How To Achieve Personal Development: Associate Yourself With What You Want To Be.

Hello again, and welcome to Uvelopin (which is you developing). Today, we are going to be talking about our associations and how they affect our personal development. Many times, we are oblivious of how our associations with our environment (people, the things we see and listen to, and the overall energy we emerse ourselves in each day). Our associations matter a lot because, what we listen to eventually becomes what we think about, and what we think about eventually becomes what we believe, and what we believe eventually becomes what we say or do. Do you see the chain of events? It's the chain linking what we see or hear to what we say or do.

OUR DIFFERENT COMPONENTS
There is some ignorance as to the components that make us up. (Permit me to get a bit esoteric now, but I'll break things down as best I know how). You may be wondering what I mean by "components". I'm not talking about the different body systems (digestive, nervous, circulatory, etc), neither am I talking about the 5 senses. I'm talking about the different forms in which we manifest and perceive our environment.
Calm down and stay with me....
Those 5 components (naming from the lowest) are the physical component/aspect (with which we manifest actions, and perceive our physical environment), the astral or emotional aspect (with which we perceive, feel, or manifest sentiments or emotions), the causal (or memory) component (with which we store all our memories from birth to death, and access or recall all past events). You then have above these aspects, the mental component (which is where ideas and intellect come from), and then, the etheric or subconscious component (also known as the subconscious mind, where intuitions come from). You can thus say that the mental aspect is the "conscious mind".
Now, why did I consider all this important to talk about? It's to show you how the transfer really occurs and help you realize that it's more than what meets the eye, and much more than what we have been told and taught in conventional settings. You see... I've found, most of the time, that I appreciate life's events more when they are presented to me in stages for study. I understand this way better than when things are presented to me in the "big picture", or in a general sort of way.
These 5 components grossly influence our decisions and development. First of all, your subconscious component is constantly awake, and constantly recording all that goes on in your environment. That's how someone could be speaking, or music could be playing around you while you sleep, and you could be seeing or dreaming of what is being said or sung. Also, someone may have told you something during the day, or you may have visited a place in the course of your day, and you were left with a feeling you couldn't shake for the rest of the day, and sometimes, for the rest of your life.
Then, the mental component comes in, pondering on what you saw, heard or experienced. This pondering process invokes all the basic questions like, "how did that happen? Why did that happen? What was that? When did it all begin? What is the significance of this?... Etc. To some of the questions, answers are produced, and to some, you have no idea for a time, but the pondering is a form of digesting what your etheric body had ingested (and it is continuously ingesting), and in that digestion process, absorption takes place (absorption of the ideas of others, and other aspects of your environment "partly" into your being). The causal component then dives in to compare your present (or newly absorbed) ideas and experiences to your current ideas and experiences. It does so to establish links, if any, to help the mental aspect declare if this new idea is worth incorporating in your life or not. If the newly absorbed ideas are in line with your current ideas and beliefs, then your mental component may give it a pass for complete absorption; while a disconnect between the newly absorbed ideas and the current, could compel the mental component to "discard" the newly absorbed ideas. It doesn't really throw it away though, but rather, stores it in the causal or memory component for probable future reference.
And where does the astral/emotional component come in? That has been operating all the while, reacting on an emotional level to all the inputs from the etheric aspect, the processes and the questions and answers from the mental aspect, and the sentiments invoked by memories recalled and re-examined by the causal component. It is very active in the course of decision making by these other components, and it is crucial in helping you decide if you want to remain with a certain sentiment or not. E.g. of a particular idea makes you happy every time it plays out in your life, your mental component takes cues from your astral/emotional component's reaction to that idea (happiness) and gives it priority for retention and decision-making in other aspects of your life. But, note that all sentimental reactions matter to the mental component in these decision makings; that's why you can choose to, or refuse to, partake in an activity because you consider it boring, or annoying, or exciting etc. And this is where the physical aspect comes in.
The physical components is a vessel for action, no questions asked. It constantly waits for instructions from all these higher aspects of your being (the etheric/subconscious, mental, causal/memory, and astral/emotional components) before it can perform any action or task, and these higher aspects rely on the physical component to manifest their outputs. And that's basically how you take actions that tell others about you (or describe you), and which eventually make you who and what you are (good, bad, ugly, brute, loving, brave, cowardly... etc).
I hope you are following.

PERCEIVING AND ASSESSING YOUR ENVIRONMENT:
It is important to perceive and assess your environment in order to ensure your personal development, as failure to do so could indeed warrant a decline in your development. Therefore, listening to your gut, (or as most would say... your instincts) is key! Your gut, or instinct, here is your etheric/subconscious component. Pay attention. This aspect of you is usually the first to tell you when something is not right. The truth is, once you make the decision to develop yourself on any level, you must associate yourself with things that have to do with that level you want to be on. The decision you make is like a commitment to yourself, and your subconscious takes it seriously. So, when you make an attempt off your plan of development (in the friends you keep, and the environment you put yourself in), you will find that the first voice that speaks to you is your instinct or subconscious component.
Sometimes, though, we are too proud or unattentive and miss the message from our subconscious faculty. That's ok. Use your mental aspect to access your friends and your environment. If you want to be a brilliant brain surgeon, would your first choice all friends be crack heads? Sure, they could be your first patients when you finally become a brain surgeon, but do you need them now that you are trying to get there? If you want to be a winemaker, would your first choice of friends be cobbler? Or would your first choice of hangouts be a sawmill? You make your choices of who and what you want to associate with according to what you want to be.
Always remember what you have chosen for yourself in the line of personal development (which is your causal/memory aspect in use), and allow yourself feel the feelings of satisfaction like you have already attained this development (which is done with your emotional component), then act, and move your body accordingly (e.g. away from friends and environments that do not blend, or fit in, with your course).
That should be it for now.
So, what do you think,? When was the last time you assessed your associations? Do you think it's necessary? Or do you live unaffected by your environment? Feel free to air your thoughts.
I love you. Till next week.