Epiphany

     I started "seeing" a life coach last week. It was just one of those random moments when you are talking to someone you've known for over a year, assuming you know them pretty well, and then discovering something about them you never even guessed. One of my (what I thought) dear friends and I were chatting online one day and he started to ask me how I was doing. It was one of those low days I've had lately and I couldn't hide my mood. That's when he told me he wanted to help me. Suddenly he's telling me that he's a life coach and he has been for almost ten years. I had no idea. This guy owns my favorite pizza place (authentic Italian, no less) and dabbles in several different businesses. I never thought this was one of them. Next thing I know, I have an appointment with him that afternoon. 

     It's awkward to sit down with a friend and tell them your deepest, darkest secrets and fears, especially in person. I know. If they are really your friend, it isn't awkward. So, I guess he wasn't my "friend." He was someone I admired, loved and liked to be around but I never showed him my "real self." I showed him my happy self, the one most people actually see. He never heard about my vulnerable side. I never let him see that. I let very few people see that. I don't like whining and I don't like talking about my problems (even though I really don't have any problems). You understand, right? This blog, right here, is where I put my thoughts, my hurts, my dreams. Everything. I share it with you, dear strangers because I do not fear your judgment, and you are not going to tell me to snap out of it, right? You just read and move on. 

     Not this guy. I thought he'd be more gentle in his approach to me exposing myself. Instead he has become one of those people that just doesn't put up with my crap. I love those people. They make me think.

     So, my first week in a five week plan is to write letters to those I feel have hurt me in some way. 

And apologize. 

Wait. 

You want me to what, exactly? 

      Apologize.  

     Apologize for expecting them to be more than they were. Expecting my dad to be the 60s/70s TV dad I always wanted. Expecting my ex-husband to be a great father, be honest, and want me more than he wanted pornography. Expecting my ex-boyfriend to control his temper. 

     I cannot expect people to be someone more than they actually are. Wow.

     Apologizing to them releases their bond over me and stops me from being the "victim." Playing the victim card.
Blaming them for who I am, or how I feel about myself today. 

Easier said than done.

Or is it?

     So, the other night when I couldn't sleep, I wrote a letter to my dad. Just on my phone. In the dark. While my mom slept in the other bed in our hotel room. I told him that I knew that he had always loved me, I knew that no matter what words he used to upset me, not matter how he treated me when I was growing up, I always knew that he loved me. And I knew that Heavenly Father loved me, so it shouldn't make any difference what words my father used, I should have always known otherwise. I should have always known. 

So, why didn't  I? 

     I chose to listen to what was being said to me. I interpreted what my dad was telling me as "I don't love you," or "You are unloveable." He never said those words. Not in my entire life. He never told me that I was stupid, or ugly, or fat, or unloved. He may have said things in anger, or even just without thinking, but he never said anything I should have interpreted as being unloved. 

    I keep a lot of motivational (feel good) thoughts that I find on the internet, or they just happen to wend their way through my Facebook page. I save them for later use, share them with my friends, or I think they might inspire me later. Yesterday, when I was struggling with "apologizing" to those who hurt me, I came across this:

Number 4 is the one that hit me. 

"4. Where did we get the idea that if we don't forgive people, they suffer?"

Exactly.

Where did we ever get that idea?
How does holding a grudge against someone hurt THEIR feelings? 
And then I felt peace. Seriously. 
A really calm feeling came over me. 
The calm feeling I get when Heavenly Father speaks to me and tells me that whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm thinking, is right.

    And I "got" it. 

     The rest of "Happiness in a Nutshell" is also great and something I want/need to remember. It's all true. 

     I think I passed the test for week number 1 of my 5 week lesson on loving/healing myself. I have a feeling it's only going to get harder as the weeks go on. It may take me 5 days every week to actually understand what my life coach is trying to teach me, but 5 days is better than continuing to beat myself up over something that never actually happened. 

     It's okay. I got this.







    

Attraversiamo

 


One of my favorite authors is Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love. I've always felt a connection with her books. She sometimes writes as though she is in my head, and sometimes she says exactly what I need to hear. This was one of those days (I stole it off of Facebook).

Word of the day...

Oops, I mean: WORD OF THE LIFETIME.

Dear Ones,

A sweet reader named Jackie painted this for me, gave it to me the other night at my event in Cleveland. I love it and I will keep it always.

Readers of EAT PRAY LOVE will remember this as the last word in the book. Italian for "let's cross over" — the most elegant way I can imagine to remind myself to let it go, to put it all behind you, to face the future rather than dwelling in the past, to stand up and try again.

Another way to say it, I just realized, could be: ONWARD — my other favorite word.

Today, let's share some stories of crossing over.

I will start with one from me. Lately I've been really showing up for my work on processing forgiveness. Much of this is inspired by having met Iyanla Vanzant, whose e-course on forgiveness I've been taking all month. 

I had no idea how much work I had to do on this subject, y'all. I mean, I knew I had some garbage in my heart and mind, but I hadn't realized just how MUCH resentment I was carrying around still. As I've done my work on this, I've discovered that what lurks at the very deepest bottom of all my old resentments is usually nothing but a pile of my own shame. (Shame for my own failed relationships, shame for having been stupid or a sucker, shame for my own inadequacies and mediocrity, shame for not having handled things better, shame for still holding on to ancient anger, etc.) 

And instead of trying to force all of those negative feelings out of me (I've never had any luck forcing negative feelings out of me...How 'bout you?)I've been making all kinds of interior space to allow those feelings to be revealed, to give them space to breathe, to accept them as human, and to forgive myself for all my own perceived faults and shortcomings. 

In other words, all my work on forgiving others has unexpectedly turned into a giant exercise of self-empathy. 

Which has, by accidental extension, turned into an exercise in feeling greater empathy for everybody else, as well...stuck as we all are in these crazy-town human minds. 

Which has, ultimately, led to a great and sudden diminishing of old resentments.

Which does, in fact, feel like crossing over.

So that's been nice. (TO SAY THE LEAST.) And I'm grateful. Because, like you, all I ever want is to be more free.

So what about you?

How have you been crossing over lately? Let's share some stories of liberation and its rewards.

And, of course, ATTRAVERSIAMO!
LG

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Do I Feel That I Am Unworthy?

This article was waaaaay too close for me. It touched on so many things that I am going thru/feeling right now. I feel like I need to tattoo this on my forehead to truly embed it in my head so I can just move forward in my life. 

The One Thing That's Keeping You from the Life You Want

The author of The Seat of the Soul and co-founder of the Seat of the Soul Institute explains how unworthiness keeps us from our happiness.

By Gary Zukav

What is unworthiness? It's the experience of having parts of your personality say, "I'm not worthy." For example, they might say, "I am unworthy of the love that I have in my life, or the wealth that I have." More commonly, they might say, "I am unworthy of the happiness that I feel." Thoughts such as "It's too good to be true," and "This can't last forever because it is too good" are experiences of unworthiness. You feel unworthy of what the universe has given you, you feel that you do not deserve it, that the other shoe will fall, and it is only a matter of time before you will get what you really deserve, which will be painful. 


Unworthiness is the inmost frightening thought that you do not belong, no matter how much you want to belong, that you are an outsider and will always be an outsider. It is the idea that you are flawed and cannot be fixed. It is wanting to be loved and feeling unlovable, or wanting to love and feeling that you are not capable of loving. It is the feeling that no matter what you do, it is not enough and that you are incurably inadequate, intrinsically and permanently flawed. It is the fear of people seeing you as you really are and the belief that if they did, they would not want anything to do with you. 


Beneath all of this is the experience of powerlessness—of feeling powerless to be a real part of life, to love, to be loved, to affect the world, to be heard, to be worth hearing or to have something worth saying. It is self-loathing, self-hatred. The pain of powerlessness is excruciating. It is the most painful experience in the earth school, and everyone shares it. 


Until recently, the pain of powerlessness has driven our evolution. It has caused us to reach outward continually, relentlessly, to change the world around us. Pursuing external power—the ability to manipulate and control—has been our way of avoiding the pain of powerlessness. Anything that we do to make ourselves feel worthy and safe is a flight from the pain of powerlessness. Every pursuit of external power—every attempt to change the world or a person in order to make yourself feel valuable and safe—is a distraction from the pain of powerlessness. All the distractions in the world cannot uproot the pain of powerlessness inside you. 


Our history is a chronicle of the ways that we have attempted to escape from the pain of powerlessness, or said another way, the ways that we have pursued external power. Tribes fight tribes, siblings fight siblings, nations invade nations, individuals strive to become stronger than one another, or more seductive, educated, wealthy or famous. The list is as long as it is familiar. 


The pursuit of external power surrounds us everywhere. We are continually attempting to mask the pain of powerlessness from ourselves, and others are continually doing the same. Driving every avaricious banker, sexual predator, workaholic, perfectionist and all attempts to exploit anything or anyone is fear of the pain of powerlessness and the need to escape it. 


Our perception is now expanding beyond the five senses. We are becoming able to see the pursuit of external power for what it is and the futility of trying to escape the pain of powerlessness by changing the world. When we look inward, not outward, we can dismantle the parts of our personalities that have controlled us for so long—such as anger, jealousy, vindictiveness, superiority, inferiority. We realize we need to change ourselves instead of the world in order to liberate ourselves once and for always from the tormenting experiences of unworthiness. 

Spiritual partners help one another recognize when a frightened part of the personality is active. They can alert you when you're striving to mask the pain of powerless, for example, by becoming angry, jealous or a victim. When you are not aware that a frightened part of your personality is active, you forget that all is perfect. You forget to relax and enjoy yourself. You become serious, concerned and overwhelmed. But if you were able to say, "I am doing it again! A part of my personality is feeling like the most unworthy person in the universe," then you could all laugh at this. 


The pain of powerlessness is still driving our evolution, but in a different way. Instead of reaching outward to change the world in order to avoid it, we must look inward to experience it, to change ourselves, to create authentic power, and act on the healthiest parts our personality that we can access in the moment. For example, we choose to act with patience when we are angry, or to act with appreciation when we are judging. 


This is a very big change. It is a change in the way that humanity is evolving. Our evolution now requires us to experience consciously all the painful impulses that have created all the painful consequences in our lives and then choose consciously to act instead from the healthiest, most wholesome parts of our personalities that we can access in the moment. 


Each time we do this, we create authentic power. When we create authentic power again and again, we become authentically powerful. Each experience of unworthiness reminds us, if we let it, that now is the time to create authentic power. 


To learn more about worthiness, visit SeatoftheSoul.com and read The Seat of the Soul. You can send questions to Gary Zukav at gary@seatofthesoul.com, and he will answer as many as he can on his website.