Читать книгу We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere - Gillian Anderson, Gillian Anderson - Страница 23

‘Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain, then refuse, under any circumstances whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anyone else.’

KAREN ARMSTRONG

The Nine Principles in this book provide a compass. Without them life can feel like a losing battle. We can thrash around trying to satisfy conflicting wants and needs. At times we seem to make headway in the ‘want’ department – we get the job or the partner or the home – and yet our deeper needs get buried. Other times we feel like we’re in a boat with one oar, paddling as hard as we can while spinning in circles.

The Nine Principles in this book guide us forward. They guide us home.

When you’ve learned to practise them in your life you’ll be able to live from a place of authenticity and love wherever you find yourself and whatever has happened in your past.

‘Only if you are ready to change yourself can you be ready to change the world.’

EDIT SCHLAFFER

The work of transforming our world begins with healing ourselves. If we don’t do the work, we risk allowing our egos to run the show. We can wind up acting out our own unresolved issues on those we seek to help, or taking up a cause from a need to feel important rather than from a place of genuine passion and concern. Our world is full of people who inadvertently cause harm while trying to do good.

You may feel tempted to flip through the book until you find the part that deals with a particular issue that you feel relates to you – like relationships, for instance – but don’t. The Nine Principles are laid out in an order. Each one builds on the last and if you skip through the others, you’ll short-change yourself. When you finish the book in its entirety you may want to keep it close for reference, but before then give yourself the gift of committing to the whole process. You may choose to complete a chapter a week or take it more slowly. You can also work through the chapters with friends or other women who are also interested in taking the journey (here).

There’s no timescale, but the sooner you do the work, the sooner the miracles will manifest.

‘Action is the antidote to despair.’

JOAN BAEZ

Doing vs thinking

WE is an experiential rather than an intellectual process. Most of us exert a lot of mental energy trying to understand ourselves, but with little permanent result. We may have plenty of insights, but insights alone rarely lead to change, just as reading a recipe sadly doesn’t result in a cooked meal – there’s still all the measuring, chopping and stirring to do.

For change to work, ACTion is necessary. ACT is one of the acronyms we’ll repeat again and again:

Action

Changes

Things

Right action leads to right thinking. Not the other way around. It’s not enough merely to know or understand. You don’t get to experience swimming by sitting at the edge of the pool. And once you’re in the water, if you want to stay afloat, you’ll need to move your arms and legs rather than just think about it.

Action is also what will enable you to make the journey from the head to the heart. So throughout this journey you’ll be reminded to ACT.

The exercises that each chapter contains are actions in their own right. They are an integral part of the journey as they help you to action what you’re learning.

For decades I tried to work things out in my head. I lived with a mountain of self-help books by my bed. I’d read a chapter or two until I found an insight that made me feel momentarily better. Then I’d recommend it to someone else as a brilliant read. I thought I could get rid of my pain by understanding and knowing. I’d lie awake at night looking at things from every angle, stuck in analysis paralysis. In the end, a combination of whisky, sleeping pills and tranquilizers was the only way I could get any peace from the constant noise in my head. It was revolutionary to me when someone suggested I move a muscle to change a thought. I thought I had to wait for my thoughts to change before I could act. Now I know it’s the other way round. Right action creates right thinking and self-esteem to boot.

JN

I have to say that even though I was introduced to these practices decades ago, I still find the doing of them hard. Even though I know what’s best for me and have experienced first hand the difference they make to my entire life, my brain still wants to forget that I feel better when I practise them daily. Maybe it’s the fact that they work that makes the challenge greater – my ingrained, stubborn self-sabotage doesn’t want me well, or maybe it’s my internal rebel that says, ‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ or perhaps it’s just plain laziness. Whatever my resistance is, the fact is, when I do them, they work.

GA

Commitment

There’s only one thing you need to agree to for the principles in this book to work. It’s a commitment to be willing. Willing to try. Willing to pick yourself up when you mess up (which we all do) and to try again.

Anyone can make this commitment. It doesn’t require education, status or wealth. And it certainly doesn’t require perfection.

Nothing in this book needs to be done ‘right’ or ‘perfectly’. The P-word, perfectionism, should be banned. It causes all of us monumental problems – in society’s expectations of us and the demands we make on ourselves. We are not cardboard cut-outs. We are individuals. That means each one of us is complicated and real, with our own unique and often messy layers of emotional wounding.

Your head will present you with a thousand excuses, but you can and will find the time. You can and will find the space. You can and will find the courage. That which is no longer necessary to your well-being will fall away.

The Nine Principles that follow are for you personally and also for the world you inhabit.

They are not just for your yoga mat or your place of worship. They are for the big decisions and for the small. They work just as well in helping you choose how to vote as they do in the grocery store aisle as they do in your intimate relationships. Nothing is too important or too mundane for them to have an impact on. Don’t keep them just for crises – they will work in every aspect of your daily life. We promise.

This is a journey towards love.

Prepare to be amazed.