Blessing Each Other

Living in Abundance
With all the talk about the Law of Attraction and manifesting our heart's desire, one important point seems to get glossed over. What are we contributing to others and the world?

The abundance we experience is not just a matter of affirming abundance, but of living it. How do we live abundance? By giving. When we give of ourselves, our time, and our talents, we make a living declaration of having more than enough. When we care for others and give to them without need of repayment or acknowledgment, Life gives to us in the same way.

Do you want to increase your experience of abundance? Then give of what you have and what you are. Give from your heart, with love. Do things for others that are not required of you, and don't brag about it. Ask yourself each day, "What can I do for others today? What am I giving today?" Do it, then let it go. Don't look for your reward. Perfect support, healing, inspiration, and abundance will come to you in the most perfect way for you. In the process, you will know true joy and deep inner peace. Those are the bonuses.

One of the ways that I support others is with my Squidoo lenses and groups. I contribute beauty through pictures and inspiration through articles. The group lens allows me to place the pictures of member lensmasters throughout so that others can find them. I visit other lenses frequently and leave positive comments and encourage others to do the same. As a result, a wonderful, supportive community is growing around me. My Empowerment & Enlightenment group now has a tremendous collection of resources for anyone wishing to increase their understanding and awareness.

The 200th lens in Empowerment & Enlightenment” is by lensmaster Spirituality, our most active member. Katinka has contributed more lenses to this group than anyone, so I was pleased with her timing when she submitted Is God Omniscient? If so, do we have free will?. This is a Monkey Brain lens for the debate about free will and an all-knowing God.

The best place to start getting to know Katinka is on her lensography, Spiritual Lenses – Katinka Hesselink Net – Religion and Spirituality resources. She has a vast collection of well-constructed lenses on a wide variety of spiritual topics.

Please stop by one of Katinka’s lenses, (or all of them!), and congratulate her.

Lensmaster enslavedbyfaeries submitted a great lens right after Spirituality did and definitely deserves honorable mention as lens #201.

Lens #201 in Empowerment & Enlightenment” is Teach Peace and is a beautifully presented lens on teaching our children about peace while being the living example of it.

You can find many other great lenses on a variety of topics on her lensmaster page at, enslavedbyfaeries. Be sure to also check out her lensography, enslavedbyfaeries Lensography.

Bless the Darkness

Although it is difficult at first, blessing our antagonists and dysfunctional situations is the most powerful way to transform them. Blessing something is a statement of non-resistance, non-judgment, and acknowledging the oneness of all things. It brings the light of truth to transmute darkness into its true form, which is light. All forms or expressions of darkness are nothing more than expressions of complete forgetfulness of the truth. When they are blessed, light stimulates remembering of the truth. It awakens the divine consciousness in form. It may take place slowly or quickly, but transmutation will occur.

Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light. To dispel darkness, we turn on a light. Cursing darkness does not bring light, only more darkness. When we curse it, we become more like it, forgetting who and what we are. If we continue to curse negativity, we may become so negative ourselves that we are no longer able to see or experience light of any kind. Then our own spiritual awakening will be long delayed. Our lives will reflect the forgetfulness of our truth with toxic relationships, financial hardships, illness, and depression. Its like seeing someone who has fallen into a hole. Cursing negativity is like getting down into the hole with them. Blessing it is like staying on the surface and lowering a rope to help them out of the hole.

“Bless them that curse you.” (Jesus) This is exactly what Jesus was talking about 2000 years ago. Rather than adding to the darkness in a person or situation by cursing, bless them. A wonderful way of doing this is to imagine a ball of pure, white light in your heart. Think of a person or situation of which you have a negative experience. Send love and light to that person or situation. This simple process only takes a few seconds and can be done anywhere. The more you do it, the better you will feel. As you send love and light to others, you will actually feel an increase in love, light, peace, and joy within yourself. You will see a difference in the way people react and relate to you. Situations that used to be very stressful will become increasingly calm and simple to deal with.

You can intensify and expand this process if you have more time to devote to it. I use a more involved practice myself that you may find useful and rewarding. I first align myself with the present moment and the energy of life, (God). My process continues as I think of the people in my life, one by one. “From my heart, I send love and light to Mike. I send love and light to Mike’s ego. I send love and light to Mike’s pain-body. I send love and light to Mike’s physical body. I send love and light to Mike’s mind. I send love and light to Mike’s emotions. I send love and light to the soul of Mike.” While this is much more involved, I’ve experienced more profound results in myself, my relationships, my situations, and in others. I also send love and light to my marriage, my family, my web sites, to my own body, ego, pain-body, mind, and emotions.

When I started sending love and light to my web pages, I was inspired to make a few changes and my hits went up considerably. If I get writer’s block, I send love and light into the unwritten document and the words begin to flow. When I send love and light into my homework, the work is easy and I finish it quickly. My health has been improving daily since I began this practice. My joy and peace are often so deep and broad as to be inexplicable. I hope you enjoy and benefit from this practice as much as I have, and more.

Presence and Oneness

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by  JacquelineStone

I created an affirmation slide show for experiencing oneness and practicing presence. It is now available to view or download free on author Stream. If you have read or are reading Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" or "The Power of Now" you may get more out of it than someone who hasn't.

This is my gift to anyone who is ready to receive it. Empowerment is not just something we do for ourselves, but something we do for the benefit of all humanity, for all life.

The first presentation is 29-slides. The second, linked below, is a more intense 45-slide presentation for awakening consciousness.
Awakening Consciousness

Eckhert Tolle's "A New Earth"

I'm reading Eckhert Tolle's new book, "A New Earth." He approaches the challenge of becoming aware of who/what we are through realization of what we are not. This is the most complete information I've ever seen on the ego. Sometimes, its hard to know if the ego is talking or I'm talking. I have to look at motive. If the underlying motive for anything I'm doing or saying is to make myself look or feel more important, that's ego. If its out of a genuine desire to help or empower others, that's the real me.

I have a friend that used to ask, "Is it coming from love or coming from fear?" That's a great reminder, but many times we don't recognise that something is coming from fear because it is well disguised. Love on the other hand, always shows itself.

The most important thing I'm getting out of the book is the practice of being fully present. The past does not define me or limit what I can do right now. The future is an unwritten book so I can't read it today. The more I respond only to what is actually happening in the present moment, the less bothersome things are. It takes some conscious effort to stop myself from tacking on things from the past that my mind associates with what is happening now. I just have to remember that this precise moment has never happened exactly like this before and treat it as a new experience.

Are you reading this book or have you read, "The Power of Now?" What do you think?

Remembering Oneness

A while back, I asked every one of my spiritually-focused friends, "How can I increase my conscious awareness of the truth of who I am?" No one had any idea. Most didn't even understand the question. Then I remembered that while we share this journey each of us walks our own path. The truth is within each of us, according to what we are to do with it. My passion and purpose lies in remembering the truth of who and what I am and living with that conscious awareness. I share each step of my journey to help anyone else who feels the need to remember.

Sometimes the answers we seek are so simple that we miss them. That was the case for me on this one for a while. As soon as I asked the question, I began to live the answer. It began with a choice, a choice to do whatever it takes to remember the truth. I understand that this dualistic reality is in fact an illusion of the mind, albeit a persistent one. The illusion serves the purpose of knowing all that we are through experience. However, I have long felt absolutely compelled to gain conscious awareness of the truth while yet living in the illusion. "Be in the world, but not of it."

I believe that we are creators becoming conscious of the act of creating. Most of the time we create from fear, a belief in lack, and from separation. The results are not what most of us choose to experience any more. How can we change that? By becoming conscious of who we are. When we know, in experience, that we are one, that all is one, we have nothing to fear. There is no lack in oneness, and no separation. In oneness, there is perfect peace, boundless joy, and absolute love. I know this without doubt because I have experienced it twice in my life, once when I died and returned and once during a profound meditation. But how do we live with that awareness?

First, we have to choose it. Then we intend to experience it. Then we give thanks that it is done. If you are reading this post, you have some memory of oneness. If you didn't, you would not have found it. There is something in the core of your being reaching for remembering. No matter how much or how little you know for sure about oneness, part of you remembers. Give thanks for that. Your attention to it and gratitude for it is affirming that you can consciously experience your truth.

I use affirmations that I repeat to myself whenever I'm not in conversation or focused on a mental task. "I remember the truth of who and what I am. I remember oneness." This simple statement is helping me more than I can explain in one post. I am more peaceful, confident, relaxed, and inspired. My health has improved tremendously and continues to do so every day. My life is becoming more and more graceful and all my relationships healthier. The only thing it hasn't helped me with is my Geology labs! :(

The more of us remember oneness and begin living according to this awareness, the less conflict we will see in the world, the less lack and disease. We have an impact on the Earth and humanity as a whole by our thoughts and emotional states. Our individual awareness of oneness supports everyone's remembering. Your healing is everyone's healing. Remember who and what you are. I remember you!

A New Take on Gratitude

We know that we should be grateful and express our thanks, but how often do we give thanks for the things we don’t like? It may sound strange, but it is of greater value and benefit to us to give thanks for that which we dislike than it is to give thanks for the things that make us happy.

When you say “thank you” for something, you’re not resisting it, but allowing it to be. Remember, what we resist persists. What we bless, we have no resistance toward. It is our resistance to things that causes us pain, not the thing resisted, so it makes sense to want to put an end to resistance. We know we can’t stop resistance by fighting against it or willing ourselves into acceptance. Then how do we stop resisting people, things, and circumstances?

Gratitude is the beginning, but blessing is the full answer. Every one and everything that exists in our awareness is there to bless us in some way, whether we see it or not. That means that even the most unpleasant or downright painful holds a gift for us. It is not necessary to identify the gift in order to end the resentment. Just acknowledging that there is one is enough.

Think of all the things and people in your life that upset you, hurt you, or you just don’t like. List them, and then give thanks for them. Take it one step further and bless them. It may feel awkward at first, but with daily practice, this will begin to feel natural. You will find yourself resisting less and less in your life. As you do so, the things that you don’t like will cease to bother you, will transform, or will leave your life all together.

Sometimes, we all have a tendency to hold onto our anger and resentment. We’re human. It happens. How do you feel when you do that? We wish that certain people were not in our lives at all, but we know that we don’t have control over other people. We do have control over our thoughts and feelings. We can choose to stay in our anger, letting it eat away at us and make us miserable, or we can choose to change our focus. Giving thanks for our antagonists and blessing them puts an end to our resistance against them and our anger. It may take some time to completely let go of some of them, but the situation or relationship will begin to change immediately.

How much do you want to change? Do you want it bad enough to do anything? Try giving thanks for and blessing all that you dislike. You will be amazed at the results, and feel better about yourself in the process.

Resistance: The Chains in My Hands are My Own

True serenity is not the absence of problems. It is remaining peaceful and centered in the midst of them. It is being able to equally accept what we like and what we don’t like. Serenity is the absence of resistance, not the absence of problems. It is acceptance to the degree of being able to bless all that is.

I don’t have to love or like everything. I just have to appreciate that it all has a purpose and not by my attitude make it bad. “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.” What I judge as bad, I naturally resist. It is my own resistance that causes me pain, not the thing or person that I am resisting.

“Resist not temptation.” (Holy Bible) This does not mean to give in to temptation. It means that we should not resist because in so doing we give it power over us. Rather, “judge not” and turn your attention to something else. Likewise, resist not those things which we do not like or want to experience because our resistance ties us to them and gives them power over us. Only that which we resist can hold us in bondage. Further, it takes great exertion to press against anything, so resistance causes fatigue.

Think about those things that you don’t like to do but know you must do. Are they a struggle? Do you frequently meet obstacles while trying to do them? Do you feel tired or drained either while doing them or directly after? These are indications that you are resisting. It is natural to resist that which we don’t like, but we have the power to change our attitude about anything. Try to see your obligations in a different light. How do you benefit from doing them? Are you benefiting someone else by doing them? We can also choose to occupy our minds with pleasant thoughts while accomplishing unpleasant tasks.

Our experience begins in our mind. Whatsoever we dwell upon in our thoughts will be our experience. The more we think about what we don’t like, the more it persists in our experience.

The Power Within

I have heard and read that we have the power within us to create anything in our experience that we desire. What we create in our experience is our choice, which is usually made unconsciously but can be made consciously. I understand the concept and agree with the premise, but there's a big difference between understanding and realizing.

Realize means to make real. It's the feeling part of understanding, or knowing that we know. My experience has been that I have to get to that deep, inner knowing and then I will live according to my understanding, consciously.

Like most people, my life has been filled with all kinds of "evidence" that we are victims of fate, chance, and circumstances beyond our control. Intellectually, I know that these old beliefs are not true, but I still experience their effects to some degree. How then do I get to the point of knowing that I know and fully realizing that I choose and create what I experience? I read somewhere that a belief is simply a thought that has been thought enough times or long enough to be accepted as truth. If that's true, then I need only replace my false beliefs with new beliefs and keep thinking on the new beliefs until they become my reality. It sounds too simple.

Even if it is that simple, it's going to take time. My false beliefs didn't become ingrained in me overnight. I think the first step is choosing what I want to believe and getting really clear on that. I did an exercise in which I wrote down everything that I believe as true and then questioned all those beliefs. Some of them were clearly false and it was easy to see where they came from. Some, not so much! It took doing this exercise a few times to get all my beliefs written down. So many of them were not things that I ever think about consciously.

I challenged every one of my beliefs and looked for the experience that started them. Most of them came from childhood and were passed on from my parents. Not everything my parents taught me was false, and some of the false things were told to me to keep me safe. I don't fault my parents for teaching me limitation because I know they were doing the best they could with what they knew. I'm not a child anymore though, so its time to choose my own beliefs.

There are more things that I question now than what I accept as definitely true. I am making new choices about what I believe and my life has changed drastically. I've changed. I never really was the person I thought I was, but I believed the illusion so I lived the illusion. It's time for me to take this understanding to the next level and live more of my life consciously. Being present in each moment is helping me do that.

Empowerment & Enlightenment Reaches 100!

The 100th Lens in Empowerment & Enlightenment is "Knowledge Is Best Medicine" by lensmaster LilMizMo. This is a content-rich lens about personal development that I think we can all learn something from.
Monica has put a great deal of thought and effort into creating a great lens, with links to resources, appropriate photos, related products, and opportunities to participate.

The Importance Of Self Improvement
"Quite often, we all get wrapped up in our fears and insecurities, so
much so that we find ourselves wishing that we could be someone else.
When we feel like this, we start to believe that most people are better
than us, this of course is not the case and the truth is that most
people are more scared than we are."

Please stop by Monica's lens and congratulate her. You are likely to find something useful while you're there.

Lensmaster jasmineann submitted a great lens that most of us can benefit from. She receives an honorable mention as lens #101.

Check out her lens list and be sure to visit "Back Pain Relief Without Pain."

"Are you a back pain sufferer and seeking back pain relief? Do you have a bad back, herniated disc, back pain, or sciatic pain? Looking for straightforward suggestions to help cope with back issues?"

After The Secret

After The Secret is an educational and stimulating lens on Squidoo.com. After The Secret is also a wikizine on Zimbio.com The lens and wikizine are the webchild of Conscious Change International and its founder, Jacqueline Stone.

After The Secret on Squidoo has videos of the stars of The Secret, polls about experiences after watching The Secret, and resources related to the movie. You can vote in polls, participate in discussions, read informative articles, find great resources, and leave a comment.

After The Secret on Zimbio is an online magazine, called a wikizine. (Just think Wikipedia, but magazine). It contains many videos of the stars of The Secret, several polls, a large photo album, and intriguing articles.

Beyond Acceptance: Blessing What Is

Its been said that acceptance is the key to all our problems, but what does that really mean? How are we supposed to accept everything? Does that mean that we don’t ever fight against of for anything? Are we to be doormats, letting others take advantage of us, in order to be at peace? No, I don’t think that’s how it works.

Acceptance is the opposite of resistance, but it is not giving in to injustice or giving up on creating change. In fact, we can’t change anything until we accept the way it is as what is. With acceptance, we can say, “This is the way it is. I don’t like it or think its right, so I’m going to change it.” While we are in resistance, fighting against what is, our mind and energy is languishing in the problem. No problem can be resolved with the same energy that created it, so we need to get out of the problem. That doesn’t mean that we ignore it and hope that it goes away. It doesn’t mean that we pretend the problem doesn’t exist. That’s avoidance, not acceptance.

When we accept a condition as being what it is, we have the opportunity to turn our attention to possible solutions. Some times, its not a matter of solving a problem, but of learning from the unfavorable condition. Our greatest strides in personal growth often come through our greatest challenges. While we struggle against the challenge, unable to accept it, we prolong the condition and delay our blessing. There is always a blessing at the end of the challenge, but we can only get to the blessing, the gift, when we accept the challenge and start looking for how we can benefit from it.

Getting to the point of acceptance of what is is a great beginning, but we need to go further. We’re not talking about begrudging acceptance here. We need to get to joyful acceptance. In order to do that, we must believe that there is something good in all that is happening. Now lets take it one step further. True acceptance includes blessing all that is, as it is. Bless the gift, even when you can’t see a gift in the situation. It is there, but we often don’t perceive the blessing until after we have overcome the challenge. Give thanks for that blessing now. Bless the situation, as it is, knowing that it will in some way bless you.

When you bless what is, you cease to resist it; you cease to judge it. At that point, you can gracefully move through it fairly quickly. When you bless a situation or condition, you are immediately empowered to change it because you are no longer fighting against it. You don’t have to know what the blessing in it is to bless something. Just believing in your heart and mind that there is indeed a gift in it is enough to release you from judgment and resistance.

Try blessing your struggles. Bless your relationships. Bless your job and co-workers. Bless the traffic. Just try it and see what happens. Watch how you feel. Then you can decide how you want to react to the conditions in your life.

The Healing Heart

How can we contribute to the healing of others, humanity, and the Earth? It begins in our own heart, with the desire to help, to heal, and to uplift others. This desires comes from the place in us that knows that we are all one and that we can live in joy. There is something within each of us that wants to serve, to be a blessing to others and to the world. We can answer that ancient longing with the choices we make today.

Whatsoever we do to another, we do to ourselves. The reverse is also true. When we are critical or demeaning to ourselves, it affects everyone. With this in mind, we know that we must love ourselves if we are to love others. We must heal our own hearts so that we can help others heal theirs. When we remember that we are Love and Light, we can support others in remembering that they too are Love and Light.

If we are speaking, or even thinking, negative words about someone else, we not only bring that person down, but also ourselves. Guard your thoughts and your words with all diligence. Make a conscious determination to be supporting of the highest good in others and in yourself. Remind yourself often that every single person is a little piece of God, a perfect soul made of Love and Light, working through the illusions of limitation and separation. Have compassion for the struggles of others, but do not see them in weakness or lack. Focus your mind on the Love and Light that is the truth of who they are.

Our words and thoughts about others touch that person. We can either help them realize more of their beautiful truth, or we can support the illusions of pain, lack, loss, fear, weakness, helplessness, and disease. Seeing or speaking of another as any of these conditions only prolongs the condition because we are supporting the condition with our own energy. We cannot help anyone heal by focusing on what’s wrong, but only by focusing on what’s right.

Imagine others as whole, healthy, wise, and happy. Do the same for yourself. If we dwell on the problem, we support the problem and perpetuate it. We must be in the solution in order to see it manifest. The same is true of conditions in the world and of the health of our planet. Keeping our minds on war supports war. Celebrating where there is peace supports and increases peace. The more disease, weakness, pain, and helplessness that we see in another, the more crucial it is to hold them in the highest light. They need the support of our healing heart, the heart that sees the truth in them, not the illusion.

Our Place in an Awakening World

We live in a rapidly changing world in a time in which the greatest number of people in human history are waking up to the truth of who and what we are. We must remember that each person will wake up in their own time and in their own way. Our spiritual, emotional, and mental states can support the awakening or delay it (only slightly). Personally, I find that the more I am in loving acceptance; the greater is my awareness of the Divine, and my peace.

What is most important about anything you do is not how other people react to it, but how you react to it. It is not for any one of us to judge the path of another. Every single person is exactly where they need to be this moment in their journey. If we are to be of maximum service to others and to this beautiful world, we must offer what we have or know or are in love and gentleness, without attachment to the outcome. In other words, our greatest gift is to be ourselves regardless of the reactions of others. Those who need what we have to offer AND are ready for it will come. For others, we may only plant a seed that will germinate sometime later.

We touch and inspire people throughout our lives, usually without knowing that we did. That's OK. As long as we are expressing ourselves truthfully, we will know that we have done our best. I cannot live by the reactions of others. I have to live according to what is inside me. What is in others is not only not under my control; it is none of my business. If I judge others for what I see in them, I am judging myself. That judgment leads to anger, disappointment, resentment, frustration, or a variety of other emotional states that do not serve me. I am better off without them. I have also found that I cannot live fully and be in judgment of others at the same time.

The more I have learned to live according to my truth and let others do the same, the more I have found those of like mind and spirit gravitating toward me. It really is a beautiful thing! There are a great many people in this world working tirelessly to help others awaken and live a more fulfilling life. Of course, we have charlatans, too, those who jump on the latest surge of human desire for the sole purpose of exploiting people. Those are the ones who are hurting themselves. Eventually, they will find themselves alone and spiritually bankrupt. The people who buy what they are selling are not at fault for their ignorance, only for their innocence. They simply don't know any better. If they were ready for real truth and real progress, they wouldn't be taken in by the fakes.


A great many people are striving for personal awakening, trying to help others, raising a family, and trying support their family all at the same time. We don't know the demands that are on the people we contact online. We don't know which ones are facing serious illness, coping with loss, struggling to feed a family, or trying to broaden their horizons by attending college. It is no easy task to awaken our consciousness while being overwhelmed by the demands of this world. I have been blessed with debilitating illness for the last 3.5 years, without which I would not have had the time or energy to make the progress I have in my consciousness. The experience has given me a great deal of compassion and admiration for those who do not have the same opportunity to devote the majority of their energy to spiritual awakening, yet continue to put so much into it.

Resentment: Burden and Barrier

Choosing Freedom
I know that I am supposed to forgive everyone everything because resentment only hurts the one who holds it. That is so much easier said than done. One of the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive? Seven times?” Jesus told him to forgive 70 times 7. The point was not the number, but that we should continue to forgive without limits. That reminds me of an old saying, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I don’t know who said it or what he was referring to. It does express how I feel about total, unconditional, unlimited forgiveness. Am I, as a mere mortal, even capable of it? I don’t think God expects of us anything that we are not capable of, so it must be possible for me to forgive unconditionally, without limit.

There are many processes and practices for forgiving those who have hurt us, and to forgive ourselves. I have personally used several of them. The problem is that I continue to resent certain people, and it is my problem. I can easily justify all of them, if I choose to. I can decide to keep and simmer in my justified resentments because they are mine. That doesn’t sound like a very wise choice, does it? Resentment weighs on us like a backpack full of rocks. It also prevents us from receiving the good that we desire. That is worth repeating. Resentment is a barrier that prevents us from receiving the good we desire.

When we hold resentments in our heart and mind, our hearts are blocked from receiving. It’s like the mote around a castle that prevents anyone from coming in, or the walls around a fortress. Resentment is a darkness that thrives only in the presence of negative thoughts and emotions. We feed it when we think of our anger and judgment toward others. The more we nourish the dark energy of resentment with our negative thoughts about others, the bigger it gets. The wall between us and our good becomes an impenetrable force. Joy does not live in this environment.

O.K. We understand that resentment is bad for us. Now, what do we do about it? I believe I need to search my heart for my negative feelings toward others. I need to decide that I am done being angry. I have to make a conscious choice to let go of my resentments and judgments. Not just once, but daily. I have had 47 years of practice at holding onto and justifying resentments and I’ve gotten really good at it. It is an unconscious, automatic behavior. It will take more than a few days or weeks to correct this behavior. I have to pay attention to my thoughts about others and stop judgment in its tracks. If I can stop the judgment, I can prevent the resentment and subsequent justification.

In the process of changing this destructive, limiting behavior, I have to be diligent, yet gentle with myself. It will do me no good to forgive everyone else but not myself. With all that I am, I want to change. I want it so much that I am willing to do whatever it takes. The clarity to understand what I am doing to myself with judgment and resentment is a gift. It is the opportunity I needed to make real, lasting change. Now, it is up to me to practice forgiveness and release every day. This has to be a top priority if I am going to be free from this burden.

Ho’Oponopono is one of the best practices for forgiveness. I used it for a while when I first learned about it, but it became a chore and I stopped doing it. One day, I didn’t feel like forgiving someone and resentment got a foothold. After a few days of not feeling like forgiving, I stopped my daily practice. I was once again a prisoner of resentment, judgment, and justification. My attitude toward my practice of daily forgiveness has to remain positive so that I continue to do it. Even when I don’t feel like forgiving someone, especially when I don’t feel like it, I must practice forgiveness everyday. I have to remember why I’m doing it. I want to be free. I want to live in joy, not anger or bitterness. I want to be free from the burden and open enough that joy comes easily and naturally. Do I want that joy and freedom bad enough to do whatever it takes? Yes, I do!

Where Does Rejection Originate?

Original Rejection
Everyone knows what it feels like to be rejected. We can recount numerous tales of being rejected and clearly see the people who rejected us. It hurts. People naturally want to feel connected, accepted, and a part of. Many of us have done embarrassing things in our past because we wanted acceptance and approval. It began with our parents and desperately wanting them to love us and approve of us. Or did it? Most religious people believe that the original rejection was God kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. They believe that all of humanity has been separated from God ever since.

What if original rejection was not something that anyone did to us, but a choice that we made? Think about that for a minute. Didn’t Adam and Eve make the choice to do something that would get them expelled from paradise? Why would they do that? What could they possibly gain? Knowledge, through experience. Adam and Eve lived in perfect paradise, but they did not experience it as being better than anything else. They didn’t know anything else. The wonderful could not be experienced as wonderful without the contrasting experience of something not wonderful. So, who rejected who?

I use the story of Adam and Eve because it is familiar to so many, and to bring our mind back to the point of coming into the illusion of separation. Separation is an illusion because that which is part of the whole cannot be separate from the whole. God could not send us away from God because we are all part of God. The illusion of separation gives us the opportunity to experience contrasts and make choices. The downside of this illusion is the hurt, emptiness, and loneliness that we feel as a result of believing that we are apart from our source. There is a part of us that remembers incomprehensible love, perfect peace, and unspeakable joy. It longs to be back in that “heaven.” It is the pull that we feel toward God, the Divine, the Mystery, to something more than what we can experience here on Earth.

Believing that we were rejected by God establishes an unconscious belief that we are in some way “bad.” From early childhood, we learn to earn love and acceptance, to work for approval. We are trained and taught that we must work very hard to be good enough. Most of us go through life feeling that we never are quite good enough. This sets up all kinds of negative self-beliefs and patterns. Look at the violence and addictions in the world and you will see the result of living in these beliefs. People are hurting so much from believing that they are isolated, abandoned, and inherently bad that they reach for anything to relieve the pain or act out in violence against others.

God did not reject you. God has rejected nothing and no one. All is part of God, always was, and always will be. YOU are part of God, of All That Is. You need not earn God’s love, approval, or acceptance. It is yours by your very existence.

Now, let’s get back to rejection. Most people have felt that they don’t belong here; that they would rather be somewhere else. People want to be in paradise, or heaven. Life can be painful and frightening. We resist life and fear life. We withhold our energy, our love, not wanting to commit fully to being here. What if we put all that we are into living this life and then can’t get back to where we came from? What if loving this life and immersing ourselves in it takes us so far from heaven that we can never go back? Do these questions bring up a feeling of sadness in your heart? You are not alone. Many people have these questions in their unconscious mind, preventing them from committing to this life. Here is the original rejection. It is us, rejecting this life. It is very common for children to feel that they do not want their parents, do not feel like they belong in their family, and just don’t want to be there. They grow up to feel out of place everywhere they go. No matter where they are, they feel like they don’t belong there.

This may not be true of you, but it may help you understand someone in your life. People who always feel rejected are experiencing the reflection of their own rejection of life. They have so much resistance to life that they cannot fully enjoy it. Good things may come to them, but they find away to push them away.

We have the power to change our beliefs and the way we experience life. It begins with recognizing that this life is not a punishment; it is a gift. Living this life is a gift of love, given out of immense love for us. Loving our lives and putting everything we are into them does not mean that we don’t love God and cannot separate us from God. Think of a precious gift that you give to someone you love with your whole being. Don’t you want them to open it up, to examine it, to use it, and to fully enjoy it? How much more does God want us to enjoy the gift given to us? What better way to show our appreciation for the gift than to live our lives with all that we are, committed to full participation? When we begin to realize that our life is a gift of love, given out of immeasurable love for us, our heart can overflow with gratitude. We begin to see just how wonderful this world and this life are. Every moment can be an incredible experience and every day another gift just waiting to be unwrapped and played with. Embrace your life. It is yours to enjoy.