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Mother Earth

Mother Earth

 

Mother earth who gives life,

longs to rid all the strife

that lies within human kind.

 

Beautiful we are All created to be

but it is this beauty that some cannot see.

 

Mother Earth is always there

to lift us up from despair.

 

Nature sings her melody

to lead humanity into unity.

 

We rage war from left to right,

Mother Earth is hurting deep inside.

 

Her heart beats and longs for us to see,

love is the answer that will lead us to peace.

 

Oneness we were meant to be,

but suffering has separated humanity.

 

When things get rough,

cling to Mother Earth

for she will give you peace.

 

 

The heart of Mother Earth

lives in all human beings,

always there to guide us to our destiny.

 

©Jeff James 2012

Awaken Grace

Awaken Grace

 

Mother Earth’s grace awakens

in the dawning of each new day.

As the sunrise brightens the morning sky,

night then fades away.

 

As the Sun’s rays breaks through gathering clouds,

they shine down from above giving light,

Onto the world directing us

unto joy, peace, and love.

 

Though some will wonder off,

Mother Earth is always there.

Just call on her,

for She shines an eternal promise

that none will be forever lost

and All will soon be One.

 

Life: Mother Earth gives to all.

 

 

Though we are destined to fall,

get back up and learn from it all.

 

Created to be one human race,

let’s get together in unity.

 

No more polluting the water we drink,

no more trashing the earth

where we lay to sleep.

 

No more raging war.

 

Mother Earth is here

living in our hearts.

 

When storms of life

darken your day

Mother Earth offers a safe,

protecting place.

 

Nature sings Her melody

directing humanity to Its destiny.

 

Be slow to speak,

quick to listen,

for Mother Earth is always saying somethin’.

 

Be still and know that she is Life,

for in Her, and within All, lies Eternal Life.

 

©Jeff James 2012

We Need To Talk

I heard a voice say “Tell the women.” But what was I to say? The voice said, “Start the conversation.” I asked, “What about?” I begin to write about topics women might find interesting, but the words are lifeless and feel superficial.

Pushing pen across paper, hoping for a splash of inspiration, a small voice reminds me to stop hiding behind the cosmetics of niceties. I walk away from the paper, thinking about my words and deep down I know there is something burning in my soul.

Nevertheless, even in this Knowing, doubt and fear remind me of who I am and that conversations with women are often uncomfortable.

The ancient mothers etched a message within my soul, I know things have shifted and I cannot look back. I hear their ancient voices beckoning me to the portal. If I listen closely, I can hear the notes in their song. Yet I must ask, “Are we ready to converse? Are we ready to sing their melody, or is this just another seismic movement, which causes us to notice, that we are uncomfortable in our life, but unwilling to take the step.”

I struggle with the message and again I hear the words, “Tell the women!” In doubt I respond, “What am I suppose to say?” In a moment of stillness, the ancient voice echoes, “I already told you.”

Breathing into the Knowing, I move back to paper and pen, embracing the fear rising inside of me. There is no turning back; I can no longer run from the ancients.  Fear, doubt and vulnerability have been my dearest friends, and yet the time is now, the portal is open, are you ready for a conversation?

We were born for greatness.

We were born to create.

We were born all-knowing, but through pain, abuse, neglect, and fear we forgot.

We forgot our inner-beauty.

We forgot to nurture ourselves and caress our soul.

We were born to heal.

We were born to lead.

We were born to dance under the light of the moon and the blanket of stars.

We were born knowing, but through shame, we forgot.

Born into the female lineage and branded at birth, we were sin and shame personified. Ancient stories repeated and our bleeding was the validation. Our blood was a sign. We were unclean and untouchable, and destined for a journey consumed with pain as we birthed the weight of our fathers, brothers, and sons. We listened to the stories, the ancient text we heard, we followed the path of compliance, fully accepting the burden of “our sin”. We followed the ancients from Eden the burden of guilt on our backs, branded by the masters; we buried our essence in Egypt.

However, I must ask these questions, “Do you hear the ancient mothers. Do you hear their voices carried by the wind? Do you feel a stirring deep within your soul? Are you ready to have a conversation about the truth of who we are?”

Yes, we were branded because we bled and lifetimes have been spent forgetting or diminishing the sacred portal. The ancient mothers remind us, that we are the givers of life. Yet it is in this open wound of our bleeding where the conversation must begin.

Let us forgo the idle chit-chat and whimsical banter. Let us gather in a circle around the fire and rewrite the stories that were told so long ago.  Let us have a conversation about the essence of our being, and really look at our open wounds.

The truth is this; there is no shame in being a woman, regardless of what you’ve been told.

There is no reason to hide behind the facades of conformity. Sister Sacred your soul longs to dance.  Let us go through the portal, and attend to the open wounds, together we will heal, as we sing the songs of the ancient mothers beneath the light of the moon.

We were born for greatness.

We were born to create.

We were born all-knowing!

The portal is open to cause us to remember!

Jounda Strong

©Jounda Strong 2012

“Repurposing” Your Intentions

Repurpose:  transitive verb: to give a new purpose or use to (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary)

I have pretty much always focused on finding my own passion and purpose in life, and I think I have been fairly successful at finding it. I have strongly encouraged others to go deep into their inner being to find their passion and purpose as well.

But I must admit there have been times I have allowed my train of thought to get off track by the normal every day hum drum of life; you know the same old routines each of us fall into each and every day. When it comes right down to it all of us have to find a way to pay the bills, make the meals, keep the house clean, if we have kids make sure they are kept in line, yada, yada, yada. In the midst of the chaos sometimes we find ourselves allowing others to make important decisions for us in our lives that cause us to get off track of what we started out to accomplish. Our passion and purpose, and eventually our self-esteem and self-worth, suffers the most because of our lackadaisical, mindless transition from living from self-directed intention to other-directed intention. Eventually this rises cause to “repurposing” our intentions for how we live out our life if we truly desire to complete the process of living, and reaching the destination, of our passion and purpose.

Recently I awoke from a three-year bought of depression in which I was walking in my sleep most of the time, barely going through the motions of living, just barely. When I began to awaken I realized that my passion and purpose was still there, nothing had left, and if anything it had grown deeper. But I also began to realize that I needed to “repurpose” my intentions if I was going to move in a forward direction with the same passion and purpose I had before I had fallen into that deep, sleeping depression that left me at the edge of the cliff ready to jump off and give up on life in the first place.

Although I had previously been on the right path with my passion and purpose the first time around, I had allowed others to misguide my true intentions with the authenticity of what had been seeded deep down inside of me with those two intrinsic qualities. This time around I needed to repurpose those two qualities, really make them mine and stick to them. In other words not only did I need to do my passion and purpose, I needed to do them with my own intentions behind them, not the intentions of others.

The entire reason I burned out the first time around, the reason I ended up physically, mentally and emotionally worn out, to the point that it led me to taking a hiatus that lasted three long years in seclusion, with the bed covers pulled up over my head in deep depression, is because I had allowed my intentions for my passion and purpose to be distorted by other’s intentions for my passion and purpose, and the outcome had not been what I had intended in the long scheme of the plan. I had been left with nothing to show for all of my hard work because even though my passion and purpose was diligently at work, my intentions had been put out to pasture during the actual process. I had not remained true to myself, I had listened to the opinions of those who had my well-being and best interest in mind, all at the expense of not listening to the person who had my ultimate best interest in mind, me.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Is it truly because of the aforementioned chaos of our day-to-day lives? Or is it something more insidious? Many times I think we do this because we don’t trust our own judgment. We value the opinions, ideas, decisions and judgments of others more than we value our own. We do this because we want to please others. We may be afraid we will lose those we love. Sometimes we are unaware that we are sabotaging our success because we are actually afraid to succeed. Whatever reason may lie under our failure to listen to our own inner voice and thus take the advice of others, we need to realize that it’s that inner voice that usually does know the best route to take for our true joy and peace of mind, and our success. There is no blame, or fault, it is simply a lack of judgment on our part, the lack of listening to our own inner voice, that voice that tells us that our own intentions for our passion and purpose is good enough to carry out the process of what it is we are attempting to accomplish for our overall good, for the long scheme of our lives, and yes, even for the ultimate benefit of others involved even if they don’t realize it. Because the one thing we must learn and remember about pure intentions is that they are birthed, not logically schemed up in our heads. When the Universe, God or whatever you call your Higher Power gives you a pure intention, it is always for the “good of the Whole”, so it is your own to carry it forth and nurture, and likewise it is not anyone’s to take away.

So I am coining the phrase “repurposing my intentions” not because I didn’t know what my passion and purpose was in the first place, but because I got lost about my true intentions behind my passion and purpose once I was actually doing what I was always intended to do. I’m finding that repurposing my intentions, reaching deep down inside of myself to put all of the pieces of my “original intentions” for my passion and purpose is much like putting the parts of a mannequin back together. All of the parts are there; they had just been taken apart, strewn all over the place, parts placed on other mannequins that didn’t belong where they were placed. I now have to gather the parts back up and put them in their original places so I have one complete properly functioning person with her original intentions, passion and purpose, all in one package.

After surveying all of the pieces scattered about, I now have a much clearer focus on why I fell apart in the first place, I lost focus of my original intentions. I am now ready to pick myself up, dust off the parts, put them where they belong, and start anew. I still have the same passion and purpose, but this time I know without a doubt that my true intentions are the purest intentions, and exactly the foundation I need to carry my passion and purpose forward through the good times as well as the tough times. It is my true intentions that will keep me on that straight and narrow path, not looking to the right or to the left, so that I will reach my destination. I have a dream. Behind that dream are my true and pure intentions. No other person’s intentions can be the fuel behind my dream. My dream was birthed inside of me, is nurtured by me, is fueled by my passion and it is my purpose to see it through. While others may come into my life to help and support me, it is only my pure and true intentions that can make it what it is in my heart.

Repurposing misdirected intentions, getting back on the original path; yeah, that’s what dreams are made of, the option of redirecting, turning around, going back and reclaiming what is yours to reclaim. It’s not enough to only have a passion and a purpose; we have to keep our intentions behind them pure and original. We can’t let anyone get us off track; we have to stay true to our own intentions to see our passion and purpose through. When we remain true to our pure intentions all involved will ultimately benefit because our pure intentions were sent to us for the benefit of “the Whole”. The process may be messy and getting the outcome right may take a couple of tries, so thank goodness for the option to repurpose anything and everything in our lives, including our intentions that we may haphazardly let slip away at the intentions of others.

Proposal of Divine Purpose

“…if I am doing what I am purposed to do I will be serving those who I am destined to serve. To serve any others as my primary focus is only superficially serving with false intentions.”

“If we claim to be seekers of Truth, then we must not only find our Divine Purpose, we must live it, in real time, in order to be the example we want to be to the world, in order to touch the lives we are meant to touch.”

Even on days when we don’t feel like we have anything to give, or anything to go after or dig for deep within our being, there still remains the fact that each and every one of us were placed on this earth for at least one reason, if not multiple reasons…reasons many of us define as “purposes”.  It is finding that one special primary Divine Purpose in our life that many of us find unbearably difficult if not almost impossible to realize and bring to fruition. Some of us may give up on finding our Divine Purpose all together thinking that it’s just not worth the struggle, that the fight is just too hard. And a good many of us may even believe the lie that to find our own purpose is selfish and only a mere excuse for something that is disguised as a form of egotistic narcissism. I have seen far too many people who have found their life’s purpose and experience the ecstasy of it, only to casually throw it away and trash it as if it is merely something we can easily dispose of as if the yearning for it will no longer come back to haunt us when we least expect it. And come back to haunt us it always does if we give up on searching for it, finding it, then abandoning it as if it were yesterday’s trash and only a whim we can carelessly give up on like a hobby that takes too much of our valuable time.

Today I sit here writing this post reaching out to you, my dear, dear readers, hoping to spark, if just one more time, that sense of hope and awe to go deep within yourself to touch that flame of your own unique Divine Purpose in life once more, just once more. Maybe this will be the time you decide to forge onward, and continue forward to see your dream through no matter what the odds are, and stick with it through thick and thin come what may. No deep-seated passion is valueless. That passion you feel constantly stirring in your heart, the middle of your being is your Divine Purpose, no matter how irrelevant you think it may seem it pertains to daily life and living. There is a reason for it or it would not be there! In some way that passion, that Divine Purpose, will be used to touch the lives of people you are meant to touch or else it would not be there stirring your emotions.

I realize in order to find that true passion, that true Divine Purpose may mean, for some of us, spending a lot of “alone time” in order to search our hearts, our souls, before we can even begin to know what our Divine Purpose actually is. For some of us the thought of spending time getting to know ourselves may be a frightening, and even a somewhat boring journey into the unknown. Just that action in and of itself may be our very first step of realizing our actual Divine Purpose in our own individual lives. I urge all of us, please take that first baby step; the mystique of each of us is a profound gift.

In spite of all of the unsolicited editors who wish to offer commentaries in each of our lives, there is no one who knows us as well as we know ourselves even if we know very little about ourselves, even if we are lacking in knowing about all of the glory we were created in. Each of us needs to take the plunge and get to know our own glorious beauty. If we continue to listen to the commentaries others’ offer without us asking, or even when we do ask and receive opinions that are based on someone’s outside vantage point of us, not taking into consideration our hearts’ intention and motivation, then we will almost always be led astray down an incorrect path for our true life’s Divine Purpose. Listening to, and taking to heart, the comments and opinions of others who tell us we can’t succeed for whatever reason is nothing more than believing lies.

Still, for many of us, we have taken the inward journey time after time, we have touched the flame of our Divine Purpose only to retract from it afraid we will be burned for reasons of failure to succeed, or failure to live up to the fame of our Divine Purpose, or maybe even fear of success. Whatever our fear, it has held us back from our ultimate reason for being.  These reasons should not be valid reasons for calling it quits and accepting the mediocrity of the status quo in life deciding to live in apathy, settling for second or third best. These reasons are fear based which are, again, just the same as listening to others’ negative commentaries that lead us to hopelessness; these reasons are nothing more than lies we are choosing to believe because they keep us in a fail-safes zone where we only falsely believe we are protected. There in that fail-safe zone we believe we will not be made to look like a fool in the eyes of others, especially ourselves, when in reality, we actually look less than successful and accomplished because we are not actively participating in life in the way we were meant to participate, in our Divine Purpose where we could explode in ultimate victory for the “good of the whole of humanity”. Unfortunately the only feeling we are left with in that place is emptiness because we are not fulfilling our ultimate purpose we were born to fill while on earth, the only thing we are doing is settling for lies that tell us “settling for second best is okay”. But “okay” isn’t good enough when living our Divine Purpose is what our Divine Creator, our Universal Spirit, actually intended for each of us in order for each of us to feel fully complete, and also to complete the circle of Love where all of humanity’s needs are met because each of us are fulfilling our destined niche, or function, in Life.

For some of us, our greatest fear is that we would actually enjoy our Divine Purpose so much that it would take us away from serving others because we would be so engrossed in doing what we love most that others would take “second seat”. In other words, we rationalize that we cannot get involved in what we love to do because it would cause us to become so engrossed in our passion that others would suffer because of our involvement in it. This is what I have been dealing with lately. But what I am slowly coming to realize is that if I am doing what I am purposed to do, I will be serving those who I am destined to serve. To serve any others as my primary focus is only superficially serving with false intentions. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean that I can serve only those within my purpose exclusively, it just means that my main focus will be on those within my Divine Purpose and those outside of my Divine Purpose will be my outer-focus, not necessarily second best, just not my primary purpose. It’s all a matter of perception and organization. It means as a human, I must work harder at keeping my priorities straight. And as a mature human, I can do that.

I am betting that many of us know from experience that there once was a time in our lives when we were in the exact center of our Divine Purpose. At that point in time we were genuinely joyous and fulfilled as a person and we were able to positively touch a multitude of others’ lives while we enjoyed our own lives. Once we moved out of the center of our Divine Purpose our lives have not been the same, and others lives have not been touched by us in the same way since, and our own lives have not been as full and joyous.  Now we are adrift in the ocean of settling for second best, apathetic at best. We may be waiting for the opportunity of our Divine Purpose to float back by so we can reach out and grab on to it. But the reality is, we have to go swimming after it, we can’t expect it to float by us. Our Divine Purpose needs to know that we want it so desperately that we will go after it, that we will search for it.

You see “Divine Purpose” is like a child, it needs to know that it is loved, cherished and wanted. It has to be nurtured and raised up. It doesn’t just exist and come to full maturity by letting it just stand alone all on its own. If left alone and ignored it will shrivel up and wither away or become unruly and go wandering off into some other purpose we were not meant to fulfill, therefore our efforts at another purpose may never reach full potential. But our Divine Purpose will always be hiding in the shadows, waiting for us to take notice. It may be a shrinking violet, but in reality it wants to be noticed. It silently weeps while waiting in the dark. It cries to be taken back out in the sunshine, dusted off and nurtured into maturity. It wants to be polished until it glows for all to see. It’s our Divine Purpose, the very reason we are here! It does not want to be wasted sitting in the dark shadows of our fear, procrastination and apprehension. And “Divine Purpose” knows when we are lying and telling our self that we don’t have any “purpose”, it takes a lie like a punch in the gut, it feels a lie like deep sorrow, it shows a lie like depression, it acts a lie out in apathy.

Would any of us ignore a child who came to us wanting to explore his or her potential? Would any of us tell a child that he or she was not worth finding their true Divine Purpose? Would any of us take away the child-like awe and wonder of a child’s innocence of Divine Purpose by breaking their Spirit and telling them “it can’t be done”?  Well, that is exactly what we are doing when we tell our own Inner Spirit of Divine Purpose all of those negative things…Our inner child becomes more and more scarred and wounded with each suppressing of the awe and wonder of the true Divine Purpose we were designed to fulfill in our life.

The fact is we must stop believing all of the lies. We must stop believing the lies of others who offer their unsolicited comments and opinions that tell us that we “cannot succeed”, or that we are not “good enough”, or that “others need our attention more than our own desires”, or, or, or. And we must stop believing the lies we tell ourselves too. In addition we must begin to live in faith and hope rather than fear of failure, or fear of someone else’s opinion of our success. And we must also stop settling for second or third best in our lives and thus living in apathy. When we settle we really don’t have anything at all, our life becomes completely empty and void. It’s like we have accepted living in a dark and deep abyss of nothing-ness. In short, living like this is ultimately living a lie, we are not living in Truth. If we claim to be seekers of Truth, then we must not only find our Divine Purpose, we must live it, in real time, in order to be the example we want to be to the world, in order to touch the lives we are meant to touch.

In writing this post today I am speaking to myself as much as I am speaking to you, dear readers. I am speaking to all of us who are not experiencing the center of our purpose in our lives. So I am issuing a proposal to all of us…I propose that all of us go deep, deep within and find our Source where our own unique Truth is found and touch our flame of Divine Purpose, seek it as if it is our last breath, and go after it as if our life depended on it! I wish you the best of soul-searching success with a profound gratitude of Divine Purpose.

Namaste’

UnWelcome

Have you ever been invited to someone’s house but the minute you stepped inside you felt unwelcome?  I bet you have. And from that point on your entire visit was terribly uncomfortable, you didn’t quite know how to respond to any of their questions, you didn’t know how you should act, whether you should ask to use their restroom or “hold it in”, or just what you were “allowed” to do or say. You wanted to make a good impression but somehow you just felt “off” and unsettled inside, your  gut told you that something just wasn’t right with the whole visit and needless to say, the relationship overall.  You almost felt embarrassed to be there and felt you should leave, but that would bring another, still more uncomfortable situation up, so you just dealt with the uncomfortable feeling until the visit had run its course and you could respectfully leave.

What you were feeling is called “rejection”. And it comes in all shapes, sizes and flavors. None of us are immune to it. In fact it begins happening to us before we ever leave our house in the morning. Let me give you some examples I bet you’re really familiar with.

You climb out of bed and maybe turn on the morning news. You see some talking head telling you that his kid got beat up in school yesterday because he wore a T-shirt to school that had a logo of the American Flag on it. You shake your head in disgust and start to walk away from the T.V., but just a minute, you have school-age children and you begin to think, “Huh, this could be my kid”. Not only do you begin to feel rejection for that kid on T.V., you begin to feel rejection for your kid too should he ever be put in a similar situation, and it comes all the way home to you when you remember experiencing a school-yard fight over something just like this when you were a kid. (Never mind the larger issue of “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”) Anyway, you begin to get that sinking feeling way down deep in the pit of your stomach that tells you this day is not starting out all too well.

You kind of shrug all of that off, try to get readjusted and back in tune with what lays ahead of your day. You turn your laptop on to quickly check in with your email account and Facebook, then SMACK!, you see that a couple of your best used-to-be friends on Facebook has “unfriended” you because of conflicting political and religious beliefs, and the emails they sent you are downright shredding your ego. With shoulders beginning to slump, you pull yourself off your office chair and head in to the kitchen for more caffeine. As you find your way to the door and out to the car to head to work, you’re wondering to yourself, “Now what? Do I remain in the FB communities where the same friends are members, or do I leave with my tail between my legs? If I stay I might just have to lurk only and remain voiceless because surely everyone will know that my two best friends rejected…what??? Uh, oh, there’s THAT word. REJECTED. I’ve been…rejected. “Yes, you’ve been rejected two times, already this morning, three times if you count both friends, and you’ve barely made it to your car.

The crux of these thoughts is this, all of us suffer rejection all of the time in many ways, shapes, forms, at all times of each and every day. Some of the rejection is real, and some of it is purely perceived.  There isn’t a whole lot we can do to stop real rejection from coming our way, and we can’t remove our self from society, although many of us try by becoming reclusive. Even then we find ourselves connecting on social media sites because as humans we are meant to be, well, “social” creatures.  The possibility of being rejected is kind of a built in danger that comes with existing that we might experience at any point in time. There’s really nothing we can do to stop the threat of rejection.

But there is something we can do to lessen the threat of feeling the pain of being rejected, and that’s taking control of our own emotions and how we react to other people’s words and actions. It’s not so much what other people say or do as much as how we perceive what other people say and do. It’s all about our own perception. And this comes under the heading of “self-love”. We all must learn how to love our own selves properly. If we learn how to love ourselves, we will be better at loving others around us.  It starts with us though. Everything starts with us, with “self”, the “within”.

I’m not talking about the narcissistic kind of love when you think you are the greatest thing to walk planet Earth. I’m talking about learning to nurture you in a kind and compassionate way.

Many times the reason many of us are so sensitive to rejection is because we are first and foremost our own worst enemies and we are self-rejecting before anyone else gets the chance to.

It’s mostly about the “tapes” we play over and over in our heads. You know, the words of condemnation we carry over from our childhood when we were told by our friends that we weren’t good enough to be on their team, or when we were excluded out of the “clique” when a new kid from another state started our school and everyone wanted to be their new, best friend, or when our parents told us over and over again that we had to “shape up or ship out” or we wouldn’t become a “productive member of society”, or one of our teachers in high school made us stay after class day after day to get our grade higher because “he knew we could do better than we we’re doing, if we would just put a little more effort into our work”. It’s those tapes that we have carried to our adult years and that’s all we hear now except now those tapes play in our voices, saying those words and the script pertains to our world today. Today it’s our own voice saying, “Self, you better shape up or you’re going to lose your job.” Or, “Self, if you want to be a productive member of society you will…..” and you fill in the blanks…and there are oh so many blanks to fill in! Or, “Self, if you will just stay a little longer at the office you will earn a higher pay grade.” Yep, we condemn ourselves each and every day. We find fault with ourselves and when we don’t listen to the tapes and choose to do the opposite of what the tapes tell us to do; we reject ourselves and begin telling ourselves just how bad we are. “Well, if you would have done this, or you would have done that, then this would have happened or that would have happened.” Then when other people even begin to look like they are about to give us the slightest look of rejection or begin to say something that we perceive even a hint of a tone of rejection, we take it ALL in and it becomes rejection with a capital “R”.

Where’s the self-love? When do we begin to realize that we are, after all, human? And when do we start realizing we are not Superhuman? When do we become a little less critical of ourselves and a little more accepting?

When do we learn that the sooner we begin to accept ourselves for who we are, the sooner we will be able to accept others for who they are?

This World is in need of a paradigm shift in perception. We all chant how we want change. But none of us really seem to know what kind of change we are looking for. We all seem to wander about aimlessly searching for that illusive “change”.  Really the change all of us want is to be accepted for who we really are, to not be rejected. I believe that begins with self-acceptance. And I believe self-acceptance begins with a paradigm change in perception of one’s own self, or “self-perception”, after that comes how one views others and the World around him or herself.

You’ve heard it said, “All the World needs is a little more love”. I contend that all the World needs is a little less rejection. After that love will naturally follow. Love is a pretty big concept. We need to take baby steps to back ourselves out of the mess we’ve created. It begins with each of us learning, maybe for the very first time, how to love our own selves appropriately.

Stop rejecting yourself. Start by welcoming yourself back into your own heart. Then we will see the World change, one heart at a time. Then we can say, “Welcome World, into my heart”, and mean it.

Forgiveness Is A Tight Balancing Act

Forgiveness is an absolute requirement if we are to move forward in life. The lack of forgiveness paralyzes us, stops us dead in our tracks and holds us back from truly achieving our hopes and dreams, because if we don’t deal with it, there will always be that dark cloud hovering over our mind and in our hearts nagging at us, telling us that we have unfinished business to deal with. Anytime we have unfinished business it interrupts our ability to embark on future activities with gusto and vigor in a way that allows us to give our full attention, it splits our efforts so that the attention we give to our new endeavors are only half of what we have to give.

Forgiveness is not all about the other person, it is mostly about us. Our mind convinces us that it is about the other person though, that it’s their fault, and theirs alone, that we had no blame in the situation, and that’s what keeps us from actually carrying out the act of forgiveness. There is something in human nature that rationalizes that it’s okay to hold a grudge and encase bitterness in our hearts when we perceive that someone has done us wrong. The key word in the last sentence is “perceive”. It is our perception of the situation from the beginning that gets us into a cycle of negativity and all that is encompassed in it to begin with.

But what good does forgiveness really do in our lives? And how do we go about doing the “act of forgiveness” if we have enmeshed anger, resentment and bitterness so closely within the living spaces of our minds and hearts? And how do we know that we have truly forgiven? What does the act of forgiveness look and feel like? What do we do if other people will not forgive us?

Basic human nature tends to perceive situations in the most negative sense before beholding the positive side of any situation. Therefore, if we perceive the situation as negative, we will almost always perceive the person involved in the other half of the situation as the perpetrator. Our mind carefully calculates a situation for danger quickly just in case we have to rise to the occasion to protect our self or our loved ones.  This is not only basic human nature, this is animal instinct, we were born with this, it is impossible to escape this mechanism, and it’s there for the purpose of our protection. What we do with this natural mechanism of protection, this automatic reaction of perceiving situations in a negative manner, how we act upon it and the time we take to rationalize the situation is what matters. That’s what makes the difference between anger settling in our hearts and planting a root of bitterness that can fester into hatred, or choosing to parse our feelings and dealing with emotions before they become irrational.

More often than not, it takes pulling our self out of the situation, looking at it from afar, in order to reassess the situation for what it really was. Was the other person involved in the situation actually the perpetrator, or were they, like we perceived our self to be, an accidental victim? Were we the perpetrator?  How did the situation start? What led up to the situation in the first place? At what point did the situation turn from the positive to the negative? There are so many questions in any given situation. But no matter how we dissect the situation, we must forgive the parties involved if we are to move beyond the emotions of the situation. It doesn’t matter who is at fault, the matter is that we forgive. Hopefully eventually the situation will get straightened out, especially if you forgive both yourself and the other party. Yes, you must forgive yourself, even if you don’t believe you were at fault.

You must forgive yourself for many reasons. You must forgive yourself because you can only love another person to the same degree that you love yourself. This is Universal Law. No matter what dogma you believe in, you will find this truism cultivated. It is impossible to love someone more than you love yourself. It’s nothing more than a “head trip”, a lie your mind is telling you if you believe anything different. It is no surprise that our strongest instinct is self-survival. Yes, there are those special people who will run into the danger to save others, but I contend these are the very people who have learned how valuable life really is and they have learned how to love themselves, in a proper way. They know the value of their own life or else they would not have found their “calling”, to help save the lives of others. It is both a selfless act to save the lives of others and a self-loving act because these people understand the value of life, even their own life, that their life has value, to be used to save lives.  And many of these people who save the lives of others will be the first to say that they are not “heroes” when they are hailed as heroes by the community in which they live. They will say they are merely doing the job they are called to do. They obviously understand the value of their own life.

The remainder of us must understand the value of our own lives. And we must learn to live without regret. And I insist that we cannot do this until we learn to forgive ourselves as well as the people around us. Once we forgive ourselves, only then can we forgive others. No matter what situation we find our self in, there is always room to forgive our own self in that situation. There is always something in that situation that we could have done a little bit better at handling at the moment we were in it. We need to take a step back and recall the situation and find those little moments and forgive our self. Once we truly forgive our self, then it’s time to take on the challenge of forgiving the other person. And again I will state, forgiving the other person is not for their benefit as much as it is for us.

But what does forgiveness really do for any of us? Why is it so vitally important? Forgiveness unchains our hearts and clears our minds. One of the basic definitions of forgiveness is “released, set free”.  That means “it is over”. Whatever was is now done. Forgiveness opens the pathways to being able to receive love and information. Without love and information we are basically useless, apathetic robots going about our daily business only as if “we have to” without any enthusiasm. And any enthusiasm we do show may be purely an act or façade we put on because we know it is the politically correct way of living. But deep down inside of our being we may find ourselves struggling to get through each and every day, silently complaining to ourselves, hating each and every chore we go through, thinking, “I sure will be glad when this day is over and I can go to bed.” We all know that’s no way to live life. Some of the very definitions of life is, “living, vivacity, animation, energy, excitement, get-up-and-go”.

Think of all of the times you have held anger, resentment and bitterness in your heart towards someone for something they did, or you perceived they did. Maybe you carried it for days, weeks, even years. It probably felt like a brick, weight upon your shoulders, or maybe even a ball and chain. Most likely, even if you didn’t realize it for what it was, it affected many things in your life. All of that negative energy can literally crush your positive efforts towards your own successful life. For every step forward you took, you found yourself two steps backward.  At best you may have found yourself stuck in neutral.

As humans we wonder why we often feel so burdened, weighted down and anxious about life when if we would just take time to explore our true feelings we might find that we are harboring anger, resentment and bitterness against fellow humans that is just not working for us, but against us. If we would only just decide to unload all of those negative emotions and thoughts, throw them into the wind and decide not to give them any power in our lives, we might find that we feel lighter and that our lives begin to move forward again. We may find that our depression lifts and our anxiety levels dramatically decrease.

How do we go about forgiving when we just don’t seem to be able to “let go” of the resentment and bitterness we feel in our heart? It starts in our mind. “As a man thinketh, so is he.” We have to change the way we think about the situation we were in. Remember, it is the way we initially perceived the situation that got us where we are today. If we perceived that the other person was attacking us, then it will be much more difficult to change the way we think and feel about the overall situation, especially if the dispute has been going on for years. But if you realize that the other person is dealing with issues of their own, that really has nothing to do with you personally, even if the other person is using you as an escape goat, then it may be easier for you to give up your stand on the situation and start waving your white flag. Humans need someone to blame. Again, this is just human nature. It started with the beginning of time. Though it’s not correct, it exists. By choice, it’s up to each of us to choose a path that doesn’t include blaming others. If each of us can be successful in taking the blame out of a situation, then we may be more successful in perceiving the situation in a more positive manner and then we may not even need to employ forgiveness in the first place. But if we do need to employ forgiveness, then reassessing the situation, and realizing that we don’t have to blame anyone, it will be easier to forgive the other person.  But the key to the entire situation is to realize that the other person, just like you, has issues of their own that affects their ways of thinking, their emotions and thus their actions. They are human and as a human they will instinctually find someone to blame no matter how irrational their action may be or how disconnected from the situation at hand it may be. So probably the best way to perceive the situation you find yourself in with that person is to give them grace, do not blame them for their “irrational” action and walk away without anger in the first place so you have no forgiving to do. If you find yourself unable to do that, get yourself to a calm place at some point down the road and then reassess the situation and remove your initial perception and replace it with a different perception that doesn’t include anger, hurt or anything negative. Once you have done that you are on the road to true forgiveness.

What does the “act of forgiveness” look like? You don’t have to carry out a ritualistic act. And you don’t have to make direct contact with the person you are forgiving. Obviously if the person you are forgiving is yourself, you will know about it. But if the person you are forgiving is someone who the relationship is so broken there is no communication, or the person is deceased and you cannot make face-to-face contact, don’t worry, your act of forgiveness is still very real and very effective.  Universal Law takes into account that everything we think, say or do is accounted for. What goes out, must come in, the yin and the yang. It’s Nature’s way of balancing. It’s God’s way of offering grace for all people who believe and call upon it. When that “heart and head connection” takes place within a person, an almost cataclysmic event takes place. It’s an “aha” moment. You know that you know, that you know, that something has changed within you and you know you are a different person. You can feel it in the pit of your stomach and there is no denying that you feel better about yourself. When your mind has changed about the situation and you have decided not to be bitter and resentful towards that person, it changes your heart. Some people believe that the heart has to change first. I personally believe it’s a choice that first takes place in the mind and then the heart follows suit. We are given choices in life; it’s up to us whether we choose to love or to be filled with hate. Once we make the choice to love, to forgive, an event takes place in our heart and it attaches to our mind, our thought processes the connection and a bond is formed between the two that cannot be broken unless we decide to break the bond. Usually the bond feels so good, that it sends countless endorphins through our body causing us to choose to keep the bond linked.

What about the way the other person is treating me? We can’t help how or what other people feel or think about us. That’s not our job. We can only control our own feelings and thoughts. But we have to remember that we can be half of the problem, or half of the solution.  And if any situation has degraded to the point where the people involved are no longer in connection with one another, if you decided to be half of the solution, even Universal Law can help heal the emotions of both parties simply by you giving up the negative emotions and thoughts and enacting forgiveness upon yourself, the other person and the entire situation.  The point is you need to find a place of peace, not just apathetic acceptance of the situation, but true peace in your situation concerning the other person and the situation that got you where you are in the first place, if you desire to move forward in life in a truly harmonious way without debris in your path. And if you truly want to “love your neighbor as thyself”, then you must help clear the debris from their path too by forgiving yourself as well as forgiving them. This is both an act of selfless love and kindness. The other person may never know you have forgiven them, but that isn’t the point. The point is that you have.

You may never associate with the other person again in your life. And that’s okay. As I stated, you cannot control how the other person feels or thinks about you. And you should not place yourself or others in a vitriolic environment, if it is truly vitriolic. Choosing to stay out of a hurtful relationship is an act of love for both parties involved too if differences cannot be resolved. And you can only assess if the situation is venomous, caustic, hurtful and cruel if it is a situation that has happened repeatedly involving that person without fail. If that’s the case, then you would be doing yourself and the other person justice by removing yourself from the situation. But you still must forgive yourself and the other person for not understanding one another’s position, heart, and not being able to share space without hurting one another, and then going about your separate lives.

The main crux of the matter is that all of us must find a place of peace in our lives. In order to find that place, forgiveness is an essential part of the equation. There is a lot in this World to forgive. A person doesn’t even have to take a step outside of their own door to find a reason to forgive. It may be a person, or people in your life you need to forgive. It may be your government, it may be your church, synagogue or religion, it may be your workplace, your club or it may be yourself. Whatever you are feeling weighted down about, search your heart, you may find that the lack of forgiveness is attached to it. If you find that you need to forgive someone or something, start working on it so you can truly find your passions and focus on your desires and goals in life and then go forward in life feeling a little bit lighter having a path a little less cluttered with debris.

Self-Preservation?

I have found the subject of “self-preservation” to be almost taboo in circles of women. And it doesn’t matter what kinds of circles you talk about. They range from soccer moms, to religious circles to the more liberal circles of the most independent women who are the more extremely career-minded. “Self-preservation” is just something women don’t consider to be important to a fulfilling life for themselves. Women being “women” always seem to put others first before themselves. And, yes, this is an admiral trait to naturally have inborn in each of us, to think of others first, to be the “giver” and not the receiver. This is, after all, what we try to teach to our children. But if we are always giving, giving, giving, what is left for us when we have given all we have to give and our own well is dry?

I like to think of “preservation” like the fruit preserves that Grandma used to make in the old Ball jars and store in her basement. Mmm….they were good! And they were pretty too. And when she opened each and every jar anew, they smelled like she just made that jar yesterday, like it was just as fresh as the day she made it. And knowing that she made each jar with her special kind of love, and when she placed the lid on each jar and then waited to hear that “pop”, then she knew that the jar had sealed properly and the preserves were ready to be stored away for the day she needed to bring it out because the previous jar had run empty.

Self-preservation is like those jars of fruit preserves. Self-preservation is like storing away an amount of ourselves away for times when our energy, our wisdom, our joy, our laughter, our inner strength has run low and we need that extra boost from which to draw from. It gives us the fortitude to keep on keeping on when there is nothing else in the world to encourage us to keep going. But how to we get self-preservation? How do we find it? How is it made?

It’s like those fruit preserves, we have to take the sweet loving time to make it. It doesn’t just occur. We have to take the time to pick the fruit, prepare the fruit, cook the fruit and add the sugar and spices, bring it to just the right temperature before we can pour it into the container and place the lid on it and wait for the lid to give us the “popping” sound telling us it is properly sealed and ready to be stored away.

Self-preservation begins with us nurturing our spirit in ways that are special to us, each of us, individually. To some of us it may be reading self-help books or books of fiction or romance books, or even an assortment of different genres. To some of us it may be going out with other women to tea rooms for brunch, or going out to lunch together. For some of us it may be going to garage sales. Still others may indulge in body massages, and others may enjoy long walks in the park and listening to the birds sing, and even for some it may be a time of regular exercise. There are many, many ways to nurture your spirit, but you must begin to feed your spirit just like the fruit for preserves has to be grown before it can be picked. Of course this takes time. You have to afford yourself time. You have to understand that you are important enough to afford yourself time. If you have to actually schedule time in for yourself, then you must take the step to pencil in time in your appointment book for yourself. This is absolutely vital. And once you pencil in that time, don’t change it. Under no circumstances change that appointment with yourself. This is the most important appointment in your book. Keep it.

Okay, so you have time to nurture your spirit scheduled. This is your “fruit of your spirit time”.  After your “fruit of your spirit” time has been scheduled, on a regular basis, what do you do with the fruit that is beginning to grow inside of you? Because grow it will and you will need to find something to do with it. You find a place inside of you in which to store it.  Don’t just automatically begin giving it all away by sharing what you are learning with the people around you. If you made fruit preserves, unless it was a special occasion, like a special holiday, you wouldn’t just give all of the jars away, you would store them for future use. If we constantly give away everything we have, everything we learn, everything we take in, we would have nothing in reserve for ourselves, or for a rainy day. So you store your new-found “fruit of your spirit” and let it all “meld” together. Melding is something I learned from my mother years ago. You know what it is. It’s when you make a dish for dinner and have too much for one night so you save it and then re-heat it the next night and realize it tastes even better the following meal. That’s because it has had time to for all of the flavors to “meld” together. This is what you do with all of the “fruits of your spirit” that you have accumulated during all of the times you have spent doing things for yourself.  A lot of wisdom can be gained during these quiet and alone times. Just like fruit preserves that sit in the cool dark of the basement, waiting to be consumed, the flavors meld together and they taste even better than the very first jar that was eaten right away!  This is the beauty of self-preservation.

Eating of the “fruits of self-preservation”~

Once you have had time to spend time on yourself and store up that time and your “fruits of self-preservation”, then you have enough to rely on your own stability and peace of mind. And isn’t this what all of us women want? So the beauty of nurturing your own self-preservation is that once you begin to accumulate the fruits, you begin to have peace of mind that you have something stored up inside of yourself if you should need to call on your reserves. Most of us have run ourselves so ragged taking care of others that we have no stability and peace of mind left. We have become anxious, intolerant, nervous wrecks on the brink of a complete melt down at any given moment. And this is because we haven’t taken the time for self-preservation. We don’t have anything in reserve for ourselves. We don’t schedule private time for ourselves. We don’t even view ourselves as important enough to schedule that private time. And really, what good are we to others if we are running around on the verge of a meltdown? We can’t kid ourselves, the people around us can sense it. And that’s not fair to the people we love. And it’s not their responsibility to make sure that we find time for ourselves. It’s our responsibility. We shouldn’t think that we are so important in their lives that they can’t live without us for a couple of hours a week. But we shouldn’t think that we are not important enough to schedule those two hours a week to refill our own wells either. We have to have balance in our lives if we are to preserve our spiritual, mental and emotional health.

When we provide the example to the people around us that we value ourselves enough to employ self-preservation in a way that is balanced, feeding the “fruits of our spirit” on a regular basis, then we are teaching our loved ones to respect us as individuals, and we are also teaching them to do the same for themselves. This is probably one of the most important lessons we can learn for ourselves while teaching it to the people around us at the same time. This is probably one of the most healthy “boundary” lessons we will ever learn as humans on this Earth. Self-preservation. It teaches us to be kind to ourselves and to one another as well.