Happiness is Something You Decide On

"The 92-year old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair done and makeup applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy. 

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room ...” 

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged, it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it."  --The above story came from Chapter Two Blog .   

Mrs. Jones knows something big.  And this is something that most of us go our entire lives without learning.  Mrs. Jones knows that our thoughts are the one thing in life that we have complete and utter control over.  How we chose to look at the world is the one choice that is ours to make.  Mrs. Jones knows that each of us has the wherewithal to choose to allow only thoughts that ultimately contribute to our happiness to fill our minds.   

Choosing to be happy means that we choose to accept everything that occurs in our lives, even blindness. 

Choosing to be happy means that we learn to trust that whatever occurs is ultimately for our greater good, if we will only let it unfold, watching it with love and acceptance.

Choosing to be happy means that we let go of our habit of judging.  We stop judging the people we encounter, we stop judging the events that occur in our life and we stop judging the world and its conditions.

Choosing to be happy means that we commit to work to forgive the source of our disappointments, pains, losses, lack, discomfort, unhappiness, sadness, frustrations and fear, whatever it may be.  

Choosing to be happy means that it is okay for us to experience and feel real pain and hurt when it shows up in our lives.  It's okay to grieve.  It's okay to gnash ones teeth.  It's okay to howl with frustration.  But then, we release it and move on.  we don't fixate and get stuck in victim-hood.  We forgive.   

Choosing to be happy means that we develop a forgiveness lifestyle, that we practice forgiving whatever pushes our buttons each day in our present, that we forgive the painful events from our past and that we work to uncover the "false beliefs" that we have created as the result of these past events that are creating upsetting, confusing and painful patterns in our present.

And finally. choosing to be happy means that we flip the switch in our mind whenever the ego rears it's ugly head.  We flip the switch from fear to love.  We choose to think with Spirit in our minds.  Whenever we notice that the ego has returned with its thoughts of fear and worry, sadness and disappointment, frustration and anger, hurt and despair...we process, we inquire, we dig deep into our pasts to find the source of these thoughts, we examine, we feel and we release.  And then we kick the ego to the curb and get on with our happy lives.  

May All Beings Be Happy

I've noticed that this past week there have lots of readers from the Ukraine coming to this site.  I'm glad to know that there are people in the Ukraine that are searching for ways to deal with what has happened with forgiveness.  I also want any Ukrainian readers to know that there are people all over the world that support you and are praying for your well being.

When life shattering events occur, there is certainly much deep forgiveness work that can be done.  There are ideas in my book and throughout this site that may help with that.  However, in this posting I want to offer again a process, a Buddhist Metta prayer, that can easily and immediately help everyone get on the pathway to forgiveness around this issue.

Whenever we "flip the switch" in our minds from fear to love, we are beginning to forgive.  A Course in Miracles defines a miracle as "a shift in perception that takes place within the mind".  This little Metta prayer is truly a miracle-maker because in a matter of moments it takes you to love.

The prayer was written by Lama Surya Das and can be found in his book "Awakening the Budda Within".   There are many metta prayers and all have similar intentions.  However, the language in this one is particularly beautiful and seems to speak to everyone who reads it.

Here's what you do.  Get a picture in your mind of anyone involved in the recent events in Ukraine, the protagonists, the victims, the villains and the innocent by-standers.  You are going to say this prayer for each and every one of them. Say the prayer as sincerely as you can and really direct the words out to the individuals or groups whom you wish to receive its benefits.  If you need to, you can repeat it several times, once for people you feel angry with, another for victims, another for the people you are simply worried about, etc.

May all beings be happy, content and fulfilled.

May all beings be healed and whole.

May all beings have whatever they want and need.

May all beings be protected from harm, and free from fear.  

May all beings enjoy inner peace and ease.

May all beings be awakened, liberated, and free.

May there be peace in this world and throughout the entire universe.  

(You can insert someone's name instead of using the words "all beings" if you have a particular person or group of people in mind.  By the way, this prayer is so powerful, it will absolutely change your life if you use it every day.  My advice would be to print it out in a word document, perhaps add a beautiful picture to it like the heart world below and take it to your local office store to have them laminate it for you.  Then use it first thing in the morning.)

I would like to encourage all readers of this posting to say this prayer for the Ukraine and sincerely wish that everyone involved will be lifted up, be safe and will find a way to heal and to bring more love into their lives. 

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As a next step in forgiveness, I would suggest a guided meditation process that you can download for $2.99 called "Forgive the World Now".  It only takes 17 minutes to do and it will take you to a place where you will be able to see all this from a different perspective.  

And finally, here is a link to an article I like titled, "The Path to World Peace Starts Within" from The Power of Oneness.  A few excerpts:

"The condition of our physical world is a giant mirror reflecting back to us the collective thoughts of every person who is part of our earth family.  since thought is creative, whatever we focus on expands.  Therefore, what we are seeing is an indication that part of our human society is predominately focused on judgement, violence, greed and crime.  

We can point a finger of blame wherever and to whomever we want, but it does not change the truth that each of us has played a part in creating the condition of the world in which we live.  

We can only change the quality of our collective personal reality by taking personal responsibility for the part we have each played in creating it.  Since all change begins at the level of self, when we change our individual lives, the world around us changes as well. 

Ways the Ego Sets Us Up

The ego loves to set us up in situations that create chaos in our lives.  The ego loves problems.  After all, while we are busy searching around in our earthly lives for the solutions to problems, we are distracted from our true purpose here, which is love.

Earlier this week I wrote about a classic ego set-up that a lot of us experience.  This is something I call "The rug gets pulled out from underneath me".  See here.  This almost always happens when we are the most elated about our lives.  Just when everything is going great, it all changes in an instant and everything goes horribly bad.

Another common ego set-up is "I can't win no matter what I do".  In this set-up, we have people in our life who are going to be very upset with us if we handle things one way and other people (just as important to us) who are going to be upset if we handle things the other way.  There are no alternative choices that will satisfy everyone.

I have a friend that is in this conundrum right now.  She and her sister receive a modest yearly stipend from her mother's trust.  There seems to be a problem with it.  Her sister has hired an expensive lawyer to fix it and expects my friend to share in the costs. My friend's husband believes that by the time the lawyer fixes the problem, his fees will eat up the stipend.  Her sister is angry at her because her husband is involved.  Her husband is angry because her sister is handling it badly, in his opinion.  If my friend let's her sister handle it, her husband will be hurt and angry with her.  If she gets her husband involved, her sister will be hurt and angry with her.  She can't win.

We all have themes we're working on in life.  I see this same friend in similar situations where she can't win occasionally.  This is her theme.

When you find yourself in ego set-ups, the only thing you can do is turn the whole mess over to Spirit.  You can do this two ways.  The first choice...you can just use words and make a statement something like this, "Holy Spirit, I am giving this whole situation regarding (X) over to you.  I know that you will know what to do with it and I trust you to find a solution that is in everyone's best interest."

Alternatively, if you visualize easily, you can create a big beautiful white marble altar in your mind.  Light it up with divine love.  Make it gorgeous, glowing and brilliant.  Just place your problem on the altar and watch it be consumed with heavenly white flames.

After you turn your problem over, what do you do?  Why, nothing, of course.  Spirit's got your back!  If Spirit decides there is some additional action for you to take, you will be informed.  Until that time, just rest in trust and enjoy the peace of knowing that it is not your problem any longer.   Let it go.  Release and forgive.

Turning your problems over is most definitely a form of forgiveness, but there's more forgiveness work we can do here.  When we find a pattern of ego set-ups in our lives, we need to do some soul searching to figure out why they're happening.  What events occurred early in our lives that caused us to create an unconscious false belief that we can't win?  Until we go back and really look at this false belief, we will continue to experience "can't win" ego set ups on a regular basis.  This will take some deep probing and thought.  However, if we ask Spirit for direction and knowing, we will receive the answers we search for.

Then how do we forgive whatever we find in our past?  For something like this, I like to use the "Feel the Feelings" process in Chapter Three of "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".   An easy to use download of this process in the form of a guided meditation is available, Forgive Your Past NOW.  For just $2.99 you will be shown a process that you can use over and over to forgive all kinds of wounds and hurts from your past.  These old injuries are wreaking havoc in your present. Why not do a little forgiveness work on your past and make your life work better for you today?

Pardoning vs. True Forgiveness

Many of us were taught to pardon when we were children.  Here is how pardoning works:

Someone injures, annoys or upsets us in some way.  We think, "They are very bad.  They behaved badly.  However, I am going to be the bigger person and I am going to pardon them for their bad behavior.  I am a good person.  I forgive them."

Pardoning is not true forgiveness.  Pardoning is actually a form of judgment.  In pardoning others we see them as less than us.  They are "bad" and we are "good". 

With true forgiveness, we see our trespassers as being our exact and perfect equals.  We see them in their higher place (which is our higher place, too).  We know that their true reality is that they are perfect children of God, that God made them in his exact image, that he loves them infinitely and that they are only love.  We acknowledge that this world is an illusion and that the things that happen here are only illusory acts.

Pardoning is an ego act.  It comes from the ego side of our mind.  It never leaves us feeling love.  Anytime we judge others, we move away from God. 

However, true forgiveness, moves us closer to our real home in the mind of God.  It comes from the Holy Spirit part of our mind.  Forgiveness is an act of love and loving make us happy.  That's why forgiving the world around us ultimately leads us to a happy life. 

 

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"The Rug Got Pulled Out From Underneath Me"

I spent today leading a forgiveness workshop and afterward one of the participants asked if I might spend a few minutes helping her understand something about an event from her past.

While doing one of the forgiveness meditations, she became aware that there were various elements associated with a particular event and wanted to know why that was.  I let her know that, yes, our bigger forgiveness lessons often have many aspects associated with them.  Big painful events are often complicated and the emotion we feel about them tends to make then seem even more complicated in our minds.

When she began to speak about what happened, her face took on a confused clouded expression and she had a difficult time grasping what we were discussing, even though it was all easily clear and obvious to me. As we were making a list of the aspects of this event that she needed to forgive, she kept asking me to repeat each one over and over so she could write it down.  She would write down a word or two of my sentence and get completely lost and ask me to repeat it again. Now, this is a very smart woman, but her painful memories were creating emotional blocks that were keeping her from thinking in her normal clear head.

Here are the simple facts about the event that transpired in her past.  She was a young girl and she was given her first bicycle.  She was so excited that she could ride it that she wanted to share her joy and rode down the block to show her best friend.  She felt elated that she could ride, proud of her new bike and excited to share with her friend.  When she rode back home, her father greeted her standing on the corner with a willow switch in his hand which he then beat her with it.

Today in the workshop she was able to see for the first time that his response came from his own fear.  After all, she had ridden off without telling him where she was.  She asked me if her understanding of this now was forgiveness.  My answer is that yes, it is, but only partially.

Anytime you flip the switch from fear thinking to love thinking you are forgiving.  In this case, her willingness to put herself in her father's shoes is an offering of love to him.  This is definitely the start of the forgiveness for her.  

However, there's a lot more under the surface.  I said to her, "Let's talk about the fact that here was this incredibly big moment in your life.  Getting a bicycle is a giant step in the progression to becoming BIG, so important to us when we are children.  This was one of the most important, happiest and proudest moments in your childhood.   Here you are absolutely celebrating this big moment and then suddenly it all turned horrible...the rug got pulled out from underneath you."

When I said the words, "the rug got pulled out from underneath you", she looked stunned.  "Oh, my God", she said.  "That is the repeating theme in my life.  Just when things seem to be going their very best, the rug gets pulled out from underneath me."

Of course they do!  When we have an experience this big and emotional in our childhood, it creates subconscious beliefs that color our world throughout our lifetime. In Science of Mind studies, we call these false beliefs.  My friend's belief is that whenever things are going really good, there is going to be a nasty and painful surprise.  The rug will be pulled out from underneath her.

The only way for her to stop reliving this moment in her life is for her to forgive it.  When she accomplishes the forgiveness, the horrible repeating pattern will stop and she will be able to accept happiness knowing that it will not be shockingly, abruptly and painfully taken from her.

Here are some other aspects of this experience which may have created additional false beliefs she can be working to forgive:

I get punished whenever I feel big and free and I fly.
People I love can harm me.
Love has strings attached. Other people love me conditionally.
I am a helpless victim.
I get in trouble even though I do nothing wrong.
I can't trust life.
This is not a safe world.

True forgiveness takes some deep thinking and self discovery.  That's why I like to call it a forgiveness lifestyle.  It sometimes takes months and even years to unravel the emotions, fears and blockages we have created in our minds because of the events in our past.  However, if we ask Spirit to help us receive understanding about our pasts, it will be given to us.  It often comes in fits and starts over a series of weeks and months, but maybe that's because we need the time to process what we are discovering.

Filmed at Lake Tahoe (where I live). 

It's true that forgiveness is a commitment.  However, the process can be fascinating (after all, what's more interesting than ourselves?)  It's also easier than you may think.  Now that my friend has begun to forgive this important event from her past, she'll be given more information and greater understanding about it.  It will become easier and easier for her to forgive each aspect of it.  Pretty soon, she will have released the whole thing.  The emotion of it will leave her body and she will be at peace whenever she remembers it.  This will allow her to open herself up to new possibilities in her life.  Perhaps she will decide to trust the world a little more and open up to new experiences and relationships in a larger way than she has in the past.

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Are You Choosing Separation from Spirit?

Words from Jennifer Hadley:

"I’ve come to realize that all feelings of fear are the result of choosing separation from Spirit in some form or another. It always comes down to a judgment, an opinion.

The more I cultivate a pristine awareness, a release of all opinions and judgments, the more peaceful I feel. The more safe and secure I feel. The more I feel free to Love and be loved.

Fear is not caused by anything other than choosing to value a belief in separation from each other and from God.  Practice non-judgment and watch the peace emerge and the fear recede.

Don’t take my word for it.  Prove it.  When you choose to block Love from your heart and mind, you feel afraid.  When you choose to block Love from your heart and mind, you are cutting the communication with the ALL in ALL – and that’s why you feel afraid.

If you don’t enjoy feeling afraid, choose again." 

You can find more of Jennifer Hadley at: jenniferhadley.com/blog.

Judgments, Expectations and Behaviors of Wanting

I really love Colin Tipping's Radical Forgiveness forms and I have used many to forgive people and events from my past.  There is an entire chapter on Radical Forgiveness in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness", and I recommend them in my forgiveness workshops.  (The forms are available for free at www.colintipping.com under "Free Stuff").

If you are a regular follower of this blog, you know that I often encourage readers to "flip the switch" from fear to love as a part of the forgiveness process.  Flipping the switch occurs the moment we stop judging and condemning and offer any sort of love, understanding or compassion to our trespasser.

In Colin Tipping's form he asks a number of questions that build upon each other culminating in the flipping of the switch.  One of the questions I love is this (substitute your trespasser's name for the X):

"My discontent was my signal that I was withholding love from myself and (X) by judging, holding expectations, wanting (X) to change, and seeing (X) as less than perfect. List the judgments, expectations and behaviors that indicate you were wanting (X) to change."

So often, our hurt and pain occurs when we want either someone in our lives, or the world around us to be a certain way.

When we dis-attach ourselves from expectations, wanting and emotional needs, then we are free to live in peace and joy.

We often create "needs" in our minds.  We might think, "I can't be happy if (X) doesn't love me." Or, "My life is a failure if I don't get a job with an important company."  Or, "I need to live in a beautiful house to be happy."  Or, "I need to be healthy to be happy."  All of these kinds of beliefs are just things we tell ourselves. Think about each of these statements above.  Are any of them really true?  Happiness and inner peace come from  releasing judgments and accepting whatever is.

When we create desired outcomes in our minds and get attached to them, we are only setting ourselves up for failure and misery.  In fact, attachments of any kind only set us up for pain.  Attachments to people, to places, to things are what create most of the pain in our lives.  When we just allow what is to be and accept the world around us as it is, we begin the process of creating inner peace in our minds.

There is a great big, beautiful, joyful world right here in front of us and in our minds.  And it is "what is".  There is plenty here to keep us satisfied if we will only flip the switch from fear to love and allow ourselves to see the truth around us.

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