Withholding Love

On a quantum level, we are all joined.  All minds are joined.  That means that when we refuse to forgive someone, or when we judge someone, on a sub-conscious level, they know.

A while back I read about experiments with plants where love and praise was lavishly given or withheld.  In the studies, each family was given a plant and asked to keep it on their kitchen table where it would be seen frequently by all member of the family.  Half of the families were asked to praise and give love to the plants each time they entered the room.  "I love you.  You are beautiful.  You are magnificent.  You are a wonderful addition to our home."

The other families were asked to scold and ignore the plant.  "I hate you.  You are ugly.  Why are you even here?"

What happened?  The loved plants flourished and the despised plants died.  Yes, they DIED!

Let's talk for a moment about what happens to others when we either refuse to forgive or we forgive them (in tomorrow's post I will talk about what happens to ourselves).  If we choose to judge others harshly, they do suffer.  Everyone of us knows how it feels to be in someone's bad graces.  This suffering also happens on an unseen level.  Whether they know consciously that we are not forgiving them, they do know sub-consciously.  Remember that only a small part of our awareness is conscious.  The much bigger part of us is sub-conscious.  Just like the plants, any people we choose not to forgive will suffer.

On the other hand, when we choose to forgive, they heal.  Consciously, they may not know why, and we may not know why, but when we forgive others it changes them.  Forgiveness means focusing loving feelings towards others.  Love changes everything.

In The Hidden Messages of Water, Dr. Emoto proved that thoughts and feelings affect physical reality.  "By producing different focused intentions through written and spoken words and music and literally presenting it to the same water samples, the water appears to change its expression." --What the Bleep Do We Know?

Water Crystals Given Love and Gratitude

Water Crystals Played Heavy Metal Music

We may think that holding grievances is a harmless, neutral act, but it is not.  When we refuse to forgive, we are actually HARMING others.  

I really don't want to be that person.  I don't want to harm anyone, really, even annoying people.  I can see clearly that it is my job just get over it!  I must not allow myself to feel provoked, injured or even annoyed by anyone because I don't want to do harm.  

Join me in non-violent thought!

All Events Are Neutral

It is the spin we put on things that creates hurt and pain in our minds.  The one thing that we can control is our own thoughts.  We can choose how to view the events that transpire in our lives.

The insanity that you experience as your pain, your suffering, your seeking and your dramas comes only from your mistaken choice to become identified with what arises in the field of your awareness.  You, therefore, lose the sight of innocence. For all events are perfectly neutral, and you are free to see them any way you want. --The Way of Mastery p.4

No matter what happens in our lives we can choose to simply watch it unfold.  We can experience it without defining it as good or bad.  It just is. There is no need for us to decide that, "It is a terrible painful thing" and that, "Oh, it hurts so very, very badly!"

Our ego wants us to believe the insane spin it puts on everything in our worlds.  It judges everything it sees.  It will tell us that these judgments are its' important contribution to our lives, that they help us navigate the minefield of this world.  The ego wants us to believe that the world is a minefield and that without it, the ego, to guide us, we would forever be stepping on mines. The ego wants us to believe we need it.  However, the world is not a minefield, but a MIND-FIELD.  There are no mines.  There is only our perception of danger, difficulty and pain.  This comes from our egos.

When we allow ourselves to be with what is without judging it as right or wrong, or difficult or easy, or happy or sad, we are able to find peace with whatever is happening.  Nothing is as bad as we think it is!  When we drop our judgments about the world we find that things only just are.  It is all actually just fine.  And the more we think like this, the more we are at peace.  The more we experience peace, the happier we become.

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Quick...Name Five People You Know Of Who Are "Bad"

You can do it, can't you.  We can all do it.  We have everyone we know of somehow labelled in our minds.  We label some as beautiful, others as smart or successful, still others as happy and fun or serious and intellectual.  And, of course, there are those that are overweight, or depressed, or sick, or addicts, or lonely, or struggling with money.  Or, or, or...the list goes on.

Whether we have labelled people positively or negatively, it is all the same.  We have judged them.  We have decided their value based on some random criteria of our own makings.

"I am beginning to see that I don't have to judge and interpret the motives and behaviors of others.  There is no need to decide who are the good guys and who are the bad, who should be blamed and who should be punished.  I find it is truly "safe" to surrender the script written by me and trust in God's script."  --Gerald Jampolsky 

What would happen if we just let this entire system of judgments go?  Do we really need it at all?  After all, we have no idea what each of these people is ultimately experiencing.  We have no idea what lessons they are here for, what learning they are here to gather or what rights they may be attempting to wrong.

Each of these people was created by God.  Each one was created exactly in His own image. They are perfect, powerful and creative beings who are choosing to spend some time here on earth.  They are all so much more than we can see.

When we judge others, we are choosing to separate and diminish. When we accept others and love them regardless of who they appear to be here on earth, we are allowing the truth of God's existence to permeate our minds. We are knowing that we can only view a very small part of anyone's whole existence from our very limited viewpoint here on earth.  We are knowing that we are all God's creations, that we exist together with him, in His mind, and that we are all perfect and safe and free.  We are all really only love because God is only love and we are part of Him.

It's not easy to stop a lifelong habit of judgement.  I struggle with it every day.  But I am trying to let it go.  I hope you will think about joining me in this.  After all, if we never judge anyone, we will never have to forgive anyone.  When we release our minds from judging, the peace of God flows in.

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Self Forgiveness is a Choice for Happiness

In any moment we are making a choice between one of two things.  We are choosing to be happy or not to be happy.  We are siding with either fear or love.  Every moment in life, every perspective we choose to peer from, every action we take or don't take are all a version of this simple choice.

Guilt is a man-made creation.  God did not create it, nor did he create sin.  In fact God always chooses love and happiness.  He created us in love.  We are designed to be happy.

But, for better or worse, we have been given free-will.  We can use our free will to choose happiness, as God wishes for us.  Or, we can choose fear over love.  When we buy into the concept of fear, we choose to believe that we can be "bad".  And, of course, if we are "bad", then we are sinners.  And if we are sinners, then we need to feel guilt.  This is our system of fear.  It's man-made.  It's not God's.  God is always love.

I say, scrap it.  Let's just toss out this painful, miserable, system of fear from our minds.  It doesn't serve our best interests.  After all, it is in our best interest to be happy.

Release the fear.  Release the belief that you are bad. Release the feelings of guilt.  In the short term this is always a very simple thing to do.  Just think about what makes you happy and keep your mind focused on that.  This is a habit you can develop.  It's a choice you make.  This is step one to becoming happy.

Step two is to go deep into your mind and uncover all the dark hidden unconscious feelings of shame and inadequacy.  The belief that you are a worthless, undeserving, selfish and ridiculous creature is stashed away in the farthest reaches of your mind. You'll have to do some serious forgiveness work to uncover these beliefs and eradicate them.  But you can do this  Anyone can do this.

It's actually very easy to do this work.  It does take thinking time and a development of self-awareness, but there are processes that make it simple work to do.  It all has to do with your intentions for your life.  What do you intend?  What do you choose?  Is it your choice to learn to be happy...to live the life that you were created for?

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It is Only Our Own Thoughts That Hurt Us

In "Out of Darkness Into the Light", Gerald Jampolsky lists this as one of his favorite principles from A Course in Miracles:

"It is only our own thoughts that hurt us.  It is only our own minds that need to be healed.  We are not victims of the world that we see."

We choose the contents of our minds.  We never HAVE to be a victim.  We can always elect to see the world differently.  We can simmer in anger and hurt or we can let it go and create peace in our minds.  As the Course says, we are always choosing between love and fear.  There is no grey in between.

If you are toying with the idea of letting it go, but like so many of us, simply don't know where to begin, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" walks you through beginning forgiveness practices and step by step teaches you how to forgive in every area of your life. It is soooooooooo much easier than you may think!  Why not trade in fear, anger, hurt, rage, sadness and upset for inner peace?  It is absolutely doable.  What in your entire world could possibly be more important than your own happiness?

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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.