It Is What It Is

 

“What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?” ~ Eckhart Tolle

The above came in my email this morning and I felt that it needed to be shared.  Too many times, we resist change whether it be something small like dinner plans or something big like illness, bankruptcy, death or the end of a relationship.  We turn our heads without facing the truth of the matter.  We turn away from what’s right in front of us, pleading that it goes away and leaves us alone.  We beg for things to stay the same or to change the way we wish, but not necessarily where it’s headed.  Some may try to make deals with God or others in order to not have to change.  They fight it, refusing to see, burying heads in the proverbial sand and not accepting what is.

I dislike the quote, “it is what it is” for it leaves me feeling bitter.  I don’t know, why but it does.  It’s like there’s nothing left.  There’s a lack.  There are no choices, it just is and that’s what gets me every time.  Because I see that there are choices ~ choices in how we view and deal with changes and events that we didn’t choose.

Lately I’ve been through some tough changes.  At first I thought I’d try to fight the changes with the bravery of a hellcat.  Then I released the resistance to the changes.   It doesn’t serve me to be angry, resentful nor unforgiving.  However, it serves me to treat others with kindness, love and patience.  I know not where this change will lead me, but I am choosing how I deal with it in my life.

We all have choices.

Our life is our responsibility.

We can choose how we change.

I’m not saying that I haven’t been angry for the changes that have been thrust into my life.  I am not a Pollyanna either.  But after great pondering and soul searching, I choose different words to see how the changes will affect me.  I consistently rebuff the words lack and losing and choose opening up and freedom.  I have gone deep within my mind, soul and heart to change how I am dealing with this change and I hope that I can be a role model in how I’m dealing with all that’s occurring.

For we need to find peace, happiness and love in our hearts in order to stay healthy.  Forgive but perhaps not forget as we move along this path of life.  The quote, “change is inevitable” is another one which I dislike, only because I feel that heaviness inside when someone uses that phrase.  Instead, I feel that change is the opportunity to grow, to think outside the plans we had for our lives and to move forward in a way that was unseen before now.  It is a freedom of sorts I think.  It takes away limits that we had previously held onto and allows choices that we had forgotten about to emerge.

It’s not easy sailing into unknown waters in life.  Of that, I’m certain.  There are storms and upheavals but there is also smooth sailing on clear days.  Sometimes the wind takes us to places that we never knew existed and if we hadn’t endured the painful changes, we might never be where we end up.  So my advice to you is to ‘go with the flow’ and allow the Universe to guide your loving, forgiving heart.  Allow others to be themselves and accept changes so that you can change too.

Be kind to yourselves every day.

Shine On!

xo

The More You Know…

“The more a man knows, the more he forgives.”
~ Empress Catherine the Great

We all have a story in our heads about our lives.  Past hurts, triumphs and emotions mesh into our psyche, nestling in like the hibernating squirrels in the trees in Winter.  The challenge is to push forward out of our own minds to see what’s out there beyond our vision and to see relationships as they truly are and not how we perceive them.  It is momentous to look beyond our own limits and to actually see the world around us, to acknowledge faults and goodness, to take stock of our lives and the path which we are treading.  At any moment we can choose to change course, turn around, veer to the left or right or simply walk into the woods.  That is the beauty of free will that we have been given in this life.  There is nothing in stone that says we need to stay cemented on the path we have chosen.  It is only our reluctance to see beyond the walls we have erected, the stories we have embellished and the situation that we encounter.  To expand our vision, we must reach out of the box which we have allowed to imprison our minds and to look around at all which spherically encompasses us.  To be sure, this is not a linear life we’ve been given.

It is not an easy choice for some and I understand.  To see beyond ourselves is an emotional and sometimes tumultuous task for it causes us to look honestly at our faults and goodness ~ to accept and to forgive ourselves and others.  But once we open our eyes to truth, we can move on and see the world in a different light.  That is the beauty of knowledge and forgiveness.

Eyes, heart, mind and soul opened allows healing when we are hurting.  To stay blind to our lives is only to perpetuate the grief, the hurts and the sadness.  To embrace all that we have endured, to take ownership of our lives is to start on the path of healing.  But it takes a willingness to listen with an open heart and not a stony one.  It takes softening, caring and wanting to change the path we are on and not be simply a traveler without voice.

This is your life.  This is my life.  Together we can immerse ourselves in a loving embrace or we can take separate paths to happiness.  It is a choice made together or apart.  But each has their own choice, their own reality and their own willingness to not quit.  I choose to see life in a spherical way ~ listening, learning, thinking, feeling and forgiving.  It is a choice I make daily, sometimes I find I need to make that choice many times a day.  But I do it because it is worth it to me to be present every moment of every day that I am here.

Life is about changing, growing and releasing what doesn’t serve us.  Go forward on your path with love in your heart, forgiveness in your mind and blessings on your soul.

Shine On!

xo

Love vs Happiness

Really knowing how to love is essential to really being happy…

In loving relationships, be it marriage, dating, friendship or familial, the essential ingredient to keeping the relationship thriving is that both people are happy.  Don’t you agree?  But when one partner, friend, spouse, person, is unhappy, the seesaw in the relationship begins to tip and thus ensues a balancing act and a scramble to either fix the seesaw so that both parties are happy or to simply get off of the seesaw and dissolve the relationship.  Does it sound easy?  Nah, you know it’s not.

But we balance that seesaw daily when we’re married or in a relationship.  We give and take because we love our partner.  Some days we give more and some days we take more, but the bottom line is that this is a relationship between 2 people and outsiders need not apply.

Now let me just stop here and tell you that I’m happily married to my husband and we are just short of celebrating our our 19th wedding anniversary.  I want to clear that up before a friend reading my blog fears the worst.  Calm down dears, nothing here but a little love lesson.

When we toss around the word love in marriage, it encompasses so much more than we realize.  Love isn’t always that passionate french kissing of our youth and first dates ~ you remember those?  The days when you could kiss for hours because everything about him/her was so new!  It was like tasting chocolate for the first time ~ you wanted more and more.

But then as time goes on, sometimes the passion fizzles a bit, we begin to disconnect with each other,  life gets in the way, work takes over, children arrive and your free time to just enjoy your other half becomes non-existent ~ there is always something that needs to be done, a child who needs attention, a house that needs to be cleaned, bills that need to be paid, work that needs attending and that connection between the two of you gets swallowed up into the abyss of a fast-paced life called family.

Has this happened to you?  I think it happens to all of us once in awhile.  The key here is to realize it and reconnect.  But the reason I chose the card above is that I wanted to remind you and myself that we are the owners of our own happiness.  It’s not our spouse/partner’s responsibility to make us happy.  That’s OUR responsibility.  Just because we’re in love (or like) doesn’t mean that we can pass the baton of happiness over to our other half and put him/her in charge of making us happy.  No matter with whom we’re partnering, we are responsible for ourselves.

Does that make sense?   Love and happiness go hand in hand like all good relationships do ~ but the key is to hang onto your happiness and not give that job away ~ this is your life, this is your happiness and this is your love.  Life begins with self-love and once you’ve got that, happiness steps up and you’ve got it made!

Shine On!

xo