BLOGS

How do I accept the unexpected?

All the learned expectations are the foundation of a lot of our challenges in this life. Expectations are not who we are! Consequently, as we begin to unravel the challenges in our life we begin to move beyond expectations.

So here are the things YOU can do !

The simple answer to the original question is “You accept the unexpected by embracing the challenges in life and learning to live in the present.” Let me explain, everyone has challenges in this life. Those challenges are what allow you to feel any of the fear-based emotions. Conversely, anytime someone feels a fear-based emotion they are experiencing a challenge in some way. As you begin to embrace the challenges, understand those challenges, and heal those challenges, you become free of them. In life, you can get to a place where you are excited about the presentation of another challenge because you know that with its healing comes greater freedom, love and acceptance in this life!

So if you learn to embrace the challenges in this life, you will also learn to move beyond your fear of death and/or aggression. As you begin to move beyond that fear, you become more of an observer in this life. As an observer, you are more in the present. The more present you are in this life, the less expectations and anticipations will play a part. When in the present, there is no past and there is no future, there is only now and in the now you have no expectations. Therefore, there cannot be the unexpected.

It is at this point that you are accepting everything as the unexpected. You learn to read the unexpected as life speaking to you. You embrace the unexpected as those opportunities to grow and to see where you are limiting yourself. You allow the unexpected to be the gifts that are constantly taking you into greater freedom. Simply, you have grown into a space of accepting and embracing the unexpected because the unexpected is your way of life.

You cannot learn to accept the unexpected by doing. It is the outpouring of being present.
I hope each of you enjoys the uncertainty and constant change that life had to offer you. The gifts are endless for each of you and they are found in the unexpected!

Where’s the Past in the Present?

When we talk about living in the present we aren’t talking about something we do. It is an experience and an expression of that experience. This life is experienced as past, present, and future with great purpose. The past consists of that which you need to heal. So, if you are having challenges in the present they come from the past. Therefore, you are not living in the present at those times of challenge. When you project into the future, you are taking from the past to define the future. Consequently, you are skipping over the present.

As you go through the day there will be challenges, expectations, and assumptions: those are signs that the past is still active. If you find yourself judging (in any way), that is a sign that the past is still active. If you find yourself feeling hurt, angry, lonely, fearful of loss, guilty, etc., then the past is in the present.

In the course of the day, you may find yourself worrying about the future. You may find yourself wondering if you have done enough for your children. You may find yourself wondering if you will grow old alone. You may find yourself wondering if your health will fail. You may find yourself thinking about the future only in ways that you know because of the past. The future, however, has yet to be told. Your fear of the unknown coerces you into projecting your past into the future. If you did not have a fear of the unknown you would not wonder, worry, or fear the future.

When you are living in the present you don’t have to forget the past nor do you have to pretend there is no future. When you are living in the present, you in a style of life mastery or enlightenment where you have mastering the past challenges, transcending those challenges, or moving into a state of enlightenment in some other way. You are present. You are aware of your breath. You are aware of everything taking place now without an attachment to its meaning or the meaning it has to you as a result of your past. You aren’t worried about the future. And yet, you live today knowing that if you are aware of all of life around you and are honoring all of life around you, that you are making a better place for your children’s children’s children. You are not living in the present with an absence of honoring. Quite the contrary, it is the very honoring of every plant, every animal, every incident, of Mother Earth and of Spirit/God, and of all that is, that is integral to your awareness of being present in life and with life. And most importantly, living in the present is in the honoring of your own Self — that part of you that, in its purity, is aching for you to move beyond your fears to find truth and freedom. It is on the journey toward truth that you find yourself living present and in the present. It is the outcome of the healing.

To think that you are to ignore the past, ignore the pain, and ignore what was, is to live chained to the past. Because in order to avoid that past, you must keep the past alive in the back of your mind somewhere so you are sure to avoid it! And as long as you are doing that you cannot be present.

Do not try to push down, forget, or move beyond something by severing or ignoring. It only creates greater illusion by keeping you anchored to what was and not allowing you the freedom to feel what is. The challenges of this life (that which makes up the past) are not here to destroy you. They are in this life for you to move through them, transcend them, master them. It is the mastery of the challenges that allows you to unveil the truth of who you are. That truth, by design, lives in the present. In conclusion, the more you live in your truth and know the truth of who and what you are, the more you are living in the present and the more present your true self is. Further, when living in the present, the unconditional love and acceptance of self is experienced and is, then, also offered to all.

May each and every one of you have a day filled with an acceptance of your challenges, knowing of your Self, and awareness of each breath you take. May you be present in your life.

Listen in as I talk more in-depth about what you can do to open your relationship to its true potential.

Love doesn’t keep a relationship together. Communication and moving beyond your defenses does.

Often, people fall in love and wonder why it doesn’t hold. We aren’t “taught” to develop relationships. So magical thinking tends to take over. Love is always, right? No. There is fear and fear is the absence of love. For example, fear of not being good enough leads to jealousy, insecurity, mistrust, rejection, shame. Fear is in all people. Therefore, it must be in our love relationships.

If you learn to communicate from your Self and NOT about the other, you will begin to break the cycle of assumption and misperceptions that are anchored in and fueled by fear. Learning to communicate in this style is in opposition to how you were probably taught. It may not be easy but it is rewarding. In this way of communicating you will open your Self and the relationship to the infinity of life. Therefore, love grows and thrives. It does not stagnate and die.

Fear fragments and takes you away from love. It is fear, if not healed, that shatters the love. All fear marks, and is marked by, the challenges in your life. Everyone has challenges. It is by definition in this life. So the challenges and fears of life must be a part of your love relationships.

To learn to embrace the challenges (fear) is to open your Self to the healing of Self and relationship. As you open your Self to your truth, you are teaching your partner who you are and what you believe, perceive, and desire. You are speaking of your fears and challenges in an effort to allow the team or partnership to heal you and, therefore, with you.

As we learn to open ourselves to being seen and understood at this level we are learning compassion of self and, therefore, compassion of other. It is with the willingness to communicate your truth and to open your Self beyond defensiveness (or fear of threat) that you begin to live compassionately for self and other. This is where love resides. It is here that you will find everlasting love and companionship in your life partnership.

I wish you all great, endless love in this life – for Self and Other!!

Nothing in life is wrong. It’s all just another challenge opening you to the infinite adventure.

Feel that. What would the experience of life be if you could accept that there is no wrong? What if everything was occurring with a meaning to take you back home to unity and harmony? What if no matter what your decision, it would be right for that time in your life and would open you to yet another great set of experiences?

Too often people stop, hesitate, stay stuck because they are afraid of making the wrong decision or doing something wrong or not being successful. All of these fears come from the belief that there is wrong and not good enough.

What if you moved beyond the duality of right and wrong and asked your Self “Why is this in my life?” What if you pondered the point in your path with curiosity rather than judgment and fear? Many would soon see the multitude of gifts that life offers. You must be willing to see beyond the duality of right and wrong to receive the greatest of life’s gifts. You are here to feel the definition of you separate from the whole or one. What separates you is fear. This existence is expressed through the duality so that you can choose to “find” your Self beyond that which you are not, fear. So, everything you experience is with great purpose! Nothing is wrong. It is all just experience in the soul’s journey of definition and unity.

Judgments often follow when suicide is a topic. Yet, it is something people have many opinions about. Why do people commit suicide? Why is it assumed to be a sign of weakness? Furthermore, why do we judge those who are feeling so destroyed by judgment itself? Remember, “We judge only in the way we are fearful of being judged.” So what might this say about those who judge those who commit suicide? Join me as I discuss that varying judgments people have regarding suicide.

Oftentimes when someone attempts or commits suicide the judgments follow. Yet, people want to know about the person who committed suicide or made a serious attempt. Why do people commit suicide? Why is it assumed to be a sign of weakness? Furthermore, why do we judge those who are feeling so destroyed by judgment itself?

Let’s begin by looking at the judgment itself! Many people will judge the person who is/was suicidal. That judgment can be heard in the way they describe someone who committed suicide, or the questions they ask about suicide, or their assumptions about suicide. Remember, “We judge only in the way we are fearful of being judged.” So what might this say about those who judge those who commit suicide?

In my many years of working with others I have found that just about everyone has thoughts of suicide. Sometimes those thoughts of suicide can be simply a pondering. Other times those thoughts can be fairly detailed. Then there are the times those thoughts can be very serious (3.7%, Emory University). Infrequently, thank goodness, the thoughts turn into successful attempts (0.5%, Emory University). So, using my 30 years in practice, let’s imagine that 90% of the people have a “thought” of suicide at some time in their life. That would suggest that everyone has felt pain at a level that they want to escape this life. This does not mean they were labeled depressed or medicated or anything else. It shows that just about everyone is capable of having the thought but how did they experience the thought(s)? Did those thoughts frighten them? Did they keep it secret because of the fear of the judgment or condemnation if someone found out? How did they handle “the thought”?

Most people will not share their brief or isolated, past or present, thoughts of suicide. They appear to experience shame and fear of judgment. It appears to take a good amount of trust that the person who they are telling will not judge them or act upon their thoughts. That experience alone can evoke the very loneliness and/or shame that could have been a part of their thoughts.

The emotional pain that is felt from loneliness, hurt, abandonment, or a myriad of other fear-based emotions, leaves us feeling very small, exhausted or weakened. People usually want to withdraw not go toward. They want to be left alone not accompanied.

Consequently, often times the person with those emotions are rescued by their anger coming to the foreground to express their needs in one way or another. But many other times that emotional pain leaves a person feeling too exhausted, maybe even beyond exhaustion, and so he or she says nothing. At those times she or he may resort to isolating, staying away from others. Each and every one of you knows that when you feel loneliness (not just alone) you feel like isolating from everyone. Logically that doesn’t seem to make sense but emotionally it is what happens. So, if you imagine a loneliness becoming so intense that you cannot isolate and cannot be with, then you start to understand, through that little thought what can make suicide become more of a reality. The more exhausted a person becomes the less real it seems that he or she can pull their self out of the abyss of emotional pain. If you were stuck in a 100-yd pit with smooth walls and no one knew you were there and although you began screaming out you slowly ran out of voice. Over a short amount of time, with no food and water, you begin to realize you are either going to starve to death, freeze to death, or become prey to another animal who can scale the walls. Whatever your thoughts they are anchored in the helplessness of getting out of the situation you are in that ultimately ends in the absence of life. You may choose to wait as long as possible for a miracle rescue but then choose to kill your Self gently before the suffering becomes too intense. This is similar to the emotional experience inside the suicidal person. They have lost all hope of rescue and life. Suffering has overtaken them. They think giving into the darkness is a gentle passing to peace that can be better than helplessly and hopelessly waiting for the inevitable suffering to continue.

Of all of those with whom I have worked who had more serious suicidal thoughts, 99% of them were going through a time in this life that was full of pain. Yet, it was apparent (to me and others on the outside of their abyss) that they were going to be able to heal and get to the other side it. On the other side of the painful time in life, was a life of gifts waiting for them. That being said, if the person contemplating suicide could know that there was another side that was so full of life do you really think they would step off this plane? If the person in the 100-yd pit knew there was a rescue mission coming, would they consider suicide? Usually not. It is rare that a person dies without “reason”.

Maybe you fear suicide because you were told by a religion that you would go to hell. That, in turn, may spark feelings that you are bad for even having these thoughts. Then you begin to believe that you are so bad there is no way out because you cannot be loved in this life, or get it right in this life, and, on top of that, your thoughts say you are no longer going to be okay by the very God who is supposed to be unconditionally accepting and loving. Whew! So, when you look at those who actually committed suicide you may not have the understanding to accept their choice because of your fear of the historic learnings based in judgment and not being good.

The shame that many feel when someone close to them commits suicide is also a part of all of this perceived and actual judgment. They want to keep the very secret that the person who successfully committed suicide kept. If the person in pain could have felt they could trust someone to help them through their pain without experiencing more shame would they have expressed the thoughts prior to final stages of decision making? We cannot be sure but the odds say probably. Shame of suicide is taught by society and family. The shame is a feeling of bad, a feeling of why do people see me like that when that is not who I am, a feeling of “ucky”. Ask your Self, who around you sees suicide (and, consequentially, thoughts of suicide) as one of those definitions? You can then see how it is kept secret. When already suffering with emotional pain, a person does not want or need to add to that the shame of judgment.

A colleague mentioned that many people feel selfish when someone dies because they do not want to deal with the death. I found that an interesting observation. People may talk of themselves or tell the other want to do or stay away from talking about the death as a result of their own discomfort with the idea of death. When that death is a suicide, if that very person experiences much discomfort with the idea or action of suicide, they may further get wrapped within their own self to deal with it.

Maybe people want to judge those who commit suicide simply because they’re angry at them for killing themselves. Being angry at someone who kills their self is a very healthy part of dealing with the traumatic loss, a sudden loss, or loss in general. Add to that an understanding that, for most, the only way they know to deal with their anger is to use their anger. What that means is that if they are hurting in their anger they then spew forth words that are hurtful to or about another. If they feel abandoned and small and weak behind their anger then they will spew forth words of abandonment and weakness to the other of the other. To judge the person who committed suicide as weak is to label them as not good enough. The very probable underlying cause of their choice.

In conclusion, there are many fears and fears of judgments that lie within an individual who lashes out with judgment of an individual who suffers, or suffered, with such extreme emotional pain that they fold up in the comfort of suicidal thought or action, respectively. If we begin by looking at the judgment of suicide that rests within each person, within their religions, and within their cultures/society, we begin to gain an awareness which is the first step in healing. If we begin healing the judgment that surrounds suicide, it may become much easier for those suffering with such severe pain to speak openly about their thoughts and pain. If they can talk about it openly and safely maybe, just maybe, we can begin to save lives. We will be saving lives by offering understanding, acceptance, and compassion. Those are the very feelings missing inside the darkness of the pain of the suicidal person. Think before you judge, ALWAYS!!!! You never know where that verbal knife will pierce the other.

I wish you all a day filled with compassion and acceptance of self and another, one at a time.

Why do people struggle with other people’s success?

So often we watch people get angry or rejecting, in some way, when someone they know, or even don’t know, achieves success. The second thing we observe is the comfort with destroying those who are successful and in the public eye. Why does this exist?

This week I’m joined by Nocole and we share several stories relating to judgments and success.

Why do people struggle with other people’s success?

So often we watch people get angry or rejecting, in some way, when someone they know, or even don’t know, achieves success. The second thing we observe is the comfort with destroying those who are successful and in the public eye. Why does this exist? Why can’t we all be so excited for someone else’s achievements and successes?

Inherently we all wish for happiness. Unfortunately, many have been lead to believe that happiness is achieved when someone achieves success financially or publicly. Because this definition of happiness is external in its rewards it does not work. Happiness must come from within. Once a person is happy within themselves, they are happy for all of those around them.

So when someone else achieves the success or perceived happiness for which another is wishing, that other may feel jealous or less than or not good enough or undeserving or unfairly gifted, etc. Another possibility is that this other person may be housing a doubt that they are able to have the success or lifestyle or fame that they perceive in the other. Whatever that person is feeling, it is a fear-based experience. Once someone is feeling out of balance from an inside “fear”, their imbalance is expressed externally. Usually in an effort to find balance, comfort, or support that they are okay. Once they feel okay or comforted they feel back in balance.

As I have said often, we judge only in the way we are fearful of being judged. So, in this question that we are exploring today we see that people may go against, judge, breakdown, destroy, or make a successful person feel crummy or bad. More than likely this is because inside themselves they’re fearful of the judgment that they are not good enough and that they are destroyed in their concept of finding happiness or success. Their internal doubts and fears will also consist of the judgments they are slinging at the successful or famous people. That may or may not be a direct reflection. For example a person who has bought into the belief that in order to be loved we must have a perfect Barbie or Ken figure may judge harshly someone who is heavy or large. They themselves may be fit and have a low level of body fat. Their judgments of someone heavy are coming from their fear of not having a lean body and being judged as not good enough. So their doubt and their belief in society’s judgments keep them working hard to stay lean for fear of what it would mean if they were not. It is that very view that drives their judgments of others in this particular example.

In addition to the individual experiences that are being subconsciously acted out, our culture and media are based upon this type of fear-based reporting. We have papers, TV shows, books and more that make billions of dollars by reporting to the public ugly, derogatory, shaming, destructive information or assumptions about our wealthy, famous, successful, and entertainment people. I don’t understand when we decided it was okay to dig into the histories of the people in the spotlight and attempt to destroy them, but we do. And people love to hear about the crap. We are no longer a people who are willing to spend billions on the happy and good news. Why we do this will be a follow up blog. For today’s purpose, this national level of acceptance to destroy another human being who is successful allows the people to feel righteous when they use social media platforms and other public platforms to bully or destroy another human being whether successful or not.

In conclusion, and in general, the people who choose to judge, criticize, bully, or destroy another human being, publicly or not, are usually coming from a place of fear of being judged themselves. They are not happy and fulfilled within their own life and are lashing out from that point of reference. It seems to be a very common and popular bandwagon to jump on because our media and nation seem to support this kind of destructive judging of one another. Fear is newsworthy. Judgment is fear. Fear is the absence of love. Happiness is love.

May each and every one of you be the start to spreading a happy thought whenever you hear a harsh angry judgment of another human being. We are all human beings. We all have challenges. We all are capable of compassion. I wish you all a day filled with compassion and acceptance. May it start with you.

Paying it forward.

What does it mean to pay it forward? What are you truly paying forward? How do you pay it forward?

Join me as I discuss what it truly means to Pay It Forward and send out positive energy.