Life Gives us Exactly What we Need

Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment.  This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious boss (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath.

- By Charlotte Joko Beck

Finding the One

Just over 20 years ago I thought I had found The One. He was tall, strikingly handsome and extremely charming. He was intelligent and sensitive. He liked cats for goodness sake! He was a lover of children, took long bubble bathsand was willing to give up watching football–for me!

“Oh my God,” I thought, “I have found The One!” I just couldn’t believe that I was his One too. Me? I never thought I would ever be anyone’s The One, let alone this smokin’ hot, super-sensitive, funny and charming superman! It was a drug more powerful than any I have ever known.

Anything I wanted to do he would do. Anywhere I wanted to go he would follow. We moved to Maine, we traveled to Spain. We got married (okay, that one took some convincing), bought a house and had a baby. I started a business and he became a house husband. I had a Mr. Mom and every woman was jealous of me. We lived in Italy, bought a cabin on a lake and had another baby. From the outside we were the envy of everyone who knew us, and even those who didn’t. We looked like we had it all: love, money, health and happiness. Over the years he told me over and over again, “you are the love of my life,” and yet, something was just not adding up.

In the early stages of our life together I recognized one powerful and important dynamic: I did not like the way I felt when this man spoke to me. I felt misunderstood, I felt stupid and most of all–I felt disrespected. I was young and hopeful, but the sinking feeling that I had in my body, mind and spirit when he spoke to me was so palpable that after one year of being with him, I had to say something.

“I don’t like the way I feel when you talk to me,” I told him, “and the only way to address this is to leave the relationship.” He was crushed. He cried and said he would change. He begged and pleaded for me to give him a chance. In the end, I couldn’t leave him. After all, he wasThe One. Finding The One means that there is no other. That’s it. The. One.

We began couples therapy and continued for ten solid years. Each therapist would say the same thing: “Well, it’s clear that the love is there,” but was it love, or was it just not wanting to let go of The One and end up with The None?

The years went on and he did not change, but I did. I became smaller, less strong. I felt so lucky to have someone to love me as much as he said he did. On top of that, he was able to see all of my flaws and was not afraid to point them out to me. He would make me a better person. He told me so often “you’re selfish” and “you don’t know what compromise is” and “you don’t know what it means to be in a marriage” and (the kiss of death), “you don’t know the meaning of the word compassion.”

How can it be that I simply did not see these things about myself? Over time, I couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to be anywhere near a wretch like me. Thank the stars above that I had him to make me likable, tolerable and approachable. Just being near him made me better and, like finding a needle in a haystack, I felt like I had won the relationship lottery. I had found The One and boy, where would I be without him? Still, I found myself questioning and becoming angry. I judged myself for this anger because he loved me so much. Why couldn’t I just be thankful?

Like a dog that is hit repeatedly, he eventually believes he deserves the treatment and so had I become. The questions still remained but I gave up on doing anything about it. Perhaps my greatest moment of learning acceptance was in my marriage. I accepted my life, my husband, my marriage and what I saw to be my future. Many years had past. We had two children, a life, a house in Maine–and I saw that there was no way out. I was in it, together, with The One for the rest of my days. Trapped.

Like that aforementioned dog that eventually snaps, I had a moment of rebellion and turned on my husband. In one last expression of my voice I sat him down and angrily declared, “I feel like I am married to an asshole, and I do not want to be married to an asshole.” I mentioned a few instances that I felt were especially “asshole-ish,” and his response to my pronouncement was, “I’m sorry that you think I’m an asshole.” We got nowhere. After that I kept silent.

Six years passed and we moved to Boston. I had discovered yoga, had a personal transformation and began to find my voice again. I began to see that though he was my husband, he was not The One, I was. I saw that I was the one needing to find the light inside of me. Only I could cultivate that feeling of love and acceptance, and it came from deep within. I founded an organization that helps women in crisis see their value, their worth and their light.

Eventually the things he said to me had less punch and I chose not to let them hurt me. When someone hands you a fork, you decided if you want to put it to use, toss it aside, or poke yourself in the eye with it. And so it was with the criticism, belittling and sarcasm that my husband sent my way. I simply did not make use of them as I once had.

He did not approve. I did not care.

Seventeen years after I had met this man I made a shocking discovery. For all of these years, this man had been telling me that I was the love of his life, that I was The One and that he didn’t know what he would do without me. I had felt 100% responsible for his happiness. I felt that if I left I would be the most cold-hearted person alive. I would be destroying another person’s life. Yet for the entirety of our  marriage, all of the years that I believed that this man was so much better than me, he had been living a double life. For real. To speak of the details of this would be giving it energy that I just don’t feel it deserves. It is enough to say that when I retell the story to people, they usually respond with comments such as, “Your life sounds like a Jerry Springer Show!” And yes, it does. It has also taught me some incredibly powerful and beautiful lessons:

1. Trust your intuition:

My intuition was speaking loud and clear in that first year when I felt something that just wasn’t right. My head, my ego and my insecurities allowed me to doubt that intuitive voice, all because I didn’t want to lose The One.

2. Your choices in life will reinforce what you believe about yourself:

Though I was not aware of it, somewhere in my deep subconscious I believed that I was desperately flawed. Being with my husband helped me reinforce this belief. I chose to stay. It doesn’t mean the way he behaved throughout our marriage was okay, but if I did not on some level have a false belief about myself, I would not have stayed.

3. The One lives inside of you:

There is no Prince Charming, no winning the lottery or magic bullet. Life is a process and experience of joyful times and challenging times. When you have found The One deep inside of you, your ability to navigate through all of these times with grace, acceptance and continuous learning happens naturally. You experience a freedom and a love that you may have never thought possible.

So on this Valentine’s Day I will be telling The One that lives deep inside of me how much I love and appreciate her. Without her, my life would be empty.

Remind me that "I am Good"

I was recently told of an African tribe that does the most beautiful thing.

Photo by Hugh Sitton (Getty Images)

When someone does something hurtful and wrong, they take the person to the center of town, and the entire tribe comes and surrounds him. For two days they’ll tell the man every good thing he has ever done.

The tribe believes that every human being comes into the world as Good, each of us desiring safety, love, peace, happiness.

But sometimes in the pursuit of those things people make mistakes.  The community sees misdeeds as a cry for help.

They band together for the sake of their fellow man to hold him up, to reconnect him with his true Nature, to remind him who he really is, until he fully remembers the truth from which he'd temporarily been disconnected:  "I AM GOOD".

Doing Nothing is Something!

In our society, we’re inclined to see doing nothing as something negative, even evil. But when we lose ourselves in activities we diminish our quality of being. We do ourselves a disservice. It’s important to preserve ourselves, to maintain our freshness and good humor, our joy and compassion. In Buddhism we cultivate “aimlessness” and in fact in Buddhist tradition the ideal person, an arhat or bodhisattva, is a businessless person- someone with nowhere to go and nothing to do. People should learn how to just be there, doing nothing. Try to spend a day doing nothing; we call that a “lazy day”. Although for many of us who are used to running around from this to that, a lazy day is actually very hard work! It’s not easy to just be. If you can be happy, relaxed, and smiling when you’re not doing something, you’re quite strong. Doing nothing brings about quality of being, which is very important. So doing nothing is actually something. Please write that down and display it in your home: Doing nothing is something.

Women friends are good for your health!

"I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection-the relationship between stress and disease.  The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious. 

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality “girlfriend time" helps us to create more serotonin-a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being.

Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going.  Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings?-rarely.  Women do it all of the time. We sharefrom our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There's a tendency to think that when we are "exercising" we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged--not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!

So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health!  We are indeed very, very lucky. Sooooo let's toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it's very good for our health."

Love Yourself - Louise Hay

I've learned there are really just two mental patterns that contribute to our troubles: fear and anger. Anger can show up as impatience, irritation, frustration, criticism, resentment, jealousy, or bitterness. These are all thoughts that poison the body. When we release this burden all the organs of our body begin to function properly. Fear could be tension, anxiety, nervousness, worry, doubt, feeling not good enough or unworthiness. Do you relate to any of this? We must learn to substitute faith for fear if we’re to heal.

Faith in what? Faith in Life! I believe we live in a "Yes" Universe. No matter what we choose to believe or think or say, the Universe always says "yes" to us. If we think poverty, the Universe says "yes" to that. If we think prosperity, the Universe say "yes" to that. It's up to us! The Universe wants us to experience anything we desire. So let's say "yes" to all good. Be a "yes" person, living in a "yes" world being responded to by a "yes" Universe.

So how do you love yourself? First of all and most importantly: Cease all criticism of yourself and others. Accept yourself as you are. Praise yourself as much as you can. Criticism breaks down the inner spirit, praise builds it up. Look into a mirror often and simply say: I LOVE YOU, I REALLY LOVE YOU. It may be difficult at first, but keep practicing and soon you will mean and feel what you say. Love yourself as much as you can and all of life will mirror this love back to you.

Louise Hay

Eight Rules for Success

1. Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life – In a society where people blame everything from their parents to the government for failure, those who don’t buy into this mentality or succumb to the “victim” thinking succeed. To blame something or somebody outside yourself is saying they have control of your life and not you. Someone else’s opinion of you doesn’t have to become your reality.

2. Live Your Life On Purpose - What separates inspired thinkers from the unsuccessful is that they believe they’re doing what makes them come alive. The difference between this and just living, is that the latter is just getting through the week with the least problems. But when you live your life on purpose, your main concern is doing the best you can. For the entrepreneur this means finding a cause you believe in and building your business around it. 

3. Be Willing to Pay the Price - Be willing to pay the price for your dreams. Wanting a big house, a luxury car, and a million dollars in the bank is all very nice, and everyone wants these things – but are you willing to pay the price to get them? This is one of the major differences between the successful and unsuccessful.

4. Stay Focused – Every day we’re bombarded with hundreds of tasks, phone calls, messages, and everyone competing for our time. Focusing requires giving up something in the present because you are investing your time in something that will pay off big-time down the road. Jack Canfield and Mark Hanson were turned by 30 publishers when they submitted the first “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book. Instead of giving up, they stayed focused on their goal and did four or five interviews per day for radio, TV, and newspapers, for five days a week for a whole year. Eventually, a small publisher decided to take a chance, and of course now it’s a best-seller that spawned an entire series that have sold more than 10 million copies.

5. Become An Expert in Your Field - One striking factor all successful people have in common is how seriously they take their profession. They strive to be the best at what they do, and do almost anything to improve. If someone followed you around all day with a video camera at your business, would it be a tape you’d be proud of or embarrassed about? Make the decision today to work at being the best in your field. How? By finding out what the “best” in your field are doing, and do what they do.

6. Write Out a Plan for Achieving Your Goals - Write out an action plan/map for how you’re going to achieve your goals. Trying to reach your goals without a plan is like trying to drive from Los Angeles to Chicago without a map. A goal that isn’t written down is merely a wish or fantasy.

7. Never Give Up - Never, never, never give up. When you’re fully committed to achieving your goal, giving up is not an option. You must be willing do whatever it takes to make it happen. The power of perseverance is an awesome force. As someone once said, “inch by inch it’s a cinch”. Think of the lowly inchworm – if it pondered the length of the trip from start to finish before it started, it probably would never move. To a worm’s point-of-view, the garden path must look like a trip to Mars. Never give up! Keep on going like the Eveready battery bunny, and pretty soon you’re there.

8. Don’t Delay - Nobody knows how much time they have left to accomplish their dreams, and we must remember that we don’t have forever. The clock is ticking, and sooner or later your number comes up and you’re gone. Successful achievers know this too, but they don’t view it as a “negative”. Achievers use it to “spur them on”. They go after what they want as energetically and as passionately as possible, for as long as they have.

Source:

http://www.theinspirationplace.com/stories-to-inspire/stories/8-rules-for-success.html