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I find that there's a peculiarity in human psychology that I'm don't find particularly helpful. We have the capacity to turn against ourselves. Once we have turned against ourselves, we run the risk of doing what might be called "self-injurious thinking and behavior." We can truly be a "Weapon to Our Self."

Self-injurious thinking and behavior can come in many different forms. Sometimes it's contained within negative self-statements. At other times it can be that we either temporarily or permanently give up on ourselves. Then there are those times that we can hold attitudes towards ourselves, wherein we devalue ourselves.

Once these seeds are planted within our psyche, it's possible to develop a script or narrative that may either overtly or covertly undermine ourselves, creating speed-bumps, roadblocks and/or barriers to being a true friend and ally to ourselves.

I started to notice that I could be a weapon to myself when I was 21 years old. A friend gave me a small task. I was supposed to carry a piece of paper and pen in my pocket. Every time I used a negative self statement I was supposed to put a mark on the paper, in order to keep a count. He told me, "When you do it, don't concern yourself with how many or how few marks there are, just put one down when you say something negative to yourself."

What I found out caught me by surprise. I noticed that in many instances, I was using joking, harsh self-talk and sarcasm to emotionally cut and undermine myself. The repetitive nature of doing so had the net-result of influencing my behaviors in odd ways.

I example is where I would tell myself "Don't trust people, they've hurt to in the past, do not place yourself at their mercy." It turned out that holding that thought in my mind resulted in me keeping distance from people whether a person had hurt me or not. And when I was 21 years old, decided that I needed to make some life changes, that line of thinking deprived me of a lot of help. In fact, I was thinking and reinforcing it so much that in certain instances I'd actually sabotage relationships that where potentially really good.

Over the years, how I managed to reduce being a weapon to myself was a pretty cool strategy. Instead of trying to talk myself into change, I decided to "Live (and love) myself into a new way of thinking."

Whenever I was going to tease or be sarcastic with myself, I'd use a positive self statement. When I would feel scared, anxious or thought I was going to fail at something, I would use a statement I had learned from Tony Robbins that said, "The past does not equal the future." Instead of saying "no," I started saying, "Yes." Instead of always trying to live in the approval systems of others, I started living in my own. Instead of avoiding the Zafu, I started going to it and stopped calling myself a "Zen failure." That's why I was having so much difficult in the practice of my life.

When I decided to live and train at Dai Bosatsu Zendo in Livingson Manaor New York, about 16 years ago, my friends thought I had lost my marbles. Very few people were supportive of what I was doing. But consistently I'd respond, "I'm not making my choice to make You happy or unhappy. I'm making my choice based on that it feels like the right thing for me to do and I'm okay with that."

I also adopted the "One percent rule." My focus was to make a one percent improvement every day. By living like that on a daily basis, by the end of the year, I could count on having made a 365 percent improvement with myself. My life began to unify, no longer just focusing on problems but aligning my mind and heart on solutions.

I found long periods where I dropped being a "Weapon to Self." There have also been times that without knowing it, I would pick the "Weapon to Self," back up, yet as soon as I noticed it, I made the effort to drop it. Life is not always going to be emotional ballet. It's only natural that we hit rough spots. That doesn't mean we are not making progress, it just means we may have hit a rough spot. What seems impossible to change within us is possible, so long as we stick with ourselves and practice, practice, practice living ourselves into a new way of thinking.

May Your Life Go Well,

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
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