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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and our Sense of Fulfilment

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow was an early 20th century psychologist. He was important because unusually in a psychologist he looked at what drove the positive qualities in people. He was the father of what became known as “humanist psychology.”

What is self-actualisation

Maslow developed a pyramid of six layers. The highest layer being “self-actualisation.” Self actualisation is living life to your full potential.

He agreed with Dr. David Hawkins that you have to meet your initial needs for food clothes and shelter before you can look at any form of self-development.

If you like, it’s a bit like the cynics guide to the law of attraction. It doesn’t work for everyone, and the reason it doesn’t work is that some people have to spend most of their time just simply providing security. They have no time or energy left over to develop themselves.

When we are full of shame or guilt, Our energy density is so low they cannot put any energy into raising their energy.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

 

Psychological Needs

These are at the bottom, and they are the most basic requirements for all living beings. They are the necessities of life. Water, air, and food. Every living creature will die if we are of these for long periods.

It also includes basic needs of temperature control or honest artists in human beings. The ability to excrete toxins. Sleep and rest and even sex. If you think about this, it’s all of the things we need to survive.

One-eighth of the world’s population do not have clean water in their homes or sufficient food to feed their families.

These psychological needs are sometimes not met when there is no lack. Some parents use food deprivation as a punishment. Later in life, you may be driven to seek food even when your body isn’t hungry.

The modern research studied the effects of the potato famines in Ireland in the 19th century. They have concluded that a significant reason why people are obese in Ireland as a result of this famine. People are literally born with an innate drive to eat. It’s as if once exposed to famine we can never forget its effects!

Safety Needs

Safety basically means shelter. It involves some form of shelter from the elements. It means clothes and a sense of the familiar.

According to Maslow if you do not have money to be able to pay for the most basic of shelter, then your safety needs are not being met. You also need the necessary clothing which has to be warm enough for the climate you live in. This does not mean clothes that you buy by choice but the clothes that you need to have by necessity. You also need to have sufficient money to be able to provide the mechanisms to get food. That means access to shops or markets to pay for the food and pay for the transport there and back.

Many adults have a sense of psychological insecurity. They have a dread that something catastrophic is going to happen.

Also when things change in life, you feel unsafe and insecure. Major traumatic events such as divorce, or widowhood can have this effect. It can also be caused by losing your job.

Meeting your safety needs implies that you have a level of control over the events in your life. For instance, if you lose your job, you have some money behind you to pay the bills until you find another one.

Love and Belonging

A sense of belonging initially starts in a family environment. As you grow older and go to school, then it expands to friends, to your church, social groups, and any activities in a group setting.

In an ideal world as a child, you will be surrounded by unconditional love. You will have felt loved and cherished by multitudes of people. This acceptance will have nurtured you and allowed you to become a mentally stable adult.

When you have had this, you were able to give this on conditional love to other youngsters who are in need of guidance. You do not need to be bolstered by other people.

In the real world, your parents probably did their best. They may have been too young, too pressurized by lack of money or too immature to have given you that unconditional love. On the other hand, they may have been deprived of that unconditional love themselves and not know how to show it to other people list of all the children.

This is one of the reasons why as adults many of us fear to be alone. We feel accepted in social groups.

Esteem

We achieve the fourth level when we can begin to reflect on, acknowledge and be proud of what we have accomplished. It is the level when people start not only to accept us but to praise us and recognize our competences. It implies a level of achievement and a level of status. Once we have reached this level, we have begun to arrive!

Levels of Self-Esteem Control Our Behaviours

The level of self esteem that we have in our lives influences all of our public behaviors. These are the behaviors that are witnessed by others. Most adults need to seek the approval of others. We need to justify and validate our behaviors. Quite often this is a result of feeling slighted in childhood. This is a feeling all of us of experience to lesser and greater degrees.

The majority of people who use Facebook or Instagram or any other form of social media on a daily basis are actually begging for this self esteem. What they are asking people who follow them is “look at how great I am” and “acknowledge how great I am.”

This is because we are our own harshest self critics. Many of us judge ourselves exceptionally harshly. We display behavior towards ourselves which just would not be acceptable if we were to behave that way to others.

We lack self-compassion. To some extent, this comes from the accumulation of all the judgments during our growing up years. Our parents, grandparents, friends, peers and virtually everyone we’ve ever met has judged us.

At some point, all of these judgments are lacking, and they have made the mark on our subconscious.

What Do These First Four Levels Mean?

These first four levels are known as deficit needs. We are motivated and driven if we do not at least get these first four levels balanced in our lives.

Maslow himself stated that you needed certain freedoms to accomplish these levels. They include freedom of speech. The ability to express ourselves openly and be heard. Another important aspect is the ability and freedom to access new information.

However, these freedoms are external freedoms we need to look inside at internal freedoms to create change.

Tomorrow we will discuss the top needs in the Maslow hierarchy.

Refine Your Core Values To Unlock your Full Potential.

Refine Your Core Values To Unlock your Full Potential.

Personal Core Values Refined

Yesterday we discussed how to start to identify your core values. Personal core values refined is part of a discussion which began with an explanation of our ego and has gone on on a daily basis since.

Look at the two columns, the importance of the value and the actual level that you practice it in your everyday life. Write about five sentences about the discrepancy between the two numbers.

Identifying this discrepancy is the first step to rediscover your core values. You have always had core values even if the knowledge of them is buried deep inside yourself. You may have forgotten or are not aware they exist. They have always existed. The ethical thing to do is to isolate your core values and to integrate them with your everyday actions.

Your core values will help you in every aspect of your everyday choices.

Look at the differences you have written above and think about the differences. If the difference is merely one point or even two points, then you can work towards it. It’s more than this then it is unlikely to make a reasonable core value.

Narrow down the core values to 5 different values. Lay the list aside for 24 hours and then come back to it. Think of the three core values that would make you sick to the stomach if you contradict the principles behind them.

Once you have done this, you need to verify if these are the correct core values. Ask yourself the following questions.

1. Conscious Choice
Do I consciously choose these beliefs after careful consideration of what the words mean? Have I looked up the definition in either an online dictionary or a dictionary?

2. Have I Considered the Alternatives?
Have I carefully considered the alternatives before rejecting them. Those that I have dismissed have I done so out of laziness?

3. Am I Prepared to Honour These Beliefs?
Are you happy with the choices you have made and feel that you have made these choices freely with adequate consideration?

4. Am I Willing to Publicly Affirm These Values
Am I secure enough in these values, to stand up and declare that I live by these rules?

5. Am I Ready to Live by These Beliefs?
Not only am I prepared to live with these beliefs but am I ready to act on these beliefs to change the way I live my life. These beliefs will become my values and need to be repeated consistently on a daily basis.

Finally, write down these values. These are the values you are prepared to live by and the values that will give you fulfillment in life. In fact, you may find living by these values will provide you with the only true fulfillment.

Fulfillment is defined here as achieving our deepest desires and fully realizing our potential. As I mentioned a few days ago after years of angst, I realized I was frightened of fulfilling my full potential.

By our own efforts

We create a sense of purpose for ourselves and having worked out that this is my greatest fear, the fear literally fell away. In fact, it is ridiculous to think that I may be frightened of fulfilling my potential.

We all want to fulfill who we really are without fear or a sense of hopelessness, or unworthiness or powerlessness. Some lucky people will achieve this in their 20s, but it is never too late. A lot of people go through life without change and staying in their comfort zone. Eventually, the pain of staying what you are will motivate you to realize that you are not satisfied with the status quo.

You have probably known this fact for a long time and have had the sense of dissatisfaction for ages. However, there is a difference knowing that something is wrong and having the courage to do something about it.

Eventually, most of us realize that to search for our own meaning we have to look deep within ourselves. This internal retrospection motivates us ultimately to make those changes necessary. Don’t beat yourself up if this process has taken years. It took years for me. You may know people who achieved it in days weeks or months. So what? This is your journey and no one else’s.

You have all the time in the world. Time is not your problem. To achieve your full potential, you need to bring balance into your life.

Looking inside yourself creates balance. Aspects you are searching for personal growth, learning, being healthy and also spiritualism. Developing insights into these areas all come from looking inwards.

Your ego will always force you to look outwards for satisfaction.

 

This journey is not a race against time or anything else. It is your journey, and in or respects it has been going on since the beginning of time and will continue indefinitely.

You have all the time you need to achieve your full potential. Your biggest enemy will be your ego. The ego always wants you to look externally for your satisfaction in life. It is trying to protect you, but it doesn’t live in the present. It cannot know that the things it is trying to protect you from more important when you were a child but are not necessarily important now.

It doesn’t want us to face our limiting beliefs or habitual thinking patterns, because in doing so it will force us to change our perspective on life. We would have to accept responsibility for all our actions.

Once you take this step the power of the ego will be reduced, and it will in time become redundant. Don’t make the mistake of ever thinking you can get rid of ego; you can’t it is part of your personality. However, you can minimize its importance.

The results of looking inwards ultimately mean that we feel joy, unconditional love, and gratitude for the life we lead. Because we have expanded our potential in the way, we think we are more open to new ideas and challenges. It is this falling away from limiting beliefs and opening our hearts that will allow us to fulfill our full potential.

Identifying Personal Core Values

Identifying Personal Core Values

Identifying Personal Core Values

Identifying Personal Core Values

What Are Your Core Values?

Your core values are principles or a belief that is of critical importance to your life. You need to identify them because when you acknowledge them they can guide you. Adhering to these core values will dictate the way you behave in every aspect of your life. Not defining them will in the long term have an adverse effect on your life. Defining them in this way is defining the positive aspects of core values

Examples of core values are things such as

Calmness
Loyalty
Peace
Trustworthiness

Of course, some core values can be detrimental. When you define your negative core values, you can change them. Examples of negative core values are only the strong will survive. You may believe that you are powerless to change your circumstances. Because of your upbringing, you may think that you don’t deserve good things in life. You may believe that people are grasping or untrustworthy. You may even think that your life is worthless.

Negative belief systems are no more permanent than positive belief systems. By becoming aware of the ideas in your head that become thoughts, you can change the way you think.

In conclusion, our core values highlight what is important to us and what we stand for. It is essential that we isolate and stand by these principles. When we don’t, we find ourselves overwhelmed in many different ways. Some people will display neurotic or compulsive behaviors. They are driven to do things all the time whether it be work or play. They are addicted to many things, food, drink, social media, their cell phone etcetera

Many people fear that if they stop they will have to think about and examine where they are in their lives. When you don’t identify your core beliefs, you coast through life and flounder rather than flourish. A diminished self worth is not uncommon.

Are Core Values Different From Society’s Values?

Yes, they are very different. Society’s values are defined by what is beneficial to your culture rather than helpful to you as an individual person. For instance, cultural values may include power, money or success.

While these things may be necessary to you, they don’t define who you really are. Chasing external power will prevent you from growing as an individual. Your individual core values will allow you to improve and achieve anything that you want.

Power in society’s terms comes from external forces such as being a local councilor, being a judge or any other paid or unpaid position that theoretically gives you status.

You cannot find your core values in anything that society teaches you. Neither St George nor the Dragon holds the key. The answer is within yourself. Only you can find it!

By the time you have defined your core values, you will not have reached the end of your journey. Hopefully, the process will have changed you. You will enter uncharted territory. It will, however, be your territory. This is your story and no one else’s.

How to Define Your Core Values

Look at the list of core values below. They are under headings. The more deeply you think about what these words mean to you, the better it will be. This exercise aims to isolate the three values that you want to live by.

Acceptance
Accomplishment
Accountability
Accuracy
Achievement
Adaptability
Altruism
Ambition
Assertiveness
Attentive
Awareness

Balance
Beauty
Boldness
Bravery
Brilliance

Calmness
Candor
Capable
Careful
Celebration
Certainty
Challenge
Charity
Cleanliness
Cleverness
Comfort
Commitment
Common sense
Community
Compassion
Competence
Concentration
Confidence
Connection
Consciousness
Consistency
Contentment
Contribution
Control
Conviction
Cooperation
Courage
Courtesy
Creation
Creativity
Credibility
Curiosity

Decisiveness
Dedication
Delight
Dependability
Determination
Development
Devotion
Dignity
Discipline
Discovery
Drive

Efficiency
Empathy
Emotion
Emotional Intelligence
Empowerment
Endurance
Enjoyment
Enthusiasm
Equality
Ethical
Excellence
Excitement
Experience
Expressive

Fairness
Family
Fearless
Feelings
Ferocious
Fidelity
Focus
Foresight
Fortitude
Freedom
Friendship
Fun

Generosity
Genuineness
Giving
Grace
Gratitude
Greatness
Growth

Happiness
Hard work
Harmony
Health
Honesty
Honor
Hope
Humility

Imagination
Improvement
Independence
Individuality
Innovation
Inquisitive
Insightful
Inspiring
Integrity
Intelligence
Intensity
Intuitive

Joy
Jubilance
Justice

Kindness
Knowledge

Lawfulness
Leadership
Learning
Liberty
Logic
Love
Loyalty

Maturity
Meaning
Moderation
Money
Motivation

Notoriety

Open Mindedness
Optimism
Order
Organization
Originality

Passion
Patience
Peace
Peacefulness
Performance
Persistence
Playfulness
Poise
Potential
Power
Productivity
Professionalism
Prosperity
Purpose

Realism
Realistic
Reason
Recognition
Reflective
Reliability
Respect
Responsibility
Restraint
Reverence
Rigor
Risk
Risk Taking

Satisfaction
Security
Self-reliance
Selflessness
Sensitivity
Serendipity
Serenity
Service
Sharing
Significance
Silence
Simplicity
Sincerity
Skillfulness
Smartness
Solitude
Spirit
Spirituality
Spontaneous
Stability
Status
Stewardship
Strength
Structure
Success
Support
Surprise
Sustainability

Talent
Teamwork
Temperance
Thankfulness
Thoroughness
Thoughtfulness
Timelessness
Timeliness
Tolerance
Toughness
Traditional
Tranquility
Transparency
Trust
Trustworthy
Truth

Understanding
Uniqueness
Unity

Valor
Victory
Vigor
Vitality

Wealth
Welcoming
Winning
Wisdom
Wonder

Zealousness

 

These are not values that you would like to live by, and they are values that are fundamental to your very existence. It is crucial that you choose the correct values because these are the values you will live by. You will struggle and find it difficult if they really are not your beliefs.

The first step to defining personal core values. It goes without saying that these words are merely a guideline. You are entirely at liberty to reduce them or add to them or change them. Don’t forget they are your personal core values and they must resonate with you, not with anyone else.

Write down a minimum of 10 of these words and a maximum of 20. Next, to it write down how important they are to you. Write it down on a scale of 1 to 10. The number one is the least important and the number 10 is the most important.

In the third column write down how difficult you will find it to live by these words. Again writing a one will mean it will be relatively easy, but 10 means living by this value could be difficult.

In the fourth column write down how much you practice this trait every day as a matter of course.

Tomorrow we will talk about refining this list down to a shorter list of five and then to a core list of three.

Born Free

Born Free

Born Free

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains”
Jean Jacques Rousseau

My freedom can never be the same as your freedom. But the essence of freedom is a universal truth. If you can live free, then you can learn to experience life fully.

Freedom is full of surprises. Laughter bubbles up inside of you spontaneously and for absolutely no reason. You can dare to say what you think and what you feel honestly. At the same time, you are not afraid of listening to other people who think differently.

Listening to the views of people who think differently from yourself doesn’t threaten your security. This is because you are secure enough and authentic enough to know what your own core beliefs are and you stick with them.

One thing that freedom has brought for me is the fact that I can live in the universe and trust in myself, even though I may not understand either.

I don’t have to conform to other people’s rules. Security in myself allows me to make my own rules. The power to live free has freed me from the addiction of alcohol. Also as I continue my spiritual journey, it has become more important what I eat.

 

Eating Clean Is a Liberating Experience

 

For the last month or so I have transferred my diet to raw food. Most days I eat hundred percent raw. Yesterday, it was freezing, and I felt the need for hot food. I had the usual raw breakfast, raw lunch and a huge raw salad for dinner. I also had a three egg mushroom omelet.

Still it was clean food and also avoiding carbohydrates except those found in fruit and veg. I no longer eat potatoes, pasta, bread, rice. This cleaner food has improved my spiritual connection. I have also made every day some alkaline water. I add fresh organic lemons and lime to tap water which has been boiled and cooled. Then I add 1/2 an organic cucumber peeled and handfuls of fresh herbs. Any soft herb will work well.

Liberation does give you more challenges. That might seem a bit of double edge sword. Greater synchronicity is an advantage, and it makes it easier to follow your path and your life’s purpose. Without this knowledge from synchronicity, it is all so easy to follow your shadow life. On the other hand, there are more challenges because you want to achieve. My eyes are now open opened to what I can achieve what I want to achieve. I have now to overcome the challenges to make this a reality.

 

The Choices

 

The choices that I have made towards freedom of thought have resulted in personal growth. A conscious effort towards expanding our outlook on life requires a clear conception of who we are and what we want.

Some people understand personal growth as more time to pursue their own interests and live life as they see fit. Fortunately, I have done that all my life so that was not my challenge.

I wanted to understand myself better. It was important to me to be authentic to my true self and find out my core values.

I also wanted to expand my consciousness. I wanted to be a channel for higher energies. I also wanted to understand more fully my life’s purpose. To do that I had to connect with myself.

When I was ready to do these things it was strange how easy it was to do. It was hard to believe how fear and complacency could hold me back for so long.

In the end, my desire to prove I had a new identity as a widow, rather than a wife drove me forward. I wanted to contribute something of value to other people.

Appreciation and Joy

Living free has given me a sense that I can give things away and appreciate things. A few days ago I was walking home with a bunch of flowers. It wasn’t a large bunch. It was for a small arrangement. The colors were magnificent a deep red. A little girl of about eight stopped me and said: “your flowers are beautiful.” I asked if she really thought so and she said yes. So, I gave them to her.

She looked delighted, but her mother looked embarrassed. She said to me that the child didn’t mean she wanted them. I laughed and said, “that doesn’t mean she can’t have them.”

I knew that by the very act of giving I would have more things given to me. It’s an acknowledgment that the universe will provide everything I need in life. A random act of kindness gave me great joy.

Learning to live free is starting to give me more balance in my life. It has increased synchronicity so that I know what I want to do. Eventually it will in time give me more confidence, happiness, and success.

It will also give me some conflict. I know that when those adverse situations occur, I will have to make a choice. I will have to decide whether to go along on my chosen path or whether to reassess the situation. Either way, I am in control. It is my choice when I decide to do.

The Driving Forces

What drives me to do this is the fact that since being widowed I have become very insular. I am sure that this is a normal part of grieving. However, in my case, it has meant days if not weeks isolated and alone. I haven’t minded this at all! In fact, I’ve enjoyed it, but eventually, my outward circumstances must change.

Tomorrow I will discuss how to define your core values so that you can change the way you think and learn to live freely. It will be a challenge, but you will find it in the long term highly rewarding. You will find peace and contentment that you hadn’t realized was missing from your life.

Living Free For Growth

Living Free For Growth

What Living Free Means

When I was younger I thought living free meant living in a country with an elected government, the freedom to be free to speak your mind. The freedom to have a passport as of right, and the freedom to travel wherever and whenever you wanted to. There was a bit more to it than that, but I was thinking along those lines. The concept of Living Free For Growth, never entered my mind

Today, I realize that those definitions of living free are external freedoms. That realization led to a quest for inner freedom, this journey began three years ago. In the process, I have become liberated from self-doubt and fear. I do appreciate it is still a work in progress, but most of the time I enjoy that inner freedom. I am learning to trust my inner voice and my instincts and just be.

The rare times that fear does grip me, I am in a much better placed to deal with it. I can immediately change the way I think. That in itself was so liberating.

 

The results

Three fabulous results have come about with this work, and that is in no particular order-

Compassion – An increased compassion for everything.

Understanding what really frightens me.more of this later

Personal growth

Freedom for me now is not an ideal it is a living experience and a living journey. The quantum leap to freedom didn’t happen accidentally.

First of all, I practiced meditating daily every morning and every evening. From the very beginning of my journey, I managed to manifest the best people to help me. That made things a lot easier. None the less it was a steep learning curve, and I had to quickly and accurately what was true and what wasn’t.

Gradually my meditation techniques got better and after a year or maybe more, the synchronicity started to happen, My journey has not been linear it has involved steps forward and back. Only last week I had a breakthrough, a quantum leap into the world the other side of the veil.

One thing which always managed to elude me was what I was most afraid of? I looked and searched inside myself to no avail. That question cost me so much pain and angst I couldn’t believe it. Nor could I understand why I couldn’t uncover it. Then like all breakthroughs the answer came like a bolt out of the blue. No pain, no tension no struggle, just the answer.

The answer was so deceptively simple. I could not for the life of me understand why it had caused me so much pain and fear.

What Was I So Afraid Of?

Believe it or not, I was afraid of my potential. Not even fulfilling my potential just my potential.

As always with these breakthroughs, the universe conspires to give you the answer when you are ready. To be truthful I think it’s ready to give it to you all along, but you are not ready to receive it. However, when it does deliver, it knocks the door down.

Firstly I met Pamela Aaralyn in London a few weeks ago, and she recommended that we sing the ho’oponopono. I had always said it but never sung it. I tried to sing it, but I found I couldn’t make a note. The reasons why you can read in the next few paragraphs

Secondly, I met a new lady at my Saturday morning meditation classes. After class, we were talking about a few of us going to choir practice to learn to sing. I happened to say that I was asked to stop singing in school when I was about 11. The singing teacher told me to mime and never as long as I lived to sing another note.

F, the new lady said that as I was telling her the story she had a vision in her head of a jealous teacher. She could not bear the joy in my voice and shut me up!

A few days later I had a health kinesiology session with my teacher, and I had no specific issue to work on. She said we will work out what the body wants to work on, and there is always something to work on.

It turned out that the issue I needed to correct was “having no voice” I had several corrections to make one of them involved putting magnets on my throat. The process unusually for health kinesiology was extremely uncomfortable. I can’t say it was painful, but it did feel bizarre and uncomfortable.

The Breakthrough

So it was after these three events that the blinding flash of honesty about what frightened me came to light.

Don’t despair if you are working toward spiritual enlightenment. It doesn’t happen overnight it happens with practice. The critical thing to realize is to set aside the time to practice your meditation. None of us are born with the ability to shut down our thoughts for half an hour at a time, or more.

The only way we can really find out about ourselves is to go through this introspection. The answer will be different for all of us in the process will not be the same for any of this. Nonetheless, as a rough guide, the same principles apply to all. You need to look inwards and find your own truths!

I’m not too Into routines of having to do things the same way blah de blah, rituals are part of the programming. They don’t help!

Be Authentic

One thing I have learned you have to trust yourself to be able to answer what you need. To do that you need 1st to look inside yourself and see where your feelings and emotions are coming from. After that, you have to learn to control those thoughts.

By controlling the ideas that you have in your head and reducing the number of negative things that you say to yourself. Words like won’t, can’t, shan’t et cetera. Once you have control of these words and think more positive words, then you change your emotions.

You don’t have to be on a spiritual journey to understand this! Although I guess if you’re reading this far into my blog you have been reading for some time and are on a spiritual journey. You know that when you cry with sadness, you feel very heavy. It makes your eyes ache in your head thump. When you are laughing, or that is still giggling you feel light. It’s the same principle here change the way you think and looks inside, and eventually, you will learn and earn the freedom to live life on your own terms.