Painful events always happen for a reason…um accept when they happen to me

Often in my readings I share with people the value of seeing the meaning and purpose in all of how life unfolds. I tell them when there in a painful scenario, that everything happens for a reason and nothing is by chance and nothing is inherently negative, challenging yes but negative no. This perspective is nothing new and has been repeated and phrased differently by many people, over many centuries. For me it’s a view that makes sense and can really help people gain perspective when we come up against difficult times.

Though I truly believe in the meaning of all things, it is something that is certainly easier said than done. The challenge of truly integrating this outlook I have lately felt in my own life. Recently I have ended up entangled in situation that has been very stressful, disconcerting and difficult to get my head around and make peace with. It has involved  the buying of property and the work involved taking from a empty plot of land into a liveable house. It’s a horrible feeling to know you have shafted while at the same time you know there is nothing on practical level you can do about it. What can then make it even worse is looking back and being honest about that fact that I put myself exactly where I am, maybe through unfounded trust, gullibility and lack of thoroughness in investigating what I was getting into but none the less it arose from choices I made. Then on top of all that I am aware that it hasn’t been the first time I have ended up on the raw end of a deal. As I you thought I had  learnt my lesson only that I obviously haven’t

The bottom line is according to my own perspective that  I espouse to my clients ,my own tough situation has happened for a reason, something good will come of it and the best thing I can do is accept it with a loving detachment. Umm I think…do I really say that to people? Umm this is not easy ,feeling so wronged and then asking of myself to see it as so right. As I can’t get it out of my head how this has set me back,I can’t seem to let go of the anger of feel toward myself , the supposed victim and them the supposed  villains .I have imaginary conversation and confrontations putting  it all right and getting justice, even though I know this will never happen. Up to now the only measurable outcome of what I have been going through is stress and struggle.

Do Nothing! A new way of dealing with a man who has commitment phobia.

It’s a theme that I discuss regularly on this blog but its theme that I deal with regularly in my readings, it’s the issue of    acceptance. On one hand it’s a simple and straight forward principle to practice , on the other hand it seems to grate and push against our instincts and drives. When faced with a scenario where someone is not feeling the way we want them to feel, we have hard time just accepting that this is the way they feel. We link accepting  this with giving up and defeat. We then get caught in polarity that either I am pushing and striving to make the relationship better, or I depressingly throw in the towel and walk away.  Yet often we fail to see that our “pushing” and “wanting” for that person to be different, could be a contributing factor that keeps them in the place where we don’t want them to be.

Acceptance is not about defeat, acceptance is solely about acceptance .If a person say, is unwilling to commit, they say upfront that they don’t want too much involvement. Acceptance is just respecting that person’s right to feel that way . Acceptance is practicing not fighting and struggling to get what you want, by trying to change the way another person feels. It can be tough and quite confronting, as our mind if often scheming and plotting to somehow, in some way, get what it wants. This could be more love, more commitment, more time, more contact, less distance, more communication, the list goes on .As we hold an idea in our mind of how we want that person to be and subtlety are pushing them into that place .We think if only they could commit and feel they way I want them to feel then everything would be ok.

The tricky part with acceptance may have to face the fact that the person we want to be a certain way, just isn’t that way. That doesn’t mean we have to water down the things we are desserving of, rather we just fully accept that this person is unwilling or unable to give us what we want at this moment. Choosing to continue with that person is then our choice, a choice we make with a honest understanding of where they are and want their willing to give .If someone decides to continue , whilst just accepting other person commits fears, they then may struggle with the feeling like the other person is now just getting things their way. It may feel like the relationship is now just shaped around their preferences and inability to commit .Yet the reality is, if they are unwilling to give more and really do only want something on their terms, then acceptance takes us away from the hope of a more commitment in the future that allows us to avoid the present.

How Easter can help us let go of relationship pain and start anew.

Easter is here again .I have the important duty of working out where to hide my children’s Easter eggs .Being three and four years  old girls, they have to be hidden well enough for them to have fun but not too hard that they end up crying because they can’t find any(I have to make sure I remember to ,so one melted egg does show up three months from now) .As I walked through the  supermarket  looking for my essential  chocolate  mini-eggs I was surrounded by rows and rows of chocolate themed eggs . Easter is here and there no getting away from it, literally!  Malta ,the island I live in strange mix of overt  and celebrated Catholicism and stock standard  chocolate coated consumerism of modern Easter. Although I am no longer a practicing Christian, for myself there is powerful symbolism  surrounding Easter and central religious focus of the death of Jesus Christ  ,his pain, his betrayal, his death and the his eventual  resurrection. To me the ritual of Easter  possibly has more relevance and bearing to our own lives than we may think.

The story of Christ’s death and resurrection  tells us that even in the darkest and most difficult times, when we feel the most forsaken and alone , out of this pain there is the hope of renewal, re-birth and new beginnings. When we are in the midst of this hurting it can  be easy to forget this fact. There comes a point where we just don’t see the light, we  are  enmeshed with   our troubles  that is hard to see or understand the wider more meaningful narrative that we are part of. Yet in the same way our happy moments pass, so do our bad ones. The pain can often be prolonged not by the problem or event that started it, but rather through our unwillingness to truly let go and surrender our want for things to be different to what they where or are.

The difficult part is some feelings we can’t “partially”  let go of. Christ didn’t just partially suffer , he died on the cross .His rebirth  and accent into heaven could only occur once that death had taken place. Often in life we are faced with these realities, where the only way to truly have fresh start is to sincerely let go and die to what we are holding on to. Do this we must be willing to surrender our wilfulness, our need for an expected outcome and start trusting in the unseen forces that take hold once we hand over our pain over.

Can our dreams be a window into life after death?

It is tricky process in life to understand and know the difference between knowing something to be true and believe in the possibility of its truth. This is particularly so when comes to grey and subjective areas of consciousness and reality , life and death. We have feelings and inkling based on our experiences and what we have been taught and learnt. We work to make sense of the world and our life’s by piecing together these fragments of insights to build a graspable and some kind of meaningfulness picture of the life we occupy. Yet no matter how convincing our convictions maybe regarding the nature of reality we are always limited and defined by the apparatus which does the adding up ,namely ourselves. Like the eye seeing the eye, we can only see ourselves through ourselves, creating an inbuilt and inarguable bias. Even if our views our reinforced via a mass consensus , it does not prove it’s truth, as the 18 million people  in Europe during the 14^th century   discovered when the world turned out “not” to be flat.

All this brings me to this basic question regarding the truth of my own intuitions.  Some basics in life I don’t question, the fact I love my partner and kids, the fact I like and dislike certain things .These truths seem self evident and don’t even warrant questioning in the first place. Yet there are other that do, other questions that I find very difficult to conclusively answer . That’s the funny thing with my mind, instead of just accepting the fact I may well never really know something’s, such what happens when we die, instead my mind grapples and wrestles , questions and probes. As I discuss these things with my family and partner, there is a prevailing view that I think too much, not only that, but the stuff I think about is redundant and unanswerable .In addition they point out that I am wasting what I have of life, being pr-occupied with “after-life”, as its an outcomes I can’t alter or change, in a future that has yet to occur, in short wasting life with pointless questions

These conclusions are hard to argue against, as its true , no matter what think about life after death , it will be what it is and no matter how much I query and think , none of my ruminations will make an iota of difference in the reality of my death.  Yet even knowing the incontrovertible truth of this logic, these questions still persist and bother me. As all actions, thoughts and events crescendo towards this outcomes of all outcomes. Like rip on the shore of the beach, it pulls us nearer and nearer as are struggles to avoid it are to no avail ,as there is no escape and no getting away from with it.

Is there really life after death? Find out in my review of Robert Lanza articles

I came across author and scientist Robert Lanza from an article on the Huffington post .He has some really fascinating and insightful views on life, death  and the meaning of our existence, the real “big stuff” questions .I actually tried to explain one of his articles on “life after death” to my partner Susana, the more I tried to explain what he was trying to say and how his perspective made sense, the more confusing and garbled it sounded .Kind of like trying to re-tell a joke a stand up comedian  has said, you discover some things are just left best to hear straight from the person themselves. So I won’t confuse his understandings with another lengthy anti-explanation, I would highly recommend going on to his site and having read through yourself (the links to his site is at the bottom of this review)

What I can talk about with some authority and clarity is how reading his articles made me feel. Like many people I have always wonder about what truly happens when we die and the deeper question of why we truly exist .I feel in my heart that the universe is alive and it is meaningful and the famous mystic’s of Zen, Sufism, Christian, Judaism,  and Taoism and many other religions are the people that give us the most accurate view of how life really works .

The problem I have at times is I am someone with very limited understanding of scientific language and framework .Recently an atheist friend of mine, that passionately  believes in Darwinism  and sites Christopher Hichens and  Richard Dawkins as his personal hero’s, ask me to justify and explain these views I hold against the modern understanding of science ,understandings  that he deems almost “irrefutably  true”. When you respond to a question  like that with “well  umm uh ,that just how I feel”  it’s hard not to feels  it’s fairly lame and intellectually pitifully response. After reading Robert Lanza articles I felt like emailing my friend and writing “read this, it like he said!!”. As it was like hearing my intuitions and feeling being translated and explained in way that logical and authoritative.  Simultaneously to that sense of confirmation was also this sense of some kind of brain unlocking as I was exposed to ideas and possibilities that I had never honestly consider before, wow! Genuinely new ideas!!  In an age with some much of our information and knowledge  is just things we have heard before being rehashed ,it so refreshing to absorb insights  turned my brain upside down and inside out.

The Power of Gratitude: Practising being happy with what you have

I think that’s the wonderful and lateral nature of how we progress and understand things as people. We potter along seemingly getting nowhere, maybe even feeling stuck, then all of sudden there comes this breakthrough or flash of understanding. One of the things I have been feeling lately is my appreciation of what is in front of me, the immense value of all I have this very moment.  As to be content with were we are and what we have runs contrary to the emphasis society places on getting more, having more and being more. Now some of that is just the nature of capitalism and consumer society .Our western society is structured in a way that permits us to be bombard advertisements telling us what we need and why we need it. It’s common knowledge large corporations pay highly qualified psychologist and persuasion experts to tap into our most basic unconscious buttons of greed, fear, security or status. In addition to these social forces compelling to “do more” or to  “get more”, there our own human nature of desire. To start  with our basic desires for food, sex and security unpin many actions each and every day. Layered on top of that are more subtle drives for control and approval .All these drives them have various means of how they express or manifest in our lives. Yet the interesting thing is after our basic survival needs are meet, it’s seem when we fulfill each of whatever it is we want, very soon after another “want” emerges. Although our desire to improve our lives has lead to wonderful discoveries and inventions that have elevated our quality of living, it would seem on an emotional level we are no more or less happy as a civilisation now as we were 3000 years ago . It would seem the human condition has remain somewhat unevolved as we see the same mythical Greek drama involving, war, lust, betray  and cruelty been re-enacted  each night on the six o’clock news.

The endless to-do list…

Part of the lack emotional evolution seem to connected the belief that true happiness lies within getting what we want.    Although I don’t think we can switch of the desire button and although there some benefits of being driven it is not the only way to approach being happy. It is also liberating thing to feel  that everything I need to be happy I have it in front of me. That no matter if  I “do” or “do not”  get the things I want, it won’t determine or be the ultimate measure of my contentment. Thinking I have everything I need already is not the natural way to think, as most days of moments are spent working out how I am going to get what I want. The function of all these desires we tell ourselves is satisfaction or contentment. The problem arises is when we finally get it, more often or not the need for  more of whatever it is, better stuff , more of it all comes up and we are back were we started .The Buddhist call it the “hungry ghost” another term for it is the “hole in the soul”. It’s the endless “to do list” of achieving happiness, that no matter how many items I tick off new ones inevitability appear that now need to pursued and attained.

What happen when you just accept someone can’t commit?

I think it’s safe to assume if you were to ask the average Joe on the street what they want in life one way or another you would get the answer “To be happy”. Even if it wasn’t directly that, such as I want fame , money and power as your questions probed further that person may assume that all these other thing will lead them to being happy. So it makes sense if this is what most of us wants to ask the question “What is it that prevents us from getting it?”  What causes us the pain that prevents us from being happy?

Will getting what we want make us happy?

Through my own personal experience, as well as trying to help others, I see much of our pain and suffering come from us all the time wanting to change things we have very little control over. This applies not just with people and circumstance but with ourselves. You might be startled to note how many times through the course of a day you find yourself fighting “something” or “someone” in our minds .From the minor like “He should have indicated when pulled out in front of my car” or “The waiter should have at least apologised when they brought out my lunch order forty minutes late” or, to the major ones of  “I want my partner to more affectionate” ,”It’s unfair I didn’nt get the promotion” “I hate myself or being this overweight” .We are constantly evaluating our life interactions in terms do they give us what we want or what we expect.A good dayis made up of successfully getting what we want, a bad day is usually consistent of events and outcomes that far removed from what we want. Yet within this mindset most of us possess, we often fail to truly examine two pertinent questions

1)Is getting what want really the source of lasting happiness?

2) Why is it we huff and puff over things we have little or no control of?

No fighting, just accepting…

An alternative to this fighting is the practice of acceptance or non-resistance. When you imagine non-resistance you could envision just passively just “accepting” whatever comes your way. Kind of being a spiritual doormat. Yet we you really take a look its more the art of understanding what is you can’t and can control and not exerting energy and effort in pointless directions. This takes great trust in life and the “way of the universe” as just accepting goes hand in hand with letting go of our minds coveted outcomes, we are manoeuvring towards all the time.

How finding new love can be path to magic and meaning

It can be all too easy to enter into a routine in the way we think and act that gives us sense of monotony and numbness. We plod along feeling like we have done it all before, because more than likely we have, same s**t ,different day, as expression goes. When we are moving along in this way, a type of emotional autopilot , it makes sense that we feel empty ,depressed and conflicted, as there is another part of us that never really makes peace and accepts this dreary place. We intuitively feel and know that there is more to life than what we are experiencing. This can be heighten even further when the previous mechanism of escape, drugs, drink, food, sex, TV or whatever it maybe, all fail to numb us, or distract us from the pain in the way it used. We are not happy in life and our efforts to pretend otherwise have stopped working.
Although a cynic may say this is “just life” yet that need for “more”, whether we accept it or not, has a power and pull .So much so, we can draw to us the opportunity for change whether we like or not. For many people this “kick start” or emotional revolution begins with a new relationship. Suddenly we feel the blood flowing through our veins, we experience a renewed sense of passion and zest for life. Suddenly a future that seemed rigidly mapped out has been discarded and replaced with a new map that is open and full of potential.
Enclosed with the experience also can be this feeling that this person and this occurrence was somehow fated or destined to be. Although I find it drippy, cliché and corny the general term for this experience is the soul mate (Personally I prefer the term coined by John O’Donahue “Anam Cara” which means “Soul Friend”. This then opens the experience up to emotional connections beyond romantic relationships.) When we feel we have encountered a person that is a soul friend, it awakens a feeling of our own soul. That warm familiarity we get with someone, that feeling we somehow know them, tells us the universe we inhabit is driven and directed by powerful, loving and magical forces .The meaningless drift was just a temporary illusion as the curtain is pulled back to reveal a life full of significance, worth and love. Our fated paths have crossed as a part of wider ,more cosmic narrative that we are somehow part of .
As often these relationship are romantic and often they can be catalyst for huge changes in people lives. People suddenly wake up thinking “Why am I doing this?” “Who’s life am I living?” We sense life is too short and too important to be wasted to be with people we have stopped loving or situations that limit and holds us back. Once we have tasted the fruit of those new and meaningful feelings, it is very difficult to just pretend it never happened. All this said, a bigger danger people can face it being aware of the power a new connection may have on us and as a result secretly hide our souls in anticipation of that bond.
If someone asked me what is the best way to attract that depth of union, I would suggest to start living your life with your soul open to the world to see. That begins with understanding and nurturing that awareness of our soul, spiritual centre, cosmic self, spirit or whatever name you choose to call it. Work to make “soul choices”, choices that come from a deeper understanding of who we are and our relationship with that part of ourselves and that part of life. We all deserve to feel magic and meaning in our lives. The love and connection we feel for another is such a wonderful gift we have as people .It inspires us , it enlivens us, it reminds us of what is truly important .Just beware if you’re not feeling that way you don’t have to wait for that “other” person, you can start now. You can invite that deeper part of who you are into your life. You can mindfully choose to commune with your soul .It’s that ever-present flame that burns within each of, producing feelings of unity, connection, love, kindness and peace. It’s the part of us that fights nothing, as its knows everything is ok and will be ok. As you see the warmth and brilliance of your own nature it will be impossible to not start finding yourself seeing it in others. Then our life becomes celebration of our ability to love and life’s amazing way of giving us an unending opportunities to practice this love. A quest of the heart, born from an awareness we are all worthy of tremendous love and capable of both giving it and receiving it. Give your soul a chance to breath, to be heard. As you do, I have no doubt that many fantastic people and opportunities will enter your life.

There is a voice is my head that says I “should do”…should I?

I have an imaginary bird that sits on my shoulder that I call the “should-do bird”. Like my crazy monkey of crystal meth, it is one of the other voices in my head. Before you shout “crazy person” I remind you that we all have voices in our heads, that we commonly refer to as thoughts. A persistent and repetitive pattern of thoughts, I choose to call a voice and give that voice a name. It’s not exactly a psychological breakthrough, as the use of, or analogy of our “internal voices” is common in certain approaches of psychology. I personally find it helps to indentify these voices with names and clear understanding of what they have to say and contribute to my life.

The endless commands of my “should do” bird

As the various voices I live with go the “should do bird” is one I end up listening to a lot. It’s been there perched on my shoulder for as long as I can remember. Its role and function in my life is pretty simple and straight forward. It reminds me of all the things I should be doing, saying, thinking , choosing or taking action on. It’s the indefatigable and unwavering voice that write and re writes endless lists of what I should be doing. The should do bird honestly never, ever shuts up. Its orders range from basic house hold duties such as emptying the bins, to work related task like sending an email, moving on to creative objective such as writing an Oscar winning screenplay, next relationship issue concerning being more direct in how I communicate, then on to amendments to my personality like being more organised, to wider more global issue such as making a difference in the world, then the spiritual dimension has to be covered with is have a direct experience of the oneness of the whole universe and these are the ones that have been chirped out before I,m out of bed.

It’s orders never stop..

In addition to ordering me to do these things , the “should do bird’ also has the duty of reminding me of when I haven’t and lets me know overall how bad that is. As you can imagine my “should do bird” is pretty much ticked off at me most of the time as I rarely get to achieve all of what’s on my daily list of things to “do” and “be”. We also have to be clear, its not the should do birds job to praise or acknowledge when I have accomplished things. Its job is to tell me what to do or be and then remind me when I haven’t. Even when I am having a break or trying to take it easy , the “should do bird” is there telling me I should try and relax, thank you should do bird for that reminder.

Using our Divine Compass- Shortcuts to Clarity