You Can't Handle the Truth...

This week I learned a lesson about shame.

I was presented with a difficult question about my past and I immediately felt shame, anger, resentment, frustration and sadness. None of these feelings were directed toward the person that was inquiring. They were directed at myself and the circumstances.

I lied.

When asked the same question again several days later. Those same emotions reared their ugly head.

I lied again.

After being eaten alive by my own guilt about lying, I decided I had made a mistake, and needed to be honest. Owning up to the lie was worse than the actual lie. I expected an adverse reaction and that was not what was received. Which made me feel even more stupid for lying in the first place.

On a less specific note; Don't ask if you aren't prepared for the answer. They were prepared for the answer and I was not prepared for the question.

Maybe I can't handle my own truth?

Being honest requires a certain level of vulnerability. It's frightening for most people. I've come to the conclusion that people lie because they're ashamed or fearful of a multitude of things.

I'm learning to let go one day at a time.

Ebb and Flow...

So, as people come and go, like the ebb and flow of the tides, through our lives we should be learning valuable lessons from them.

How is it possible to come across a person so similar to ourselves. Someone that we are immediately drawn too. Someone that is on the same mission in life. We look at them and see ourselves in their eyes. Either past self or future self, the consistancies are still there. It seems as though they are what we were or what we are hoping to become. Yet, still drawn to them because we want to help them or want to get help from them.

Then there are people that we have no common ground to start from. Who are on an unenlightened journey through their lives. Because there's such a difference in level toward Nirvana, we don't take the time to try to learn from these people and we should.

What makes a person's life and experiences any less valuble to us (as far as a tool for learning goes)? Is it simply because we think we've already passed those tests and learned those lessons that we don't bother to take a refresher course on them? Maybe we should step back and look at what they have to offer. Sometimes it seems that even the ones we think there will be no connection with are the ones who end up staying in our lives for years to come. In reality just the opposite is true, once we take the time to get to know what they are able to bring to the table we suddenly have tons to learn from them.

Life's lessons are unpredictable. We don't see where they come from or when they will be coming or what form they will take. It's easy to allow the ones into our lives that we know we will benefit from; not so easy to put ourselves out there for the ones that we think we are beyond.

Planes of existance are many and we're all on a different one but we are all living only one life right now. Let's make the most of it. Take whoever and whatever comes to you during your journey and extract as much as possible from their character or that particular situation and apply it to yourself the most positive way you know how.

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

I feel as if I'm reaching a pinnacle moment in my life. I am so young but so very happy with my choices thus far. But, I'm on the verge of something big... I can feel it and it's frustrating because I just want it to happen already! It's inevitable.

I'm not sure the form this big thing is going to take or how it may impact my life. I know I will be tested and it will be one of those moments when you know that the wrong choice will alter your life. I've got to choose wisely when that time comes. I hope I will because of the positive transformation my soul has gone through in the last year.

It's as if for the first time in my life I am alive and living. It's been an awakening. I'm able to look at life with an almost totally objective view.

This blossoming has allowed me to give more of me to myself, my son, my friends and coworkers. Which has in turn allowed me to receive so much more then I expected and it's as if it's compounding. That whole snowball effect of positive things is taking place. If I encourage it and don't do anything to slow it down with bad choices think of how much more I will accomplish in my life with Karma on my side.

I will continue to metamorphosis into a better person every day and with every decision big or small.

How is it?

How is it that people (generally speaking) are full of regrets, embarrassments, sorrows, and a multitude of other negative emotions about their past? I wish that the masses would be able to start letting things go. It's hard to do I know.
But by removing feelings (don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you need to turn into some "void of any emotion" type of person) from the situation and taking the past for what it's worth I am able to not have to cart around this baggage of wretched emotions and allow them to be toxic to my future. You can do the same

I'm working on it daily. I try to look back and say "Okay, what did I learn from that really embarassing situation?", remove the feelings then choosing to apply what I learned.

From my short time on this plant I can comfortably say that the people who carry these feelings around with them are allowing past choices, that were inevitable, to impact their ability to be confident in their choices now. Thus leading to half-hearted attempts at life's great challenges.

*Start to leave the emotions of your past behind you.
*Get on with the future in the best way you know how.
*Do it being confident that you've learned from prior events.
*Apply of the black and white of the lessons you learned from the past.
*Move forward gracefully with no regrets, only more wisdom.

Larger than Life

There are times in a persons life, that are few and far between, when one makes choices that have long lasting effects. Occassionally, we actually recognize them in the moment they're occuring. Other times we realize it afterwards. It takes a moment of clarity when you come up for a breath in the midst of these times and have this epiphany... This moment where you become aware that you are choosing wisely or poorly for yourself. And it feels Larger than Life. Almost suffocating for a second and then you calm yourself and say... Ok, Here we go. Let's see what this chapter of life brings us and how we will grow and evolve from the effects of our choices.
Make sure you take those minutes that hit you at some random 4 o'clock on a Tuesday and run with it. Allow yourselves to reflect on the current point in your long life and where you are right now, how you want to live your life, and what choice you can make right now to accomplish that.