourself and ask for advice, then make up your mind and decide what to do. You can begin a happy day by deciding you will not make decisions by yourself. You and your advisor must now agree on what you want before it can occur. Your choice is between the dream of judgment or the voice for God.  

4 - Throughout the day, remind yourself what kind of day you want today. Remind yourself that you have the power to choose what kind of day you will have. When you are not feeling confident or kind, stop yourself and say, “This is not who I desire to be, I now choose to stop this and act the way I truly desire to act. I am in control of how I act, behave, react, and interact with myself, my brothers and sisters. I no longer choose to put effort into following the same dead end roads as before. I am no longer a prisoner to what has been taught to me.” 

5 - Ask to have the answer given to you. Bring God or whatever higher power you believe in to be your personal guide for the day.   Before acting or reacting ask God what He would do were He in your shoes.  Before you talk to anyone, ask God what he would have you say and how He would reply to your brothers and sisters’ questions and actions.  When you are with a brother or sister, look deeply into their eyes and send them a silent blessing; ask God to help you see in them what He sees in us. You will have the day you want by giving to the world what you desire for yourself. Your judgment will be lifted from the world by your decision for a happy day.

6 – When you find yourself judging yourself, others, or experiencing any other negative emotion, remember something has occurred that is not part of the day you desire to have. Stop yourself as quickly as possible when you find yourself in judgment of a brother or sister, and correct your behavior within your mind, say to yourself, “I will no longer choose to poison myself through judgment. I will no longer continue to bring myself down by my own thoughts and emotions.”  Then, instead of judging yourself for having judged others, try congratulating yourself, be proud of yourself for recognizing where through your own thoughts, actions and reactions you were taking yourself and those around you.

7 – Do not judge yourself for being in judgment of others.  When you are truly ready for peace say with all honesty, “I want another way to look at this.” What can you lose by asking? Become a true conscious participant in your day. It is easier to have a happy day by being aware of your thoughts, and questioning unhappy thoughts as they try to enter your thinking.

If you are finding it hard to let go of judgment then say to yourself, “At least I can decide that I do not like what I feel now.” The previous statement returns the power back to you. Offer this judgment over to Jesus or God or any other self-actualized entity, allow them to carry it for you until you realize that you no longer have use for it. My friend, they will gladly carry your burden. For their love for you and others is such that these burdens are but a drop of blue dye on the ocean’s surface. Physically, feel your burden being lifted from your heart and shoulders, physically feel getting lighter and more at peace.  Then offer gratitude first to God for His assistance. Truly, with your whole heart and soul offer God your thanks and then feel where your offering has taken you.  Truly feel those moments when instead of judging your brother you offer gratitude to God. Be in the moment and feel the love and gratitude filling your body until it overflows. Then again, with this love flowing through you, look once again upon your brother and sister and understand and acknowledge the difference between focusing on judgment or that of focusing on gratitude and love in the moment.  My dear friend, that is the one and only choice you have each and every moment.

8 - Act as if you do have confidence.  You do a lot more acting during your day then you know.  In fact, every time you react with anger, judgment, stress, envy or jealousy, you are acting. It is tiring trying to be who you are not. My friend, step of the stage. You have played this part long enough.

The more you act a certain way, the more real this way becomes. Just as an actor becomes more comfortable the more he rehearses his part, so too will you become more comfortable with your new more loving and less judgmental behaviors.  Thus my friend, act as if you do have confidence, and little by little you will find your level of everyday confidence increasing. 

You may try this at first just a couple of minutes a day. For example, see yourself playing a part, try going to a café or restaurant and being extra nice and generous with your waiter. Not so much as generous with your money, but generous with your words, your eyes and time.  Before going into the café, ask God to join you. Ask Him to flow through you, to see your waiter as He would. Ask your waiter his name. Ask him how his day has been going. When you talk to him, notice him, I mean notice him or her as you have never noticed any waiter in your life. Look into his eyes when you talk to him and then look even deeper. As you talk to him, try to look into his soul. Ask God to help you do this. You will get more comfortable with practice. When your waiter speaks, listen to him. Send him a silent blessing as he talks to you.  Ask God to pray for him, to surround you in the love that you both are.  Again, you will get more comfortable with this way of being the more you practice it. It will feel good and loving to be this way.  This way will be its own deep reward, and little by little you will look forward to your future interactions with all your brothers and sisters. You will make a great difference in people’s lives by simply extending your true self outward into the world.  Trust me when I say that there will be people whose lives you will literally save by simply being kind, loving and generous with the moments you spend with them.  

9 – Pay attention and be aware of your thoughts during the day. Again, the more you do this the easier and more comfortable this will be for you.  Just as there exists an outer world, there also exists an inner world.  Yet in this inner world, your thoughts are its inhabitants. The level of peace or stress in your inner world is directly correlated to the inhabitants you allow to live within. The more inhabitants that are allowed to live and fill your mind with stressful or negative thinking, the more you will experience stress-filled, difficult and tiring days. The more you focus on, invite and support loving and generous inhabitants into your world, the more peaceful, kind, gentle and generous your days will be. The defining factor is what thoughts you allow to pollute or invigorate your mind. You, my friend, are the gate keeper of your world. You have the final say as to who enters and who is stopped at the gate.

Start taking responsibility for your thoughts.  Do not just allow a negative or stressful thought to go unchallenged. Remind yourself what kind of day you truly desire. Remind yourself what kind of life you want.  My friend, the life you have is simply a physical manifestation of the thoughts you care for and support within.

10 – Pay attention and be aware of the words you use.  Not only the words you are verbalizing, but what you are saying internally about yourself and others. Words are simply verbal manifestations of thoughts. By verbalizing what you are feeling and thinking you can recognize what road you are taking and whose directions you are following.  When you are following and listening to the ego, your words are nasty, hurtful and filled with sarcasm.  When you are following and listening to the Godself your words are kind, graceful, generous and loving. By being in the moment and paying attention to what you are saying to yourself and others, you can see a perfectly clear map of whose directions you are following.

Do not judge yourself if you find that you are following the ego’s road once again, but congratulate yourself for seeing this. If throughout the day you keep focusing on, and paying attention to the words you use, you will get better and better at more quickly catching yourself when you start down the ego’s path.  Thus, you will end up spending less of your day on its path and more of your day on the road to peace of mind and joy. 

11 - Pay attention and be aware of what you physically do with yourself and others.  Exercise and eat right. Exercising and eating healthy foods are simply physical manifestations of self-love.  Be kind and generous with your actions; open doors for people; while in traffic, allow others to cut in front of you. Pay attention to what’s going on around you, if someone drops something, try to pick it up for them; if someone sneezes say “God bless you.” There are innumerable opportunities throughout your day to be kind and generous, these actions will produce their own rewards.  Soon you will begin to feel the kindness and generosity of your actions flowing through you, and when you do, you will want no other way.

My friend, you are connected to God. Your brothers and sisters are connected to God. Therefore, you are connected to your brother and sister. Thus what you do for them, you will be doing for yourself. What you feel about them, you will feel about yourself. For when you have a feeling, it must first flow through you.  So be kind and generous to your brother and sister, and you will feel and experience kindness and generosity flowing through you and throughout your day.

View larger images of front & back cover 
of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.