Take a handy sheet of paper or open a private page on your Computer ready to list every aspect of your life that you are currently completely and totally CONTENT with.
Head it and title it CONTENT and then list all the things about yourself and your surroundings and circumstances that you are perfectly happy with and would NOT change for the world.
Done that?
Easy wasn't it?
Start a second column, or second sheet, and this time label it DISCONTENT and list every single aspect that you can possibly think of (spending time an effort) about yourself and your circumstances that you are totally
DISSATISFIED
with and would dearly love to change. Don't labour too long on material things, as many of those will sort themselves out as you progress, but at least you can list them for now if you want.
Concentrate, if you can, on the physical and emotional aspects of yourself and of your life, your fears, worries, hates, what you would love to rid yourself of, your ambitions, present unsatisfactory circumstances and how they are affecting you and so on. The list can be almost endless, as you will quickly realise as we progress. But don't be deterred. A long list does not indicate hopelessness. Far from it. It shows you readily recognise what you are not too happy with and would like to change.
Be brutally HONEST.
You must, at all times, from now on, be honest with yourself. Because if you are not then you are only kidding yourself and you then become the one responsible for holding yourself back. You are going to keep all this to yourself for now and not share it with anyone CLOSE to you, so therefore you can, perhaps for the first time in your life, be Honest with yourself.
Don't be put off by the imbalance of your list. If you are a normal, average human being, whom I am sure you are, with all the normal needs and wants, then at this stage the DIScontent list will be considerably longer than it's counterpart. Am I right? Say YES out loud. Of course I'm right, otherwise we would not be working away here, together, right now. If I should be wrong, which I doubt, then you either don't need me or you are kidding both of us by not being honest with yourself. Or could it be that you are ready to join the 'Content Club' as you are at one with yourself? If so then welcome.
Now for a little test.
This test will not work until you have completed your lists as honestly and as carefully as you can.
If you have and only when you have. Close your eyes and ask yourself, 'Do I feel better or feel any sense of relief for having listed my Discontents and those aspects of my life that I am not happy about?'
AND TRY AND FEEL A FEELING, SOME SENSE OF RESPONSE.
Don't worry if you truly don't.
The reasoning behind the question is that what you have done so far, required that you use and involve all three levels of consciousness and one of two things will have happened. Minor relief, will be felt, at telling the truth or being honest and admitting to something you have previously avoided or have not wanted to admit to before. Or no reaction at all, or very little reaction, as the truth maybe something you are familiar with and you are therefore quite at ease while listing things you are not too happy about.
You don't have to react one way or the other to prove anything. The test is to see if there was a reaction. You will become very familiar with reactions as we go along. So for now settle for one or the other.
It is not easy in the beginning and sometimes a lack of reaction when one was expected can be a great disappointment. But don't be put off or deterred as things will get better and become clearer as we progress.
Look! Why not take a break at this point and, if you haven't already done so, why not down load this into 'Favourites' or does your browser call it a 'Bookmark'? Or even print it. Then rehash your list of CONTENTS and DISCONTENTS and try again, the little test above, and then when you are reasonably happy with it, come back and move on.
