11. How to change the content of your subconscious!
Everything I have ever done in my life …
...was good, right and at that time the only possible action for me to take!
I know that for many people this is not acceptable and seems totally egocentric, like wishful thinking and as if it were completely devoid of reality.
But I would like to encourage you today to think about this carefully, and first of all from your own perspective.
Let's first consider the actions of your past which you see as wrong from today's perspective.
So you look back and think: I should have done it differently back then...
But now you try to remember exactly.
Could you have done it differently?
Of course I wasn't there but I would claim very definitely that you simply couldn't have done it differently! It simply wasn't possible because you believed that what you were doing was good, right or, at the very least, necessary!
You were simply not in a position to do anything else!
I know that this all sounds very confusing because people have told you differently all your life: your parents, your teachers, the media. Every day you hear how people acted incorrectly. But if you think about it carefully, you will see that I'm right; logic is on my side. If you accept this fact then your life will become ever better because you will be free of the very bad habit of judging and damning yourself!
We can prove this claim by going back to a time when you once arrived somewhere late.
This is easy and quite universal: everyone has been late at some point in their lives.
Let's say you planned to meet a friend. You got ready, looked at the clock and noticed that you still had some time to do something else. In that time you did indeed do something else. When you finally took off for the meeting you realized that you were not going to make it on time after all.
Now you could feel guilty and tell yourself: I should have left earlier! But be honest, when you looked at the clock you thought that you would have enough time!
You thought you still had enough time!
You should simply realize that that is the way it was! It is rather simplistic to think: I should have...
At that moment you thought it wasn't yet time to leave! For this reason you couldn't act! Of course you know sayings about other topics such as: He should have for once thought of...
Have you ever thought about how illogical this is? How should he have thought of something when he at that moment didn't think of that?
The moment a person says: I will do that! He does not have the chance of doing it any differently.
Another example: imagine you are at a restaurant and you have ordered a meal you love, but it doesn't taste as good as you expected and, feeling disappointed, you tell yourself: I should have ordered the special! Do you realize how nonsensical this regret is?
You made your choice because at that moment you thought it was right, it was therefore the only action you were capable of!
And this can be the case for any situation in your life! Even in circumstances which you are still ashamed of today. You did what you did because at that second you thought it was a good decision otherwise you wouldn't have done it!
This is also true of occasions when you have verbally abused someone; even physical violence counts!
At that moment you thought it was the right thing to do. It could be that a few seconds later you already felt sorry because you saw the consequences of your actions!
Do this as often as you want, go into your past and think back to those situations; if you are truly honest with yourself, if you make an effort to give up old clichés and caring about strangers' opinions and to simply see things without bias, then you will realize that there is no situation in which you could have done things differently!
Anyone who denies this is caught up in a thought pattern which doesn't allow objectivity due to their upbringing and programming.
Even a reflex action or emotional outburst couldn't have happened differently, since this was done on the basis of your imprint.
And this doesn't mean that one person is better or worse than another. Everyone does what they think is right. It's just that some earn more approval than others or more criticism than others, and these are merely expressions of opinions. One view is not more correct for this reason, just because more people share it.
So, if this is true for you, then of course it must be true for others as well. I know that this is a difficult lesson, but others – just like you – have judged their actions to be good, right or at least necessary at the moment they did them, otherwise they wouldn't have done them.