A Change in Mentality Makes All the Difference: A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a woman who wanted something very badly. So she left the safe path she was on that was slowly extinguishing her soul, and instead chose the treacherous and scary path that would let it soar. She chose this path based only on a feeling of certainty that it was the right path, knowing that there were many obstacles in her way, many opportunities to fail, and that she would be tested.

She started to get scared. She started to feel like a failure. She still believed she had chosen the right path, but she couldn’t see how it could possibly work. So she doubted herself and her choice.

She started to say, “What if I never…?” and those consequences started to appear. She started to say, “I will never have…” and those consequences started to appear as well.

She started thinking about going back to her previous path, or one like it. At least there she was safe. There she wouldn’t have to be afraid. But she also knew that there she would have to admit defeat. Not the defeat of the world, but of self-defeat. If she went back to her old path, she knew her soul would start to die again. She knew she would be unhappy. She couldn’t let that happen.

So she changed her mentality. She started by being grateful for the few things she did have and did accomplish. Instead of believing that her path wouldn’t work out, she told herself that it would. She started to say, “I will have…” and those consequences started to appear. She started to say, “I will find…” and those consequences started to appear. She started to say, “I think I need…” and whatever she needed started to appear.

And she realized that the Universe truly does respond to your thoughts and feelings. Whatever you think about is what you bring about.

She learned she must stay positive and not be afraid. She learned she must stay true to herself. Above all, she learned to trust that if the Universe led her to this path, that it would also provide the means for her success.

And it did.

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Breaking Away from What Life “Should” Be

All your life you deal with unrealistic expectations. You expect to get As but you get Cs. You expect to marry for life but you get divorced. You expect to have kids only to find that you can’t. You expect to find a well-paying job, but you find yourself unemployed. You expect the marriage, the kids, the perfect house with the white picket fence, and you have none of that.

Life is not what we think it “should” be because we have unrealistic expectations. Girls are brought up to believe their knight in shining armor will ride up on a white horse, whisk them away, and they will live happily ever after. Rarely does this actually happen. And boys…I don’t even know what they’re brought up to believe, but whatever it is, I bet it rarely happens either.

We are brought up believing that parents should love their children and treat them well, and yet some children are abused. We are brought up believing that siblings should love each other, but sometimes they don’t. We are brought up believing that if we work hard, our employers will take care of us, but they don’t. We are brought up believing that if we always do the right things, we will be rewarded; but if that were the case, then the saying “Nice guys finish last” wouldn’t exist.

We are brought up believing that justice will prevail, but sometimes it doesn’t. We are brought up believing that life should be fair, and yet it isn’t.

We have so many thoughts in our heads about what life “should” be like. And if we find our life isn’t like the picture in our heads, we think life is unfair, and we get angry and frustrated because things are not the way they “should” be.

Who designed this picture of “should?” It’s not reality. We have to forget those false expectations and deal with what is and what can be. All we can do is look at our lives now to see what they are; then analyze our lives to determine what we want them to be, and work toward that. It may not be the life that others expect; but it might still be a damn good life, one filled with meaning and happiness for the person who lives it. Relying on “shoulds” only leads to stress when our lives don’t measure up.

Our lives may be a disappointment to our parents, our spouses, or our friends. That’s too bad, but it doesn’t matter; the only one who can live your life is you. At the end of the day, at the end of your life, you are the only one who can look back and determine whether you were true to yourself. No one else can do that for you.

Just as we must dispel the notion of what our own lives “should” be like, we must also stop trying to tell others what their lives “should” be like. It’s not for us to say. They need to find their own path by following their own heart and their own desires. We are here not to control each other’s lives, only to control our own to the extent that we can. For everyone has to live his own life, and no one can—or should—try to do it for him.

Live your life. Not based on some pre-ordained expectation, but on what is, what you want, and what you can attain. For that’s how it “should” be.

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The Line between Compromise and Change

When you enter into a relationship, or more likely, after you have been in one for a while, there comes a time when you realize you have to compromise — or change — if you want to remain in the relationship.

Compromise is what relationships are all about. After all, when two people merge their separate lives into one, that merging isn’t all smooth sailing. People have different habits, beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, and expectations. What they agree on is that they want to be together. Everything else may not be so easy to agree on.

Nor do they need to agree on everything. After all, who really wants to live with a clone of themselves? The contrast between people, the dichotomy, is what is exciting. The challenge of being with another person and being able to make it work — that is stimulating, even enlightening.

As long as two people have similar basic values and otherwise can agree to disagree, all the while respecting the other’s viewpoint, habit, attitude, or belief, that is what matters.

But when someone has a habit or a prejudice that you can’t live with…you need to decide if you can tolerate it (which you might be able to now when things are new, but consider how you might feel about it five years down the road). If you don’t think you can accept it, then either you need to change, your beloved needs to change, or you need to be with someone else entirely.

Likewise, when someone requires you to change the very essence of who you are in order to be with them…that is asking too much. That is not someone who wants to be with you; that is someone who is trying to mold you into being the person they were looking for when they found you.

Relationships are hard work. They take time, effort, and yes, compromise. But they should not require that a person give up their dreams, their beliefs, or the essence of who they are.

If someone loves you, they will respect and cherish you for who you are — not tolerate you for it.

Be sure you choose to be with someone who truly appreciates you for who you are. Everyone deserves that. Everyone.

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The Power of Love

I am constantly amazed at the evidence I see of the power of love. It is the strongest and noblest of human emotions. Love is what causes a mother to put herself in harm’s way to protect her child — or even to die for her child. This is familiar love, love for those we know. Love is also what causes a complete stranger to risk his life for another stranger who faces impending death (for example, someone about to get hit by a train or go over a bridge). This is another kind of love, love for fellow man.

Love changes lives. A boy tries to save his brother from drowning, and ends up losing his life. Love takes courage and compassion. Whenever someone puts another first at their own peril, it is the ultimate sacrifice of love.

Love changes lives in less dramatic but no less important ways. When a man and woman fall in love, their entire lives can change, and love is so powerful that they are willing to let that happen. To be together, one may have to move to another house, another town, another state, even another country. To be together, they might be willing to upset their respective families (if they have kids) in hopes that they can blend together into one family. To be together, one might have to be willing to find a different job because they can’t work for the same employer. These are huge upheavals, and yet this kind of thing happens every day.

Sometimes the merging is successful, and sometimes it isn’t. But I’m always amazed at what lengths people are willing to go to in the hope that it will work out.

Love is what causes a mother to choose having her children safe in a homeless shelter rather than sharing a home with an abusive father. Love is what causes a father to give up his job to be a stay-at-home dad. Love is what causes parents to sit through rain and wind and even snow just to watch their kids sit on the bench at a game.

Love is what causes parents to give up their own dreams so that their children can have theirs.

“The whole point of love is to put someone else’s needs above your own.” These words were spoken by a man who had just been jilted in the movie When in Rome. When someone can act out of love to the person that caused them pain, the power of love is evident.

Put simply, love is wanting something more for someone else than you want for yourself. Valuing another person’s happiness, health, or security more than your own. Wanting the best for someone else even if it hurts you.

Love causes people to take the high road more than any other human emotion. It is an emotion to be respected and treasured, and not taken lightly.

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Sight, Hope, and Relevance: Using the Gifts You’ve Been Given

If you’ve ever wondered about the name of this blog, here is the story: Years ago I was told I had the gifts of sight, hope, and relevance. I thought that was a strange message, to be sure, but I understood what was meant.

Sight: The ability to see through the clutter to understand the heart of a matter. Also, the ability to see through others’ eyes and understand where they are coming from and what they need.

Hope: No matter how bad things get, I always have hope that they will get better. Hope for myself, and hope for others. A belief that people are inherently good and that good will win out in the end.

Relevance: Understanding what is truly important in life, and what is not.

It is one thing to think you may have these gifts; it’s another to be told that you do. When you are told such a thing (by someone connected to the spiritual world and hence in a position to know), it’s almost incumbent upon you to use these gifts to the best of your ability. To do otherwise would be to ignore the gifts you’ve been given, which defeats your very purpose.

Because it meant so much to me, it seemed logical to name this blog Hope & Relevance, as it is my mission to give others hope when they need it and to point out what truly matters in life.

We are all born with different gifts. Our purpose is to use these gifts for the betterment of ourselves and for others — either those immediately around us, or for “others” in a broader sense, those we reach via books or electronic media such as the Internet.

Never forget to be grateful for the gifts that you have. If you were born privileged with good looks so that you don’t know rejection; if you were born into a rich family so that you have never known poverty; if you were born with the ability to do well at everything you try, so that you never know failure or struggle; if you were born naturally thin so that you never know what it’s like to be ostracized for being overweight; if you were born with a sense of pride  so that you never know low self-esteem; if you were born with supportive and loving parents so that you never know neglect or abuse; be grateful for these gifts that you may take for granted.

There are many things to be grateful for, even if you weren’t born with all these things. If your parents neglected you, maybe that caused you to grow up to be independent and self-sufficient; if you were ostracized for being overweight, maybe that caused you to take better control over your diet and health in general; if you knew poverty growing up, maybe you worked that much harder to be successful. These are good things. Overcoming obstacles makes us that much stronger.

We all have gifts. You know what yours are, even if you think you don’t. If you’re not sure, meditate or contemplate on it. It will come to you. They may not be the gifts you wish you had (I wish I could sing and dance, but I’m mediocre at best), but rest assured, you have the gifts you were meant to have in this life, and there’s a reason you have them.

Be grateful for your gifts and use them well.

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Working through Anger to Heal Ourselves

I have written before about the power of forgiveness. But before we can truly forgive someone, we have to process our anger and get it out of our system. Sometimes this takes longer than we anticipate. Sometimes when we think we are healed, something will happen to let us know we are not.

I have spent the past few days feeling really angry at someone, a person who has been out of my life for several weeks. This emotion has taken me by surprise, because I wasn’t even angry a few weeks ago…but today I am. I’m mad at the way I was treated, something I did not deserve. (Which leads me to point out that most people at some point in their lives get treated worse than they deserve, so I am not special in this regard.)

Emotions have a timeline of their own. You can be fine one day and a basket case the next. You might barely think about someone one day, and then lose sleep over them the next. You might be angry, or sad, or jealous. There are many emotions we have to work through. Sometimes it’s as if they almost consume us.

As much as we like to pat ourselves on the back for taking the high road and feeling like we are evolved, we are still human beings subject to the vagaries of human emotion. Emotions that creep up on us when we least expect them, and at the slightest trigger. This wellspring of anger has taken me completely by surprise and I wasn’t prepared to deal with it. I’ve had no one to vent to, nor do I really want to vent all these feelings on anyone (except possibly the person who has caused them to be).

I don’t like being responsible for all this vitriol going out into the atmosphere. It’s not at all what I am about, and it defeats my essential purpose. But, I am human, and here I sit in my vitriol, until I can work through it. Since I didn’t really want to express these emotions out loud, I wrote them down. Just getting them out of my psyche and onto paper helped a great deal. A few hours later, I read what I wrote and wondered what mad woman wrote those hateful words. Alas, it was I, a much angrier version of myself, one I haven’t seen in a long time.

But now I am back on the path to healing. I’m not sure what caused this episode of anger, and I hope it doesn’t return. I do know that this person doesn’t deserve this level of hatred leveled at him. He made mistakes and should have handled things differently, but he didn’t, and there is no changing that. All I can do is accept it and deal with the consequences. Being angry at him only hurts me, and I’ve experienced all the hurt I want to from this.

Being human is hard. We deal with a lot of pain. But when we can rise above our basic human emotions, it is then that we truly shine. It takes work, it takes forbearance, and it takes grace. It is much easier to sit and stew in our own juices of anger and hatred than to rise above them. But when we realize that we are the only ones simmering in the stew, we realize we are only hurting ourselves by holding onto the anger — we are not hurting the other person at all. Especially when they are out of our lives and don’t even know what effect their actions have had on us.

Processing our anger, rage, jealousy, sadness, is about processing the pain and healing ourselves. After all, if all we have left to remember someone by is our anger, then it’s not about them, it’s about us. They won’t know if we’re angry, and they won’t know whether or not they’re forgiven. And they may not even care. If we are to move forward productively and in a healthy, non-destructive way, we need to focus on our own healing.

Holding the anger in, or holding onto it, reliving it, will only hurt you. Not them. It will make you sick. Not them.

So process your anger in a healthy way, and then let it go. If it comes back, process it again, then let it go again. Do this as many times as you need to.

Eventually time will heal this wound, as long as you allow it to.

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Every Person You Collide With Changes Your Direction

I was thinking about how I have changed after my last relationship ended. And then I was thinking about how I have changed after all my past relationships ended. And I realized that every time we collide with another human being, it changes us. We are like pinballs in a pinball machine (for those of you who remember what those are). Every time a ball collides with an object in the machine, it goes in another direction. That is what we do when relationships end.

We might be damaged and go in one direction. Or we might be stronger and go in another. We might become angrier; we might bury ourselves in our work; we might become promiscuous to “get back” at the other person; we might shut out the world; we might forget ourselves by helping others; we might party ‘till we drop; we might become more spiritual; we might close ourselves off; we might open ourselves up. We might decide we don’t want a casual relationship but will hold out for something more meaningful; or we might decide we don’t want a meaningful relationship and look for something more casual.

There are many ways we deal with the loss of a relationship, but in some way, we are always changed. The more intense the relationship, the more it hurts, and the more we are changed.

Being in a relationship is a tricky matter. There are always some things you like about the other person, and some things you don’t. When you are together and happy, you tend to concentrate on the things you like, and gloss over the things you don’t. When you break up, you tend to concentrate on the things you didn’t like, perhaps as justification for breaking up, or staying apart, or believing you are better off alone.

You might decide you no longer want those unwanted things in a partner, so you decide to look for someone different. This might send you in a different direction, or lead you to look in different places for the person with the attributes you want. For each thing that is unwanted in your life, you try to find something that is wanted. It’s not only how we cope, it’s how we create a new reality.

By putting out to the Universe what it is we want, we attract to us what it is we want. But if we continue to concentrate on what we don’t want, we will bring more of the same into our lives. It’s important, every time we shift direction like this, to think about the positive — what we want — and not the negative. To remember the good things about that person, be grateful for what we’ve learned about ourselves because of them, and to be glad we had the experience.

Then let it go…to create another reality for yourself. It’s how we can productively move forward to create the life we want after experiencing something we don’t.

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