Over time I have come to understand how truly important simply being peaceful in my own life really is not only to me and those around me, but to the world as a whole.  I think most have heard of this before, yet KNOWing it deep inside is different.  I sometimes wonder if I’m doing enough in my life to make a difference.  I am confident now that I am, and so are you. Whether you are making a big splash in the media about your service to mankind or simply keeping the peace inside yourself and modeling that peace for people who cross your path, it’s all vital.

I think of it like the “Hundredth Monkey” thing.  If enough of us realize how vital simply choosing peace in our daily lives really is, one day we will reach critical mass, and peace will become second nature the us as a world population.  We will expect to resolve personal conflicts peacefully, just as naturally as many now believe we must solve our differences with violence.

Here is a link to a speech given at the UN on this topic, I think you will enjoy watching the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S0AObjQfas

Question: Why are we here anyway?

Answer: I’m guessing that you are asking why humans are here on Earth, as in, what is the purpose for life. That has got to be one of the most fundamental questions we can ponder while here on this planet.

I think we are here primarily to learn deeper lessons that cannot be easily learned until we have a physical body and we are living in this limited three dimensional world. To me coming to Earth is like going to the gym for a work out. If we want to build strength, and really work those muscles we have to use weights and even special machines that put stress on our bodies in just the right way to develop certain muscles.

Isn’t it interesting that each of us seem to have “villains” in our lives, sometimes we even play the villain role. Have you ever wondered how those “villains” keep being that way? Can’t they see how much they hurt others?

Kryon (www.kryon.org)  talks about how we design our upcoming life time as the “planning party” between life times. He says that before we come down for another “semester” of lessons. <smile> we gather with our closest soul friends and design a story and chose roles and cast the players to move us to our next developmental goals.

So, the souls who jump up and down waving their arms and saying “pick me, pick me! I want to be the alcoholic father!” or “Oh, I want to be the abusive mother!” These eager villain wannabe’s are our most trusted soul friends. We are trusting them with our growth opportunities. We are asking for them to be strong in their role as a “villain” so we will be pushed into remembering we are “God/dess” experiencing Earth.

These eager “bad guys” solemnly promise to keep it up, to not get all weak and go “nice” on us, no matter what. We hug them with deep love and appreciation, waving as we go our separate ways in preparation for the “play”. We already have a cast party planned for when the play is over!

What fun! We will all have learned so much. The “Villains” will be laughing and hugging us saying, “I really got you there, didn’t’t I?” We will hug them with tears of joy and love in our eyes and say, “Oh, yes, you put me into the deepest pit, and I loved it!” and before the party is over we’ll be saying, “Let’s do it again!!”

Question: How do we find compassion for people who seem to have no compassion themselves?

Answer: I really had to look this question over deeply in my life as a therapist working with all kinds of people. Most of the time I worked with the survivors of whatever ordeal my client had gone through. I didn’t often get to see the “perpetrator”.

I remember in my own therapy as I began reliving my own horrible abuse, the memories just kept bubbling up. My therapist continually told me to love myself. He taught me the meaning of phrases like “I’m worth loving”, “I deserve to be loved” and so on. One day I looked at him and asked, “What do you say to people like my father if they come into your office?” My therapist smiled and said, “I tell him the same thing.” I was shocked. How could a horrible monster like my father come into anyone’s office and get told the same things about deserving to be loved, just like the person they had hurt?

As I healed my own wounds, and continued to see clients I did come face to face with a few perpetrators. I was actually surprised how easily I was able to find their beauty, their core of Love. I was amazed at how soft and vulnerable they actually were underneath their expressions of pain. I was intrigued at how their faces seemed to melt into softness as they understood that what they had done wasn’t going to be judged by me.

My work continued to lead me to a place where I worked with many people who were the “outcasts” of society. Some of them had done awful things, according to most people’s standards. I watched them “get it” as I released the pressure of judgment from them during the sessions so they could dare to look and understand how their actions had affected others. As I held up a structure for them that, even just for an hour, allowed them to honestly understand how they had chosen pain, not only for others but for themselves, they could find the courage to forgive themselves and choose to stop their own pain which eventually resulted in stopping the pain of others.

I learned to stop judging others, because I had plenty of shadows of my own. For example, I was raised in a family who had no compassion for cats unless they were mousers. My dad regularly killed my cats, yelled at them one day and suddenly they were gone, “got ran over” was the typical answer. I grew up believing that animals had no soul. When they died, they just died. We never gave cats shots or good food or even water. My mom always said, “Oh, they’ll take care of themselves.”

It wasn’t until I met my second husband that I had a model of someone who adopted a pet and it was a big decision, like adopting a child. That pet doesn’t get dumped because it gets on the table once. He used to give his cat a bath every week, and even brushed her teeth every night. She had very poor teeth and actually needed it. I had never given cats shots until he insisted. He always talked to his cat and I could see how she loved him. Until then I just thought cats were sort of like plants. Everyone I grew up with drowned kittens and did mean things to them because it was entertainment. I didn’t like it, but I seemed to be the only one that didn’t.

I learned differently because I had someone to show me a new way, and I allowed that new teaching into my heart. If no one had been able to do anything but tell me how awful I was, I might never have found the courage to begin a new way of being with cats.

So, my point is that judging doesn’t seem to actually work if we want people to have an opportunity for growth. At the same time if we make an assessment (discernment without the negative spin) that someone is dangerous, then we need to do what we can to take care of ourselves and those around us.

When I can, I choose to keep myself at a distance from those I have discerned are in a different place than me because I am focusing on my own life at the moment. If it is my job, or my gift, to be with someone I’d rather not spend time with, then it’s my choice to judge or not judge. I personally find that judging, in its negative sense, is actually my way of stepping on that person to help me feel better because they are less than me, so I must be better. I’m filling a need for self love in myself.

When I become aware that I’m using another person’s energy to feed my own need for self Love, then I can release my judgments and go directly to my God/Source inside of me to meet my need for self Love.

Judging others is a way of distancing ourselves from others. Sometimes that distancing is part of the “judgee’s” need for safety, and sometimes it’s a way for the “Judger” to distance. So, all of this boils down to fear. We are afraid to connect to others who are different than we are. What is fear? The opposite of Love.

How many times have you tried to save money and just can’t seem to do it? Have you wondered what it is within you that holds you back from doing things you want to do, but somehow you feel a little guilty if you have too much fun? How about those sexual hang ups? I would like to say that we can blame all of our problems on dusty old oaths and vows that we took in past lives, but that’s not quite the case. At least not ALL of our issues can be immediately cleared up by removing unwanted vows.

However, when we let go of old vows and oaths taken in previous times, that can be a significant step in your process of getting unstuck and moving on to the next level of growth. Most of you, who are reading this article, have probably had lives where you have been spiritual seekers of various types. Many of these spiritual systems incorporate vows, oaths, promises and so forth as part of the “path to enlightenment”.

In and of itself there is nothing wrong with taking these oaths. The problem arises when that particular life time is over and you are now living in a different set of beliefs and aren’t aware of having those old vows. The issues become more complex if you’ve had many life times where you took oaths in one, vows in another and covenants in yet another life time.

All of these rituals are powerful because they are intentional and often the words “forever” or “through eternity” are incorporated into the promise which really seals them deeply into your energy body. You can imagine that after many lifetimes of making these sorts of promises and each time leaving little remnants behind, your life could get pretty confusing. Part of you may be trying to spend money to keep a vow of poverty, while another part keeps wanting to give everything away due to a vow of materialism.

Clearing away these stray oaths and vows can be a bit tricky at times because they are often deeply connected to beliefs that these promises will bring you closer to God. Even so, we can usually catch them by clearing them energetically or when we work by phone we can clear them using Past Life Integration.

What is love?

Love has so many colors, so many flavors and can be pure or marbled with many other energies. Humans, have many experiences which we draw upon to help us define love and life in general. Many times we will draw conclusions about things which makes sense at the time and later does not work. For example, as a child we love our parents. As we grow up we can see that actually we needed our parents to survive. You can see how easy it is for many of us to get need and love confused, even as adults.

Love can be confused with need, obligation, familiarity, lust, gratitude and many other emotions. One of the most common issues I know of, is that we are labeling too many emotional states as “love”. Let’s say that John has an internal definition of love that includes being waited on when he comes home from work. While Jane has an internal definition of love that includes being listened to after a hectic day.

They both come home from work and are tired and want nothing more from each other than to be loved. John thinks he is loving Jane by rushing to fix her dinner while she is talking about her day. After all, that’s what he would like Jane to do for him. Yet she feels as though he is inattentive since he’s preoccupied with cooking dinner for her. John is secretly wishing that Jane would cook him dinner for a change. Jane wishes John would talk to her more about his day. They both become irritated and begin believing that the other one is insensitive or doesn’t really love them after all.

Jane and John have love mixed up with need. Love, when it is pure, has no emotional feeling of its own. Love simply is. Love is not the absence of hate. Love is more like acceptance of what is in the moment. Love is inclusion without dependency. Love is giving without expectation. Love is allowing without sacrifice. Love is gentleness without condescension. Love is connecting without controlling. Love is receiving without taking. Love is an attitude and a way of being. Love simply is.

Somewhere during my six years of therapy I met my spiritual teacher, Gurumayi. She was one of my chosen teachers, as opposed to teachers that aren’t intentionally teaching. Her teaching is simple; God is in me, I AM God. God is Love.  The concept was so utterly and completely free of guilt, shame, judgment and fear, I soaked it up like a sponge.  She gently blasted away all my beliefs around a masculine God, and I loved it!

Relationships often serve as reminders of holding my power, finding and retaining my identity and remembering and applying all I have learned from other
teachers.  My friends, family and significant others teach me so much about myself. Sometimes the lessons I learn this way are gradual, and not as obvious as the ones I intentionally choose, however, the lessons I learn in daily life seem to be the deepest ones.

Now I am my own best teacher. I know me better than anyone, I know my own style of learning, so I can teach myself most effectively. I teach myself how to remain open to others who have lessons to bring me. I teach myself how to remember what I already know. I am realizing that learning and teaching are the same, almost inseparable energies… both have qualities of remembering what we already know.

What did I learn from the two previous teachers? Church has no answers for me. I cannot pretend to be happy when I’m not. I’m too screwed up to have socially acceptable prayers that can be answered on cue and have a happy Hallelujah ending. In a way, I felt relieved that finally I could stop trying to be someone or something I just wasn’t.  In other ways I felt even more lost than before.

Around that same time I started going to a therapist.  I had tried that before, but I hadn’t been ready to really dig in and heal myself, and I hadn’t founda therapist that was willing and able to go there with me. Then I met Joe. He was just right for me. Professional, yet warm, dedicated, yet had healthy boundaries.  Joe taught me that I didn’t have to look to church or my parents or my friends for the answers to my pain. I learned that I am responsible for my own pain, my own answers, my own healing. I learned how to identify feelings, release guilt and hold my own power.

He taught me that I was my own best teacher, because I am my own best student. I’m my own best parent because I know what I need. I know my own heart aches, so I can know best how to nurture myself, and how to help others know how to love me.

What do you need? How do you get your needs met?

I have had various teachers, some knew they were teaching me something, but probably not the lesson I actually learned.  When I was about 14 years old, I sat in a fundamental Christian Sunday school class taught my a man named Neil.

I’m sure he didn’t expect me to learn the lesson I learned from him which was…”Oh my goodness… I’m in a church that thinks that if I’m not sitting in this church building at exactly the moment that Christ comes back to Earth to get us… I will go to Hell, no matter what I believe. AND, my friends, that don’t know they are supposed to be sitting in THIS church building at just the right moment, which we don’t know WHEN that will be, are also going to Hell. No second chances.” That was the moment I knew I was in the wrong place.  That was the moment I began to really think for myself.

Later, I had kids of my own by then, a pastor, in a much less strict church, admitted to me that there really was no place for me in his church. My depression was way too serious and I was way too suicidal. I was unable to go up to the “alter” (front of the church) and kneel, then jump up and turn around and smile with my arms up in the air and
“Praise God” for my healing.  The fact was that I left that place  feeling as depressed or worse than when I came in.

He was the first person that was honest with me.  He was able to help me to stop pretending I was healed or happy when I was miserable.  He finally gave me permission to stop lying to myself and to eeryone around me.  then I was able to move on into my own reality and find my own truth. I don’t know if he knew that was his gift to me, but I’m so glad he could do that for me.

Teachers teach us unexpected lessons, not only a surprise lesson for the studenet but maybe as the teacher as well.

What have you learned, and from whom have you learned your greatest lessons?

Being enlightened seems to be about moving from darkness to Light. Darkness comes any lots of shades and for many reasons, abuse is just one reason, however we all have probably encountered painful situations and our learning mechanisms jump into place and the lesson we can so easily learn is not to trust, or to withdraw from possible
pain.

Enlightenment is all about learning how to open up and stay open to Love and Light.  We learn from painful histories, then we learn how to discern, so we don’t just lump everyone into the role of hurtful people.  As we continue to grow and heal and evolve, we eventually discover that we deserve to be treated well, and to be loved and respected.  Then when we get through that phase we move into the place where none of it really matters anyway, because the part of us that’s “God” or “Love” cannot be truly hurt.

So… being and becoming Enlightened is not separate and apart from pain, shame, guilt or fear.  It’s not about overcoming those things or even hiding them, I think it’s about healing them and gaining depth and understanding that we would not be able to do without those experiences or similar ones.