“Celebrate endings, for they precede new beginnings.” ~Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I believe people are brought together for each person’s maximum spiritual growth. When the growth is done, it’s time to move on.
That spiritual growth could take two minutes, two weeks, two months, two years, or a lifetime. Either way, when the time comes, the most powerful thing we can do is allow ourselves to move on and trust that everything is happening exactly as it should.
Sometimes outside circumstances seemingly force our relationships to shift and move apart; other times it’s a decision you consciously make to walk away. However it happens, below are some ways you can move through changing relationships in the most positive and powerful way possible:
1. Don’t be afraid.
As you learn and grow, so do your friendships and relationships. I really noticed this when I started committing to a spiritual practice everyday. My circle of friends completely shifted. This is nothing to fear.
It’s not a “good” or “bad’ thing, but it’s important to understand that throughout our lives, people are going to fall away. And who knows, they might be back, but all you do know now is that you’ve learned all that you can from each other at this time.
When relationships and/or friendships end or shift, there is nothing to fear. Whether or not you realize it, everything always works out the way it’s meant to.
2. Take responsibility.
If the break-up was messy, or the friendship ended in a not so positive way, take responsibility for it. When you get to the point where you no longer blame someone else for how you feel, miraculous shifts occur.
I often turn to my inner guide, the voice for love within me, and ask, “What is the spiritual lesson here?” Your power is always hidden behind the people and circumstance that disturb you the most.
As some of my recent friendships evolved and fell away, I’ve discovered areas within myself that needed to be healed. The purpose of the relationship or the friendship was to show me those areas. Relationships can be amazing tools that catapult us to another level of peace and love.
3. Trust that you always have everyone you need.
This tiny idea can bring massive amounts of peace to your day. What if you woke up every morning knowing that every person you needed that day would be brought to you?
I try and start my day with this idea because I immediately stop trying to control my reality, and instead, trust in my inner guidance a whole lot more.
There is no one missing from this moment whom you need right now. If you’re sitting in a chair with no other bodies around, that’s because in this moment, your soul does not need anyone else to learn from.
4. Get ready for new friendships and relationships.
When you create the space for friendships and relationships that are not working to fall away, get ready, because new people who are more in-line with what your soul most needs to learn are on their way! This only becomes a fearful process when you forget that you’re always guided and that everything happens for you, not to you.
5. Release your guilt.
As I got more and more committed to praying, connecting to my true self, and meditating, I felt deep in my heart it was time for me to make some shifts in my outer world. That decision involved moving across the entire country, far away from family and all my friends.
At first, a few of my close friends couldn’t understand why I was leaving, and for a brief moment I felt guilty about it. But I had to follow my path and trust that new people and experiences were on their way.
Other people may not understand why you’re making the decision to move on, but that doesn’t matter. You can’t control what other people think. Always trust your heart and never feel guilty for it.
No matter what, remember that every encounter is holy. Every person is a reflection of you. As you change, move, and grow, the reflections around you also change. Embrace them!
There is no need to fearfully cling to relationships and friendships that are not working anymore. Rather, get excited about the new ones that are surely on their way. All changes are helpful.
Showing posts with label embrace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label embrace. Show all posts
Friday, July 19, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper
“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.”
On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.
There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.
Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.
I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.
I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.
Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.
Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.
Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.
Pain strengthens you.
In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.
Pain refines you.
It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.
Pain lightens the load.
Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”
Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.
Pain qualifies you.
Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.
Pain connects you.
One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.
Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.
Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.
On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.
There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.
Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.
I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.
I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.
Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.
Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.
Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.
Pain strengthens you.
In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.
Pain refines you.
It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.
Pain lightens the load.
Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”
Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.
Pain qualifies you.
Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.
Pain connects you.
One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.
Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.
Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.
What Gifts Have You Gained from the Pains of Your Past?
And interestingly, I am left with the same conclusion. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I know this is hard to believe or understand, but if given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing. No matter how much I struggle, I wouldn’t give up one ounce of the pain I have experienced, because without each and every experience I have had, I might not be exactly the person I am today.
Many people describe themselves as “happy.” Although I have experienced moments of great happiness, given some serious consideration, I don’t know that I would describe myself as a happy person. I am a pensive person, an intellectual person.
A thoughtful person, I consider things carefully and am deeply empathetic. I am able to hold other’s pain when most people cannot because I understand what it is to feel deep pain, and I am not scared or fearful of that emotion.
These are gifts I have incurred because of the experiences I have had.
Without my experiences, I would be a different person with different gifts. I don’t know that I would like or value that person as much. I don’t know that I would have the same profound gifts that I have to offer.
So when people hear my story and ask how I have survived, I simply reply that I survived because that is what people do. They survive. They survive in pain and they evolve into the person they were intended to be, their most authentic selves.
I value my most authentic self. The person I was intended to be. I am grateful to have evolved into myself, and I wouldn’t desire it to be any other way.
I am someone who can comfort a veritable stranger and hold her as she shares unendingly deep and vast pain where most people would be frightened of such an interaction. I am able to listen without offering a platitude or telling her that “it will get better” because I am able to comprehend that it won’t and that it’s okay.
The pain will simply be part of who she has now become and will grow with her as she continues her journey of continually becoming the person she was meant to be.
For all of these abilities, I am grateful. The abuse I suffered as a child resulted in my developing the profound gift of empathy.
What are your gifts? Have you taken the time to become aware of what they are? Perhaps you too have developed gifts as a result of hardships you have suffered. Maybe you are not even aware that these qualities are gifts.
Or they don’t feel like gifts because they make you different from the norm or make you stand out from the crowd. It can be painful to stand alone.
There have been times in my life when my empathy was misconstrued as oversensitivity, being overly emotional or weak. This was painful. It made me feel lonely, and I had moments of self-doubt.
I urge you to embrace each strength with which you have been graced, as your strengths are your offerings, and your offerings are where your true beauty lies. They are your opportunity to give to the world and the people around you in your own unique way.
This is why when I question how things might have been different if I hadn’t been abused, it’s tempting to wonder momentarily, “What if?”
But I am always left with the same conclusion, which is that I wouldn’t change a thing. I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am, as clearly “to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”
I urge you to consider that same conclusion for yourself. Be proud of your beautiful being, be authentic, be brave, and give freely.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-gifts-have-you-gained-from-the-pains-of-your-past/
I know this is hard to believe or understand, but if given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing. No matter how much I struggle, I wouldn’t give up one ounce of the pain I have experienced, because without each and every experience I have had, I might not be exactly the person I am today.
Many people describe themselves as “happy.” Although I have experienced moments of great happiness, given some serious consideration, I don’t know that I would describe myself as a happy person. I am a pensive person, an intellectual person.
A thoughtful person, I consider things carefully and am deeply empathetic. I am able to hold other’s pain when most people cannot because I understand what it is to feel deep pain, and I am not scared or fearful of that emotion.
These are gifts I have incurred because of the experiences I have had.
Without my experiences, I would be a different person with different gifts. I don’t know that I would like or value that person as much. I don’t know that I would have the same profound gifts that I have to offer.
So when people hear my story and ask how I have survived, I simply reply that I survived because that is what people do. They survive. They survive in pain and they evolve into the person they were intended to be, their most authentic selves.
I value my most authentic self. The person I was intended to be. I am grateful to have evolved into myself, and I wouldn’t desire it to be any other way.
I am someone who can comfort a veritable stranger and hold her as she shares unendingly deep and vast pain where most people would be frightened of such an interaction. I am able to listen without offering a platitude or telling her that “it will get better” because I am able to comprehend that it won’t and that it’s okay.
The pain will simply be part of who she has now become and will grow with her as she continues her journey of continually becoming the person she was meant to be.
For all of these abilities, I am grateful. The abuse I suffered as a child resulted in my developing the profound gift of empathy.
What are your gifts? Have you taken the time to become aware of what they are? Perhaps you too have developed gifts as a result of hardships you have suffered. Maybe you are not even aware that these qualities are gifts.
Or they don’t feel like gifts because they make you different from the norm or make you stand out from the crowd. It can be painful to stand alone.
There have been times in my life when my empathy was misconstrued as oversensitivity, being overly emotional or weak. This was painful. It made me feel lonely, and I had moments of self-doubt.
I urge you to embrace each strength with which you have been graced, as your strengths are your offerings, and your offerings are where your true beauty lies. They are your opportunity to give to the world and the people around you in your own unique way.
This is why when I question how things might have been different if I hadn’t been abused, it’s tempting to wonder momentarily, “What if?”
But I am always left with the same conclusion, which is that I wouldn’t change a thing. I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am, as clearly “to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”
I urge you to consider that same conclusion for yourself. Be proud of your beautiful being, be authentic, be brave, and give freely.
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-gifts-have-you-gained-from-the-pains-of-your-past/
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET TODAY ABOUT...
Being an introvert. I thought I was an extrovert, but once I got out of a house living with friends (after three years). After cutting down from social outings and involvements, and after spending so much time with myself, I realized what brought me joy. I realized who I am. And though no one is 100% one or the other, I am certainly more of an introvert- with social skills. I love spending time alone. I love being with myself. I love reflecting. I love being away from social distortions of my true self. I love building myself up and being true to myself. And though I am now still in the strengthening process, I enjoy hanging out with selective friends who make me want to be better; who support me in who I am; who make me feel great; and whom I have an equal exchange of friendship with. I am happy alone. I am happy with friends so close who do not pull me from myself, but who are such a part of me so that when I'm with them, we are with ourselves at the same time. I am learning to embrace all the parts of me. Currently, the part that is introverted- that is true to my personality.
Embracing and loving myself
Embracing and loving myself
Monday, January 14, 2013
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