Accidental Tourist of Life

Life is like a road. There are long and short roads; smooth and rocky roads; crooked and straight roads. In our life there are many roads which come our way as we undertake our great journey.

There are roads that lead to fame and fortune on one hand, or isolation and poverty on the other. There are roads to happiness as there are roads to sadness, roads towards victory and jubilation, and roads leading to defeat and disappointment.

Just like any road, there are corners, detours, and crossroads in life. Perhaps the most perplexing road that you could encounter is a crossroad. With four roads to choose from and with limited knowledge on where they would go, which road will you take? What is the guarantee that we would choose the right one along the way? Would you take any road, or just stay where you are: in front of a crossroad? There are no guarantees…

You do not really know where a road will lead you until you take it. There are no guarantees. This is one of the most important things to realize about life. Nobody said that choosing to do the right thing all the time would always lead you to happiness. Loving someone with all your heart does not guarantee that it would be returned. Gaining fame and fortune does not guarantee happiness.

Since life offers no guarantee and you would never know that your decision would be wrong until you have made it, then you might as well take the risk and decide. It is definitely better than keeping yourself in limbo. Although it is true that one wrong turn could get you lost, it could also be that such a turn could be an opportunity for an adventure, moreover open more roads. It is all a matter of perspective.

You have the choice between being a lost traveler or an accidental tourist of life, and ultimately this means having the courage, faith and belief to sometimes just “Go with the Flow”.

I’ve been at a crossroads the past few weeks. Not lost. Just an accidental tourist.

Miss you all like crazy …

xoxoxox

Lilly

Our Sacred World

Soul often reveals itself in myth – a symbolic representation or story of reality. There is a new myth attempting to come into our consciousness. This myth has the fundamental image of the unity or oneness of all life. It also has the image of the unity of all human beings. And it has within it the commitment of true service to others.

When new myths emerge from the unconscious spiritual dimensions they contradict the prevailing perceptions and thinking, and the common ways of living and understanding, because they are the emergence of the new soul or the new consciousness which has yet to be accepted as real and incorporated into our thinking.

What is it that stands opposed to the new myth in society and at times within ourselves? Is it not the common habit of viewing the world in which we live from mechanistic, scientific, analytical or physical perspectives? When we do this we engage our senses without involving the soul. We thereby remain on the surface of relationships, and give away the power of controlling our own lives and loves to external forces. We thus find ourselves increasingly disconnected from the world and others, and we become increasingly afraid of close encounters and intimate connections. In fact, we make victims of ourselves, feeling and believing that it is other people and situations that determine our experiences.

To many of us the world has lost its sacredness. People have become deaf and blind to the voices and visions of the loving and intelligent divine presence. The expansion of consciousness now emerging requires the psychic restoration of a sense of the sacred in order that soul, which crosses species and encompasses all kingdoms, can become the dominant center of consciousness from which we live our lives.

We need to ensoul our senses so that we can perceive the more subtle energies present – the divine intelligence (the elemental beings), the inherent love of all things in existence (what enables matter to join and fuse with other particles of matter. And we need to ensoul our minds so that what we analyse, take apart and create can be put into a larger more universal reality with inherent meaning and purpose.

Perceiving the world and others as sacred is a moral act, just as perceiving the world and others as defective is an immoral act. What is moral must correspond to the truth. According to Robert Sardello, to develop this moral perception all we need to do is “be more receptive and let the things of the world completely fill our consciousness, holding in abeyance the willful encroachment of our thinking into our surroundings. Gradually a soul mood of holiness comes through strongly along with whatever we are perceiving. Seeing the world through the developed capacities of soul not only reveals more of what is there but also invites back the Spiritual presences that have receded because of the literal-minded way we have come to view the world …” (Robert Sardello, Freeing The Soul From Fear, p. 129)

With the decline of religion which, for centuries, has been the custodian of morality, we need to find the essence of morality in a deeper understanding of life. Morality is declining in the world, and yet it is of such vital importance as we enter the age of relationships. We now know from the new consciousness perspective that an immoral act is a result of not deeply connecting with the object of one’s awareness or with the other in a relationship. Without connecting to the soul, the essence of the other, it is not possible to know who or what they are.

In place of the truth of the other, one creates a distorted perception of the other. This implies that there is no true love in the attitude or connection with essence in that relationship. Where love is lacking, immorality is present because the lack of love creates separation and disconnection from soul. This disconnection or lack of conscious soul is contrary to the true nature of human relationship. Morality, therefore, becomes a measure of our love.

We need to wake up to the ways that Spirit enters our world and speaks to us through others, inviting us in every single relationship into a creative partnership. This is our potential inspiration, but also our potential pain. Morality is not the path of ease, but of responsible love and sensitive awareness of the true nature of all beings.

Live in Joy!
Lilly

Tolerance

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: tol·er·ance: 1. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others. 2. The capacity to endure hardship or pain.

I made a promise to myself that when I started writing articles for my website I would focus on what issues currently were being raised in my personal life. Lately, I’ve been getting strong indications that tolerance, or my lack of it, is something I clearly need to look at. So, I’m delving into it with fear tossed aside, knowing that if I don’t look at it now, I quite possibly face an even more painful lesson on it in the future. I’m presenting this article to you in hopes of sharing insight you may find useful in developing coping methods for yourself or others.

Conceptually we know the importance of remaining tolerant to the diverse attitudes, behaviors, and cultures we find ourselves experiencing nearly every day. Does that stop us from instantly losing our cool when another driver suddenly pulls into our lane, cutting us off so that we have to slam on our brakes and slow us way down? Then we patiently wait for the driver to pick up speed, enough to do the speed limit, only to find they continue to putt along at 35 m.p.h. in a 55 zone. That’s when we really lose it. I know, because I’ve been there several times. And I don’t even drive in commuter traffic on a regular basis. But I’m sure the millions who do commute fight a mounting level of unhealthy stress as their tension builds up after one tolerance-testing incident after another. (I cite an example of driving in commuter traffic because I personally feel this activity is a clear, repeated test of tolerance in our society!)

“By taking revenge, a man is even with his enemy; but in passing over it, he is superior.” Francis Bacon

So now you’re asking, how do I deal with these everyday situations? My guidance shows me that in these situations we tend to take things too personally. It is obvious that the other driver doesn’t know you personally, so why would they want to be hurtful to you? One coping method for the above-mentioned situation is reminding yourself that you can’t possibly know the whole story of why the person is acting the way they do.

There can be many circumstances influencing their behavior: (1) perhaps they’re driving home from work, where they just got chewed out by their boss and are allowing their anger to be displayed in their actions on the road; (2) they could have just received bad news about a loved one’s illness and are in despair over it, inhibiting their mental functions to properly execute rational driving behavior; (3) or 100 other reasons unforeseen which I can continue on about. But I’m sure you see the point I’m trying to make here.

Their actions are caused by strictly personal issues which are affecting their behavior, inadvertently affecting others in their external world. Simply reminding ourselves that we can look at this from a higher perspective by acknowledging we don’t know the whole story and that this person may be going through difficult times can be enough to relax about it and develop increased tolerance.

This way of thinking can apply to not only mundane experiences such as commuting, but in bringing peace to perplexing relationships with others at work, family matters, and in our interactions with others in our community, not to mention on a global scale with those of varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Instead of struggling to change unchangeable situations, an easier solution is to adjust our own perspective.

In addition, the following technique is immensely healing for those tolerance-testing circumstances. Immediately after a tense, anxiety-producing situation, take a deep breath and mentally blow out all of the tension to which you are holding on.

You can imagine this tension as an unpleasant color, such as gray, and mentally watch this gray energy leaving your body through your breath. With each in-breath, picture a calming color entering your body, eventually filling it to overflowing. Continue to repeat this until you feel calm once again. This helps you to return to a state of mind where you can then look at the situation from that higher perspective I mentioned above.

“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” Dalai Lama

It’s helpful to understand why we react in an overly sensitive manner to begin with. We are conditioned by past experiences to respond with strong emotions when we perceive possible harm toward our bodies or emotions. Feeling vulnerable, we feel the need to be further protected from hurt, so in response we activate our learned defense mechanisms.

If we continue to respond with anger to the slightest perceived annoyance, however, then the cause may be deeper than we first thought. Anger can act as a cover-up emotion, and may signal that a suppressed fear is persisting in our lives which we need to take a look at. If this is the case, be sure you have support, perhaps a therapist, who can assist you in discovering this underlying fear, and openly and effectively deal with it.

“Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human.” John Cogley Commonweal

An important strategy for developing tolerance under certain circumstances is forgiveness. Forgiving others that have acted hurtful toward you in the past brings about immense feelings of release and freedom from old resentments that are keeping you stalled from growing in your life. In hypnotherapy sessions I have witnessed transformations created by the simple act of forgiveness, either of someone else or of themselves.

By allowing this process a person can form greater self respect by refusing to allow the resentment to continue grow and fester inside them, holding them back from finding peace and satisfaction within themselves. As an aside benefit, forgiveness eliminates obstacles in a person’s life. There’s a good chance that the other person may not even be aware of the harsh feelings you bear toward them, so what purpose is your bitterness serving?

When you understand that maintaining resentment only hurts yourself, and not the other person you feel strongly toward, you can then let go of the old pain and give yourself permission to experience joy and positive growth.

Holding On To Illusions

A couple of weeks ago I was performing one of my daily exercises swimming laps when I observed a women, in her early seventies, enter the pool and securely grasp hold of the side. She slowly made her way round the pool to the deep end by holding on to the side of the pool and moving her hands to guide her way to the deep end. She then let go and swam on her back all the way to the shallow end.

I watched her repeat this routine over and over. Of course, I could not let an opportunity like this pass-by without asking her what she was doing by holding on to the side of the pool to get to the deep end. I asked her why she did not swim to the deep end.

She explained that since she was a child, a fear of putting her face into the water had stopped her from swimming on her front. Her fear of drowning by swallowing water was so strong that for most of her life she could only swim on her back and feel secure. Swimming on her back towards the shallow end was acceptable to her mid-set, however if she reversed the routine and tried to swim on her back towards the deep end, fear overtook her and she could not release her hold from the side of the pool.

Well, me being me, I explained to her how fear is an illusion of the mind, even though it be a persistent one. I gave her a few practical tips on how to overcome her trepidation of swimming on her front. I spent about half an hour showing her how to move a few steps from the shallow end, kick off the bottom of the pool, and float to the shallow side. She tried it a few times without success and told me she will work on her mind-set thoughts and keep trying this new technique of floating a few feet to the shallow side.

I did not encounter her again in the pool for a few days. Well, a few days later what do you think happened to the seventy-year-old fear of not being able to swim on her front. The answer was … nothing I could say or do could help her change her fearful mind-set.

She continued to hold on to the side of the pool for dear life until she made her way to the deep end and then let go and swam on her back to the shallow end. She told me that she had thought about what I had said to her, but she just could not get over her fear of swimming with her face in the water. I jokingly said to her that perhaps her body was not made to swim face down and only constructed to swim on her back. Not realizing the humor she relied, what about all the other people who can swim on their front … Why can they do it and I can’t. I replied, simple because they do not believe it is impossible to swim on their front.

Now before you start to think that this woman is somehow unusual let me ask you a question. Can you live in a joyful state of mind, every second you exist in the pool of life? What is that you answer! You declare it is impossible to live in a joyful state of mind every second you are on earth. Well, what mind-set leads you to believe it is impossible?

-What types of thoughts have hold on your mind that limits your happiness?
-What are you clutching on to that restricts that natural flow of serenity and contentment?
-Are your thoughts of limited joy any different from the woman who finds it impossible to swim with her face in the water?

By my observations of humanities habitual patterns and characteristics, I have determined that most people in this world hold on to thoughts throughout their lives that restrict them from living in a natural free flowing way.

Yes in – deed, most peoples brains have been influenced by perceptions, ideas, thoughts and suggestions from other people and are limiting the way they live their lives.

While getting a good education well-meaning teachers may have seeded your thoughts.

-The thoughts may have been planted by well-meaning religious viewpoints but if you still hold fears what good is the religious doctrine doing to your every lifestyle of happiness.

-Well-meaning scientific experts may have planted the thoughts and delivered new inventions and hi-tech gadget but how much lasting happiness does that contribute to your life of joy.

-Well-meaning family and friends may have planted the thoughts since you were a toddler however, how has that helped your well-being for long-term mental stability and permanent blissfulness.

With massive amounts of intellectual, educational books, texts, journals and expert advice, no person is immune from synthetic thought patterns that can restrict the natural free flowing truth, intrinsically gifted in all human beings. How many people do you know who are not restricted in some way or other and have no need to hold on to unwise teachings that are seeded in their minds by other people?

Maybe it really is impossible to teach old dogs new tricks. So why not just settle for getting-by with holding on to the sidelines of bliss and understand you are mentally constructed in that confined way. Just make do with the average joyless moments most people tell me is inevitable. What is the point in looking for what you deem to be unlivable blissful answers, no matter how truth-full they may be, but make no sense to your intellectual, thought-life possessor.

Well, there may be one alternative to holding on to all elemental fallacies contained in … intrinsic doctrines, inbred intellectual reasoning and logic, informative philosophical debates, ingrained religious teachings, entrained educational rules and regulations, entrenched spiritual habits and other deep rooted meaningful Perceptions, Ideas, Thoughts, Suggestions (PITS) … but I doubt you would believe me if I told you what it is.

So rather than disclose to you how to live your life in a manner that is unacceptable to your knowingness, maybe I’ll give you a little hint into the types of mind-sets that can un-anchor your brain and cast you adrift from a more realistic mode of authenticity.

- If a person has a strong intellectual mind-set it may smother them
- If a person has a weak intellectual mind-set it may drown them
- If a person has a medium intellectual mind-set, it may suffocate them.

However if a person can live with an objective detached mind-set, it will be a game, set and match … liberating a winner/winner.

So, if you feel it is impossible to live in a joy-filled mind-set all the time, just continue to endure sharing the unsatisfying holds on your mind, with others who also share your accustomed viewpoints. Keep away from all those other strange people, who are in the same mode, but with different slants on truth, but like you, holding on to the edge of the thought-life pool, without ever being in the free flowing blissful central moment.

Although, in the final analysis, everyone will swim in the same erroneous human pools of thought, that restricts joy they do not have to accept it as their reality. Even though many people will keep a stiff upper lip with differing viewpoints, that will cause conflicts of interest and unrest, a few simple minds will not buy into the illusions that surround them

… As an early warning sign perhaps we can give the erroneous mind-sets brigade an official title …

How about … Contriving Orientation Navigators … Thoughts that CON you out of a joyful-thought-life and navigate you into worrisome, depressive deliberations.

The good news is that when you learn to live joyfully, despite what your conditioned mind-set may determine is impossible to live, you have overcome your fear for the truthful wisdom you were born with … When your life ends, you will have no regrets of missed moments of joy. And that my friends, is the only proper definition of success… The merry moments of blissfulness lived.

Where Love Begins

When asked to consider the question of self-love, many people ask, “Does loving myself unconditionally mean I have to love everything I’ve ever done?”

No. Like you, I’ve done things of which I have been ashamed. However, when we love ourselves unconditionally we don’t dwell on these past events. We don’t make them the focus of how we see ourselves. When we can we correct them. We call them mistakes and learn from them so that we don’t do them again.

When we can be kind and forgiving in this way to ourselves we are better able to be that with others. Unconditional and forgiving self-love fosters unconditional and forgiving love of others.

The Vibration of Self-Love

How you feel about yourself has a lot to do with how others feel about you. Sometimes how people feel about themselves is obvious in their appearance. We may feel that someone who walks with a severe slump, or doesn’t meet our eyes, or speaks in a barely audible voice has a low opinion of herself.

Some people speak their opinions of themselves. A person may say, “Well, I could never do that.” or “I’ve never expected much from life” or “I gave up on relationships.”

Often, though, it’s not that clear. Many of us are good at presenting a positive persona (mask) to the world. Inside, though, we may be riddled with doubts about ourselves. We may be nervous about how our remarks or appearance are received. We may meet someone to whom we’re attracted and silently affirm that (s)he would never, NEVER be interested in us. This way we avoid the fear of rejection by not taking a risk.

When I was a child, a popular (although cruel) April Fool’s joke was to put a sign which read “Kick Me” on someone’s back. The emotions and beliefs we have about our lack of lovability are subtle signs which others read as “Don’t Love Me” or “Reject Me” or “Treat Me Badly.”

Loving Yourself Is the Foundation

In order to have loving relationships with others we must have loving relationships with ourselves. That’s the first step towards answering the questions in the meditation I’ve given you to use:

What would you do if you believed you were completely responsible for the presence of love in your life? What relationships would you heal? How would you act if you believed you were the source of love in any encounter? How would you change the way you treated yourself?

Is Self-Love Egotism?

Many of us have the fear that the line between self-love and being considered a raving egomaniac is a very fine one.

We don’t like people who boast about themselves. We are very careful to be modest and self-effacing at every possible opportunity.  We minimize our accomplishments. We believe people should love us for who we are, not for what we do.

The difference between self-love and egotism can be made more clear if we take a deeper look at so-called egotism. The person who is constantly talking about himself is not someone who is filled with self-love. He is more likely someone whose inner well of self-love and self-esteem is empty. He feels the need to replenish it from outside sources.

Ego operates on the basis of fear. Ego says, “I am alone; I am separate from others. I am the only one who cares about me. There isn’t enough love in the world, and I will probably never have the love I need. I have a right to be angry, judgmental, and impatient. If I can’t have love I will take whatever substitutes are available: money, sex, drugs, power.”

In a very real sense the “egotist” is an addict. An addict to chemical substances attempts to substitute artificial means of feeling happy, peaceful, excited about life for the authentic sense of well-being which comes from knowing oneself and seeking inner harmony on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels. An ego addict seeks approval from others as a substitute for doing the inner work needed for true self-acceptance and self-love.

The ego addict is trying to escape her own painful lack of self love, and asking others to say she’s lovable. Sadly, this kind of attempt usually backfires. Instead of earning approval, the person who must always talk about herself ultimately finds herself rejected. This makes her only more frantic for approval, and a cycle which is already self-defeating may become self-destructive.

There are also closet egotists, and I was one for many years. Finally I realized I was resisting the urge to talk about myself, that in my heart I was as much an egotist as those loud-mouthed people I avoided. I was just very quiet about it, and bolstered my own sense of self-love and self-esteem with a feeling of superiority that I had the strength and good sense to resist offensive behavior.

Essentially, I was as dependent on the opinion of others as were the so-called egotists who advertised their need for attention and love.

A Spiritual Perspective on Self-Love

Ultimately, we can spring free of the ego trap by understanding who we are as spiritual beings, by knowing we are both unique and part of a greater One.

Nonphysical guides offer an interpretation of what could be called the divine energy source (or divine love), describing it as the source of all consciousness, an energy which contains within itself every possibility for creative expression. This being appreciates its creations for their uniqueness, and knows that they in order to realize their full potential must be allowed to manifest as independent forms of consciousness.

All living things are here to manifest our gifts in the realm of material existence. We are the children of a loving energy which desires only that we fulfill the dreams it has dreamed of us.

A crystal wouldn’t hide its rainbows, a flower wouldn’t refuse to blossom, and a cat wouldn’t halt in the midst of an acrobatic leap out of concern that others of its species might think it a showoff. When we humans are clear about the source of our own gifts, when we know that our purpose in expressing them isn’t ego gratification, but the manifestation of our soul’s purpose, we can be as free in our expression as any other creature.

When we are in full appreciation of ourselves we can respond more compassionately to those who are not. We can recognize the insecurity which lies beneath the words of people who must praise themselves, and feel the effort they are making to convince themselves that they’re worthy through convincing us. Instead of either judging them negatively for their way of being or feeding their habit through praise we can find ways of expressing appreciation for them for who they are, not for what they do.

When we recognize that self-love honors ourselves and our spiritual source, we also realize that exercising our gifts is a generous act of sharing. We also discover that with this perspective we can honor the uniqueness of others and our connection to them.

Just as a lack of self-love has a vibration, so does unconditional self-love. It has a quiet, steady radiance which draws others to its light.

Crystals and Essences for Self-Love

This month’s Living with Crystals will have detailed descriptions of some of the crystals and essences which can help to create a condition of self-love. This information is also taken from the Love’s Journey course.

If you’re not already subscribed to Living with Crystals and would like to be please go to http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/subscribe.html

Below are brief descriptions of crystals and essences for loving oneself.

Crystals

Rose quartz is the foundation crystal for fostering self-love. It helps to heal the painful memory of all the times we wanted love and didn’t receive it.

A fundamental crystal for fostering self-esteem is citrine, which deals also with the appropriate use of personal power, and abundance.

Pink Calcite helps to release old and hurtful emotional patterns so that the heart can be open to receive and give unconditional love. Emerald

Emerald is a green stone which is related to love, and is especially helpful for those who give love in order to receive it. It also relates to universal love and compassion.

Essences

Holly (Bach) is an important essence for releasing envy, jealousy, and hatred.

Larch (Bach) is a primary essence for self-confidence and self-esteem.

Mariposa Lily (FES) particularly relates to one’s relationship to one’s mother, and helps us to take responsibility for nurturing ourselves, and thus to create the loving mother within.

Sunflower (FES) helps us to balance ego energies, and is especially helpful in healing one’s relationship with one’s father.

Blame – Who Did It To Me?

In the fall of 2008, while engaged in the kind of deep self-examination I love to hate, I discovered that when “bad” things happened to me, I reacted predictably. While my emotions might range from annoyance to downright martyrdom, my overall feeling was that life was against me. I was a victim.

Sometimes I was a victim fighting back, i.e., I was angry, resentful, argumentative, but when I found myself in these modes I felt even more victimized, because external events forced me to act in a way I didn’t like to behave.

Since I like to assume the identity of a someone who is in charge of her life, this victim discovery didn’t please me at all. Once I discovered it, though, evidence for for a pervasive victimhood began accumulating, and I decided that instead of resisting it I would explore it.

The Victim Identification Test

When something goes wrong in your life do you:

Blame others?
Feel as if the world (or someone) is against you?
Blame yourself?
Blame no one or take responsibility for what happened?

I am not suggesting you take responsibility for a hurricane which knocks down power lines, just that you not blame the weather, God, or mysterious forces which are out to get you. (I write more about responsibility further on in this article.)

However, if you forgot to pay an electric bill and your power gets shut off, do you blame anyone for not reminding you about the bill or blame the utility company for not allowing enough time to pay the bill? Do you say you can’t help it if you’re bad about paying bills, and those in charge should make allowances for the checkbook-challenged?

Regardless of your immediate answer to these questions, you may find it helpful to keep these questions in your mind as you go through your days. They can come up in these and other ways:

You’re at work, and your boss asks you to work overtime. You ask yourself, “Why me?” “Why me?” is very likely a victim’s question.

Your child brings home a report card which suggests he will be very fortunate to graduate from grade school, let alone any higher form of education. You ask yourself, “What did I do to deserve such a child?” This is a variant of “Why me?” You take bad weather, traffic jams, and long lines personally. You notice how often you say, “That’s not fair.” You decide you have been designated to experience a loveless life. You welcome a blow or disaster because now you don’t have to dread its occurrence.

The important thing is to notice how you respond to any situation which is a problem, crisis, or in any other way disturbs the flow of life as you expect it to flow.

How Victims Are Born

If you discover you have a tendency towards victimization the chances are very good that one or both of your parents were — not because there’s a gene for it, but because our earliest lessons about how to respond to life come from parents and other significant adults.

Our parents can teach us how to be victims in other ways.

Did either of your parents ever say to you, “I’m punishing you for your own good” or “I’m punishing you because I love you?”

Think of the hidden messages in these statements.

Love is punishment.
Love is painful.
Love is suffering.

Children who receive attention only in the form of punishment will seek it by “misbehaving.” This behavior can persist through adulthood: the person who constantly makes mistakes at work and is called in to his boss’s office on a regular basis, the person who forgets to perform expected household duties and is yelled at by a spouse or partner, the person who regularly gets into financial difficulties.

If we have this way of being, punishment can make us feel important. It may even make us feel like martyrs. If we come from strict Christian religious backgrounds, being martyrs can make us feel not only very important, but can reverse our thinking so that we see ourselves not as wrong, but as right and persecuted

The Victim-Guilt Seesaw

In the course of my exploration of my victim syndrome, I realized that I so readily adopted the victim identity because I didn’t want to blame myself, i.e., feel guilty. This is the opposite of victimization. I discovered how flexible I was in going back and forth between the two emotions.

In a victim state, we say, “Life isn’t perfect, and it’s someone else’s fault. I am innocent.” When we are in a guilty state, we say, “I am not perfect, and it’s my fault. I am guilty.”

Let’s look again at the examples I gave above. You forgot to pay an electric bill, and your electricity got shut off. In blaming anyone else for this, you may be resisting another way to react: blaming yourself for being stupid, careless, or whatever adjective you might be tempted to use.

In the case of the disastrous report card, the resisted thought might be, “I’m such a bad parent. Why didn’t I realize he had this problem?”

Power Failure

Whenever we feel either victimized or guilty, we rob ourselves of power. The loss of power became real for me when I sat down to think about certain things I wanted to create. I found myself unable to visualize any of these things without having thoughts such as, “Never happen.” In focusing on the negative thoughts, I eventually came up with, “Don’t deserve it,” and connected that thought to guilt.

I asked myself, “What would happen if these things I say I want came true?” The answer was clear: I couldn’t be a victim any more.

Victimization, like any way of being, becomes comfortable through its familiarity and firmly-set boundaries. A victim doesn’t have to take risks, doesn’t have to do unfamiliar things, doesn’t have to take responsibility for his/her life.

Think of a situation in which you feel victimized, or if you don’t like the “v” word, think of a situation you feel isn’t fair or think of something you haven’t been successful in manifesting. They may be the same. For example, you may want a promotion, but think your boss doesn’t appreciate all the hard work you do. You feel this is unfair.

Focus on a particular situation. Let yourself really feel the unfairness of it.

Now check into how you are feeling emotionally. What sensations are in your body? Are there areas which feel dense or heavy?

Now think of some project you want to create or fulfill. Do you feel empowered to work on it?

Do the same experiment with a situation about which you feel guilty.

A Third Way

The healthy alternative to both guilt and victimization is taking responsibility. Responsibility is NOT blaming yourself; it’s literally the ability to respond. A response is distinct from a reaction. Reactions are automatic and are stimulated by unconscious beliefs, usually acquired in childhood. Someone who unconsciously absorbed the belief that good parents have children who excel in school will automatically react negatively to a poor report card.

Guilt and feelings of victimization are reactions. We don’t deliberately choose to have these or other negative feelings.

When we respond, it’s a conscious act. We may feel the reaction, “My child has let me down” or “I have failed my child,” and let this reaction and the emotion it triggers to pass, then allow ourselves to be in the present and respond to the situation. We ask, “How can I help my child?” We have a conversation with him. We make it clear that we are available. We may speak to the teacher. We respond with the intention of solving the problem.

Being responsible also means acknowledging a mistake without guilt and learning from it. It means not blaming others for their mistakes.

I strongly believe that everything you do to help yourself to a state of unconditional self-love will release the Victim within. When we love ourselves, we don’t experience problems as punishment. When we love ourselves, we don’t experience punishment as love.

This is a two-way process. With every act of responsibility you restore power to your being. Empowerment is contagious. You set a powerful example for others. By not reacting with feelings of victimization or guilt you don’t trigger these reactions in others.

You also bring yourself closer to a state of unconditional love, and generously extend this state to others.

Each act of responsibility you take may feel small, but every time you choose responsibility, you help to make the world a happier, more loving place.

Responsible Crystals

The properties of sugilite indicate the connection between guilt and resentment (a common way in which people express their feelings of victimization). This crystal can help to dissolve both feelings. The general intention of sugilite is to assist us in releasing any feeling which is disempowering.

Azurite can give us a deeper understanding about what goes on beneath the surface of our conscious thinking. It also helps us to bring to the surface those beliefs which direct our reactions to people and situations.

Green Calcite is particularly useful in dissolving emotional and mental rigidities. Once these rigidities are released, we are able to think creatively and solve problems from a more open perspective.

Carnelian is the crystal which helps us to be focused in the present. When we are in a state in which our decisions aren’t based on the past, we are better able to make wise choices.

Flower and Other Essences

Willow (Bach) is the classic essence for resentment, which as I note in describing sugilite, is a common aspect of feeling victimized.

Wild Rose (Bach) addresses another common aspect of victimization: resignation. Everyone is against me, so there’s just no use in even trying any more. Wild Rose helps to get us back into the flow of life.

Pine (Bach) is the most useful essence for guilt and feelings that anything less than perfection in one’s being is personal failure.

Bear (Wild Earth Animal Essences), the animal who sleeps all winter, symbolizes the exploration of the unconscious mind.

Forgiveness – The Doorway To Freedom

Forgiving is love’s revolution against life’s unfairness. When we forgive, we ignore the normal laws that strap us to the natural law of getting even and, by the alchemy of love, we release ourselves from our own painful pasts. We may talk about turning the other cheek and forgiving those who have wronged us, but it is not a simple thing to do. The problem usually lies within the whirling tornado of emotions that are at the center of this act. It is the hardest trick in the bag of personal relationships.

It is important not to confuse forgiveness with other similar acts. Forgiveness is not excusing, smothering conflict, accepting people, or tolerance. When you forgive the person who hurt you deeply and unfairly, you perform a miracle that has no equal. Nothing else is the same. Forgiving has its own feel and its own color and its own climax, different from any other creative act in the repertoire of human relationships.

There are four stages in the process of forgiveness beginning with the hurt that precipitates the crisis and causes us pain that will not go away. We must acknowledge that first. The second stage is hate when all our feelings of anger and righteous indignation come to the surface. The third stage is healing; you are given the ‘magic eyes’ to see the person who hurt you in a new light. Your memory is healed, you turn back the flow of pain and are free again. The fourth stage is the coming together where you affect a reconciliation and invite the person back into your life at the right time ( which doesn’t always mean now). The major healing takes place within us thanks to the love and freedom that blooms in us.

It is best to practice forgiveness a little at a time. Ordinary people forgive best if they go at it in bits and pieces, and for specific acts. We bog down if we try to forgive people in the grand manner, because wholesale forgiving is almost always fake. Forgiving anything at all is a minor miracle; forgiving carte blanche is silly. Nobody can do it. Except God. And the first rule for mere human beings in the forgiving game is to remember that we are not God. Below, I want to share with you The Doorway To Freedom. It’s a way to begin healing yourself TODAY.

Enlightenment cannot enter through a closed door. Forgiveness is the doorway to enlightenment or love consciousness, for without completing forgiveness you cannot move on. It will always be the anchor that holds you back. Sooner or later you must do it for your own sake. “Unforgiveness” is a poison in your system that will rob you of your spiritual life. If you hate one soul you will never be able to love another completely. The poison in your system will pollute your experience of love with everyone and everything in life.

“Unforgiveness” spills over into other aspects of your life and stains your experiences. When the time comes for true forgiveness, open yourself to your God and invite the Holy Spirit to enter, to cleanse the cellular memory of all the negative energy stored in there and dissolve with love the patterns you hold about others that you have not forgiven. The vibration at this time can be so strong as to make your ego or logical mind start having fearful thoughts.

Remember God created us to experience perfection and beauty. When the Holy Spirit meets our darkness, “bad” things happen in our best interest. Do not judge the situation let it be. We cannot hate one Soul and love another. For our own sake we need to forgive one another, to be kind and considerate to each other and show tolerance. When we hold resentment in our hearts and minds we poison our beings with dark energies that foster anger that we then suppress and deny. This dishonoring of our being brings emotional pain that destroys our qualities of life. Every experience that comes to us is filtered through this unforgiving attitude, thereby diluting our enjoyment and experience of the joy of being alive.

THE LOSS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

Vague shadows lurk in the background and forever blunt our edge. The dullness of our experience robs us of our spirituality. We know there should be more, but we can never quite fully experience what we feel we should. The shadows of resentment keep our spiritual light from shining through, never allowing us to fully experience who we are.

HONORING THE LESSONS

The longer we hold hard thoughts or feelings of animosity, the weaker our light becomes, and consequently the deeper the hurt from our own dishonoring. The anger grows and grows. No matter what the perceived sin is against us, eventually forgiveness is seen to be the only doorway to freedom. All of the denial and suppression must be reversed in order that our spirit be set free and our heritage of a full and joyous spiritual life be realized while still on the earth plane.

Anger is the state that divides and separates spiritual beings experiencing physical life. The damage is self-inflicted. The person who holds the resentment is the victim of their own anger and does little or no damage to their perceived enemies. The people closest to them become secondary victims. As they weave their karmic web, they draw others into their play, intensifying and complicating what could have been a wonderful and simple experience.

Nevertheless, the play that is happening is learning and growth, so to judge it as wrong would be another misperception of the truth. With all of life, options are there for us. The choice of how we learn is ours; no matter how it appears to others, it is our choice. As we watch another learning, we must honor that person and the path of learning that he or she has chosen. Judgment is not the way. Love and tolerance will open the door to spiritual freedom.

FACING OUR GREATEST FEAR

Pain in the heart is the energy of love pushing against a blocked emotion contained there. Forgiveness shakes our very foundation and belief that we are the victim and we are righteous in our anger. This belief pattern must go if we are to progress. Holding onto anger keeps us on the path of self-destruction. Justifying our behavior is an indication that we are out to convince others that we have a right to be angry, and hatred of another soul is completely OK because of what they did to us. Justification and self-elevation above others is the most divisive and destructive path that the ego can take us on.

In the experience of resentment, we are pushed further from our light than at any other time, because anger and hatred are the opposite of love. The festering inner wound will never heal and allow us to move forward until the door of forgiveness is reached. At this moment, depending on the intensity of the experience, the strongest person can cry and shiver like a frightened child deep in the experience of a nightmare. At this time you see the wrongs you have done to yourself.

Yet in all of this, the gentle prompting from our own divinity never really lets us forget who we are, it is the inner voice of sanity. This voice is our link to the inner Light, to our conscience; the whispering of our Soul; the comforting words of our God self; our true being; the doorway through which enlightenment will come. Discard the shackles of many lifetimes and embrace who you are. The fear perpetuated by the ego needs to be faced and seen for the illusion that it is, that which robs us of our spiritual life.

HONORING OUR MAGNIFICENCE

When we stand before the light of who we are and prepare to allow the light to enter our darkness, the fear of accumulated lifetimes in our cellular memory trembles in a way that defies any description. The pain of release goes to the very core of our beings. Yet throughout all of this, another energy stands close by, allowing but comforting, never interfering, but strengthening us. The time is at hand to honor our true magnificence. The light beckons us to come home. The lessons you have chosen are refining and purifying you to accept your rightful place in the universe.

MY EXPERIENCE OF FORGIVENESS

My father was an alcoholic from the time he was a very young man, and he carried within him a lot of pain and anger. Unfortunately, he carried that anger with him until his death at 86 years of age – a terribly long time. The effect on children of alcoholic parents is well-known; rather than regurgitate all the details, suffice it to say I had never forgiven him.

On an intellectual level I had forgiven him, but in my heart I had not. It seems a small point, but our minds tell us one thing, but in our hearts we know better. During those early healing times, it became my habit to stand and allow the spirit guides to work with my body, teaching me how to tune into them and anticipate mentally and physically what part of the body I should focus on next. All of this exercise was done alone, and greatly helped open physical and mental channels for a more efficient working partnership. These became my practice sessions.

After a clairvoyant friend had mentioned on numerous occasions that my father was around me quite a lot, I became alerted once by the spirit guides that he was here during a practice session. I felt this to be unusual as he had passed over barely two years before. Why was he around so much? My learning had taught me that he possibly should be being helped on to another level, not be visiting the earth plane so soon. With prompting from my guides I finally arrived at the conclusion that he needed my forgiveness before moving on. This realization shocked me. Had I been responsible for his staying back, earth bound? What happened next will be with me forever.
The spirit guides brought him to me, and because my sense of psychic touch had developed, I could feel his energy field moving closer to me. I can never describe to you the emotional sensations that began to move about inside me and then move to the surface. Refusing to be held in check any longer, my emotional dam wall cracked and then flooded out, demanding expression. Tears of release poured forth, so painful but so sweet.

My arms were lifted from my side to embrace my father as I had never done in my 54 years. My pain of withheld love expressed itself. The sobbing slowly abated as did the pain in my throat as all the unsaid words were released. To feel my father in my arms as he really is and was moved me in such a way that I feel it was a gift of pure grace. To have faith is one thing, to know and experience is another. At that moment I knew death to be a fraud. Life is eternal.

Next I was asked to pray for my father. This I did with much passion and love. During this prayer, my father was surrounded by a ball of golden light. He was then sent into the light to begin his journey once more in spirit. He had been released from the lower astral plane with love, something he had needed from me all of his life…love.
All was not done yet. As my communication was rough to say the least, this whole exercise had taken nearly two hours to get it right. Soon I understood that I needed to pray for myself. The Guides were most pleased that I understood this last request quickly.

My prayer for forgiveness was filled with the emotion still flowing from the experience of my father. As I prayed I became lighter and lighter, understanding that my burdens were being lifted. Our emotional burdens will be taken piece by piece over time, and though this one was large and heavy, it was leaving at once. The forgiveness that I had asked for was for my dishonoring of myself. As a divine being we dishonor ourselves with unforgiveness as much as the person we need to forgive.

The next day while driving to work, I realized that a knot in my stomach that had accompanied me all of my life had gone. My thoughts turned to my father. I felt a smile on my face and a feeling of love for him in my heart for the first time. It was a warm love, with a depth of feeling I had never felt before. How wonderful it is to know that it is never too late to forgive. Knowing where he was made me feel warm inside. The fear of death had been washed away. As I was to find out later in my healing experiences, “Those who work in the light have no fear.”

TRUE FORGIVENESS

Once true forgiveness is completed with one soul, it is done for every soul. Forgiveness will reside in your heart from that day forward. When this lesson is completed, we need not keep repeating something we now understand totally. The lesson of forgiveness shows us that love is the only experience we ever want in our hearts forever.

The stain on ourselves is so damaging when we do not practice forgiveness that another awakening occurs through the realization of our own incredibly thoughtless acts. As we see our ignorance, we see our path to enlightenment. The horror of our actions repels us so much, we seek forgiveness for ourselves. In this act of seeking, we see the need to forgive others, no matter what they may have done. The freedom forgiveness brings us is total.

TWO TYPES OF FORGIVENESS

There are two types of forgiveness, and the first one we try is the intellectual path. The ego is in control here. We say with a grandiose wave of the arm, “Oh I have forgiven them for that,” making light of the whole subject and busying ourselves in a big selling job on ourselves and on the other person or persons we are speaking to.

The second path is through the heart where we become defenseless. Now all of the emotional pain from the heart and body is released in the most wonderful act of cleansing. This path takes courage and honesty with yourself; every cell in your body holds the fear. It is powerful, painful and wonderful all at once, an experience you will always remember and cherish because you have just been reborn. You now have new eyes through which to perceive the world. Strange but beautiful things occur when you release through the heart, allow the fear to be there and drop your ego’s defenses. You CAN do it.

When you forgive, you do it with your whole being. You become as a child again without defenses. Any form of defense will stop forgiveness. The river of love that flows through us is the inner pathway.

We may or may not enlighten ourselves by standing on our heads in the corner of the room, or by saying prayers continuously like a parrot, or by focusing on an object for the purpose of stilling the mind or by any spiritual practice that disciplines our bodies. When we forgive ourselves and others, we have opened the floodgate so that the river of life can flow through us and change our consciousness. While snippets of resentment may arise, or anger may pop up, we immediately replace it with love, fully realizing that we do not want to go on that path ever again.

It is essential that all stains of unforgiveness are washed away. To truly love another soul this must happen. If you have not forgiven your Father or Mother, your ex partner or anyone that you perceive has wronged you, then you can never fully experience love or give love fully to another. Once the Creator’s love flows through our hearts, the spring cleaning begins, and it’s not always a bed of roses.

Do not stress that you have not forgiven. As love changes your mind, it is inevitable that forgiveness will come. True forgiveness comes in its own time. When love opens the door, we constantly correct and refine our behavior, gradually bringing ourselves to a state of love where fear will not exist.

If you hold a strong desire to become the loving soul that you know you are, it must happen.