PUSHING OURSELVES TO BECOME PERFECTED (MB)

Topic: Personal Transformation | 

It says in the portion Vayetze that Jacob has a dream, and then he wakes up. We know the dream; he sees the ladder and the angels going up and down. It says in both the Torah and the Zohar that Jacob wakes up from his sleep and says, as if he's upset at himself, “The Creator is here too! How did I not know that? God was here, the Light of the Creator was here… Why did I let myself sleep?”

So, the Zohar tells us that this place, both in physical space and time, for whatever reason, was destined to reveal great Light. But, is it surprising, even for Jacob, that he didn't know this was the moment and place where great revelations would happen? It doesn't make sense that he would be upset about that, because we never know when the moment or place will be when great Light is going to be revealed.

Therefore, it's surprising; why is Jacob beating himself up for not knowing that was such a powerful place and time? The Zohar says, and it's important we understand this, that there is a secret here of what Jacob is telling himself and of what he’s teaching us. Jacob wakes up and says, "I didn't know. I did not come to connect to what is called the face of the Creator.”

Rav Ashlag explains that when Jacob says "I didn't know,” it is like he is asking, "How can all of this have been revealed to me and I've not pushed myself to know more, to connect even more powerfully and strongly to the Light of the Creator, and to become perfected?” Rav Berg would always say that the word "know" in Hebrew, yedia,represents unification. Therefore, Jacob is saying, "This was here, and I was not awakened to a greater connection to the Light of the Creator." He's talking about after the revelation; he has already had his dream and awakening. He said, "All this has happened to me, and I have not pushed myself enough to connect, or pushed myself under the wings of the Shechinah to become perfected."

So, the Zohar is telling us that when Jacob wakes up and asks, "How did I not know?” what he’s really saying is, "How did I allow myself not to push so completely to become perfected, after what I just experienced? After I had this experience, how could I go back to being the same?” That's the secret. What Jacob is saying to himself, and it is really more for us than for him, is, "This just happened. How can I still be the same person? How can I not be pushing myself to perfection?" And what Jacob said to himself is something that we have to be saying to ourselves every day, all the time. What Jacob gives us on this Shabbat, and the secret of the words he is saying, the Zohar tells us, is an awareness of how we could have experienced what we experienced and not be pushing ourselves in a completely different way.

We should merit, with the assistance of Jacob and an understanding of what the Zohar is telling us, not falling to the same thing. We have to ask ourselves, “How can I, after all that has happened, go back to, or even a little bit better than, where I was?” Jacob tells us it can't be that we have that experience and then not push ourselves towards perfection, in a completely different and more powerful way.

I strongly recommend reading that section in the Zohar over and over, because it’s the awakening every single one of us needs. It cannot be that we had that experience and then went back. It cannot be that we had that experience and we’re not pushing ourselves in a completely different way to become perfected. It's very important to understand.

Weekly Reading

I became aware of CoDA through my therapist many years ago. My recovery has revealed the brave, beautiful inner child that is my true self. Words cannot express how meaningful this journey is for me. Here, I share how CoDA and 12 step recovery helps me to see ME.


---------- This little child of mine; 

Crying a deep ache that 

Clenches her being and

Causes her to feel the suffocating

Force of

Rejection 

Loneliness 

Confusion

Shame 



Who are you, little child?

Where are you, little child?

If I could dry the tears from

Your eyes and tell you that

Everything is going to be okay, would 

You believe me?




If I could hold you in my arms and 

Sing you a song, 

Would you listen with your 

Whole heart?



I only want to Love You, little child

I only want to See You, little child

Because what you forgot is,

You are Me and I am You.



I am the little child. 

Sadie - 10/16

Balancing Your Dreams with Your Habits (WD)

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird sleeps in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities. . . . 

— James Allen 

 

 One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have deep within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living. In the quote above, James Allen poetically explains that the dream is the magical realm out of which newly created life emerges. Buried within you is an unlimited capacity for creation, what Allen calls a waking angel that’s anxious to plant seedlings to fulfill your dreams and your destiny. An appropriate invitation and reminder that you need to tend to the dream within you if living a balanced life is important. 

How This Imbalance Shows Up in Your Life 

This absence of balance between dreams and habits may be very subtle. It doesn’t necessarily reveal itself in the obvious symptoms of heartburn, depression, illness, or anxiety—it’s more often something that feels like an unwelcome companion by your side, which continually whispers to you that you’re ignoring something. There’s some often-unidentifiable task or experience that you sense is part of your beingness. It may seem intangible, but you can feel the longing to be what you’re intended to be. You sense that there’s a higher agenda; your way of life and your reason for life are out of balance. Until you pay attention, this subtle visitor will continue to prod you to regain your equilibrium. 

When these subtle symptoms surface, it’s crucial to explore the kind of energy you’re giving to the scale to create balance—or in this case, imbalance. The heavy angst is weighing down your reason for being—but you are the only one who can rebalance this scale of your life. Here are some tools to help you return to a balanced life, beginning with recognizing the ways in which you may be sabotaging yourself. 

Mental Energy That Makes the Manifestation of Your Dreams Impossible 

Your desire to be and live from greatness is an aspect of your spiritual energy. In order to create balance in this area of your life, you have to use the energy of your thoughts to harmonize with what you desire. Your mental energy attracts what you think about. Thoughts that pay homage to frustration will attract frustration. When you say or think anything resembling There’s nothing I can do; my life has spun out of control, and I’m trapped, that’s what you’ll attract—that is, resistance to your highest desires! Every thought of frustration is like purchasing a ticket for more frustration. Every thought that agrees that you’re stuck is asking the Universe to send you even more of that glue to keep you stuck. 

The single most important tool to being in balance is knowing that you and you alone are responsible for the imbalance between what you dream your life is meant to be, and the daily habits that drain life from that dream. You can create a new alignment with your mental energy and instruct the Universe to send opportunities to correct this imbalance. When you do so, you discover that while the world of reality has its limits, the world of your imagination is without boundaries. Out of this boundless imagination comes the seedling of a reality that’s been crying out to be restored to a balanced environment. 

Restoring the Balance 

The objective of this principle is to create a balance between dreams and habits. The least complicated way to begin is to recognize the signs of habitual ways of being, and then learn to shift your thinking to being in balance with your dreams. So what are your dreams? What is it that lives within you that’s never gone away? What inner night-light continues to glow, even if it’s only a glimmer, in your thoughts and dreams? Whatever it is, however absurd it may seem to others, if you want to restore the balance between your dreams and your habits, you need to make a shift in the energy that you’re contributing to your dreams. If you’re out of balance, it’s primarily because you’ve energetically allowed your habits to define your life. Those habits, and the consequences thereof, are the result of the energy you’ve given them. 

In the early stages of the rebalancing process, concentrate on this awareness: You get what you think about, whether you want it or not. Commit to thinking about what you want, rather than how impossible or difficult that dream may seem. Give your personal dreams a place to hang out on the balance scale so that you can see them in your imagination and they can soak up the energy they deserve. Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. You must learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want, even though you may feel compelled to continue your habitual behavior. Your body might continue, for a while, to stay where it’s been trained to be, but meanwhile, thoughts are being aligned with your dreams. The esteemed 19th-century writer Louisa May Alcott phrases this idea in an encouraging and inspiring manner:  

  “Far away in the sunshine

are my highest inspirations.

I may not reach them,

but I can look up and see the beauty,

believe in them and try to follow

where they lead. . . .”  

  — Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

The Choice (KB)

Every minute, every, day, week, month and year has its own unique energy. As it says in the Bible, “For everything, there is a season.” There’s a time to plant, and a time for harvest. A time for planning, and a time for action. The energy of this week, the week of Vayetze, as we will discover together, lends itself towards a shift in our consciousness. With spiritual study and the deeper understanding that it brings, we just might be able to see things differently at the end of this week than we had in the beginning.

In Vayetze, we find Jacob beginning a spiritual journey. After much travel, he meets Rachel and instantly falls in love with her. Rachel’s father, an evil warlock named Laban, makes Jacob work seven years before allowing him to marry Rachel. On the day of Jacob and Rachel’s wedding Laban devises a plan to deceive Jacob, disguising his other daughter Leah as the bride and unknowingly Jacob marries her instead. To now earn to be united with Rachel, his true soul mate, Jacob agrees to work another seven years for Laban.

Vayetze means “and he left.”  A few weeks back we had the portion of Lech Lecha, which translated means, “Get you out.” Is this yet another portion in which the Bible is imploring us to embark on a spiritual journey? To leave our comfort zone? To go outside ourselves? In a way, yes I believe it is. However, there is a distinct difference; a new level of understanding here for us. One from which I think anyone engaging in a spiritual lifestyle can surely benefit. 

While from Lech Lecha learned the benefits of going outside our nature, getting uncomfortable and extending ourselves to others, the story of Jacob in the portion of Vayetze is the story of what happens when we mindfully choose to take upon ourselves the spiritual work. Yes like Abraham, Jacob had to leave the place he considered his home – his personal comfort and security – to go to his next level of spirituality, but as soon as he did, he was faced with so many difficulties, so many opportunities to choose or say, “Nah, this is not for me.” The secret that the portion of Vayetze reveals is that the way we grow spiritually is through the choice we make to keep going, to persevere. I often hear from students that the moment they made a true commitment and said, “I’m going to be more spiritual,” they were faced with choices. Suddenly situations presented themseleves. “Why now,” they ask, “When I’ve made this great decision that I want to do more and be more?”
The answer is: In order to do more and be more, we must always re-choose to be on this journey.  To continue to work another seven years even though the first seven did not give us exactly what we wanted.

What choices are you facing in your life right now? This is a good week to think about them, and to start to see them in a different light. For any fork in the road that arises in the next seven days, no matter how big or small, is an opportunity for us to re-choose.
The spiritual path is one that will always be fraught with detours, roadblocks, or forks. It’s learning to see those as a means to become the cause and chooser of our destiny, to choose the path of Light. After all, isn’t that why this world was created for us? So that we could be the reason, the source of our own fulfillment.

This week, the choice is yours to keep traveling North.

Wishing you a blessed week,
Karen
 

Warriors of the Heart (GZ)

My adopted Lakota brother, Phil Lane, Jr., told me a story at a gathering of young Native Americans I have never forgotten, and I feel certain that I never will. A rancher on the plains often saw a sweat lodge near his range. A sweat lodge is a low dome-shaped tent made of bent young trees. In the old days they were covered with buffalo skins. Now they are covered with tarps that are covered with old blankets. The lodge cannot be entered except through a small door that makes people crawl to enter. It is difficult not to be humble while crawling into a sacred space to pray.

It is hot in the lodge. Water is thrown onto red-hot rocks from a fire outside, and the steam makes the lodge feel like a sauna. Between each round of prayer, people go outside to lie on the ground or walk and breath the fresh air. Then they go back into the lodge to pray some more.

During one of the times between rounds, the rancher rode up to the people on the ground and asked, in a rough voice because he was frightened, "What are you doin' in there?" The short conversation between him and the Lodge Master went like this: "We are prayin'. What are you prayin' for? We are prayin' for you." I knew the story was true because that is what the people in my sweat lodges did, also. They prayed for everyone, not only themselves.

Phil Lane, Jr., is a hereditary Chief, and he received much criticism and anger from other Native Americans of many different tribes for his gatherings that included white people. "How can you do such a thing!" they demanded. "How can you give white people our sacred rituals? They have taken everything from us. They have taken our land. They have taken our homes. And now you want to give them the only thing we have left - our culture!"

Phil patiently explained again and again, "Now is the time of the coming of the prophecies. The Great Spring has arrived. Now is coming the Day That Will Not Be Followed By Night. We must share our wisdom with our Brothers and Sisters." The elders agreed with Phil, and they taught him and supported him.

This was almost thirty years ago. Now we are blessed to hear these healthy, grounded, life-affirming teachings of a shared Humanity, of one family of Life, and of our Responsibilities to it and to one another from many voices, young as well as elder. You can hear these voices at Standing Rock. They are sharing with us what Native American elders taught them and their ancestors for thousands of years. They are showing us what we need to do to heal the damage that we have caused, and how to soften a self-created climate disruption that now threatens all life.

Native wisdom around the world can teach us more about how to relate to Mother Earth than even the most heart-felt scientists. We have ignored this wisdom, disdained it, and killed those who carry it for five hundred years.

Now is a good time to listen, and to pray with our Native American sons and daughters and brothers and sisters - for water protectors and police, for people we agree with and people we don't, for the one family of Life that we are and all our relatives in it.

Here is a link to a delightful modern expression of this wisdom from a young Native American. I recommend her videos and words for your consideration. 

https://youtu.be/PqeKe7u9iwM

Love,  

 

 

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 68

·         “Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end. ”—John Lennon

• ·         "When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured."
  ·         “Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”—Saint Augustine
  ·         "Genuine religion renders the religionist socially fragrant and creates
  insights into human fellowship."
  ·         “Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.”—Benjamin Disraeli
  ·         "Men all too often forget that God is the greatest experience in human existence. Other experiences are limited in their nature and content, but the experience of God has no limits save those of the creature's comprehension capacity, and this very experience is in itself capacity enlarging."
  ·         “Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  ·         "Every time man makes a reflective moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul."
  ·         "Every soul who enters upon the eternal way by the means I have created and ordained shall be saved and will be able to go on to the attainment of the eternal pastures of Paradise." – Jesus
  ·         "Genuine religion takes nothing away from human existence, but it does add new meanings to all of life; it generates new types of enthusiasm, zeal, and courage."
  ·         “Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.” — Thomas Carlyle
  ·         “You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination”—Roman Payne
  ·         “When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you”— Lao Tzur
  ·         “Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can?” —Sun Tzu
  ·         "New religious insights arise out of conflicts which initiate the choosing of new and better reaction habits in the place of older and inferior reaction patterns."
  ·         "The fragment of God which indwells the mind of man is the absolute and unqualified assurance that man can find the Universal Father ..."
  ·         “For most people, their spiritual teacher is their suffering. Because eventually the suffering brings about awakening.” - Eckhart Tolle
  ·         “What if it becomes less about how we look and more about how much we care? What if it becomes less about how much money we earn and more about how much we share our good fortune? Imagine a world where who we are in our hearts is the ultimate status symbol.”—Amy Leigh Mercree
  ·         “I have a habit of letting my imagination run away from me. It always comes back though... drenched with possibilities.”—Valaida Fullwood 

Profit

"In freeing people . . . our country's blessing will also come, for profit follows righteousness." Senator Albert Beveridge

Profit is more than financial benefit or material wellbeing. For the recovering alcoholic or drug addict, it is being aware of life, feeling feelings, and having the capacity for a relationship with God, self, and others. But financial benefit is also part of spirituality.The blessing of money and economic stability is part of God's love and trust. This gift of freedom involves responsibility and stewardship. With money and profit, not only am I able to enjoy creative comforts, but I can also help make the lives of others creative. A responsible use of money is part of my recovery program and has become one of the joys of my spiritual awakening.

Let Your blessing of money in life help me to bless others.

Leave The Future In My Hands And Live In The Ever Present Now (EC)

Cease worrying about anything, it’s such a waste of time and energy. Learn to let go and let Me take over. Try not to look too far ahead; if you do, life becomes far too complicated. Leave the future in My hands and live in the ever present Now. You say this is easier said than done. Well the more you practice doing it, the easier it becomes, so just keep on and on and never give up and you will achieve the most amazing results. Start doing it Now.

On this day of your life

Neytiri & Jake, I believe God wants you to know...

...that there is a light which cannot ever be extinguished.

It is inside of you. It is you.

Let your light so shine upon the world that the world will

know Who You Really Are -- and its people will know

why they really are as well, 

through the light of your example.

The darkness of our world awaits you -- not to engulf

you, but to be transformed by you. During this Season of

the Light, be its Source for all those who search for Joy.

Avoiding the Center (OM)

BY MADISYN TAYLOR
Quiet time each day is so important, but many are so out of practice that it's almost unnerving to be in stillness.

It's funny to imagine our lives as something we spend a lot of time avoiding, because it seems like that would be impossible to do. Our lives consist of everything we engage in, from showering to sleeping, but also a lot of busy work that distracts us and keeps us from looking at our lives. Experiencing our life from the inside means taking time each day to simply be alone and quiet in the presence of our soul. Many of us are so out of practice that it's almost unnerving to have a moment to ourselves. As a result, we may have stopped trying to carve out that time to take a seat at the center of our lives.

One of the reasons it can be uncomfortable to sit with ourselves is because when we do, we tend to open ourselves to an inner voice, which might question the way we're living or some of the choices we're making. Sometimes the voice reminds us of our secret, inner yearnings, dreams we thought we had forgotten. When we already feel overwhelmed by our busy schedules, the idea of hearing this voice can be exhausting. However, its reflections are the chords that connect us to our authentic selves, and they are the very things that make our lives worth living. When we continually avoid connecting with our life, we risk losing out on the very purpose of our existence.

To begin the process of being more present and less absent in your life, you might want to set aside just a few minutes each day to simply sit with yourself. This doesn't mean watching a movie or reading a book, but taking time each day for self-examination to avoid the avoidance, to be with yourself in an open way. After a while, you may start to enjoy this part of the day so much that you make less busy work for yourself, so that you can spend more time at the center of your own life, rather than hovering like a planet around the sun.

Power Of Now Quote

Power

"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of loss of power." John Steinbeck

I now see that much of what we perceive as power in the world is really fear. Power that seeks to attack first to feel secure is fear. Power that always demands an answer is fear. Power that arrogantly refuses to listen is fear. Spiritual power can be vulnerable. It can live with confusion. It can stand alone. It allows others to walk away to pursue their own happiness. Spiritual power can exist in suffering and loneliness and does not expect perfection. My recovery is teaching me to live and let others live, too. My freedom must respect the freedom of others. Respect is a two-way street.

Give me the power that can rest in imperfection.

Miles To Go (KB)

Just when we think we have done so much, helped so much, grown so much… there are still miles to go before we sleep. At the beginning of the portion of Vayeshev, we see that Jacob sought to rest. He felt that he had completed his spiritual work. After all, he’d been married; he had children from which all future nations would come. He’d passed so many difficult tests, and most importantly in doing all of this he brought about the permanence and continuity of the world. What more was there for a man to do? And then, his son Joseph is taken from him. This became Jacob’s point of complacency. As Robert Frost tell us in the last stanza of the poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening: “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.” As long as there is the breath of life in our bodies, there is work to be done. It is in the moments when we feel we have nothing left to do that the universe is compelled to send us new challenges so that we might continue to grow. We can grow proactively, or reactively. By choosing to push ourselves further, we expand our spiritual capacity in a proactive measure. On the other hand, if we choose to rest, in the belief that we have “done enough,” we might find ourselves in a place where we are forced to learn some new lessons, facing new obstacles. This universally-known law is as beautiful as it is difficult, and certainly begs to be repeated over and over again: Spiritual growth is inevitable. It’s how we chose to grow that is up to us. This week, there is an energy in the universe that can give us the strength to grow proactively. As the holidays are fast approaching, our inclination may be to relax, stop working so hard, and just enjoy life. This is an opportune time to expand our capacity proactively. Let’s use this week to connect with the true meaning of this season by reaching out to our fellow humans. Even if it seems cliché, put in an extra hour at the office to make someone else’s job a little easier. Give a little more charity to those in need. Lend a hand when yours are already full of things to do. It will help to expand our capacity to reveal more Light for ourselves and the world in the coming year. This week, make going the extra mile your true North. Wishing you a blessed week, Karen

Bring Simplicity to the Holidays (WD)

This holiday season, as we witness Nature progress into the slow and quiet slumber of winter, our interactions with family, friends and co-workers only seem to speed up more and more by comparison. Instead of succumbing mindlessly to the demands of any and every occasion, allow divine inspiration to take the lead by making joy and love a priority in your holiday activities, as explained in the wisdom of Dr. Wayne Dyer: Joy A hectic schedule crammed with non-purposeful activities precludes an experience of inspiration; we feel joy draining from our body and spirit. When the calendar becomes frenzied, full of unnecessary turbulence because we’ve failed to simplify, we won’t be able to hear those long-distance calls from our Source . . . and we’ll slip into stress, anguish, and even depression. So whatever it takes to feel joy, we simply must act upon it. Regardless of our current station in life, we have a spiritual contract to make joy our constant companion—so we must learn to make a conscious choice to say no to anything that takes us away from an inspired life. This can be done gently, while clearly showing others that this is how we choose to live. We can start by turning down requests that involve actions that don’t correspond with our inner knowing about why we’re here. Even at work, we can find ways to keep ourselves on an inspirational agenda. Opting for joy involves giving ourselves time for play instead of scheduling a workaholic nightmare. We deserve to feel joy—it’s our spiritual calling. By giving ourselves free time to read, meditate, exercise, and walk in nature, we’re inviting the guidance that’s waiting patiently to come calling with inspirational messages. There’s also no law requiring us to be at the continual beck and call of our family members. I see no reason to feel anything but joy when we know it’s right to choose to do what we’re called to do, even when it interferes with another family member’s calling. Love Thoughts or actions that aren’t tuned to love will prevent inspiration from getting through to us—we need to remember that we come from a Source of pure love, so a simple life means incorporating that love as one of the mainstays of our material existence. Just as love is the priority in the final moments of life, so it must be as we simplify life now. We can go toward a clearer life by examining and purifying our relationships with those we love, with ourselves, and with God. What we’re looking for are connections that keep us in an energy of love, which is the highest and fastest energy in the Universe. If we organize our life around love—for God, for ourselves, for family and friends, for all humankind, and for the environment—we’ll remove a lot of the chaos and disorder that defines our life. This is a way to simplify our life, but more than that, it’s a way to attract inspiration. — Dr. Wayne W. Dyer May you celebrate yourself this holiday season with joy and love. Wishing you and your loved ones a very happy holiday!

How to Create Compassionate Holidays (GZ)

Dear Spiritual Partner,

Compassionate Holidays require that you act consciously each moment. Unconscious caretaking and pleasing others (giving gifts because it is the "season") are NOT compassionate deeds. They ignore the humanity of the recipient because the recipient is being exploited by frightened parts of your personality. This type of interaction multiplied billions of time each "Holiday Season" makes the experience much less than it could be.

Compassion is being moved to and by acts of the heart. I am not speaking of the sentimental "heart," the "heart" that feels pity and need to fix other's problems (these are experiences of frightened parts of the personality). I am speaking of the most healthy, inclusive, grounded, and loving part of yourself. If this heart is not involved, no compassion is present. Therefore a compassionate Holiday, like a compassionate family dinner or a compassionate country requires you to replace the experiences of frightened parts of your personality (which also include anger, impatience, frustration, and judging) with the experiences of loving parts (gratitude, appreciation, patience, caring). This creates authentic power.

People who do not know about authentic power want very much to experience compassion, especially during the Holiday Season, but they don't know how so they try to will compassion into themselves. This makes compassion even more difficult to experience because the effort to experience it is really an effort to make themselves feel better, which is the opposite of compassion.

Most people are not aware of this close relationship between creating authentic power and experiencing compassion, but it is obvious to those who know even a little once they begin to think about it. You cannot be compassionate and angry at the same time, or compassionate and jealous at the same time, or intend to exploit someone and be compassionate with that person at the same time.

There is no such thing as compassionate Holidays. There are only compassionate individuals, and in each instance, compassion is a matter of choice - the choice to create authentic power, to challenge frightened parts of your personality and cultivate loving parts. A compassionate Holiday is impossible without a compassionate day before the holiday, day after the holiday, and compassionate days before and after those. 

Happy Holi (Holy) Days,

On this day of your life

Neytiri & Jake, I believe God wants you to know...

...that challenges are what you came for. And you are 

never, ever, given a challenge you cannot overcome.

The purpose of life is to give you a chance to be the

grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held

about Who You Are. When challenges arrive, then, 

move straight to clarity: This is what you came for.

Now rise to this occasion, and know that you have

every resource with which to create the right and

perfect outcome.

People-Pleaser's Guide to Pleasing People

Some people are born with the ability to say no; others mumble their way through hours-long phone conversations, unable to end the call for fear of offending the person on the other line. If you belong to the latter category, you don't need writer and comedian Sarah Cooper's "People-Pleaser's Guide to Pleasing People," because you're already on track for a life full of doing things you don't feel like doing — but you might love it anyway. Welcome to the club — unless you don't want to join. Do you not want to? I don't want to force you into anything. Whatever you decide is totally fine.

Cooper is a writer, comedian and creator of TheCooperReview.com, a satirical website focusing on office humour. "I am a recovering people-pleaser. I realized I had a lot of codependent tendencies about a year ago," Cooper tells Bustle. "I always thought the term 'codependent' meant that I was dependent on other people, so I thought this couldn't be me because I'm so independent! But then I did some research and realized it's not about depending on people for what they can give you, it's about depending on people to like you in order to be happy."

She recently addressed this realization in a Cooper Review post. In seven spot-on illustrations, "The People-Pleaser's Guide to Pleasing People" lays out exactly what it takes to ensure everyone else's happiness. First order of business: If you want to join the ranks of the people-pleasers, start working on your poker face.

Cooper recommends maintaining a vaguely beatific expression at all times, because anything less could come across as a total downer. "This will make people feel good, as if you’re totally fine with everything all the time," she explains on the Cooper Review.

Similarly, true people-pleasers never have opinions on what they want to do — they're down for whatever, up for anything, or whatever else Youths say these days. When two people-pleasers collide, a consensus may never be reached.

TheCooperReview.com

Most importantly, prepare to forget your own preferences until you no longer have a sense of self. When plans are being made, it's time to bust out your best impression of a blank slate. "Your suffering is the key to fitting in anywhere you want to go," Cooper writes.

TheCooperReview.com

When asked about the source of her inspiration, Cooper writes that she examines her own life. "My only formula [when writing for the Cooper Review] is honesty. I try to stay as close to the truth as possible then go from there," she explains. "So I start with a real struggle I have — like always putting on a happy face — and then exaggerate it to make it funny."

Allowing Ourselves to Receive (OM)

by Madisyn Taylor By allowing ourselves to receive we are given the gift of seeing through another person's eyes. By allowing ourselves to receive we are given the gift of seeing through another person's eyes. Giving and receiving are part of the same cycle, and we each give and receive in our own ways. But we can lose our balance when we try to be too controlling on either side of the cycle. On the receiving end, we may feel that we don't deserve the effort made if what we gave was easy for us to give. But perhaps there is a different lesson there for us. We may be receiving not only gratitude, but a chance to see the world through the eyes of another. We may be learning that just because we gave easily, it doesn't diminish its value. Or perhaps the universe is giving us an example to hold close to our hearts, to encourage us on some future day when our own generous act of giving is not met with a visible act of receiving. When we can allow ourselves to receive as well as give, we do our part to keep the channels of abundance open for ourselves and others. Sometimes we may find ourselves struggling to respond to others' gifts in the same ways--like responding to an expensive present with something equally expensive, or feeling like we have to throw a dinner party for someone who has thrown one for us. But when these are done out of a sense of obligation, their energy changes from something that shares to something that drains. If this sounds familiar, we can decide next time to allow ourselves to receive with arms, minds and hearts open and simply say thank you. Accepting a person's gift is a gift in itself. Sincere appreciation for their acknowledgement and their effort joins our energy with theirs in the cycle of giving and receiving, and nurtures all involved. If ever we find we are still having difficulty, we can decide to allow ourselves to be conduits for gratitude and accept on behalf of a loving, giving universe.

5 BLOCKS TO FORGIVENESS

 

By Global Love Admin

Below are 5 potential myths and resistances around forgiveness to support you in more fully embracing it. As always, only accept that which feels true to you.

Whilst forgiveness sets you free, it may not always seem easy, and where it may be instant in some cases, forgiveness may involve stages, rather like the stages of grief shared in this previous post.

Trying to forgive through a wall of anger, for example, is unlikely to work. You may need to process feelings, give yourself time for reflection/healing, perhaps to look at a possible bigger picture, hidden agendas, shadows, stories, for deeper understanding, taking responsibility, and so on. Asking for divine assistance in any forgiveness process can also help.

To also forgive YOURSELF for whatever it is you are wanting to forgive in your life, and to see if you’re aware of any ‘blessings in disguise’ around the situation, and what you can learn about what’s going on inside (beliefs, thoughts, patterns, wounds, etc.).

Below are 5 possible blocks to forgiveness. Recognizing and acknowledging these alone can help them dissipate and prevent them standing between you and forgiveness.

1) I’ve found for me personally, and with family and friends I know, there can be certain things that seem easier or harder to forgive.

That can vary for everyone depending on what particularly presses on your buttons, feels most triggering/hurtful/offensive, and plugs most into your wounds, beliefs, shadows, and stories, for example.

That personal ‘plug-in’ may be why we experience more resistance or difficulty forgiving those particular things, which we can also have bigger blind-spots and be less conscious around. Having a reflect on this and possible patterns in your life to view the situation from a bigger picture can help.

2) Letting go is always a part of forgiveness, and because of that, there can be resistance to it.

I remember after my father died many years ago my sister held on to anger for some time. Anger can be a stage of grief in itself, but she realized this anger was also a way of holding on and not going to the next level of feeling and healing – the pain beneath the anger, the grief, mourning, and letting go. In this case that was her resistance to forgiveness, for if she forgave, she’d have to let go. Her anger, ironically, offered some kind of connection and closeness. Sometimes we don’t forgive because we don’t want to let go.

3) Another resistance to forgiveness is a sense that if you forgive you are essentially condoning the behavior of the person you are forgiving. Obviously, if you don’t like the behavior you may have a resistance to forgiving them if you hold that association. Working with judgement alone can help in some cases, but for an immediate shift, look to forgive the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’.

You don’t have to focus on forgiving the act or deed, whatever that be. You can forgive the reasons behind it; the inner pain, ignorance, dysfunction, beliefs, etc. that may have caused someone to act the way they did. As the saying goes, it is the hurt-full who are hurtful.

Beyond that, there is the why you attracted, allowed or created the experience. What was your story, wound, belief, etc? Or was it a lack of self-worth, or sabotage, or victimhood? Or was it, in retrospect, a blessing in disguise?

Take responsibility and forgive yourself if necessary. What ‘why’ within you regarding any situation can you address, become conscious of, and forgive yourself for if you think that will help (or thank yourself for if there’s a hidden gift there!).

4) Another resistance to forgiveness is a fear that if you forgive someone you would have to spend time with them or lose your boundaries in some way. Obviously this isn’t the case. You get to choose who is or isn’t in your life, and just addressing this often hidden fear can help free it. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean you have to hang out with them, it just means they don’t have to hang out in your head.

5) Lastly, the ego will resist forgiveness. Anything unforgiven is fertile ground for the ego, which doesn’t want you to forgive because then you’ll be free of the grip of those ego traps. Simply being aware of the ego’s resistance can help!

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As mentioned, there can be stages to forgiveness. Don’t feel bad if you’re not feeling anywhere near forgiveness, or feel like you’re unspiritual or unevolved for not managing to forgive quickly or easily.

Honour your process, your feelings, your journey, yet know forgiveness is always there for you.

Much love,

Aine Belton