All too often I hear my clients say to me how disappointed they are with how life has turned out for them. I always am careful to remind them that fairy tales exist only in books! While from the outside it may look as though many have charmed lives and do indeed live an outwardly facing fairytale life I'm here to tell you this EVERYONE IN LIFE HAS SOMETHING! NO ONE ESCAPES WITHOUT CHALLENGES (which we frequently refer to as the "bad", which is merely a challenge, some more challenging than others)! If you are going to live a full life then you are going to need to grow and if you don't have challenges then how can you grow??? If every relationship worked then we would have very few and then miss out on the fullness of experiences of different people-be they friends, lovers, co-workers. Through all the challenges life has presented me I've learned to embrace them. Don't believe this was always easy and I can assure you it's an ongoing practice that ultimately is one of the most fulfilling journeys one can experience! Everyday I have the priviledge of helping my family, clients, friends and myself look at life in new ways. One of the best quotes ever that I reminded myself of everyday (I even had it taped to my wall so I had a constant reminder is from the late Dr. Wayne Dyer) for an entire year is this: WHEN WE CHANGE THE WAY WE LOOK AT THINGS THE THINGS WE LOOK AT CHANGE! Perhaps the truest words ever spoken. It doesn't matter what it is, we have a choice and I attest that in my own life this has been true. I had to work on forgiveness yet what I discovered is that in the end it was how I viewed any incidence that made the biggest difference, more than forgiveness.
I was recently at the Chopra Center in Carlsbad for a retreat/workshop and Deepak stated that forgiveness is unnecessary as ultimately there is nothing to forgive. A few years ago I would've taken offense to this statement but now I understand it. However, arriving at this place of understanding did not happen overnight nor was it easy. We all start from different places, circumstances and understandings. What is important is to start where you are-meet yourself in a place that works for you! If that begins with forgiveness then that is where one begins. What I did discover along my journey is that more than anyone else I needed to forgive myself. No matter what I needed to forgive then it had to start with me-forgive myself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, for not seeing a bigger picture, for not being a better person and also understanding that I was doing the best I could, whatever that was. When we forgive ourselves then it frees up that energy inside us to offer that same forgiveness up to others. This may seem like the long road to arrive at the short cut but the truth is we are where we are and if forgiveness feels like the path to freedom then that is the path one takes. The understanding that ultimately there is nothing to forgive is sometimes beyond our comprehension! What one seeks is freedom inside and the ability to love oneself completely with all our pecularities-whatever those may be and we all have them!
What does it mean to love oneself? Interesting question/contemplation isn't it? To some the idea that one could love themself first and above all others seems like some kind of self-absorbed sickness whereas in reality the opposite is true. For some, loving another takes the attention away from self but tell me HOW CAN ONE REALLY LOVE ANOTHER UNCONDITIONALLY IF THEY CAN NOT EMBRACE THE SAME IN THEMSELF??? I was once told I was selfish for wanting to be happy! Really? Tell me, should I farm my responsibility for my own happiness out to someone else or to the ideas of the greater world at large? Then do I have a right to go around wondering why I am miserable and can't find happiness in "stuff"? Yet so many people do this. I can assure you happiness does not come from "stuff"! There is nothing wrong with enjoying "stuff" but deep all encompassing happiness and joy only has one source and that is the Self, arrived at via the deeper journey into Self. I see people post on FB about doctors this and doctors that but no one can "fix" or cure a polluted body or mind. You can farm that responsibility out but you will never truly be free of what ails you until you personally begin to clear out your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual bodies. As you do so you will slowly begin to discover that so much of what wasn't working was inside of you and of your creation! A hard pill to swallow that one and I know because I had to take a few myself! It's still a journey I'm on! Emotions stuck inside us become toxic, the same as physical toxins! I had one client in 11 years who wrote or called (actually had someone else call) to say that colonics were not working for them and request a refund. I was shocked because the last conversation I had with this person was that they were starting to feel a little better and overall I was encouraged that they might actually come out the other side of hiding. Then the next day I get this request. I was floored, flabbergasted and confused until I realized that this particular person was not ready to let go of whatever dynamic they were holding onto and it was a complex, entangled situation! Ultimately they "blamed" everything on everyone else yet the true issue was inside of them. I and any other person one may ever seek help from is exactly that, HELP! We are all helpers, quides and ultimately whatever we do in life it is up to us and us alone-no one else can take responsibility for our lives, no one else can forgive or even realize there is nothing to forgive. It is ultimately a solo journey back to self where we enjoy the priviledge of helpers.
Back to the fairy tale. The fairy tale is inside you! We can not change the past, those are moments in time, yet we can release ourselves from whatever those moments delivered! We are not defined by our experiences (hard to understand when physical life is made of experiences and in day to day life we are often valued for our experiences or devalued by others for a lack of them but those are issues belonging to the valuer and not anything we need to be defined by). What really matters is our relationship to ourself and what we can offer up to/for/in the world! My work over the last 11 years has not brought me financial fortune yet it has given me a purpose and a joy that I have never felt in any other way. The joy of helping others via the journey of helping myself has been one of the most rewarding experiences of life! It's my intention now, after years of hiding my voice, to reach out and be able to touch hundreds of millions of people on an ongoing basis instead of one at a time, to help elevate as many people as I can. I do not have all the answers and ultimately our individual answers come from inside anyway but if I can help open a door that allows a deeper access to what's inside then I am all yours. Please email any specific questions you may have or would like to address and I will do my best to help you or direct you to places or teachers/guides who are better suited to where you currently are. We all come from different places but what is important is that you start somewhere and the only choice one has is to start wherever we are to release the idea of a fairytale and begin to find joy and happiness in our life everyday! With my transformation coaching clients I give them homework, actually with all my clients I give them homework. What homework are you going to take on today? When we free ourselves then we are truly free in the deepest way and then we discover life is a fairytale of our making, no matter what happens we have a choice in how we look at it-just like Wayne Dyer said.
With much love