A Counseling Blog: Helping You Help Yourself 

November 29, 2009 8:13am

Imagination: Swami Beyondananda for Some Good Laughs!

His bio reads: Steve Bhaerman is an internationally known author, humorist, and workshop leader. For the past 18 years, he has written and performed as Swami Beyondananda, the “Cosmic Comic.” Swami’s comedy has been called “irreverently uplifting” and has been described both as “comedy disguised as wisdom” and “wisdom disguised as comedy".

As the Swami, Steve is the author of four books, Driving Your Own Karma, When You See a Sacred Cow, Milk It For All It’s Worth, Duck Soup for the Soul, and his latest, Swami for Precedent: A 7-Step Plan to Heal the Body Politic and Cure Electile Dysfunction.

I am writing about Steve because I will get the chance to go see him perform next month and am very much looking forward to it. How nice to get an opportunity to have some good laughs in a manner that I love, combining laughter with spirituality and just plain having fun with any topic. 

It is so important for all of us to remember to have fun and laugh, to go out of our way to experience this form of healing. Laughter helps to destress the body and mind leaving your muscles relaxed for up to an hour afterwards.

It boosts your immune system, helping to rid the body of stress hormones. It releases endorphins for a better sense of well being and temporarily relieves pain. It even improves blood vessel function and increases blood flow to the heart.

And of course when you are laughing, you stop thinking, so it gives you a break from your mind. When you are listening and or watching something funny it helps you to stay focused in the moment. 

Just looking at his website and the unique and refreshingly humorous approach to everything, I am already laughing. I encourage you all to have a look at his website: www.wakeuplaughing.com. It should put a smile on your face. 

Then go find other sources for laughter and make it part of your daily ritual. Find something, anything to make you laugh for at least a few minutes every day. When you think about and make choices on how you want to exercise, what healthy foods to eat, and now laughter...what will make you laugh today!

Add comments

November 26, 2009 12:15pm

Appreciation: Happy Thanksgiving to Me and You!

I really do like bucking the trend. Today is the day where we are supposed to focus on giving thanks for so many blessings in our lives. But have you ever noticed how we are all reminded to be thankful and appreciate what we have. That's all very nice and all, but then how are people supposed to feel when they don't have those things anymore?

If you have recently lost your home, job, financial support, a loved one, etc., it is particularly difficult to be grateful and appreciative. Yes, we can still acknowledge what is good in our lives, but lets think differently about where we place our focus. Lets use today to look inside ourselves.

When you teach yourself to be grateful for yourself, the external gratitude falls into place. If you do not love and appreciate yourself all the other stuff does not matter. You can be grateful until you are blue in the face, but unless you have a loving place inside of you to come home to, that gratitude can easily fade away.

So many people are without that ability to see the delicious goodness in themselves. There is so much self hatred and even more self judgment. Yet life gives us a continuous parade of experiences to give us opportunities to break these habits, because that is all they really are. 

Somebody has taught you somewhere down the line what to think of yourself. Use today to question the validity of what you think is true. Unless you were taught to fully love and appreciate yourself, then what you were told, what you learned about yourself IS NOT TRUE!

You have incredible value that you have never learned about or have been taught to cover up with these untruths. Regardless of your age it is never too late to rip off these horrible beliefs about yourself. There is such freedom and joy in changing your internal beliefs. But you have to make that choice, no-one can do it for you.

Today, on Thanksgiving day, lets put our heads together and be thankful for the endless opportunities to learn and grow. Every experience that you have can teach you something about yourself. There are good things in there, but if you don't know how to look for them yet, the help is here to teach you how.

I am grateful for my own life experiences that have led me to be able to help you. I am grateful for every ounce of pain that I went through because my path has led me to right here. I am grateful that I have enough love and confidence in myself to honor my uniqueness and bare my soul if I think it can help even just one person.

I am grateful that I have been able to turn my life around and I want to teach anyone who wants to know how to do this in their own lives. I am grateful for you and your continued support in what I do.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

Add comments

November 23, 2009 5:09pm

Quotation: When an Important Message is Confirmed

Given my earlier postings this month about my endless list of things to do, I thought that my Sunday astrological forecast from my favorite site cainer.com was too much fun not to share:

"You have a long list of things to organize, sort out and be responsible for. You will make pleasing progress, provided you follow what you feel truly inclined to do rather than paying more attention to some notion about what you 'ought' to be doing. 'Ought to?' Ought to according to whom? A sense of inspiration is a fine thing. Not so, a sense of guilt or obligation. Duty done in a spirit of willing enthusiasm is always constructive. But if it is done for the wrong reason, how can it ever have the right result? Be spontaneous, relaxed and willing to 'play' with all that now seems so serious. You've far less reason to worry than you think."

This flows together so nicely with the messages I keep giving about how important it is to stop creating stress for ourselves. But we can only do that if we first becomes of aware of how this happens and is being played out in our own lives. 

We keep being told and the idea keeps being reinforced that the source of our stress is out there somewhere. But the only thing that that accomplishes is to keep us victimized. Stress is an internal result of an outward perception.

For so many people these days life is crazy and it doesn't appear to be getting any easier or slowing down anytime soon. There are just too many things outside of our control. Feeling stressed is in your control. You can choose to not feel stressed! But you have to learn how to do this.

In a world that promotes and supports the belief in stress, it can feel like you are swimming against a strong current. But as soon as you give up fighting and go with the current you realize that the current ends up taking you to where you were fighting to get to in the first place! It is one of those strange paradoxes.

But it is understandable that by not being stressed and exhausted you can make better choices, you work more efficiently, you make and take the time to rest, and recharge your batteries. You are in a better position to notice and take advantage of obscure opportunities. You have more fun and life becomes more enjoyable even with all its challenges!

This really is about your self value and taking care of yourself. It is about loving yourself enough that you make some radically different choices than the next person. Mr. Cainer is right, when you think about most of your beliefs, they are true according to whom? What nonsense that we still do as we are told to do at our ages, however old you happen to be. 

Time to question all those nonsensical and harmful beliefs! Stressed? No way!  Choose clever, creative, resourceful, dynamic, and any other word that you can think of. Let chaos fall around you while you remain at peace within yourself in this crazy world! It can be done and I challenge you to try it!

Add comments

November 20, 2009 2:57pm

Gratification: And Why Can't I Have "That"?

Sometimes events just don't make any sense until they fully play themselves out. We moved in January and a few months afterwards I realized that I couldn't find my passport. I was sure that I had given my husband the responsibility of putting it in a safe place before the move. Absolutely positive about that one.

Well, we could not find it anywhere, despite turning the house inside out at least three times. No problem, just a small inconvenience to apply for a new one. Okay, maybe more than small, a bit fussy even, but it was still a solution. I just needed to find the various documentation to file with the application.

Well, could you see this one coming? Despite turning the house inside out another three times, we couldn't find the other paperwork supporting that I was who I was. Boy was I even more sure than ever now that my better half did not live up to his duties. And look at the inconvenience and stress this was now causing me!

As I contemplated what I needed to do to replace the now most basic paperwork, I have to admit to just ignoring it for the next few months even with the regular prodding of my husband that I would eventually need to deal with this. I would just agree and not do anything other think about it for all of a minute.

I am usually a master at finding anything. I can generally easily find what is "lost". I consider it a game even. My success rate is typically very, very high. But this one stumped me. But I just knew deep in my gut that this all was somewhere in the house. It was such a strong feeling that it was not lost or stolen and that it really did not need to get replaced. I also knew that I had to let go of my obsession with blaming my husband and for trying to think it through logically.

There is a parallel story happening in the meantime. For almost a decade I used to have long beautiful nails. You know the ones where other women look at them, usually with narrowed eyes, asking "your nails are beautiful...are they yours?" To which the answer generally was: "of course they are mine, I paid for them"!

After a while of paying for them, I decided that I could do them myself, especially since I was traveling a lot at that time. So I bought all the materials I needed. After a few times I actually got quite good at it, even if it did take me 3 hours. I loved the results and the ability to have them done regardless of where I was!

Eventually I had to stop, since I was doing so many physically active things that stressed the nails that they became a problem, even to the point of damaging the natural nail. The nail kit got tucked away into a dark corner many years ago. 

Fast forward not to the present moment, but shortly after our move in January. All that packing and getting rid of years of accumulated stuff had done a number on my natural nails. They were just so short and not very attractive. I really missed having my long, lovely nails! But I would not risk hurting myself again. Plus I just didn't have a spare 3 hours to spend on them every 3 weeks.

Besides, my nails would grow long in the warmth and sunshine we had moved to...right? Wrong! As months went by, if anything, my nails were getting nicked and scratched and I had to keep filing them so short it was figuratively painful to see. Wanting to do my nails again started to become a strong itch. 

But I kept telling myself, Ewa, do you remember the problems you had before? Remember having your nails catching and get ripped back? The gel lifting from the nails and popping off? The nail bed itself separating from the skin with the constant moisture? If you do your nails again that is what you will end up with.

Fast forward again to a week ago. My nails were progressively getting even shorter, which at this point was becoming literally painful because even though they were so short that there was no white at the tips, I was still getting nicks and gouges that I could only file down past the growing nail bed, which hurt like heck. But if I didn't file them they would catch on things and hurt like heck.

I finally reached the end of my rope. Problems with fake nails be damned! I couldn't live with nails shorter than my nail beds! Between the pain and seeing other girlfriends with their long beautiful nails it was just too much. I was going to throw caution to the wind and do my nails again. I didn't even know if my nail products would still even be usable they were so old.

Well, there is a reason why I have been going on and on about a seemingly unimportant, even frivolous aspect of my life. Because this is really a lesson about when you really focus on what you want, without fear, doubts, or judgment, you are given opportunities to get what you want, usually in an unexpected form. But only if you do not judge the direction in which you are being guided.

You see, I had a lot of judgments and fears about doing my nails again, including it appearing vain. I should feel valued and beautiful without them, they would be a health risk, I will have problems again, etc. All fear based assumptions that stopped me from having what I actually loved....long nails and the ultra feminine look that comes with them.

It was as if the universe gave up guiding (because of my judgments I wouldn't do it and stopped listening) and  conspired to push, push harder, really strongly push me, and then get to a point where it finally had to create pain for me to push me into choosing to do my nails again. So are you (still) thinking "so what, what are you telling us this for...?"

I am telling you this story because when I finally took out the materials to do my nails, lo and behold, at the very bottom of the pretty deep blue bag with white flowers scattered on it, was not only my passport, but all the missing supporting documents. I was dumbfounded!

It all came flooding back. We had already packed up the important papers deeply into the moving truck. I didn't want to carry everything on me as we traveled so I had sought out and thought of a brilliant hiding spot, where no-one would ever find them. And I mean no-one, obviously not even me! It was brilliant! Mmm hmm, be careful what you wish for!

Many lessons learned here. Had I done what I really wanted to do, my nails that is, I would have found my passport right around the time I had first started to look for it. Instead I allowed myself to believe in all the fears from my past about doing my nails. In fact, I had decided that I would have the same experience as before.

Do you realize how often you make a choice because your subconscious mind has decided what your experience will be in advance? We define our current moment based on our past experiences far more than we realize, usually to our detriment.

I thought about the many fears and judgments as I sat and did my nails for the first time in about 5 years. I openly questioned each fear and assumption that my mind had about why I shouldn't do it and addressed every concern with new and realistic information along with different action. That included putting the nails on slightly differently, slowing down and being more careful using my hands, wearing gloves when cleaning etc. I'm okay with that added effort. More awareness really.

So look in your own life to see where you have convinced yourself that you should not do something or that you can't do something and really question the validity of your arguments. If you want something, you can just as easily think of a dozen reasons why you should and can do it as you can think of why not.

Listen to those whispers in your ear and in your heart. Listen, before they turn into a loud voice, a yelling voice, a slap in the head and then the proverbial 2 by 4 to get you to listen! The voices in your head are the ones who are suspect and not the voices of reason like they claim. 

By the way...my nails look great and I couldn't be happier! They took only 2 hours to do with the added bonus of not having to replace my passport! What a gift!

....and of course their mine! 

Add comments

November 17, 2009 11:21am

Capitulation: Letting Go of Yet Another Form of Control

It seems that the recurring theme for me is learning how to better manage the overwhelming feelings of what needs to get done in my life. I have had to let go of the stress and open up to creative solution finding. This means I had to let go of some old beliefs, no matter how great I thought they were.

Case in point is my monthly Ezine. Some months I just don't seem to be able to find the time to write it. I myself made this a monthly goal and it seemed a great idea when I did. Easy even. Until life kept getting in the way that is!

I am sure that there are very many people who know what I am talking about. We all have the best laid plans and intentions. We start out all gung ho and then slowly the obstacles start to appear along the road we have chosen. 

These obstacles take on the form of lack of time, money, energy, or focus, stress, too much to do, too many pressures, etc. Instead of fighting a losing battle and falling further and further behind, sometimes we just need to change our strategy.

With my monthly Ezine I came to the realization that there just will be some months where I will not publish it. This suddenly stops the daily obsession over finding time to do it. Instead, it falls back into a balance of being something that is supposed to be enjoyable for me, a creative process, a process of sharing.

If I hadn't changed my priorities and beliefs about how the Ezine should take shape, then I would have started to become resentful of the time it took to create it. Each one of us has to be very careful when it comes to our perspective on what we think we need to do. 

We have to remember that life is supposed to be enjoyable, that even the day to day mundane things that we do can still contribute to making us feel good. It depends on how you look at things. You have to find your own creative ways to take the pressure off of yourself. No one else is putting that pressure on you.

It is your beliefs that create the pressure, so examine them and you will be surprised at the solutions that you can come up with. I will still get a wonderful Ezine out and I will enjoy the process, whether it takes me one two or three months. I have to make the choice to stop creating undue stress for myself.

Look in your own life to see where you have created a standard that can be altered, even the ones that you previously believed could not be changed. What meaning does it have for you and what judgment do you have on yourself if you do not meet that standard or goal? Change the judgment and meaning first to release the pressure that you have been putting on yourself.

Then make a different choice, changing how you are doing something, the time frame, the expectation, the form that you had been expecting...allow your creative side to help find new solutions for you. 

All my Ezines used to have the date on them and seeing the dates or gaps in the dates acted as a reminder of my not meeting the monthly goal. I recently removed the dates because I realized that they had a relevance and meaning that just was not important. However many Ezines I can create in a year is how many I will create.  

Now it's your turn to look at the things that are creating pressure for you and then finding ways to change the meaning and importance of them. We are all doing the best that we can given the tools that we have to work with and with the challenges that each of us have. Make life easier on yourself.

Add comments

November 14, 2009 11:58am

Justification: How Past Pain and Hurt Appear to be Real

If a person experiences pain from their past, how can that happen when the event that caused the pain is long gone? It just does not add up when you think about it logically. It's the equivalent of breaking a bone and years or decades later saying that you still feel the same pain now as you did when it was broken!

It is impossible to have the same pain now as when an event occurred. So why do so many people still feel so deeply emotionally hurt about their pasts? What happens in a persons brain where there is this illogical connection? To that person the pain is very, very real. These words could even likely offend them.

A person who feels deep pain from their past is convinced without a doubt that their pain is real. It is very real to them. Some would fight to their death to defend that belief. But realistically, the event that caused the pain is long gone in most situations. But the pain mysteriously remains.

To look at it logically, the brain is very much like a computer. The information that it was fed (that a person experienced) is imprinted in the pathways of the brain, especially traumatic events. Every time a person refers to that memory, all the emotions that occurred at that time are still there with it.  

The subconscious mind does not distinguish between the past and the present moment. It only provides you with the information or "data files" that are currently there. It pulls up the memory for you and plops it into your conscious mind. It does not know that the memory is not really happening in the moment.

This is why people can feel the same way they did about an event, whether it was 1 minute ago or 50 years ago! The brain needs to be fed new data and given a new file to understand that the past is the past and is no longer relevant in the current moment. But that is just the start because it is a little more complicated than that.

If a person is used to feeling pain from the past, they have not thought to question whether or not the hurt is valid anymore. It's just a part of them that they assume is normal to feel. No one has taught them otherwise. Many people do not even know that they have an option to not feel hurt. To contemplate not feeling this can actually bring up much fear, because then who are they without that pain?

Questioning pain from the past can bring up existential angst. If the pain isn't real, then all the beliefs that supported the pain and feeling hurt are now threatened to be exposed as invalid. That can be terrifying. In fact that fear can cause a person to hang on even more tightly to their beliefs than before.

Those first few steps can be very precarious. Is a person really ready to examine and redefine life as they understand it? There is a huge unknown looming in front of them. What if that unknown has the potential to bring even more hurt than what they have already experienced? That is enough to stop some people from ever changing. Sheer terror and fear of more pain, whether it is there or not.

Yet, if a person takes even the smallest step towards examining the incredible capacity of the mind and to clearly understand how it works, then that power can be harnessed not to remind them of the hurt form their past, but to experience life radically differently, without any pain at all. Ever. 

From one extreme to the other. It's your choice.

Add comments

November 11, 2009 10:24pm

Foundation: Rediscovering My Own Balance in Life

It seems like instead of being able to cross things off my endless to do list, that more and more things get added to it instead. I have gone through various stages of trying to deal with this giant list and the inevitable pressures that come with it. All the various strategies that I have tried haven't seemed to work very well!

I have tried putting more time into work and less into play; I've tried prioritizing,  reprioritizing, unprioritizing(!), delegating, crossing things off, working harder, faster, stronger.....and my list still grows ever longer. I have not tried running away, but it is oh so very tempting to contemplate it!

Finally, after all these unsuccessful strategies, I am trying giving up. Not in a defeatist way, but the giving up that comes with understanding that I can't control everything and make it work the way I think it should. I need balance in my life. I need to be able to play, to take time off and just do nothing once in a while, to spend time with the people that are important to me, to spend down time with me.

Some things (many things) will just have to wait and get pushed down the list. Understanding that the list will always be there and that there will always be many things on it helps. Thinking that it will ever get fully completed is just not realistic.

Sometimes my blog will  have to wait, the house will not get cleaned as often, meals will be simpler, time spent doing various things will be shorter...I will do what I need to do to maintain balance. What is most important is that I take care of myself. If I am not happy, my list will torture me. I am not okay with that.

Nothing is so important that I choose to be anything other than balanced and happy. It really is a choice and sometimes I have to remind myself to choose it over and over. I have become even more vocal about what I need and want, I say no more often, I ask for help even when I don't think I need it. And it is all okay. 

Living with even the smallest amount of stress is not acceptable to me. There is no need for it. Think of a warrior, with his body in a state of relaxed preparedness. That is what I want to achieve. If I feel stress in my body I work hard to first redefine it in my mind while using deep relaxed breathing to settle my body.

Stress robs me of the energy I need. Stress just creates more stress, as if it needs it to feed on. Being relaxed and ready keeps me fluid and far more able to adapt to the inevitable challenges. Like writing this blog late at night instead of adding it to the to do list in the morning!

The bottom line is that I will use my intuition more and more to guide me to make the choices that will lead me to an ever deeper peace of mind. My personal challenge of my magically never ending to do list has become another incredible opportunity to learn and grow. I am grateful for it!

Add comments

November 8, 2009 8:36pm

Imagination: A Mind Without Fear....

One day an old German Shepherd starts chasing rabbits and before long, discovers that he's lost. Wandering about, he notices a panther heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

The old dog thinks 'Oh, oh! I'm in deep trouble now!' Noticing some bones on the ground, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the panther is about to leap the old dog exclaims loudly, 'Boy that was one delicious panther! I wonder if there are any more around here?'
 
Hearing this the young panther halts his attack mid-strike; a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. 'Whew!' says the panther, 'That was close! That old German Shepherd nearly had me!'

Meanwhile, a squirrel who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the panther. So, off he goes, but the old German Shepherd sees him heading after the panther with great speed and figures that something must be up. 

The squirrel soon catches up with the panther, spills the beans and strikes a deal with the panther. The young panther is furious at being made a fool of and says, 'Hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!

Now, the old German Shepherd sees the panther coming with the squirrel on his back and thinks 'What am I going to do now?', but instead of running the dog sits down with his back to his attackers pretending he hasn't seen them yet and just when they get close enough to hear, the old German Shepherd says... 'Where's that squirrel? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another panther!

My moral of the story: Don't let fear let you get eaten alive! If you let it, creativity will always allow you to find a solution, no matter how odd, bizarre or threatening your challenge appears to be! 

Add comments

November 5, 2009 6:48pm

Cinematization: "My Kid Could Paint That"

In this film, there was a big nugget of gold deeply buried towards the end:

"Henri Cartier-Bresson, the photographer used to say that photographing people was appalling, that it was some sort of violation of them, it was even barbaric he said. Because you were essentially stealing something from them, you were imposing something on them. He sensed the inherent unfairness of this transaction.

All writers, all storytellers are imposing their own narrative on something. I mean all art is in some ways a lie. It looks like a picture of something, but it isn’t that thing, it is a representation of that thing. Your documentary is on some level going to be a lie. Its your construction of things. I’ll say that right now if you like, its true.

I mean your documentary is itself going to be a lie. It’s a construction of things. its how you wish to represent the truth and how you decided to tell a particular story. By that I don’t mean that certain things don’t happen, of course they do, its not that there is no such thing as truth. But we come to like and trust a certain story. Not necessarily because it is the most absolutely truthful, but because its the thing that we tell ourselves that makes sense of the world, at least at this moment."

When I heard this I immediately loved the message because it applies to all of us in our daily lives. We all tell stories based on how we wish to represent the truth to try to make sense of the world based on how we currently understand it. Without realizing it, in the innocence of trying to paint this picture that make sense to us, we are unaware that we lie.

We lie in the sense that we give our personal representation of our experience and see it as THE truth, even if it includes how we perceive others. We innocently but wrongly believe that our perceptions are true for everyone else as well and frequently get upset when this is questioned or challenged. 

We all do the best that we can, which changes sometimes even from moment to moment, depending on the different factors that are involved. We all need to learn that what and how we think and believe does not apply to anyone else but ourselves, not even to children. Even they are having their own individual unique experience of life, different than yours.

It is only by asking each other what that experience is, by not making assumptions about other people that we can understand the truth for others, but more importantly for ourselves. When we stop focusing on others, we are put in a position where we have to focus on ourselves....there is nowhere else to hide.

In this process, in this one and only way, can we work at removing fear out of our lives, removing the judgment that we have on ourselves, that limits us from the real truth, the freedom of experiencing life to its fullness. Deconstruct yourself and allow yourself to have a different experience.

Add comments

November 3, 2009 10:07am

Liberation: A New Language of Communication

So many relationships are in crisis. Yet most people wait until it is too late or almost too late to try to solve their problems. They keep thinking that somehow, by some miracle, that things will just change. They keep performing the same behaviors, saying the same things, experiencing the same hurts over and over. 

A relationship is a living entity; it will always be moving in one direction or another. It is impossible to have a stagnant relationship since it must grow, so it will grow stronger or it grows weaker. What makes it grow weaker is fear, misunderstanding, and blame. What makes it grow stronger is self awareness and removal of fear and judgment. 

What we don't understand we fear; what we fear we judge. This in turn creates more misunderstanding. The bottom line is that if you are having issues in any type of relationship, it is because you are not really understanding the other person. You are assuming that you do, but if there is any problem: you don't.

It is very simple, cut and dry. These misunderstandings and assumptions that I regularly refer to contribute to there even being a problem. There are no problems if you correctly understand a situation. If you think that it is the other person that is the problem, that just means that you have made a mistaken assumption.

If you perceive a problem you have already entered into a mild form of fight or flight. From that point, your body and mind have geared up into protective mode. You cannot see things clearly from this space unless you put extreme effort into breaking through the hormones flooding your body. The adrenaline and other stress hormones create a strong filter on your capacity to understand. These hormones create tunnel vision, tunnel hearing, tunnel understanding. 

I can imagine some people already disagreeing with my words, standing ready with piles of "evidence" to the contrary, "proving" the problems they have in their various relationships. But that "evidence' is only from the tunnel. You are so sure about being right about your experience that you don't even know that you live in this tunnel. How would you know that there is more than what you think you know and what you have been taught to perceive if you have never experienced it?

What a catch-22! The mind is so strong and so powerful, that it is such a shame that it is allowed to rule your world. It is actually an amazing tool when you control it and it stops controlling you. A simple test for which is which is this:

Answer the following questions:

1. Do I get easily angry (either letting it out or shoving it down)?

2. Are other people to blame for how I feel?

3. Am I unhappy?

4. If only other people changed then would I feel better?

5. Do other people irritate me?

6. Do I ever think that other people are wrong and I am right?

A yes to any one of these questions is a red flag that your mind is in control of you. Because when you are in control of your mind, you do not experience any of the above. Now these are random questions that I have made up, but I think that you get the point. Any emotional reaction is your mind controlling you.

Going back to the discussion on relationships, you have far more choices than you could ever imagine. Can you imagine learning to speak a foreign language at this point in your life? Does that feel like a daunting task to you? But what if it ultimately gave you unlimited happiness? What if it ultimately gave you warm and loving relationships? What if it ultimately made life easy for you? Would you bother to learn it then?

Then make that choice. Learn a new language of communication. Get out of the rut of not doing it because you can't imagine yourself speaking it or because you really don't know if it really exists. Life can be vastly different by being willing to learn something entirely different than what you know now. Let your quest for knowledge wake up. You real self is waiting for you.