The night beforehand, my father knew that the following day they would be going to a fun amusement park. He asked my son, “So what do you think we’re going to do tomorrow?”

His response:

“I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

My father followed up:

“Well, what do you think we might do?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out.”

I experienced gratitude in that moment because I knew my son understood, at least a little bit, one of the most important life teachings any of us can learn: How to embrace the mystery.

The mystery is where we live 100% of our life. Every moment is in the mystery. We might think we “know” what is coming up, but truly we don’t.

Just ask that to anybody who has had a heart attack, been in a car crash, been diagnosed with cancer, lost a loved one unexpectedly, been fired from a job, had a partner break up with them out of the blue, went to the store to buy something specific and it was out of stock, won the lottery…

Or phrased a different way:

Ask anybody in the world if they can be 100% certain what the next moment holds. I don’t think there’s a sane person in this world, not even the most renowned psychics, who can always state they know with certainty what the future holds.

(even if they can get “many of the moments” right and/or “good enough”)

Yet our mind wants to think it knows what the future holds. We create patterns of expectation based on previous experience. When we get in the car to drive to work we expect to get to work. We’d even bet on it.

When we enter into a new relationship, we already have expectations. What do we need to be in relationship? Can that person give it to us? Can we give them what they need? Will the relationship last long or end short?

When we work, we expect things to go a certain way. In some cases, if they don’t go a certain way we will lose our job or be penalized in some way.

Some of this is conscious. Most of it is subconscious. Our brains have been conditioned to see the world in specific ways according to our past experiences. Sometimes that historical conditioning is helpful. We don’t have to re-learn how to eat, move, or use the restroom.

Unfortunately, historical conditioning also creates expectations about the future that limit our effectiveness to live fully. As long as we expect things to go a certain way we can never see them for how they really are.

Expectations are filters which prevent us from seeing the power inherent in the unknown mysteries of the Universe. Expectations prevent us from experiencing the world in a personally meaningful way.

It’s not our fault that we hold such grand expectations about the world. As a child it was necessary for us to make sense of the world. Few parents can balance giving a child boundaries and a solid foundation with an effective understanding and trust of the unknown. Many parents often try too hard to have all the right answers for children.

Sometimes it’s easier to make up an answer than try to explain something effectively using age-appropriate terms…

“Where do babies come from?”

Sometimes parents fear that kids aren’t ready or can’t comprehend difficult experiences or concepts…

“Why do people kill each other?”

Sometimes parents feel like they have to be ‘all knowing’ for their children (and/or themselves)…

“Why is the sky blue?”

Some parents feel they need to create fairytales so their children can develop a sense of faith and mystery…

“Is Santa Claus real?”

There are many reasons why parents have told little white lies to their children. Those reasons are usually well-intentioned, and they all come down to wanting some degree of certainty in the world for themselves and/or their children. It comes down to not completely trusting the unknown mystery that is inherent in every single moment. Or they just don’t have the first clue how to answer a difficult question, and to relieve their unconscious feelings of helplessness they try to come up with anything that is “good enough.”

Few people living today truly trust and embrace the mystery. It’s just not something most of us were taught. I’m learning this more and more with each passing day.

Fortunately, it’s never too late to choose something different for ourselves and others. Instead of always having the answer, let’s get used to saying things like:

“I don’t know.”

Quietly you can also say in the back of your mind, “And it’s okay.”

You can even follow it up with “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” or “I don’t know exactly how to answer that. I want to, I just don’t have the right words. Let me think about it.”

It’s okay to not know.

In fact, when you truly enter the space of not knowing then you allow your innate natural curiosity to come forth. It’s by not knowing that you can truly embrace and take delight in the mystery that is available to each of us.

For the next week or so, pay attention to your relationship with “knowing” and “not knowing.”

When are you trying to “have an answer?” When do you think you know how things will or should go? When are you trying to cover up the feeling of not knowing something?

And on the other hand, notice what your experience is like when you truly don’t know something. Is it scary? Is it comforting? Is it painful? Is it joyful?

Everybody will have different responses to the unknown.

Here’s the kicker…

As long as you have reactions to the unknown, you’re still using the filter of your past conditioning to look at the unknown!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6675877

Of course, “quick” is relative. Most people want overnight change. Short of a near-death experience or some other highly charged transformative experience, significant lasting change rarely happens overnight. In fact, most people are fortunate to make even a single reasonable habit change in a year – whether it’s changing their diet, exercising more (or at all), meditating regularly, or actively dating.

Our brains and bodies aren’t wired for fast change. They are however designed as vehicles for evolution. When I talk about how to transform our lives quickly, I’m really exploring how we can accelerate the speed of our evolution.

By looking at fast transformation through the perspective of evolution, it’s easier to see that systematic and progressive steps are the keys to creating change in our lives. When specific systematic and progressive steps are linked together, they create a symphony and the results mirror the old adage “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Instead of a particular voice or instrument trying to overpower the symphony so that it can be heard and highlighted, all of the pieces work together in concert to create faster change than normal. In this case, fast change is in comparison to how our lives progress relatively slowly when we are using just one or two strategies (or none at all). Or fast being as compared to how our lives never progress meaningfully at all when we don’t recognize the value of the gifts being offered to us each and every day.

Symphonic change is not just one systematic change or even several changes. It’s a coordinated orchestrated effort of multiple synergistic changes synchronizing together. The result is truly profound.

Instead of having lots of “big” changes in your life, you have frequent systematic and small ones. You experience mini-breakthroughs, each building upon all of the previous breakthroughs. Then they roll down the metaphorical hill, gathering moss, and together they create a compound effect of massive and rapid change. In some cases, even exponential change as they multiply with one another.

These changes coordinate your inner and outer lives -your orchestra- in such a way that you can be open and receptive to the right opportunities for fast change when they’re presented to you.

That's why in all the challenges I'm going through right now, I'm not really focusing on the "outer stuff" that I don't feel I can get or have. Those external desires are just mirrors for what I truly want, which is to develop myself for fully… to become a more integrated human being… to live abundantly from the inside-out.
    
The way I see it is this:

The QUALITIES we want to live with (like Strength, Courage, and Willpower) ~ are something we can develop, and therefore have access to and bring with us into every single moment of every single day.

Meanwhile, the STUFF we want to live with (money, houses, cars, etc) ~ are something we can acquire, and therefore, can also lose. If our happiness is depending on what we manifest, we're setting ourselves up for a life of pain.

So I always advocate first manifesting qualities and experiences before going for the stuff.

With that in mind, I recently connected with somebody who is helping bridge the gap between enlightenment and manifestation.  His name is Jafree Ozwald, and his approach to manifesting is similar in many ways to mine. He focuses first on doing the inner work and WHO we have to be before focusing on what we can get.

He's also giving away what he calls his "Enlightenment Support System" that you can download from his site. In it, he gives you:

(1) A Manifesting Meditation MP3 audio
(2) The 1st chapter of his "Manifesting Manual"
(3) 30 Days of Enlightening Messages

Click Here And Get It For Free

Candidly speaking, my favorite is actually the enlightening messages. Jafree and I share the same basic disposition: Always deliver great content first. Then, if people want to take the next step and make a purchase they can. But always always always, I seek to first enrich peoples' lives and make a difference.

The fact that his messages are a wealth of knowledge is testament to that. If you're curious what you can expect after you sign up for your "Enlightenment Support System," the passage below is a brief yet typical example.

"Anytime you are looking outside yourself for the answers to your problems or things that you want to manifest in your life, you are looking in the wrong direction.  Sure, there is a Universe "out there" yet the way to master it is by first discovering how to explore the one "in here".

When you first start looking within yourself you may not find anything there for many moons to come. This is a test, and to be expected. For those who are truly on the spiritual path you will soon discover  the most amazing loving gentle sweet energy within you. It is from this place that all the answers flood in. Yes!

The secrets to mastering this Universe can only be found by those who are willing to look within. You do not have to go far at all to find what your soul is looking for.  Everything is already set up in such an absolutely perfect and divine way.

Rest, relax and you will soon be embracing the infinite being you already are."

– Jafree Ozwald, Enlightenment Support System

Click Here For More Free Enlightenment Support

Last week, I had a dream in which I was driving on a road near the ocean. There was a person who wouldn't let me pass, and I clearly understood that there was a conspiracy of sorts.

After handing this person a little bit of pocket change (kind of like this week's "Inspirational Video of the Week"), I was allowed to pass.

Then I woke up in the room that I grew up in as a child. It was the middle of the night, and I put some change down on the nightstand next to me. That's when I realized I was still dreaming, and the conspiracy dream that I previously had was a "dream within a dream."

I fell back to sleep ~ that is to say ~ I fell asleep back into a "dream within a dream." This time I was in a supermarket. The shelf next to me had some empty space, and I put some pocket change down there as well.

As I walked down the aisle, I asked myself a question inside my head:

"What don't I know about this world?"

Immediately, the entire world shook violently. Bigger than the biggest earthquakes in history.

I woke up into full waking consciousness in a physical fight-or-flight panic. Adrenaline was pumping. It physically felt like the worst nightmare ever.

Metaphorically and symbolically though, I knew the dream was prophetic. It was important. It was about CHANGE.

The last weeks of my life have been some of the most painful I've ever gone through. Three very close important relationships to me are being severed in ways that challenge me at the deepest levels.

As such, I will be going deeper into myself…

I will be spending more time in silent retreat on the land of one of my spiritual teachers…

I will be doing a firewalk retreat…

I will be becoming more of the CHANGE I'm destined to be.

This pain I'm going through. These severed relationships. Yes, they hurt with more emotional pain than I've ever experienced in my entire life. If it weren't for the inner work I've done up until now, these experiences might have broken me.

Actually, they have broken me…

Wide open in a way that allows me to see what's inside. They enable me to see what I'm truly "made of" so to speak. It is an opportunity to step more fully into my greatest potential.

Most people shy away from their potential greatness. Just like the Marianne Williamson quote I emailed you a couple of days ago. Most of us are scared of our light.

I know I am, and this pain is showing me that I no longer have a choice. It's once again the time for me to step more fully into myself, into my potential, and become more of the leader and teacher that I already am and continue to become with each passing day.

Over the coming months, I don't know how my life will change. All I know is that it will transform in many ways that I can't possibly imagine. All is unfolding as it is meant to, and even in my greatest pain I know that I am ultimately being held in a field of Loving Light.

In my first blog post titled "Why You Get Angry (And What To Do About It)," I suggested that one of the ways I shift out of my negative energy states (like anger, sadness, rejection), is to go from "What am I not getting?" to "What can I give?"

Right now, I am living in the midst of this exact challenge. What I "want" is to hold onto my ideas of how reality "should" be. What I "want" is to have these close relationships to me no longer be severed. What I want is to physically manifest the deep loving connection with these people the way that it used to manifest.

But I can't have that. For reasons beyond my control, it has become impossible to have what I want the way I want it.

And so instead I ask myself "What can I give?"

…Err, no, I mean I "What can I bring?" Because in my followup blog post, I went further and suggested that rather than "give," the new paradigm is what can we "bring."

I bring myself fully to what I need most in the moment: conscious, loving connection. The world around me, the people I want it from most, can't "give" it to me. I have to bring myself to it. In this case, that means bringing myself to experiences which connect me more fully to myself.

And so I will bring myself silently into the wild. I bring my fears with me and walk on fire. I will bring myself into the world and connect with new people more authentically and fully.

With all this in mind, I bring you a thought I wrote very recently in a comment on a friend's Facebook wall. It is a comment that has since become a clear reminder to me of how the Loving Light truly works in our lives.

Here's what I wrote…

"Grace is always with us, even when we are too lost in the fog to realize it's just the clouds of Heaven holding us closer."

Pain sucks.

And we all experience it because we're human. It's our choice whether the pain breaks us down and pummels us into the ground, or whether the pain breaks us open so we can more fully reveal our inner gifts to the world.

I'm choosing to be the change.

Today I thought I’d share how one of those interactions went on Facebook. Annette wrote…

“What if the person or persons are toxic, blames everything on you, or is always criticising you (dumb, never be good for anything) or blaming (my problems are yours because you won’t fix them or give me $). Is my perception of that wrong? If I view it differently what will happen? What about verbal abuse?”

Those are interesting questions. Because we all are unique individuals with unique experiences, only you will know the real answers to those questions in your own life if you are able to completely view it differently (including both conscious and subconscious beliefs).

One thing I have observed in my own experience…

As I change, the relationships I have with others changes as well. Other people respond differently to my deeper sense of Strength, Courage, Willpower, Peace, Presence, Joy, Authenticity, and other qualities.

Some people are melted by the peace and Courage and come closer to me… they open up. Some people are inspired, encouraged, or calmed. Other people distance themselves.

One thing is certain: There are still people who judge me, and their judgments don’t hurt as much or even at all.

Thank you! I didn’t think about my detaching (or actually my lack of it) as being the answer. Maybe after 45 years my mindset was stuck! If it effects me, maybe that means some part of me agrees with them. Ouch, that hurts! Growing pains! I think this is a major step in my life. I can’t thank you enough!

Yes. Most of the time when you feel upset by something somebody says about you, there’s a part of you (often subconscious) that does agree with them. A really simple example is:

If you were the best in the world at something ~ for example a World Champion Pool Player ~ and somebody said “You’re pretty bad at pool” you’d just shrug them off.

On the other hand, if you’re an aspiring pool player and somebody said the same thing, you might think, “Wow. They might be right. Maybe I should just give up now and save myself unnecessary pain in the future.”

We do the same thing with emotions.

If you know that you’re deeply rooted in love, and somebody says you’re “Not very loving” then it’s pretty easy to recognize that it’s the OTHER person projecting their lack of love onto you. They don’t feel loving, so they view the entire world (including you) as not being loving.

On the other hand, no matter how loving you may be, if somebody says that you are “Not very loving” ~and you believe that not being loving is a “bad” thing~ then you’ll likely feel sad, upset, unloving, etc as a result of that person’s comment.

So yes you’re right. As long as some part of you (conscious or subconscious) agrees with negative judgments from other people, then you will feel emotional pain.

Since I’m on this path with you, that happens to me sometimes. It’s not fun when I notice that I feel judged (or judgmental). Fortunately, I also recognize that it is an opportunity for me to recognize where I’m still identifying with negative judgments. That awareness enables me to shift my attention and focus to the inner work I need to do to become more wholly integrated.

To circle back to the original question from Annette…

When you change your inner world, your experience of the outer world will also change. Both are inextricably linked. So much so that many people will even respond differently to you than they did prior to you making inner changes.

And when that happens, there’s an incredible opportunity for more “problem solving” using new states of consciousness (awareness).

In short, "giving" inherently suggests an experience of separation. "I have this. I give it to you. Now you have it. I don't."

If you give away a dollar, you no longer have it yourself. The dollar is separated from you and joined with another person, so to speak.

In the case of emotions like love, it seems less obvious that this is what happens. In fact, some great authors and speakers have commented how love is the only thing that when we give it away, we actually have more of it.

In theory that's great. I love the principle. In reality, it still subconsciously encourages separation. It presumes at the basic level, "I have love and you don't." (or don't have enough of it)

Perhaps I'm an idealist, but I believe we all have love within us.

Sure we may be blocked from experiencing that love in its fullest unconditioned state. Decades of history, pain, and conditioning will block it to some degree in just about everybody. It is my belief though that the love already exists within each and every one of us, and it's up to us to understand and remove the blockages we have and allow that love to radiate from us.

In relation to giving though, I still think the idea of "giving love" might be a little bit outdated.

Recently in exploring this, I stumbled upon something that felt interesting to me. The more I explored it, the more I realized it shifts the separating subconscious implications of "giving" to something more profound, integrating, and including.

Rather than seeing ourselves as "giving" anything to another person, I bring you a different five letter word to try using…

"Bring"

I am reminded of growing up. When moving into a new neighborhood, it was customary to be welcomed by other neighbors who would BRING a welcome gift. If you were lucky, it was a home baked treat.

They didn't just give you the treat and leave. They didn't ring the bell, leave it at the door, and walk away. And they didn't ship it from Amazon with a computer generated "Welcome to the 'hood!" memo.

They BROUGHT it to you. They introduced themselves. They engaged with you.

Specifically, they brought you a piece of themselves.

This seems to be something I notice missing from a lot of giving today. There's a lot of "stuff" being given, but what's missing is the essential nature of giving ~ that we are actually BRINGING ourselves to an experience.

It's most prevalent with our attention.

Are we "giving" somebody our attention? Are we "giving" them a shoulder to lean on, or an ear to listen?

Or are we bringing ourselves to them? Bringing them our attention? Bringing them the shoulder?

The difference may seem benign. Even pointless to some. To me it's significant though.

The word "bring" is inclusive in nature. It means we are not leaving something (like ourselves) behind nor handing something over. We are arriving WITH whatever we are giving.

This is also true when we're in a relationship, and especially one with conflict. Are we merely giving the other person an opportunity to be heard? Are we giving them a piece of our mind? Are we giving them our heart? Are we giving them space?

Those all assume separation. "I have something. I give it."

Or are we BRINGING our heart, our soul, our essence into the relationship? Are we bringing our presence and capacity to hold space? The shift is subtle.

Every time you think you're giving something to somebody, pause for a moment and ask yourself how it might feel if you were to "bring" instead.

Sure this requires a lot of conscious attention. We "give" a lot of things every day, to different people, and in different ways.

But isn't that what our lives are about? Conscious attention?

Starting today, give it a try. Try "bringing" yourself into everything you "give" and see what your experience is like.

My hunch is that you'll feel a lot happier "bringing" yourself into the world. And other people will appreciate it too… even if all they know is that "something feels a little bit different."

Give it a try.

Do it for a day or several.

Then comment below and let me know how it goes for you.

A lot of spiritual paths like to just focus on "feeling good." But that's a slow path to transformation because it's an attempt to override entire lifetimes of subconscious programming.

Instead, I've found that it's most helpful to focus on understanding "negative" emotions. Through understanding, I'm able to transform them into empowerment much much faster than through positive thinking alone. Neuroscience is actually starting to demonstrate exactly why this is, and I'll share that with you another time.

For now though, I want to talk a little bit about anger and how it relates to your heart.

Whenever you feel angry it's because youe WANT something that you can't have in that moment. Maybe you want something from another person and they won't give it to you. Maybe you want something from reality that you can't have.

(such as a break from frustrating kids, incompetent coworkers, a nagging spouse, unwelcome weather, financial fears, and so on and so forth…)

In short, we expect reality to be one way that is negatively different from what we want.

That's why whenever I'm having challenges in life, whenever I feel upset, I try to remember to ask myself a simple but profund question:

"What do I want to get from this?"

Or phrased slightly differently…

"What am I expecting this person to give me that I don't feel I can actually have?"

With the recent challenges in my life, I asked myself that question…

And I was NOT prepared for what I discovered!

Many spiritual teachers tell us that we should give to others.

Give unconditional love.

Give gifts.

Give ourselves.

Give charity.

Give our world praises and prizes generosity.

Give service to others.

I could write for days on people have said we should "give" to others. One reason that giving helps is that it moves us away from the more ego-centric selfish mindset that is trying to "get." Instead, we shift into a more heart-centric space that has a little less "self" in it.

I have found this shift to be helpful, so I'd often go through a 2-part process to open my heart when I felt angry or hurt. I'd ask myself these questions:

(1) "What do I want to get from this?"

That tells me which needs within feel unmet. It indicates to me how I feel unheard or unseen. The answer lets me know how far I've strayed from my True Nature.

(2) "Instead of getting, what can I give?"

This tells me how to meet those unmet needs. It indicates how I can choose to be heard and seen. The answer brings me closer to my True Nature. And quite frankly, it feels good.

BUT…

The other day when I went through this process, I discovered something was missing. The whole aspect of shifting from getting to giving still involves an experience of separation.

Specifically, it's the idea that I have something to give to another. Subconsciously, it goes something like this:

"I have this. You don't. I give it to you. Then I feel better."

Did you catch that last sentence…

"Then I feel better."

In other words, shifting from "getting" to "giving" doesn't actually change the nature of the ego-centric selfishness. It only shifts how we FEEL about our ego-centric selfishness.

Not that it's a bad thing to feel better. I kind of like it! I've just found that it's a limited view. Focusing just on "giving" prevents me from experiencing my greatest potential for peace, joy, happiness, and abundance.

Stay tuned for my next blog post…

I'm going to share with you the simple shift I'm now making that goes BEYOND "getting" and "giving." I've only begun using it, and it's already impacting me in meaningful ways.

And even though I've only recently started doing this, I am confident that if you use it then the results will be profound:

• You will feel more full, alive, and abundant
   
• You will feel more connected to yourself and others
   
• And as a consequence, your relationships with others will be deeper and filled with more joy

In my next blog post I'll share with you the one word that brings you beyond "getting" and "giving."

Since this insight is new for me personally, I've already started writing this word in different places. That way I'm reminded regularly how to bring this shift into my life.

 

The issue I want to address is one of the most important any of us will ever confront. Most of us, in fact, will struggle to learn it throughout our own lives. Indeed, it may well be the lesson of life and love. It’s certainly been the major issue people have talked to us about in our thirty years as therapists and relationship coaches. Even if the person brought in a problem of depression or marital misery, this larger issue was hovering in the background. The depression never lifted and the marriage never harmonized until the person learned the following lesson:

The major barrier to a loving relationship with another person is an unloved part of yourself. Most of us have aspects of ourselves that we have never loved and accepted, and this failure to love ourselves keeps us from forming and keeping genuine love in close relationships. The moment you give unconditional love and acceptance to those unloved parts of you, you dissolve the barrier to getting and giving genuine love with others.

Here’s why this principle is so powerful: If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be looking for someone else to do it for you. It never works, because people who don’t love themselves attract people who don’t love themselves. Then they try to get the other person to love them unconditionally when they’re not even doing it for themselves.

When you love yourself deeply and unconditionally for everything you are and everything you aren’t, you attract people who love and accept themselves. If you feel fundamentally unlovable deep down inside, you’ll attract a lover who feels the same way.

When we don’t love some part of ourselves, we run around in desperation trying to get someone else to love us. Our hope is that if they give us enough love our unlovable part will go away. It never does. Only a moment of loving ourselves unconditionally will do that particular job.

Most of us spend our lives running from that unlovable part of us. When we finally confront it, we will usually discover it’s a fear. It’s usually a particular fear, and there are a very small number of them.

One of them is fear of abandonment. You can probably see why that fear could play havoc in your relationships. It certainly did in our early relationships, before we became aware that this fear was driving a lot of our troublesome behavior. When you’re afraid of being left alone, you’ll either keep people distant so it won’t hurt so bad if they leave you, or you’ll cling to them dependently so they can’t leave without dragging you with them.

Another big fear is the dread of being smothered by the other person. When you’re in the grip of this fear, you’re worried that your individuality and freedom will be lost if you surrender to full union with the other person. So, you stay at arm’s length, just as a person who’s afraid of drowning might stand a yard or so away from the water’s edge.

The good thing to know about fear is that it’s simply a pulsating quiver of racy-queasy sensations in your stomach area. Fear, said psychiatrist Fritz Perls, M.D., is merely excitement without the breath. Breathe into the fear and watch what happens: The butterflies will flutter out of hiding and fly away.

When you love that fear directly, you can actually feel the fear disappear. In the space where the fear used to be, you now feel a big open space into which a wonderful new relationship can enter. That’s what happened to us, and that’s what we’ve seen happen to a lot of people when they mustered the courage to love themselves and all their fears.

FEAR HOLDS YOU BACK…UNTIL YOU LOVE IT AS IT IS

It’s impossible to enjoy good relationships until we give that scary place in ourselves a split-second of love. The reason: The fear causes us to push people away when they get too close. That’s because our fear gets stirred up when we let them in close. To keep the fear under control, we keep people at a distance. We push down the very aspects of ourselves that most need to come to the surface and be loved. Then, having already judged ourselves unlovable, we strain to get others to love us. Trying to get other people to love us when we don’t think ourselves lovable is like a dog chasing its own tail. The more they try to love us, the faster we run from it.

The good news: You don’t have to do it perfectly!

We’ve never met anyone who loved him or herself deeply and unconditionally all the time. Don’t expect that you’ll be perfect at it, either. Begin with a second or two of loving yourself and work up from there. Begin with a commitment to loving yourself. That way, you’ll have the commitment to fall back on when you find yourself in the grip of your unlovable part.

Remember, too, that loving yourself has nothing to do with egotism or self-flattery. Egotistical people are desperately trying to get other people to love them, even though they feel deeply unlovable inside. That’s why egotism and boasting look so tacky: Everybody knows it’s phony.

We’re talking about genuine, sincere, heartfelt and humble love for yourself. It’s a feeling of accepting yourself for everything you are and everything you aren’t. Unless you’re super-human, you won’t ever feel absolute love and acceptance for yourself all the time. You can, however, make a commitment to feeling that way. Making a commitment to loving yourself gives you a firm ground to stand on throughout the ups and downs of your life.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:

 

Thanks to Dr. Gay Hendricks for this guest post. Visit the link below to get his free “Lasting Love Made Easy” video series.

Click Here To Get Your Free Videos

It has great insights for both single people and those in relationships. You’ll discover some amazing insights that will immediately improve the quality of your life and your relationships.

 

While Kathlyn was in Northern California teaching a seminar a while back, I was on the road, too, finishing a series of bookstore and media appearances for my book, The Big Leap. For me, the best part of doing bookstore appearances and TV/radio shows is that I get to meet a lot of people who’ve read our books and are putting the principles to work in their lives.

It’s gratifying to see so many people experiencing the power and joy of conscious relationships. Then, occasionally, I meet people who are doing their relationships the old-fashioned un-conscious way.

While I was waiting for a plane I struck up a conversation with a pleasant fellow in his sixties who asked me what I do for a living. I told him about the book tour and showed him a copy of the book. He glanced at it and said that he should write a book because he and his wife had been married 43 years. “I learned a secret the first year we were married, and I’m sure it’s why we’ve stayed together all these years.” Of course, my ears perked up; I’m always eager to hear about a new principle or technique that contributes to long-lasting relationships. HIs secret, though, needs to be taken with a grain of salt (or perhaps an ocean’s worth of salt!) I’ll do my best to re-create our dialogue below.

“Yes,” he said, “Right away after we got married I realized that it was important to my wife that she be right all the time. It didn’t matter what the subject was, as long as I was always wrong and she was always right. If I thought I was right about something she made my life miserable.”

“So, how did you handle that?” I asked.

“Simple,” he said. “I just decided to always be wrong and got used to it. Whatever comes up, I’m wrong. Simple as that. You just gotta go with the program.”

“And you’ve been happy for 43 years doing it that way?” I asked incredulously.

“Oh, hell no,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve been happy for a single day. But at least we stayed together.” Then he said goodbye and went off to queue for the plane.

 

Thanks to Dr. Gay Hendricks for this guest post. Visit the link below to get their FREE “Lasting Love Made Easy” video series.

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It has great insights for both single people and those in relationships. You’ll discover some amazing insights that will immediately improve the quality of your life and your relationships.

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." ~ Albert Einstein

Most of the problems we have in life appear to be caused by circumstances and people beyond us. We often feel that changes are happening "to" us. Because of that, we try to solve problems using a faulty logic system.

It goes something like this…

"This other person hurt me. I am angry and sad. That person is bad/hurtful/mean because he made me angry and sad. I will try to make that person realize how much I am hurt. After he apologizes, I will feel better. Then we can be close again."

While that may help you temporarily feel better, it's not a lasting solution. Every time you are hurt, it requires somebody else to take responsibility for your pain.

In having enough challenges in my life, I have realized that the most important "problems" can only be "solved" by deep understanding of myself. That's why whenever there are changes in my life, I always look inward to understand more deeply.

"There is nothing permanent except change." ~ Heraclitus, 500 BC

We live in a world of of constant change. Emotions and relationships can come and go like the wind. Because of this, looking to others to make us feel better is a recipe for disaster.

What if the other person doesn't know she wronged you?

What if the other person dies and he can never reconcile your pain?

What if the other person just really doesn't care as much as you do?

Oh there's probably a million "what ifs" that could make it impossible to ever receive the external validation that we often want.

Here's a different what if…

What if we did the inner work to fundamentally change our view of the world?

"I can choose peace instead of this." ~ A Course In Miracles

This is what I do whenever I hurt inside. I look within to ask myself questions like:

• "Right now, how can I view this situation differently?"
   
• "What don't I understand about myself that is causing me pain right now?"
   
• "What don't I understand about the other person right now?"
   
• "Right now, why do I incorrectly believe that the other person is responsible for my emotions?"
   
• "How can I be more present in this moment right now?"
   
• "Is it possible that I'm not being completely authentic right now?"
   
• "What is blocking me from feeling love and compassion right now?"

Not all of those questions can always be answered immediately because most of our perceived problems come from our subconscious mind.

That's part of why Albert Einstein says we need a different level of CONSCIOUSNESS to solve problems. We try too hard to solve conscious problems with conscious attention. Sure the conscious attention helps. But fundamentally the only way to really solve the "outer world" problems is to do "inner world" transformation on our subconscious minds.

Interestingly enough, those "outer" world problems begin to resolve themselves, slowly but surely, as a consequence of doing that inner world work.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Coming full circle…

When I am going through a difficult time, I don't look to others to fix the pain I feel. It's not their fault. They are not responsible for my emotions.

Instead, I use a variety of subconscious discovery techniques, conscious mindset shifts, affirmations, and other techniques to look within for the real truth about the situation.

I focus on the change I want to be.

And I trust that by extension of my inner changes, the outer world "problems" will find their natural resolution.