I had the most interesting and unexpected thing happen to me this morning.
Some Hungarian sounding person signed up to my next Feelings webinar on Sunday at noon, so I checked. Yes, she is a Hungarian woman living in Hungary. Hungarians are not known for their language skills…
I sent a personal email welcoming her, and suggesting that she read the books the webinar is based upon, the Feelings and the Words books by another Hungarian, Margoczi. Érzések
I signed the email with my original Hungarian name.
A minute or two after that email, I felt a very strong weeping emotion… muscletested and it came from this Hungarian woman.
And then I started to talk to her, in my head, Hungarian. And I said “stupid” 1 in Hungarian, the word that signifies slowness, and lack of ability.
And I experienced a strong non-physical pain.
Hah… I didn’t expect that.
The word I though of myself in Hungarian has a strong marker feeling, aka emotional charge, while the same word in English leaves me neutral.
Maybe this is why I had to leave Hungary. To leave the marker feelings that kept me miserable, unhappy, depressed, and ready to call it quits.
Now I see, through this example, the enormity of the task I am asking you to undertake: after all most of you were born with English in which your parents called you names.
But if you weren’t: try to use the words they used… and watch as the world goes haywire.
You see, you got these marker feelings before your I could develop. And those marker feelings, the emotional charge of words, are keeping you tied to other people and their opinion of you.
I was never stupid, only stupider than I wanted to be. But that is not what my parents said: they declared that I was stupid… and that was that.
They never noticed my grades, the competitions I won, the number of books I read (3-4 on any given week)… they wrote me off as stupid. On one hand it hurt. On the other hand it allowed me to not hope for acknowledgment from them, or anyone.
But the word still brings up a world of hurt, a world of not being known, not being cherished, not being wanted.
This is the world the Tree of Knowledge created.
I am not the exception: I am the rule… The hurt can be bigger, smaller, but it is always there.
I didn’t even know words for virtues while in Hungary. I first met the concept in the predecessor of Landmark Education.
I would have never suspected that simply practicing virtues I could be a happier person… A person…
Not every human is a person yet.
You become a person when your I doesn’t depend on what others say about you.
Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?
One other thing I am seeing now that I am taken down memory lane is this:
The expression: the devaluation of the I is an accurate phrase, and reflects our habit or competing with others, or at least comparing ourselves with others.
The result is no self, and misery.
Once you finally establish an I based on who you are smarter than, and who you matter more than… along comes another opinion, and there goes your carefully established I.
My I, when I lived in Hungary, was also in comparison. I was stupider than my brother, smarter than my little brother, less talented than some, and more talented than most.
I wanted to be different, but I didn’t want to be me.
When I started to work on virtues I found my Self… and I compared myself only with how I was the day before… and with how I could be.
This is when my unshakeable I was born, and I could finally start moving up the evolutionary ladder… The Tree of Life.
Comparison is your biggest enemy.
Part of comparison is when you were born a girl and not a boy.
Being the best human is your goal. The best you.
Everyone has a “best I can be”…
Strive for that. And track your progress.
