What Life Experince Are You Creating?

The other morning it was chilly and I reached into the closet to grab a jacket. As I took the jacket off the hanger the jacket felt heavier than it should like something was in the pockets. I reached into the jacket pocket and much to my surprise I discovered a set of keys that I had lost last spring. Now it is very unusual for me to lose anything let alone a big set of keys, however last spring after returning from a funeral I could not find my keys. I searched high and low and I believed I went through all of my coat pockets and I was unable to find the set of keys. I thought maybe I lost them at the funeral, maybe left them sitting on the pew at church or on the table at the post funeral gathering with the family. I even wondered if somehow they had found themselves into the grave because they never turned up. I had a spare set of keys so I did not replace the lost ones. One car key in particular would have cost $150.00 to replace and I did not want to put out $150.00 for one key so I waited believing the keys would show up someday. Well that someday came and there they were in my pocket, ha!  I wondered how they got there, how I could have missed them last spring when I was searching for them. Never the less, I now found them and was delighted. I exclaimed to a friend how fortunate I was to find this set of keys!

That same night when I came home from work I went down to the basement to look for something. As I was walking through the basement I noticed some water on the floor, I looked around and found the source of the water was a steady drip from the main pipe that brought water into the house. I could see that there was rust around the joint where it was leaking. I put my finger up to the drip and touched the rusting pipe. My touch dislodged a piece of the rust and the drip turned to a forceful spray which was now giving me an unexpected shower! I quickly looked for a shut off valve which was close at hand, as I turned the shut off valve it started to leak water a steady rate. Now I had two leaks! I then went and found the main shut off valve and turned all of the water coming into the house off.

At this time it is going on eight o’clock in the evening. It is going to be a cold night and my heat is radiator steam heat meaning I need to have water to keep the house warm. This was not something that was within my talents to fix therefore I had to call a plumber and be charged for an after hours emergency call which I knew would be costly. I felt a little frustrated as I thumbed through the phone book to find a plumber that would come out and fix my leaks.  As I was looking for a plumber my friend whom I excitedly told about finding my keys that very morning called. I quickly explained the plumbing situation and she said, “Well that balances out your day, you found your keys this morning and now you have a big plumbing problem, that’s the way it works, get something good and something bad happens to balance it out”.

This declaration of expected duality made me stop and ponder my situation. I thought to myself is this plumbing issue a bad thing, is it pay back for finding my keys? As I assessed what was happening I quickly came to the conclusion that no, this was not a bad thing. As a matter of fact this was a continuation of a great day! In the morning I found my long lost keys and now I discovered a leak which must be repaired. The fact is had I not went down to the basement when I did I would have most likely woke up to a massive leak and a flooded basement in the next couple of days. I would have had to deal with wading through water, pumping the water out of my basement and then deal with all the damage the water would have caused to the multitude of boxes I have stored in the basement! The cost of this would have been extreme in comparison to the cost of the minor leaks that had to be repaired that night.

You see there was no duality at work here; there was no balancing out the fact that I found my keys! I live a blessed life and this was simply another blessing. I simply had to shift my perspective to understand the blessing. I do live a blessed life! What seemed on the surface like a negative was really a huge positive.

I could have chosen a different perspective and reacted to the leak with anger and frustration. I could have yelled at the Universe in frustration and asked “why me?” I could have chosen to allow my emotions to spill over onto others and take my frustrations out on anyone who got in my way.  I could have tossed and turned all night as I seethed with anger over the situation.  I could have as my friend suggested accepted that when something good happens that something bad happens to balance it out. I could have taken the pipe leaking personally. I could have seen this as a negative event.

I could have … however what good would it have done, how would taking the negative perspective serve me? The truth is it would not have served me, taking the negative path would have caused a disservice to me. In the short term and the long term I would have created and perpetuated negative energy into my life and in doing so I would have most likely attracted more of what I did not truly desire.

Each time we react to what is happening in our life, we have a choice of perspective and therefore the choice to create the world we desire. Passionately expect to live a blessed life and that is what you create. Passionately expect bad things to happen, that bad things have to happen to balance out the good and that is the life experience that you create!

The choice is yours! What life experience are you creating?

Repairing The Damage Which We Created – Making Amends

There are times in our life where our words/actions cause pain, damage or angst for other people. Sometimes we do this on purpose because we are angry or hurt and sometimes we do this indirectly because we were not thinking about the other people in our life or because we did not realize the impact our words/actions were having on another person.  Interesting enough it is often the people who are closest to us that we tend to hurt with our words/actions.

When we realize that we have caused pain to another with our words/actions we have some choices to make. We can take the path that we simply don’t care if the other person was in some way hurt by what we said or did and in some cases we may even feel that the hurt  we caused was justified (Note, causing harm to another is never truly justified). We can take the path where we acknowledge the damage we have caused and offer an apology. An apology is often a good start; however most of us have been in a position where we say “Saying sorry just isn’t good enough!”

What does it mean when someone says or feels that “Sorry isn’t good enough”? When we say this it means that we feel the apology is hollow, it lacks substance, it doesn’t repair the hurt. Often times apologizes do come across as empty; this is especially true when someone says they are sorry all of the time or when they say they are sorry for the same thing  they said they were sorry for ten times before.

Even the most sincere apology often falls short of repairing the damage which was done by ones words/actions. Many people have said they are sorry for their words/actions however after the apology they continue to walk around carrying quilt about the hurt they created. This continuance of guilt and the fact that the damage was not truly repaired is very real and it is not because the person is not truly remorseful it is because they have not backed their apology up with any action.

When we back an apology up with action that is called making amends. Making amends is so much more powerful than offering an apology. Making amends not only helps us clear the guilt from our soul it also and more importantly helps to repair that damage which was caused by our words/actions. We don’t hear much about people making amends and sometimes we call making amends by another name, we sometimes mistakenly call making amends punishment. This is apparent in correcting behavior of our children. For example a child shoplifts something from the local store and the parent discovers what the child did.  The child is sorry. The parent takes the child back to the store, makes the child give back the stolen item and apologize to the store and also has the child show up at the store for the next two weekends to stock shelves and sweep the floors as punishment. By having the child go to the store on the weekends and do some manual work we are having the child make amends and in doing so helping them to learn a valuable lesson.  The true lesson here for the child is not they must be punished rather that it is important to make amends, that is, to repair the damage that they created.

There are many ways we can make amends. Sometimes the way we make amends is by changing our behavior ensuring that we don’t cause the same hurt. An example may be the hurt a person caused because they decided to go out after work and didn’t call to tell their spouse that they were going to be late which caused the spouse to worry needlessly or caused plans for the evening to be ruined. One can say they are sorry which is a good first step however the way to make amends is to change this behavior and to not allow it to happen again. Making amends in this case is the action of picking up the phone and communicating plans with the spouse.

Making amends can get tricky. Sometimes the hurt or damage that we created can not be repaired directly. For instance, maybe we made some type of decision that created a rift between our self and our Father and because of this we didn’t speak or visit for the last five years of their life. Now they are dead and we are very sorry for the time that we missed with them, we are sorry because we were not there in their final years when they needed our help. They are no longer physically here, we are sorry, we offer up an apology to their spirit however how do we make amends? Again making amends is taking action. In this case we could make amends by spending time with the elderly in a nursing home or we could become a member of hospice and help those who are in their last days and their families through the transition of the end of this mortal body.  By taking action we are making amends.

It is also important to make amends to our self. Sometimes we cause hurt and damage our self. It is important that we make amends to ourselves to repair the hurt and damage that we created for our self!

When do you make amends? You make amends today! Do not wait; you have carried the guilt of the hurt/damage that you created around long enough. Consider today what amends you want to make. You can be creative when making amends, think about creative ways you can make amends to those in your life whom you have directly or indirectly hurt.

One may consider making amends yet hesitate to do so because you believe the person will never forgive you, do it anyway! Being forgiven is not the ultimate purpose of making amends. The ultimate purpose of making amends is to repair that damage which we have caused.

Love doe not seek approval or forgiveness, love simply is. Be Love in all of your thoughts, words and actions!

 

Rule # 6

In our day to day life it is easy to get caught up in the passions of what we are doing. Be it work, be it a relationship, be it keeping the house clean, etc. We take these things in our life seriously and for good reason, they are important to us. Many people put blood, sweat and tears into their work, their relationships, keeping a clean and orderly home, raising their children, practicing their beliefs, etc.  Sometimes our passion grows to a point where we explode when things don’t go as we think they should. Read the following parable:

 

Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk.

The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws.

The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by a hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology.

When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?”

“Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.’”

“Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?”

“There aren’t any.”

-         Author Unknown

Simply stated sometimes we allow our passions to override the fact that we shouldn’t take ourselves all that seriously. Sometimes we become so serious about an aspect of our life that we forget to allow ourselves to relax, we forget that in the end while what we are doing is serious business that we don’t need to take ourselves so seriously, that we need to allow some room for error, allow room for change, allow room to relax and see the humor and greater purpose in that which we are doing.

Rule number 6 illustrates very well that we ought not take ourselves so seriously, that everything that does not go as we want it to is not a tragedy or a reason to become upset and in turn upset others in our life. Our emotions are a powerful force which emits an amazing level of energy which impacts not only our self but all of us.

When we take ourselves too seriously we are coming from ego. Ego takes itself very seriously, however our ego is paper thin, it has no real depth and therefore when our ego feels threatened we tend to respond by getting loud, by emoting frustration, anger, disgust, etc. In short we violate rule number 6 and we take ourselves too seriously.

Today, when things don’t go as expected at work, when your spouse forgets to do something, when the glass of grape juice gets spilled on the new carpet, when the car needs an unexpected repair, remember rule number 6, take a breath and remember to smile as you choose to not take yourself so damn seriously.

 

What Is Your Purpose?

There are many, many people among us who are questioning what their purpose is. People from all walks of life question what their purpose is. As we delve into spiritual teachings we often here about “purpose”. Again we question, “What is my purpose?”, “why am I here?”, “How do I find my purpose?”  We hear people saying that they are seeking their purpose, that the feel lost and without purpose. “What is my purpose” is a prolific question in our culture.

We look at people like Mother Theresa, Albert Einstein, the Dali Lama, Louis Pasteur and others and we say that they have found and lived their purpose. We then ask “so what is my purpose and how will I know when I have found my purpose”

I suggest to you that you are living your purpose right now. We all are living our purpose! We don’t need to seek our purpose for we are living our purpose. Our purpose is to experience life in this form. This is our ultimate purpose. Each of us is experiencing life in this form therefore each of us is living our purpose. Your purpose is to live, to experience this life in all of its splendor. If by experiencing this thing we call life, you develop a cure for AIDs or you develop a no cost, pollution free fuel then that is wonderful and this will be part of your purpose, however your purpose is not limited to your achievements.

I believe many get caught up in believing that “our purpose” is going to be some grandiose thing and that we will have some sort of epiphany when we discover our true purpose. I say to you that this is your purpose, and it is a grandiose thing! This part of our journey in human form that we so often take for granted is a minute by minute miracle and is grander that we believe. When you stop to think about what we are and the miracle of life you then become aware and have to ask yourself what greater purpose is there but to simply be, to be and experience this part of our journey!

You may be or know someone who is in what you perceive as a bad situation, maybe that person is in jail, battling a terminal disease, living a life of violence, hooked on drugs and you ask, how can this be their purpose? Is this their purpose? I say to you, yes, their purpose is to experience life, to experience this journey and though it may not be what we perceive to be a good experience it is experiencing life none the less, therefore even someone in this type of situation is living on purpose.

We may not always understand why we are experiencing the things that we experience, however there is always purpose, even if it is beyond are awareness at the moment. Consider the drug addict who hits rock bottom, rehabilitates and becomes a youth a counselor, consider the young criminal who gets caught, sees another path and becomes a protector of his/her community. Consider your experiences; consider the ones that at the time you perceived as negative, wondering why that particular experience was happening in your life. Can you now look back and understand how those experiences brought you to where you are today? I would bet there are some experiences that you can now see the purpose of and still others which have yet been understood.

Know that your purpose is to experience this life, to experience this leg of your journey. Live and do not worry that you are not living on purpose for you are. Live and experience life for that is your purpose!

What Does a Rose, a Lamp and a Tree Have in Common?

“Is it possible for the rose to say, “I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?” Or is it possible for the lamp to say, “I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people”? Or can a tree say, “I’ll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? These are images of what love is about”

- Anthony de Mello

The above quote speaks great wisdom. Love does not discern between good or evil; love does not judge who is to be loved and who is to be hated. Love does not hold back its energy to punish another.

Our core essence is love, we are love, we are from source which is love. We do not need to learn how to be love for that is what we are, we simply must remember what we are, we must remember that we are love!

There come many opportunities in our life where we may gravitate to make a judgment of another and the result of that judgment may be to withhold our love or to dole it out in rations. There may even be times where we fear loving others fully and unconditionally because we may get hurt or our love may not be reciprocated. We may even fear loving another because in some perverse way we feel that the other person cannot handle our love or that our love may somehow make them feel bad about themselves. I suggest to you that pure love is never hurtful even if in the short run the other person seems in some way to be hurt or diminished by our love know that this is only a response of their ego and that your love will penetrate beyond the fragile ego and created healing and good.

Where in your life are you withholding the love that you are? Who and what in your life are you avoiding because you believe that your love will not be accepted for what it is?

Today I strive to be the tree and provide shade to all, be the lamp or the Sun and provide light and warmth to all and to be the rose and share my fragrance with all.

Who among us has not benefited from the unconditional giving of the tree, the lamp, the rose?

May we all to remember to be the love that we are!

You Are Worthy of Ever Lasting Love, Joy and Abundance!

Have you ever heard yourself saying “Everything is going so well, it cannot last, I know that something is going to happen to spoil this feeling” or have you ever felt guilty because you are too happy or have too much abundance? Have you ever felt happy or had such abundance that you said to yourself that you are not worthy of so much abundance in your life? Have you at times felt guilty for the abundance in your life when so many others seem to not live a life of abundance?

We are interesting beings? We strive for happiness, love, success, abundance and then when we begin to feel that we have all of these things we then question weather or not we deserve it and we begin to anticipate when the bottom will fall out of it all believing that all of the joy cannot last forever and something will come along to knock the joy that we are experiencing out of our life.

We sometimes even believe that if we express that we are enjoying our life too much we might jinx what we have found and in doing so we somehow invite some sort of power into our life which will take the joy away. Where does this type of superstitious thought come from? The thought that our joy cannot last stems from an underlying belief that we are not deserving of everlasting joy and that if our joy is greater than the joy of others that we should feel guilty for being joyful.

Here is what we have forgotten; we are joyful beings! We have forgotten that we are of divine source and that our core being is love and that we are worthy of all the joy, love and abundance that we experience. As a matter of fact we are worthy of all of the joy, love and abundance that we have yet to experience! There is no one on this earth that is unworthy of feeling exuberant with joy, with love and abundance.

One may find themselves saying that they don’t deserve to feel joyful because of some past thoughts or actions. If you are feeling guilty and undeserving of joy because of your past then you are not living in the “now”. Undermining your joy because of what has already transpired does not serve you, it does not serve the world, nor does it serve Universe, Source, God!  We must let go of that which has gone before and live today in unbridled and unencumbered joy.

Feeling guilty because your joy, love and abundance seems greater than others does not serve to help you help those who have yet to remember the level of  love, joy and abundance that you have remembered and manifested into your life. It is your love, your joy and your abundance that enables you to help others, to help them remember the love, joy and abundance which is them and therefore manifest a never ending joy into their lives.

Life is not to be lived by always looking over your shoulder waiting for the thing that will kill your joy, which will undercut your abundance or in some way undermine the love that you are experiencing! Instead of always waiting for something nefarious to happen, change your expectation to that of more joy, more love, more abundance!

Trust that when you live in spirit that the love, joy and abundance that you feel and experience will spill over to others and that you will create love, joy and abundance for others. Living a life of this consciousness will not only elevate you, it will impact this entire universe and do so in a way that creates a wondrous journey for us all.

Know this, you can never be too joyful, be too loving or have too much abundance! Remember that you are worthy of never ending love, joy and abundance! Do not deny yourself the love, joy and abundance that are yours to experience.

Remember also that you create your experience through your thoughts and it is through your thoughts that you will create unending joy, love and abundance and also it is your thoughts that can cause you to create that which can undermine all of the joy in your life.

Choose to know that you can create a life of everlasting joy, love and abundance!

What Defines You?

“What do you do?” This is probably the number one question that is asked as people meet each other for the first time as they attempt to spur a conversation and get to know someone.  We have become a culture of people who are often judged by their job titles, what company we work for, how nice our business card looks and feels and it is in part why we tend to become defined by what we do for a living rather than who we are. In many cultures who we are is defined by what we do.

This is very much on my mind this week because of what has happened in my life for the last 7 days. The company I work for is going through a major reorganization of departments. As often happens when a company is going through a reorganization of departments jobs/responsibilities shift and inevitably some positions are eliminated. Once the reorganization was announced most people became tense as their future with the company came into question. People were concerned as to how the reorganization of departments would affect them, would they have different responsibilities, would their pay be effected or worst yet would their position be eliminated? All of these are valid concerns. Facing the prospect of not having your job is a serious matter that can have major impacts on ones lifestyle and the lifestyle of ones family.

As we hung in limbo for a few days waiting to see how we each would be impacted by the changes of the reorganization many people were experiencing a sea of emotions, mostly worry and anger. One could hear the worry and anger in people’s voices as they considered the possibilities of what was to come. On the fourth day of waiting a person whom I work with called to discuss what was happening. There was much concern in her voice about the possibilities of what was to come.  This person then stopped and asked me why she didn’t hear the same level of concern in my voice. She said, “you are in the same situation are you don’t sound concerned”. I said “Yes, I am concerned, yet I am not consumed by what may happen. The reason that you don’t hear heavy concern in my voice is because I am not defined by my job. I am who I am today and I will be who I am if I don’t have this job. I am not defined by what I do or what I own. I went on to say “Believe me; my lifestyle will be significantly impacted if I lose my job. I have bills that I won’t be able to pay, I will have to change my lifestyle in significant ways however I know that I will still be intact. I will not change as a person because I have to change jobs or because I have to change my lifestyle”.

The bottom line is I am my authentic self, I am love. I am not what I do or what I own. When we are able to detach from the externals in our life, be that our job, the things we own, the money in our pocket, who we are in a relationship with or the state of our form then we are able be our authentic self at all times and know that our authentic self does not alter because of that which is external to us. Knowing and living from our authentic self frees us to know that all will be as it is supposed to be, all things happen for a reason and that every step we take leads us to the next adventure even when we cannot see beyond the immediate horizon.

I trust that the best is always yet to come and that I am here now at all times for that is the only time and place that I can ever be. It is through our consciousness that we can affect change within our life and all that happens within the universe. Live an authentic life, know that you can choose to change the world and not allow the world to change you.

The Language of the Universe – Are You Listening?

Last week I had to make an unexpected trip to Rochester, New York to attend an early morning meeting. I decided to drive the three and a half hour trip the night before, check into a hotel and get a good nights rest so that I would be refreshed and ready to go for the morning meeting. I had only been to Rochester once before and that was about five years ago so I didn’t have a good feel for where I was going. I got up the next morning, checked out of the hotel, looked at a map and tried to map my route to the building I was going to. I thought I knew where I was going, however Rochester proved to have many one way streets and some construction and before I knew it I was all turned around.  I drove around town trying to make sense of the map and where I was going. I was going around in circles trying to find my way. No problem, I had given myself plenty of time and was in no hurry. After driving around the town a couple of times I started to figure out the way the streets were laid out and my confidence that I was heading in the right direction started to build. I pulled up to a red traffic light, not sure where I was when I looked to my left and I saw the building that I was looking for with the big corporate logo on it, I smiled, within a second of seeing the building, a truck crosses the road in front of me, the truck had the same corporate name written all over it and it was heading right for the building I was going to. I found this to be too funny, I know the truck was a sign, it was there to help me find the building, it was too funny because the universe sent the sign just a few seconds too late because I had already found the building on my own. I said aloud to the universe “Thank-you, a little late, however I appreciate the effort, thank-you”.

The truck was a sign, no doubt in my mind. We often talk here about the big things in life, the stuff of life and death, etc. I think it is important to remember that the language of the universe does not only deal in the “big stuff” it also deals in the small stuff like helping me to find my way to a designation, or helping me find my misplaced keys or having me take the wrong turn only to find out that my unplanned detour helped me to avoid construction which would have delayed me.

The universe speaks to us throughout the day and if we are open to the language of the universe than we will be able to understand the language of the universe. It is funny that many people expect to be communicated to in a very direct manner. It sure would be nice to have more direct communication and it may even make the journey easier. We forget though even though we have the ability to communicate directly in our everyday relationships we don’t choose to communicate directly. We often communicate in code, be it body language, facial expressions, indirect hints, symbols, etc. If this is how we communicate than why should we expect God/The Universe to communicate to us in a more direct manner? The universe does communicate with us in many ways and when we are open to communication that comes in various forms such as signs than we will see that we are often being helped along the way.

There was a man called him Jim, who lived near a river. Jim was a very religious man.

One day, the river rose over the banks and flooded the town, and Jim was forced to climb onto his porch roof. While sitting there, a man in a boat comes along and tells Jim to get in the boat with him. Jim says “No, that’s ok. God will take care of me.” So, the man in the boat drives off.

The water rises, so Jim climbs onto his roof. At that time, another boat comes along and the person in that one tells Jim to get in. Jim replies, “No, that’s ok. God will take care of me.” The person in the boat then leaves.

The water rises even more, and Jim climbs on his chimney. Then a helicopter comes and lowers a ladder. The woman in the helicopter tells Jim to climb up the ladder and get in. Jim tells her “That’s ok.” The woman says “Are you sure?” Jim says, “Yeah, I’m sure God will take care of me.

Finally, the water rises too high and Jim drowns. Jim gets up to Heaven and is face-to-face with God. Jim says to God “You told me you would take care of me!
What happened?”

God replied “Well, I sent you two boats and a helicopter. What else did you want?”

What signs are you missing because you believe you know exactly what the communication will look and feel like? What signs are you missing because you simply are moving too fast or because your arrogance gets in the way of allowing the Universe to help you? What subtle signs are you ignoring that may help you to make better decisions or simply make your day easier? Many people ignore all kinds of signs that could help them. We choose to allow our ego to be in complete control and our ego always says it knows better and chooses to not see or to ignore the signs which are provided us.

Sometimes these signs come in the form of our intuition. Are you tuned in to your own intuition? Do you act upon your intuition?

I heard a person the other night talking about how we choose to ignore our intuition and he gave a great example. He was talking mainly to women and he asked have you ever been in a building at night waiting for the elevator and when the elevator doors open you look in an notice there is only one person in the elevator, a man and you get that eerie feeling that you shouldn’t get on the elevator that you should simply walk away? Many people have been in this situation or something similar. He then asked, “Did you walk away or did you get on the elevator despite what your intuition was telling you because you did not want to appear rude or you did not want to hurt a strangers feelings by not getting on?”  He went on to say that the majority of women in this situation chose to go against their intuition and get on the elevator. Crazy right! This is a great example of how we ignore or miss the signs.

Be open to the language of God/The Universe and understand that the language is direct yet it will come in many forms, sometimes in the internal voice of your self, sometimes through the voice of a child or a stranger on the street and often times as physical signs ones that will be recognizable to you only if you are aware.

I encourage you today to take it all in and listen to the language of the universe with all of your senses!

Relationship Myth: I Can Change Him/Her!

A friend of mine stopped by last night to talk. She had just broken up with her boyfriend, AGAIN! She told me that he was verbally abusive to her, highly controlling, jealous and that she feared that the verbal abuse would escalate to physical abuse. Now I know she has been with this guy for about three years. I also know that she has broken up with him many times before and it is always the same story as to why.

I asked her, “So let me ask you, you have been down this road a few times and your story is always the same, however you keep getting back together with him. Why do think that is?” At first she mumbled that she didn’t know. I said “To me it seems that either you think he will change or that you are a drama queen and enjoy the constant drama that this relationship provides in your life”. To which she said, “You are right, I do think I am going to be able to change him; I do think that I am able to get him to grow up and when I break up with him he always calls me and convinces me that he is ready to change and that he will change. I choose to believe that “this time” he is sincere and really wants to change, and he does, however it doesn’t last, sometimes days, weeks , once even a month went by and then he is right back to the way he was before”.

I pointed out to her that she kept saying that she thought she could change him. I asked her if she really thought she could change anyone. I reminded her that no one has the ability to change anyone else, change is internal and the only true change that happens is when a person truly wants to make a change and no matter how many times we nudge, push, talk, yell, scream, break-up, we will not make a person change.

I then asked what our some of the other reasons that you keep getting back together with this guy?  She didn’t answer. I asked “could it be that you go back with him because you are comfortable with him?” To which her eyes lit up and she said, “Yes that is a big part of it, I am comfortable with him”. I said, “So you are saying that you are comfortable being abused”. She said, “Yes, I guess I am, in ways I have been verbally abused all of my life, so yes I am comfortable with the abuse up to a certain point. I don’t know anything different …” she pauses … and quietly says “I don’t know if I am worthy of anything better. I am also afraid that I won’t find someone else, that no one else will want me”.

Is your heart breaking for her yet, I know mine was for I have heard this same story from so many people before in my life, mostly from women. This twenty something woman was expressing such classic feelings that people express when they are in a toxic relationship. She sees the red flags, she knows deep down that the changes he makes are at best temporary and yet she continues to allow him back into her life over and over again.

The question is how does she break the cycle that she is in. How does this break-up with him become the final break-up with him and how does she make changes within herself to attract a person into her life who will not be abusive towards her?

She cannot change him, she never will change him so what can she change? She can change herself. She can remember that she is love, that she is worthy of love and being treated with respect and love. She can choose to end the cycle of abuse that she is in and has been in for most of her life.

Of course this is often easier said then done. To break this cycle of abuse takes inner work, courage and the ability to love ones self.  This young woman must find a way to first love who she is. She must turn inward and find her love for herself. She must summon the courage to be outside of relationship, to be in a zone where she is not comfortable. She must learn to enjoy her own company and not run back into this relationship or another relationship looking for the comfort and distraction of a relationship.  When we are not in a coupling we are forced to face ourselves, we have more time to look in the mirror and at first this can be a very strange and scary place to be. It takes courage, trust and love to work through this time of self discovery, doubt, fear, etc. The key is to be aware that we may feel these things at first and that is okay. It is okay to feel all the emotions associated with this type of change, it is okay to cry into your pillow or scream out loud as your emotions bubble up to the surface. It is also advisable to not go this alone, to find a friend, a family member, someone who is there for your to talk with, to cry with, someone who is there to lean on for support as you do the work of remembering the best part of you and that is the love that you are!

It is so very important to remember that we cannot force another person to change.

Trying to force another person to change is like trying to force apple juice out of an orange, you can squeeze that orange as hard as you want, as long as you want, however you are never going to get it to change and provide you apple juice.

Switching On Awareness

Have you ever walked through a dark room and stubbed your toe or tripped over furniture as you tried to maneuver around objects in the room? Now think about this, you probably had this experience in an environment that you are familiar with like your bedroom or living room. Now consider maneuvering through a dark room that you are not familiar with and instead of carefully taking small steps you are running; what happens? You most likely will run into more objects/obstructions and you will feel greater pain when you do. All in all most of us would agree that running through a darkened room full of objects that we could run into or trip over would not be a smart thing to do.

Even though we would agree that running through a dark room full of obstructions is a dim (pun intended) idea many people live their life this way. Many people live an unaware life moving at breakneck speed and in doing so inevitably run into obstructions which cause damage to their self.

“Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear. Happiness is not something you acquire; love is not something you produce; love is not something you have; love is something that has you”

- Anthony de Mello

When we are unaware, we might as well be sleep running through life! It is often because of our unawareness that we manifest all kinds of obstructions into our life and that we allow these obstructions to create havoc in our life.

When we become aware, it is as if you flicked the light switch on and flooded the room with light and it is this light which enables you to clearly see your path and all of the obstructions along the way. For some awareness is like the flicking on of a light switch, for others it is more like turning a dimmer switch and slowly bathing your life in light. Whichever way it works for you is okay, the key is that to truly experience that which you are here to experience in the most joyous way possible one must turn on the light of awareness.

Of course the light of awareness does not discriminate, it does not just shed light on that which we perceive as positive, it bathes everything of our world in light. This means that we have to summon up the courage to see all that lay before us, not just that which we perceive as “good”. In the dark, one can look in the mirror and never see what is there, in the light of awareness we must see what is truly in the mirror and accept that which we see as that which is real and if we don’t like what we see to be able to understand what actions we need to take to facilitate change and growth.

For me the light of awareness is like the dawning of a day. The light of awareness gradually envelopes my life, at first some things may remain in the shadows of the dawn, however as I increase my awareness the shadows begin to diminish and I am able to see more and more. When the light of awareness hits it’s apex I believe that is when I will shift from this level of being to the next. At the next level I will again go through another awakening, another process of bringing the light of awareness to full power so that I will understand what I am and the growth that I need to achieve.

One may ask, how do I switch on my light of awareness, how do I come to remember the love that is me, the happiness that is me? How do I flood my world with this light of awareness? The answer is quite simple, one must turn inward and come to remember and know your authentic self which is love. Each of us has the ability to become aware through shifting our thoughts and in doing so we are able to shift from ego (our false self) to a state of true being. It is when we make this shift that the darkness will fall away and we will come to know the power of our love and all that love is and attracts into our life!

Still not sure how to become aware? Begin by simply shifting your thoughts, words and actions to a perspective of love. Ask yourself, is what you are thinking, what you are saying, what you are doing an expression and motivation of love or is it coming from a place of ego, selfishness, greed, revenge, resentment, etc. Trust me, you will know the difference. Begin today to make the shift, become aware of your thoughts, words and actions and you will turn on the light of awareness which will flood your life with more joy than you can imagine!