Tim A. O'Connor

If your frame of reference is outside of yourself, you will be dependent on the environment, actions, and words of others for your self-worth. An Internal frame of reference, sometimes called locus of control, allows us to trust ourselves and recognize our inner desires and set intentions that serve us well. We feel confident. Our expectations become our own and not the expectation of others.

I can’t listen to the news or read social media feeds without reflecting how much we are all absorbed by time-the past, present, and future. Our brains bounce from one to the other as if our minds had a booth for each category. Most of us spend little “time” in the present.

We forget we are always living moment to moment. Thoughts of our history are only memories, re-lived in our heads, and the future never arrives.

We choose how to respond to external or outside influences. When we release our limiting belief patterns formed in our history, we change how we acknowledge events and act from a place of internal power. We do this in the present, creating conditions in our life aligned with our best interests.

Fears, doubts, and lack of confidence occur when we filter our thoughts through the unconscious, embracing core convictions of our past. These beliefs may no longer serve us. We may have learned these defining judgments in response to childhood parenting, our culture, or through a traumatic experience.

Many of us worry about external influences without recognizing and accepting internal power within our intuitive consciousness. We may sense a separation from our source of strength.

Men and women sometimes say, “I don’t know myself,” or “I feel like something is wrong” or “I feel like something is missing.” These are conscious responses to subliminal belief structures of our unconscious or subconscious mind.

In reality, if someone seeks to “find” themself, they are realizing their thoughts and desires now. It is in this moment that we reveal beliefs that give us confidence and disempower the limiting beliefs of our past.

We can re-train ourselves to respond from a frame of reference within ourselves, where our core assumptions, values, goals, and true intentions align with clarity, peace, and love.

We can re-align ourselves from a place deep within us where we cannot hurt, do not re-experience prior hurt, and realize that no matter what we have done, experienced, or witnessed, we experience love and safety. This is when we understand our “self” and sense Joy.

We will accomplish this through a personal practice involving meditating, guided meditations, visioning meditations, attending to the moment, mindfulness (awareness) exercises, and through affirming our good and potential in the present.

In this way, we create new powerful beliefs, increasing our confidence and emotional strength. We learn to respond to experiences from a frame of reference within this moment, where our power and clarity reveal itself to us.

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