Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

*Do you turn failures into crises?
*Do you ever feel helpless or hopeless or incapable?
*Do have difficulty recognizing and then celebrating every day’s moments of Beauty?
*Do you couple giving others compliments with giving them criticisms?
*Do you bemoan the ineffectiveness or the corruption of your government officials?
*Do you feel extremely frustrated with any aspect of your life?
*Do you raise your voice (outpourings of sadness or anger) more than once a month?
*Do you feel good when complaining about life or criticizing another’s shortcomings?
*Do you complain about the problems & difficulties in your life to others?
*Do you regularly mention financial stress or how tired you are to others?
*Do you Do you feel as though no one understands you or can comprehend what you are
going through?
*Do you have high expectations for yourself or others? Are you disappointed in yourself
or others when those expectations are not satisfied?
If you answered “yes” to any of these queries, it doesn’t mean that you are a “bad
person”, and it doesn’t mean that your are “an addict”. What it does mean is that you
have identified some of the common situations where needless negativity is hampering
your ability to live an effective and Joy-filled life.
A POSITIVE CONCLUSION
First & foremost, please remember that this chapter, like all the others dealing with
identifying and cleansing your addictions, is not a negative judgment of you as a person.
Every human being on the planet has a primitive portion of the brain that is solely
concerned with constantly searching for all the things around it that are “dangerous” or
“broken” or “bad”. And every human being on the planet needed this “reptile brain” to
function effectively during his or her childhood … As such, every human being on the
planet is, to one degree or another, a “negativity addict”. This does not make us
“inferior” or “weak” or “less than” in any way. It is simply how we are all primarily
programmed to examine our world.
That having been said, we are also conscious beings – beings who are not required to
blindly follow selfishly negative instincts, but who can instead choose to respond
differently to discomfort.
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