Don't Change the Subject

Unpleasant memories come upon us.  Sometimes it happens in our dreams.  We wake feeling troubled with past pain.  And sometimes something in our waking hours triggers a troubling thought and suddenly we're flooded with that same old aching wound. We've been here before...thousands of times.

The next time this happens, don't change the subject. These memories are returning to us over and over again because we are being given a chance to absolve them for once and for all.

Burn baby Burn. You can quickly burn through these memories and old hurts and once you do so, their pain will leave your mind permanently. They'll never again trigger intense emotional aching.

It's very simple to do.  Rather than chasing the painful thoughts from your mind, invite them in.  Let them become larger.  Intensify them.  Now move them into your heart area and ask for the heat.  Just watch now.  You'll actually start to feel the heat as the flames of your heart burn these memories to oblivion.  It doesn't take long, maybe ten or fifteen minutes.  Just keep digging up the memories and piling them onto the flames. Visualize the event in your past.  Remember as many details as you can.  Let yourself feel the pain you felt then, but feel it in your heart and let it burn up and leave you.  Find other similar memories if you have them and add them, too.  Get rid of the whole subject category in your mind!

Releasing old pain and forgiving the past is the pathway to happiness.  There are many forgiveness processes in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  Some are simple like this one and some go deep into our minds to help us identify, understand and work through complicated or intense emotional wounds.  One of the processes will work on whatever is troubling you.

Yes, forgiveness takes a little effort, but the rewards are boundless.  Happiness?  Inner peace?  Yes, please!

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Being What She Is...

"Why what could she have done, being what she is?"--Yeats

I think it's important that when trying to forgive others, we always keep in mind what they are.  When people do things that scream idiocy in our minds, we need to take a moment and look at who they are.  Yes, their actions may seem so unbelievably, obviously insane from our perspective.  However we need to take a time-out from that very same perspective.  We need to pause and look at it in a different way, from their perspective.

Who are they, really?  What events from their past have informed their viewpoint on the world.  We all have mental blocks that keep us from seeing truth.  What are theirs?

An example of a mental block could be a belief that the things we want in life are always being taken from us. A person might believe this because this has been the way their lives have unfolded until now.  And, the more they believe something like this, the more they will see this very thing being played out in their lives. They will experience loss after loss.  If this were your life, would you perhaps grasp irrationally at things that others have.  After all, you need to grab hard to get anything in life if everything that you care about gets taken from you.  A person who believes in loss might take from others what is not theirs to take.

A few other mental blocks are beliefs such as:

• I am never good enough.
• I am not lovable.
• I am not worthy.
• I always get the smallest, worst, little bit.
• Nobody takes care of me.
• The world is out to get me.
• There is not enough to go around.
• I am ugly.
• I am stupid.
• I am always sick.

There are so many mental blocks that they are too numerous to mention, but you can see where these sorts of beliefs create all kinds of behavior patterns that are unhealthy.

When you find yourself in the pathway of someone else's unhealthy behavior, let yourself do a little mental switch up.  Take on your trespassers viewpoint for a few moments.  What are their deep fears and pains?  Why are they doing what they're doing?

You don't have to condone their actions or agree with them in any way.  I'm only asking you to step into their shoes for just a moment and just ask yourself the question, "Why?"

Once you see the situation from their perspective, remember that you have your own mental blocks and that sometimes they cause you to act out inappropriately.  Yes, you do.

Now, remember that we are all really the same.  We're all a bit of Spirit spending time on earth.  Everyone of us has been created by the Divine in its own image.  In our real reality, we are all perfect.  We are all only love.

This crazy earth creates situations in which some of us win and some of us lose.  It sets us against each other.  It teaches us to behave badly in order to protect ourselves.  Gary Renard loves to call this place "psycho planet" and what else would you call a place where pain, sadness, humiliation, illness, violence and war are all the norm?  But this is not who we really are.

We come from love.  We are going back to a place that is only love.  This is a brief little dream.  Let it go.  Know who you really are.  Know who everyone else here really is.   Choose the love that is the real truth of you.

Love Me For What I Am

I must be myself.  I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you.  If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier.  If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should.  I will not hide my tastes or aversions.  I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints.  --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance"

Love me for what I am and we shall be the happier.   Releasing all judgments and simply accepting what is creates peace in our minds.

Drop the habit of judging.  Just tell it to go.  Yes, habits are tough to break and it can take some time to change.  However, your intentions are everything.  Intend to see the world through eyes of acceptance.  Allowing others to be as they are is the key to your own peace.

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Who Are We, Really?

"Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world."  --A Course in Miracles, Workbook Lesson 97

When we know who and what we really are, it is easy to forgive others.  When we know who and what we are, we know who and what everyone else is, too.  

Knowing this higher truth is the easiest path to forgiveness.  All that is required to forgive is a recognition of this higher truth.  It can happen as quickly as flipping a switch.  When we stop our everyday thinking and simply know that our trespasser is as much a "holy Son of God" as we are, we are seeing them through the eyes of forgiveness.

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Does Victimhood Feel Good?

It must.  After all, we so often choose it.  We choose victimhood over peace and we make that same choice repeatedly throughout our lives.

When events transpire to leave us feeling like victims, we relish and cherish those feelings.  We fan the flames of our emotions, firing up the feelings of betrayal, hurt, and pain.  Our minds run amok with thoughts like "I can't believe he did that to me.  He is such a jerk.  I didn't deserve that!  Why would he do that to me?  I am always so good to him and then he turns around and does this to me!"

Or perhaps we simply run through the moment of betrayal and hurt repeatedly in our minds reliving the hurt.  We indulge in these thoughts.  Each time we experience it again in our minds it gets bigger and bigger, always more horrible, more hurtful, more painful.

Or maybe we harbor fantasies of revenge. Like the day we show up having lost twenty pounds and looking amazing.  That will make him regret what he did.  Or maybe we fantasize about hurting him just as badly as he hurt us and making him pay for what he did.  Or maybe we hatch elaborate plans about how we could take back whatever it is he took from us.

Sometimes we choose to stay in victim thoughts for years at a time.  Most of us have certain events in our past that are still defining us as victims, even though twenty or thirty years may have passed.  We are allowing our belief in victimhood to run our minds.  And when something runs our minds, it runs our lives.

Does this feel good?  In some twisted way, it does.  We cherish these feelings.  If we didn't, we would let them go. Or perhaps we simply don't know that there is another pathway available to us.

The truth is that at any moment in time we can stop being victims.  Our victimhood requires our continued belief that we have been wronged or harmed in some way.  We need to buy into the game in order to be victims. However, if we choose forgiveness, we are no longer victims.  We can be free of  the pain.  We can heal the wounds.  The contents of our mind is something that we have total and utter control of.  We can choose what we allow to exist in our minds.

Perhaps victimhood feels good.  However, wouldn't freedom feel better?  Wouldn't peace feel better?  Wouldn't living in love be vastly better than this experience of fear we are creating in our lives?  After all, choosing to be a victim is to choose fear over love.

Take a few moments and examine where in your mind you are allowing victimhood to rule. Is this really the choice you wish to make?  If not, forgiveness is the pathway to peace in your mind.  If you're not sure how to forgive, there are many easy processes outlined in "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  One of them will be the perfect way for you to let go and release victimhood permanently from your mind.

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Alice and Otto and The Happy Dream

https://www.tahoedreaminteriors.com/forgive-someone-now/Last night while watching the Oscars, I started thinking about the short film, The Lady in Number 6, which features Alice Herz Sommer, a then 109 year old holocaust survivor.  Alice died last week at the age of 110 and was the oldest living concentration camp survivor.  Her joy and appreciation for life were infectious.  Watch the clip below to see how much she loved both music and people.

Alice reminds me so much of a neighbor I had years ago.  Otto lived down the street from us and was the delight of the entire neighborhood.  Everyday he strolled the sidewalks greeting us all joyously.  He had so much happiness and generosity in his heart.  He loved everyone and wanted nothing more than to connect with each of us personally.  There were always dog treats in Otto's pocket and friendly teasing for any neighborhood children.  I was shocked one day to see the concentration camp tattoo on his wrist.  I never quite got over it.  How could Otto, who had witnessed and been victimized by the worst in human nature be able to bring out the best in human nature in his own self?

Alice and Otto have something huge in common and it's not their concentration camp background...it's forgiveness. Both manged to somehow forgive their horrible past.  They were living proof of the happiness that forgiveness brings.

A Course in Miracles promises that if we live a life of forgiveness we will eventually find ourselves living what it calls "the happy dream" life.  Alice and Otto both forgave and ultimately came to live that happy dream.

We each are in total control of only one thing: our thoughts.  What we choose to fill our minds with defines who we are and what we become.  

Both Alice and Otto lost just about everyone they knew and loved in Hitler's concentration camps and yet they lived on to forgive and love the world.  If they can forgive the terrifying experiences of the camps, then we are each certainly capable of forgiving our own past wounds.  Let Alice and Otto be a shining example of what each of us is capable of achieving, if we will only just do it.  Forgiveness is a lifestyle.  Take the first step and begin to forgive today.  Just take a look at Alice and her joy.  Don't you want the "happy dream", too?

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And if you want to get started today forgiving someone but don't know how, this quick and easy $2.99 downloadable forgiveness process will allow you to forgive today:

When You Were Sad, You Cried and Then it Was Over

"Can you remember a time, perhaps when you were very young, when life as it was--just the fact that it was early morning or any old day in summer--was enough?  When you were enough--not just because everything was the way it was.  Nothing was wrong.  When you were sad, you cried and then it was over.  You were back to a fundamental feeling of positivity, of goodness just because you were alive.  What if you could live that way now?"--Geneen Roth from Women, Food and God

Can you remember back to that feeling of innocence?  You felt happy most of the time.  You were at peace.  There was a time long ago when you did not hold grievances.  You just were.  Life just was.  You just watched and accepted it.  You didn't judge what you saw.  You just noticed.

"When you were sad, you cried and then it was over."  We can do this now.  When life give us bumps in the road we can let ourselves feel the feelings.  Then we can forgive, release and accept.  And then...it will be over.

This is how we lead a happy life.  Forgiveness give us inner peace.

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If you don't know how to "feel the feelings" and forgive, here is an easy to use audio download that will take you through a comfortable guided forgiveness process for $2.99: