Friday, January 21, 2022
Scrutiny is critical observation and examination. Something that might need more careful scrutiny is how you are overacting to innocuous things, or how you may be beating yourself up over your perceived “deficiencies.” However, scrutiny might be better applied to looking for where you lack gratitude in your life. Use it to find where you’ve missed out on recognizing how blessed you actually are.
Scrutinizing your environment is not helpful either. It’s more careful observation of your inner environment, the part of you that is under your control, that might be more helpful to you. It might be better to leave the outer condition just as it is. You don’t always have to scrutinize it, to judge it, or to try to fix it. If you can improve it, that’s fine, but don’t count on it to make you feel well. Scrutinize yourself, but not to highlight your flaws. Scrutinize yourself to find how you are keeping yourself from being at peace with what is. None of what you are wanting to “fix” in your outer reality is actually going to take care of your anxiety, anyway. Anxiety is an inner problem, so why try to fix it with an outer “solution?” You can fix your anxiety by focusing your attention on the real problem, an overly critical mind.
The most important thing in your life is peace of mind, but you won’t find peace of mind in the outer environment. You can only find that from within, and it takes a long time to understand this. Turn your attention, not to scrutinizing the horizon, but to exploring the inner depths of who you are. There’s a world of peace waiting for you – go deeper within, and you’ll find your awaited treasure.