Allowing, Accepting, Trusting

Some beautiful words on allowing:

Allowance is not a passive acceptance of things as they are, but a recognition that there is something quite beautiful at work.  There is an intelligence, a love, that knows you better than you know yourself and is presenting you, moment to moment, with jewels and gems and blessings and lessons that something is weaving the tapestry of your life, and nothing is happening by accident.  -- "The Way of Mastery", p. 68

A Course in Miracles tells us that we never know what anything is actually for.  This means that many of the events in our lives are planned behind the scenes for us.  Sometimes, when we are in the midst of one of the painful events that come up during the course of our lives, it's really hard to understand that this was gently planned for our greater good.  In fact, often, we simply just can't see anything about the situation that feels that any good can come from it at all.

However, as they say, "time will tell".  As the years pass, we can look back on our most painful events and understand the why of it.  We see what we learned.  We see how we became a stronger, better person because of it.  Or, we see that we had the opportunity to learn, but didn't accept it.

No worries.  When we don't learn our lessons the first time, they come around again.  And again, and again.  They look and smell a little differently, but they are just another version of the same darn lesson giving us yet another go at it.  We keep getting the lesson until we get it.  

Life really is a classroom and it's all there for us.  Trust the process.  Accept what comes up. Turn anything painful and all fearful thinking over to the Holy Spirit. As Jennifer Hadley likes to say, "Let the Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting".  Turning it over is an act of allowing.  It's the miracle in action, that moment when we choose love over fear.

Then examine these events to see how you can learn and grow from them.  Try to keep your acceptance level high, your loving attitude intact and your mood in the positive.  This is how we grow.  This is how we become who we were really meant to be.  This is how we uncover our real truth.  We are spirit.  We are really only love.

It's Simple...We're all the Same

I woke up thinking about the Middle East this morning.  I'd just love to throw a big blanket over Syria and Iraq.  "Sleep, everyone, just sleep", I'd whisper into the blanket.  "Calm down, sleep and find some quiet."  

When everyone is finally sleeping peacefully, I'd continue my whispering.  This is what I'd say:

We're all the same.  

The Divine created each and every one of us in exactly the same way.

He made us all out of the same substance.

He made us all exactly in his own image.  We are just like him.  Every single one of us.

We are love.  That is what he is.  That is what we are.

He love us infinitely.  Yes, each and every one of us is loved infinitely by the Divine himself.

And the Divine gave us each a function.  That function is love.   

We have a job to do, an assignment, a purpose.  Love is why we exist.  

Exercise that love.  Put it into action.  Fulfill your purpose.  

Be who you were created to be.

Forgive.  Accept.  Love. 

It really is all just this simple.  We're all the same. 

Live in peace.  Nothing is more important than this.  Nothing.  

It's OK That We're Not OK

In a recent blog posting, Colin Tipping said:

"I love that line: I’m not OK, you’re not OK; but that’s OK! It captures the truth about who we are and the fact that we were never meant to be perfect. If we were, there would be no one to create opportunities for us to experience forgiveness. Our perfection lies in our imperfection.

I also love the following definition of Radical Forgiveness, which is along the same lines: It is the unconditional acceptance of what is, as is, because that’s how it is meant to be."

We're all together here in this world.  But we're also all together on the pathway home.  That's because, in truth, we're all part of the one universal mind.  We are one and collectively, we are learning and growing together. We grow through forgiveness and acceptance, which are, ultimately, only love.

Colin Tipping believes that we all cooperate with each other, creating situations that allow us to each receive our forgiveness lessons.  Of course, this cooperation occurs subconsciously, on the level of the greater mind.

At certain times in each of our lives, we are providing others with forgiveness opportunities.
Just as we are each sometimes annoyed, upset or hurt by others, we all occasionally annoy, upset or hurt someone else, too.  Every one of us is given the opportunity to forgive and grow many times in this lifetime.  And the more we overlook those opportunities, the more "in-our-faces" they get.  If we fail to forgive the first time, no worries, we'll always get another chance  But the next time it will be bigger and more painful.

The next time someone hurts your feelings, try to flop the situation around in your mind.  Are they at some level actually offering you a gift?

Have they volunteered to help you grow by giving you the chance to forgive?  Are these "devils" actually "angels" in disguise?  Can it be that their hurtful behavior is actually an act of love?

Forgiveness is much easier if you allow yourself to think in this way.

Mary Morrissey on Forgiveness

"Forgiveness removes in the mind a block in me of my awareness of God's presence." --Mary Morrissey

We Don't Know What Anything is For

Sometimes life just ups and knocks us to the ground.  Most of us have this happen to at least once or twice in life.  One minute we're rocking along, moving forward and the next minute we have lost something or everything that is very dear to us.

I call this the "stripping away" because in it we lose much of what we thought we needed to be okay.  This can be a very painful experience to go through.  Ultimately, however, it becomes a growing experience.  It is through these stripping away times in our lives that we get to see who we really are.  They show us that we are so much more than the things we think we need.

"The seeming mysteries of life with their attendant experiences are, when rightly understood, blessings in disguise, for any experience that causes us to turn more firmly to the One Active Presence, "I AM," God in Action, has served us a wonderful purpose and blessing."--The "I AM" Discourses

A Course in Miracles tells us that we "don't know what anything is for".   When we are faced with circumstances that seem as if they are the annihilation of the self we have worked so hard to create, we must learn to forgive and accept what is happening to us.  We must trust and know that everything we are creating in our lives is for our greater good.  As the Course tells us, these events are not being done TO us, but they are FOR us.

Sometimes a "stripping away" of the old is necessary for the new to create itself.  Disease, divorce, debt, great disappointment and loss all serve a purpose.  Of course, when these things are happening to us, and we are in the midst of the gut-wrenching pain, it is hard to see the silver lining in these clouds.   But it is there and if we forgive and accept, we will ultimately come to know it.

Forgiveness opportunities come in both small and large packages.  The small are so much easier.  Like you, I vastly prefer the small.  However, as I look back on my life, I know that the large forgiveness opportunities are the ones which have led me to become the searcher I am today.  Life is often gently moving me forward in a better direction.  But sometimes I get lost and place too much importance on the wrong things.  This is when the "stripping away" comes in to show me what I have been unwilling to see.  I guess sometimes I just need that swift kick in the pants, the one that knocks me to the ground, writhing and gasping.  I know now that when I ultimately stand again, I will be standing taller and with the greater strength of Spirit coursing within me.

The fastest way to the other side of a "stripping away" is through forgiveness.  Sometimes it can take a great deal of time to recover, perhaps years, but it is always a choice to recover right now, through a total and complete act of forgiveness and acceptance.  For those of us who are unable yet to forgive in full, for whom forgiveness still feels like a bitter spoonful of medicine, we must do what we can and chip away at forgiveness, taking it sip by sip until eventually, we have accomplished it.  For there will be no recovery without it.

Sometimes we are given the task to learn that we can survive the things we think we can't.  If we apply acceptance to these moments in our lives, we can bounce back and not only survive, but thrive.  It is a choice we are given, we can elect to be "stripped away" permanently and become bitter and small, or we can forgive and grow into something even better than we were before this experience.  Happiness is attainable, but not without forgiveness.


By the way, I wrote about my most recent "stripping away" experience in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  It was a doozy.  If you want to learn what happened to me and how I grew through it, the story starts on page 83 in the chapter titled, "Life Sometimes Tears Us Down".

Available at:

amazon.com

barnesandnoble.com

Bedtime Forgiveness Habit

Yet another reason to practice forgiveness each night before sleep...

"The student or individual who wants to leap ahead in the progress of the Light should never enter sleep until he has consciously sent Love to every individual whom he feels has harmed him at any time.  This thought of Love will go straight as an arrow into the consciousness of the other individual because it cannot be stopped--there generating its Quality and Power which will as surely come back to you as you send it out."--The "I AM" Discourses

 

You get what you give.  It's a universal law.  When you give forgiveness and love to others, it comes back to you amplified.  It will show up in your life somewhere, someplace, sometime.  It may not relate to the actual person you have forgiven.  That relationship may or may not be salvageable.   It doesn't matter. If the love does not come to you through that relationship, it will find another way to express in your life.

You do not Know the Forces Playing on Another

More on judging, from the "'I AM' Discourses":

"I tell you frankly, Beloved Students and individuals, there is not the slightest hope for you in heaven or earth so long as you persist in holding within your consciousness thoughts and feelings of criticism, condemnation, or hate of any description, and that includes mild dislike.

This leads us to the very vital point that you are concerned only with your own activity and your world.  It is not your province to judge another, for you do not know the forces playing upon another or conditions. You know only the angle that you see of it, and I tell you that if an individual should be entirely innocent of any intent to wrong another, the individuals who send criticism, condemnation or hate to such an one are doing worse than committing physical murder.  Why is this so?  Because thought and feeling are the only Creative Power, and while such thoughts and feelings may not touch or harm their objective, they must return and bring with them the conditions sent out by the individual who sent them forth--and always with accumulated energy.  

So after all, the one who holds vicious thoughts to another is in reality but destroying himself, his business and his affairs.  There is no possible way of averting it, except for the individual to awaken and consciously reverse the currents."  

Judging is the opposite of forgiveness.  When we forgive we "flip the switch" from fear (anger, upset, annoyance, hurt) to love.   This moment when we forgive and flip that switch is what is called the "holy instant" in A Course in Miracles.  It is the moment when the miracle occurs.

On the other hand, when we judge, we are flipping the switch back in the opposite direction.  We are switching back to fear.  We judge because we are filled with fears.  We feel threatened by our world in some way, and so we judge.  In many cases, we don't even know why we feel fear.  Often, it is coming from our sub-conscious minds.

We have two kinds of work to do if we want to stop the habit of judging.  First, we must be vigilant always in guarding and protecting our minds from any vicious and judgmental fear thoughts.   As A Course of Miracles says, "choose again".  It is always within our power to choose again when we find our minds filling with fear and judgment.  When we see that we are starting to judge, we can make another choice, the choice for love.  

Our second work is that we must ask ourselves important examining questions when we find ourselves judging. What is this fear I feel in this moment?  Where is it coming from?  Why do I feel so threatened by this person?  What in my past is causing this moment to flare up so large in my mind?  If we are judging it is because we are feeling "little".  Why?  What about this person and this event is so threatening to our own sense of safety?  As we examine our fears, we can forgive and release them.

Again, as it says in the "I AM" Discourses, "the one who holds vicious thoughts to another is in reality destroying himself".  This is why as we learn to stop the ugly, destructive habit of judging others and we begin to give out love instead, the world around us changes.  It becomes a place of peace, first in our minds, and then that peace begins to out-picture in our worlds.  And when peace comes, we begin to find our happiness.

St. Germain--the source of the "I AM" Discourses