“I am so sorry for what you went through. I honor your pain and I apologize for my part in the situation.
I am so sorry! If I could change the past, go to that moment again and change it, I would not hesitate to do it. At any cost. But I can’t. All I could do at the time, was not allow anything like that to happen again.
I also carry the pain of that memory. As you do. With empathy I have been able to accept it and forgive myself.” I said to my son.
” I cannot change the past, but what I can do is change the present and the future.” - I continued.
He was 15 years old, it was around the dismemberment of the family. The sorrow, the helplessness, the wrath of divorce. Like that wasn’t enough, he had a horrible fight with his older brother. Instigated by me in an indirect manner but the result was very direct, harming him in a deep way.
Sometimes is only one scene in the plateau of our lives that will make a mark in the delicate fabric of trust.
Sometimes anger goes around misplacing its motives looking for a scape goat. Sometimes when that happens, the wound invades the innocence of the personality, staining its source.
It is outrageously unfair.
He was cheerful, kind, helpful… supportive. It all changed.
He felt betrayed… abandoned… unloved…alone…helpless. Watching his change was torture.
Knowing I had provoked it was hell.
It took some time to notice the consequences. It took some time to heal.
I never resisted his anger. He just needed to express it. I acknowledged it when he wasn’t too furious to listen. I admired him for being so open with it. I admired his determination for demanding better.
At some level his anger was a gift. It kept me conscious.
I took it step by step.
But I had to make peace with it.
I had the privilege of having a lot of help and support. After several conversations with friends digging into the roots of the problem, and taking action to make sure it was not going to be repeated, I was able to accept it as a painful scene, frozen in the past. The past I was helpless to change.
I have had several soul conversations with my beautiful son about it. Now he is 25. I think he is at peace with it too. His kindness and helpfulness came back. He is also supportive. I am not sure about the cheerfulness.
He made peace with his brother years ago.
That Saturday morning, the first time we talked about it, in his bedroom, with his girlfriend, when he was 18, after exploring his pain, his father’s pain at his age and the weakness of human nature in general, he said:
“And when you do this mom, when you acknowledge the past in the present, you not only change the present and the future but you also change the past.”
“So, how did the conference go”? I asked my son after he got in the car when I picked him up from the airport.
He had spent the last 4 days attending his company’s annual GM conference.
He had spent the last seven years escalating the corporate ladder in an upscale casual restaurant corporation with close to 200 restaurants in the country.
Those early days he started working as a waiter in one of their restaurants in the Washington metro area seemed so far away.
“It was pretty good mom, you know, I realized that I can’t compete with the big cities any more. I will never be able to make their numbers in a small town. And that’s alright with me. I chose to stay in this city in California in order to stop moving around. That was a conscious decision my wife and I made to give our son the stability that our family needed. I am happy with that decision.”
But there is still something else I can do. I can focus more on the hospitality area and become the first in the country in hospitality. Best service. That is perfectly feasible.”
He was always in love with his job, his company and his product. Ever since that day after working as a waiter for 6 months, he got promoted to expo manager.
“This is what I want to do with my life mom -he said - I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to escalate the corporate ladder with this company. I love it.”
“But darling, it is the restaurant business, you know what that means, no life. Remember my experience with restaurants and food?” - I answered. - It is the most thankless field on the planet.”
“Yes, but you are the one who taught me the love for food, mama” -he said- We both laughed and that was the end of the conversation and the rest is history.
He always wanted to provide the very best he could. His constant inner source of motivation had gotten him to become a General Manager within 5 years in the company. His career had demanded him moving around in the previous years from Washington, to Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose and Hawaii.
His wife was already putting up with the restaurant hours. Which you know, are pretty long and don’t include free weekends. She deserved to be in a stable place where she could build her own life with her child. I can imagine the everyday life she experienced in a new city when her husband was working all the time, and they would have to leave in a few months. Not fun.
Now she had one job, is starting a new career and a lot of friends. They still would like to spend more time together. They were able to do that only one day a week. However, their different schedules provided their son with quality time from both of them. He went to day care just to fill the gaps, not as a routine. And spent one full day with both of them.
A couple of months went by since that conversation at the airport. I was back home and he calls me one evening. He says: “Mom, would you say that I am a genius? ” “Of course, you know you are.” ” Well, as of now I am the sixth in the country in hospitality. The VPs and CEOs are telling every GM in the country to follow my example. ” Hes said laughing. He was so excited…
He does many things to achieve those results. He is a great leader, a great manager, he understands team work, he is enthusiastic, He has organizational skills, he is dependable, he is human, and on top he is bilingual. But above all he has a passion for what he does.
Among all those attributes there is one thing he does that strikes me as the key to his success.
Now, anybody who has worked in the restaurant business before, knows how stressful and thankless it can be. Especially in a restaurant like his. He has 300 employees under him. Very busy.
He spends a lot of the time walking the floor. Sensing everything that is happening. Present, supporting his staff by pitching in with help when is need. Participating with them.
When he sees a bus person or a bartender with a sad or worried grin on his or her face, he says Hey! so and so, let’s have a cup of coffee.
He sits with that person in a corner at one of the tables outside in the patio and asks if there is anything wrong and if he can help in any way. It turns out that they end up having a conversation about the solutions to the problem at hand, if there is no real solution he will help them move on. Because he cares. weather it is a personal or work related matter.
The needed conversation to relief the tension. To acknowledge the human being within the hard worker. Then he says: “Now you can go out there and show your best face to our guests.”
And he or she smiles and nods. Simply because after that conversation he or she feels a lot better.
A parenthesis of support and humanity is what makes all the difference. Just a little parenthesis, a small window, to remind them he doesn’t forget they are human. He shows his gratitude. I have to say it is a natural for him.
Corporate measures hospitality with mystery guests who relentlessly come unannunced out of the blue. He doesn’t have a clue if any of his staff at any given moment is talking to a guest or the corporate messenger on schedule.
He can’t afford to have his staff pretend they are happy all the time by not acknowledging their human needs. He understand that to get the real results it has to be genuine. Besides if they feel good at work, they obviously are going to reflect it on the customer, making the experience of every single guest as pleasant as it can be. With consistency.
They are giving a lot. He gives back. A 50/50. Then he doesn’t have to worry about the mystery guest. He is focusing on his employees’ contentment. His team. The little parenthesis of humanity of support that makes all the difference.
The team who will respond to his kindness with more kindness to his guests. Across the board. The team that got him to the 6th in the country. Another example of numbers made by people
This endearing story leaves me thinking that if I was a bus person or a dishwasher at a very busy large upscale casual restaurant operation I would like to have my son to be my boss.
I spent 6 hour sitting at the bar in my last visit watching the operation. It was a pleasure.
Do you believe that somehow in your inner world stands a frustrated little child hungry for attention and love, who projects its needs into your adult life, interfering with your present actual dreams, confusing the hell out of you, and injecting you a lot of the time with a feeling of emptiness and devastation similar to the one you experienced in your remote childhood ?
Your childhood, so remote and yet so near.
You have a child from your past, present in the household of your life, acting out. Now. Invading your space. Preventing you from being you today. Making important decisions for you.
The irony is that it is not even about you. Is about that little child, stuck in some scene of your past, frozen in time.
Demanding acknowledgement. Directly intervening in all your relationships, because it wants those people in your life to notice it, to feed its anxiety, to fill the holes, to become the parent it is longing for. It can be any of them, your lover, your peer your child, your boss or your relative…As long as the relationship feels familiar to that remote scene frozen in its past.
(Every child is an artist, the problem is to remain an artist when he grows up. Pablo Picasso)
It will continue repeating the same behavior, in the hopes that somebody is going to make everything right for it. One day. One day, somebody will rescue it, and liberate it away from the carousel scene of the past. Going around and around.
Except that it is mistaken, the only person who can really pull it away from the carousel is you. You and only you can really calm it down. It is yours, lives in the household of your life. It needs your attention. Nobody else’s. It needs to hear your grown up command. The whisper of your will. Your will to live in the present.
Yes, you read correctly. P-E-R-F-E-C-T-I-O-N in your errors.
Seems crazy, huh?
Again, in order to learn reading the perfection in your errors, you have to treat errors as data.
Part of your unique life path data.
Train yourself to look for the light underneath the ashes of your errors.
In that light is your way to wholeness.
Think about it, if you believe to some extent, the concept of “your thoughts create your reality” is somewhat true…You, only you are the creator of your story. Errors included.
You created the whole thing, completely.
With everything you had. And everything you had not. What you had not is what you have to fill with new information.
Well, you had more or less than the rest of the world.
But you had what you had. No more nor less.
You didn’t know better. You were missing data.
Sometimes you didn’t know there were other options because you were never exposed to those options.
You just didn’t know.
So, are you going to punish yourself for life because you made a mistake due to lack of knowledge?
How cruel can it be to pay such a price for not knowing…
Wouldn’t you think that pretending we know everything is unrealistic and leaves you with a sense of inadequacy?
Of course, inadequacy that can be erased from the equation by accepting the truth and finding the adequate information.
Besides, you don’t know right now when you are hurting and recriminating yourself for being human, if this error is one of the best things that happened to you.
Lack of knowledge can be very grey, like the ashes.
Every time you make a mistake, you are facing an opportunity to see yourself as you are, evaluate what you have, what you don’t have and make adjustments. Adding new data.
Most of the time a life changing decision comes from those errors.
That’s right! That’s their purpose.
Opportunities to find the light of knowledge underneath the ashes of ignorance.
When the dust of emotion settles on the ground, and you revisit the data base of the past, the past becomes
a vast source of information, information that tells you that maybe your errors were there to be crafted with the
big picture. And you don’t need to keep repeating them…any more.
I think the hardest part is accepting that part of us is ignorant. Simply human. There is a saying in Spanish that says: “Nadie nació sabido.” Nobody was born known.
Errors disappear in the big picture.
Sometimes what was perceived as a mistake or a problem becomes a blessing in spite of the pain you had to endure.
When the dust settles.
In the end is like living in the present visualizing a movie in the future. The movie of your own life story,
you are actively and consciously creating in the present. With what you had and with what you had not.
Finding the meaning in your errors and trials opens up a rainbow of information you didn’t have. Information you can choose to acquire.
Things you were not exposed too.
Don’t punish yourself for not knowing.
Just look for the perfection and leave the pain behind.
After the dust settles on the ground.
After the dust settles on the ground, I invite you to share the stories of big errors in your life that were transformed to blessings in the big picture. It is a great topic for conversation, because it helps reinforce the idea that it’s OK not to know. Is even better because it opens up new dimensions. The world is full of successful people who fell on their knees of human ignorance and embraced the new, before they got successful. Success and failure are 2 parts of the same coin. Not 2 coins.
Please stop, it’s just upside down. Sometimes we really see it that way…
Hi my friends,
Thank you so much for visiting Soul Hang Out. And for coming back for more . It means you are in resonance with the content. Feels like a partnership. I do my part, you do yours. 50/50. I appreciate it. A lot. Thanks again for your response.
I am posting the first issue of Soul Hang Out newsletter, titled
Stop! “It Is What It Is”
Some times the anatomy of words whisapers in your ear. Do you notice the perfect harmony in the combination of letters? To me is a pleasure just to execute the exercise of writing it. It’s like they are giving you permission to be. To just be. They provide a sense of looseness and relief. It’s like a reminder to stay present in Inness.
Any way, my intention of posting the first issue of the newsletter is to inspire you all to subscribe to it. It will show up weekly in your inbox. It will bring you the stories with a reminder to stop and think… ”It Is What It Is” is to be embraced. There is nothing else, really. It lacks drama. And the drama takes away your power…It belongs in the past. I invite you to participate with your stories. I will publish them and we can share. Share the stories of your humanity. The only thing we have in common.
When I sent the first copy of the newsletter to my list, I received an email from Felicia. That’s what inspired me to do this. The way she felt about it. I want to share with you all and see if you agree with her. Provided she has been my friend for about 15 years, and we have done a lot of of work together. Soul conversations.
She was one of those people in my life that kept encouraging me to keep moving. She believed in me. She was actually the person who introduced me to Alice Miller and her great concept of “Enlightened Witnesses.” It’s very sweet. Thanks again, Felicia, my dear friend. And also, by the way if you have any feedback will be greatly appreciated it. It’s is time to start the conversation.
It reads like this:
You are just brilliant!!!!!
This newsletter is perfect!
If I were with you I’d be screaming my head off about
how great this is!!
SO beautifully stated, the pacing is peace.
Luzma - you talk about this acceptance business in a
way that I can take it in more than anywhere else I’ve
ever read. You’ve been doing it for years — it is
consistent.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Oh, if I were there I’d be hugging you and dancing
around and patting you on the back and screaming and
laughing!!
Love,
Felicia
Yeah! she is talking about the newsletter. The place where you and I are going to start the conversation. The place where we will craft the words to align our thoughts and nurture our soul. The place where we will read the perfection in our errors. The place where we will transmute drama into wisdom.
Very soon I will announce a monthly Tele-seminar and Podcast.
I will also allocate hours a week to soul conversation, one on one to clarify any doubts that you may have. Monday through Wednesday from 3pm to 4 pm. Through the chat box.
When you subscribe you will get the newsletter with evolving plans and projects.
I would love to have you contribute throwing some ideas of how would you like to proceed from here.
So far I have many ideas, but would like to hear yours. Reunions, (I prefer the word reunion to seminars.) Virtual and live. Coaching, groups and one on one.
Here is the newsletter.
I chose “It is what it is” to be the
title of my newsletter because it’s a
good start. We are who we are and it
is what it is.
It is what it is strips away the perception
of drama from the experience. It helps to
treat it as simple data, to be transformed
into valuable experience.
You just can’t leave anything out. If you
did, you would be leaving precious
parts of you, pieces that you need to
complete that identity puzzle of your unique
wholeness. Your seal.
Besides, the bridge to arrive to your life purpose,
awakening and contentment is the stone bridge of
self acceptance.
To me, spirituality is embedded in accepting
our simple and polarized human nature.
Completely.
And guess what…You cannot accept
yourself if you are missing pieces of
the puzzle. In which case you would be accepting
only a percentage of yourself, not the 100%.
You can’t settle for less than even a golden
penny less than 100. Do you?
You would be cheating yourself!
Wouldn’t you?
In order to accept yourself as
your human heart longs for, it will help
to start giving a hard and long look
at yourself and honor what it is today,
with non judgemental compassion.
It is what it is!
Thanks so much for being a member of
Soul Hang Out. Please feel free to ask me
any questions. I would love to start the
conversation with you and hear your
comments.
If somebody asked me to write one word that would have all the elements of a magic keyword, the kind that has the power to transform, heal, clean, ultimately erase a lot of the nonsense that we humans engage in. Save time, enhance contentment and productivity, avoid pain, a keyword with so much power that if applied, would change the world…what would I say? I would probably say there is one word that comes to mind first. Acknowledgement.
Yes, a keyword with the ability to open the door to collective sanity. To self responsibility. Think about it. The worst mistakes in history were made because somebody didn’t acknowledge something or somebody else. The worst relationship disasters causing generations to repeat the same destructive patterns, causing endless pain, happen because somebody didn’t acknowledge somebody else or something.
Conflicts would transform into blissful feelings of empathy, almost instantly dissolving the tension, if one person takes the initiative to acknowledge his or her part in the equation. Ultimately acknowledging his or herself.
I know that the worst source of pain for me over the years was always rooted in some kind of perception that I was being erased. It was the lack of acknowledgement that hurt the most. It’s like you are looked at with the eyes of a very acute astigmatism without glasses.
It’s not like you need people to agree with you all the time or apologize or even empathize. Nor to judge your actions. Just to acknowledge you. No matter how bad a situation may look, you know deep down why you are doing it. It’s a matter of starting the conversation with your soul. Accepting your humanity.
You see, acknowledgement doesn’t carry emotion, “it is what it is. “Acknowledgement means embracing what it is. And what it is what we are. And what we are we have to honor. And to honor who we are we need to acknowledge the errors too.
Now, this doesn’t mean you have to flagellate or bend yourself to avoid being hang by the pole at the major square. Because you made a mistake. Not. You are human, remember? Your nature is to commit errors. There is perfection to be read in your errors though…did you know it? but that’s another story. A great start is to just begin to acknowledge them. As sources of information that can show the light underneath the ashes. The agents of change.
Why ? Because your errors represent the human part of you, and not seeing them makes you a lacking and bizarre silhouette of yourself, seen through eyes with a very acute astigmatism without glasses. My parents’ generation was not very good at acknowledging their actions and its consequences. They didn’t have enough information about human nature and its behaviors. Nor they had notion of powerful thoughts and different ways.
We have the gift of their experience and the information at our disposal to question and reinvent what needs to be reinvented. Starting with the stage of our lives. As it is. It’s a great privilege. Acknowledgement is a useful short cut.
Besides, when we acknowledge ourselves and accept who we are, people will acknowledge us completely. Acknowledge your soul, it will guide you to acknowledge every thing else, and best of all, you will be acknowledged wherever you go.
Visuals are very powerful. Enjoy this masterful performance by Jerome Murat, acknowledging his soul.It will stay in your retina as a reminder of the bridge to your soul from your humanity.
Well, it has been three weeks since I wrote my last post here. I tell you, I am so thrilled that our community is much more crowded with members than it was three weeks ago. I have enjoyed watching it grow, like a duck in the water. Happy, fulfilled, content and satisfied. Welcome everybody. It’s such a pleasure opening the page and being able to see your faces, your photographs, your videos, your writing and above all your THOUGHTS. THANKS to all for joining, and thanks in advance to the ones that are to come.
It’s been a great process. As every process, carried its share of rocks on the way, ( Carol would say.) You know what happens with rocks in the middle of your way. You have to STOP, and sometimes stopping is not fun. Especially when moving the rock to take it out of the road to continue, means you have to read a manual of some technical stuff. That is a heavy rock. (Many of you know how bad I am at that stuff.) Anyway, what the heck, the rock is there and you have to take care of business. Check out this video. Central Station Frozen. Is pretty relevant. Sometimes stopping is not a bad thing. http://soulhangout.ning.com/video/video/show?id=1978393%3AVideo%3A1942
It’s interesting how we allow external forces to interrupt our lives, invade it with foreign activities to live in a perennially interrupted mode and then when we have to stop and are given the opportunity to allow internal forces to interrupt us and be acknowledged, we resist.
It is so very frustrating though. But the frustration comes from the idea that you wanted to continue without interruption. Internet marketing is full of interruptions. Full of relevant and needed information. Like every process. But as I was saying, sometimes your horse hauling the carriage of tunnel vision race is ABRUPTLY STOPPED and you are prompted to change gears and pay attention to something else, “less important”. Most of the time pretty basic and primary. Simple and technical as a video of how to use auto-responders. Necessary too. That’s the part I would love to skip.
In other words, everything lasted longer than I expected. The process was unraveling at its own rhythm. It was my expectation what was really out of track.
I always hated transitions anyway. Eckhart Tolle, the author of “The new Earth” calls them means to an end. Any way I much less enjoy reading technical manuals. During the transition periods, staying in the moment was torture. It didn’t feel comfortable. I wanted to rush the process. Looking back it was my resistance to change. It was the frenzy to go from start to outcome. The ADD inhabitant in my body mandating speed.
Last week, somebody very close and very dear called me and told me that she had written a letter - Letters are powerful healing tools, for the giver and the receiver - she told me the story. Her brother in law had separated from his wife 3 months ago, and is now considering going back to his marriage.
She said she had this urge, a feeling bigger than her, to sit down by the computer and start typing. She said she started typing and started crying. She said she couldn’t stop writing, neither crying, until she finished the letter.
The letter is about a stuck little person hiding in a room feeling he or she wants to crawl under a rock and never come out. Sometimes our childish human behavior even when we are way into adulthood is very clear, like watching the 5 year old child acting out in the 55 year old lady’s body, who monopolizes the moment, not being able to share conversation with the group. Acting out in the fifties what could not be acted out at five. Sometimes is more subtle. In any case, while we engage in our childish behavior as adults, we don’t think while we fight with our spouse that maybe, there is a scared little person hidden in a room hibernating. With a desperate need to talk to somebody that will reassure him or her that his or her feelings are valid, and he or she doesn’t have to be trapped in that reality for ever. Here is the letter.
We are not disclosing the real names, in order to protect the persons involved, especially the children. Enjoy! Perhaps you feel identified or know a child in the same situation.
Hey. I am emailing you because I figured it’s better than a phone call for me. It’s easier to express myself. However, if you want to talk about it, I am there for you.
As you know, my mom and dad did not have the most cordial relationship. Yes, they loved each other very much.
(Although, I am convinced that my dad loved my mom lots more because he was hooked to her mental games. I realised it in my adulthood). However, when they fought, it was very sad for me. As a matter of fact, here I am, 39 and I can’t even type about it without crying. When my dad and mom argued, I would literally lock myself in my room and hibernate.
I am thankful for having had a live-in nanny that was my rock. I could “hide” with her and she would tell me that “everything would be fine”. Like I said, I had an adult to talk to and let everything out. Your little boys need to be able to talk to someone other than you or Elizabeth or anyone else in the families (non-bias) and VENT!!!
You can tell that Derek has so much inside that he needs to let out, but he can’t, because he unknowingly can’t tell anyone in either family for fear of hurting the parents. I, personally, think it would be very good for them to see a therapist. I had a nanny that I could count on for that, and if she would not have been around, I would have become even more of an introvert. I see myself in Derek. A shy little person.
Anyway, back to me (Peter would probably say typical…me me me). One time, when my parents had a screaming match, my dad got so frustrated that he kicked the shower door and had to get 23 stitches on the arch of his foot. He never hurt my mother physically, but he had to take it out somehow. That was the first big fight that I can remember and we were still living on Belle-view Dr. I was 8, I think.
We moved to the house on 19th street, which you have been to many times. And the fights continued, but now, my mom started calling the cops. Jason, that was the worst thing ever.,, I was so mortified every time the cops came…and they were there often. My house was perfectly situated where the school buses would all come down Stark Street, (which is directly in front of the house). I had to come up with creative ideas as to why the cops were at my house AGAIN!…IT TOTALLY SUCKED!!!
They also would fight when I had friends over, therefore I did not have friends over that often. When they came, I would turn up the stereo or TV up really loud, so they would not hear my parents fighting (again, verbally, never physically). I tried to pretend that it was not happening, but it was…
All I wanted to do was crawl under a rock and never come out. Seriously, it got to the point that I did not want to invite my friends over for the fear of my parent’s fighting. Now, I did have one thing going for me. My dad was in the travel business, which meant that he traveled all the time. He would be gone 1/2 of the year total. I hate to say it, but I could not wait for my dad to leave. Not having my dad around was like living in paradise… not because I didn’t love him, but because I knew there weren’t going to be any fights…and I could have my friends over (that included Elizabeth, BTW).
Now, when I knew my dad was coming back, my stomach would turn, I would feel sick. Since he was usually coming back from Europe, that meant that he would arrive at home when I was at school. I didn’t want to go home. Actually, I didn’t want to go home A LOT!!!
Now, you tell me… is that the kind of household a kid should come home to? A kid’s home should be their sanctuary where they should always feel safe…which is what your brother and I have given Rachel. Whenever I pick her up from school and I have to run errands afterwards, she gets upset because she wants to go home. She loves her home, not just in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense.
Yes, can you believe it? It’s the thoughts, it was like that all along. After all these years thinking the solution to our problems laid in a foggy castle of a far away and foreign reign with the illusion that somehow, in a magic pastel color way one day is going to materialize in front of our eyes and fix everything… too much of misinterpreted fairy tale mentality over too many years. Now we have to discern. Who would have thought that the magic wand to the miracle of change is in those millions of unimportant and irrelevant thoughts marching in our head daily and persistently.
I just can’t get enough of it. The idea that the power I always longed for was there, before my eyes, in my thoughts, within reach, totally fascinates me. Believe me, I searched. I did, long and hard. I am flabbergasted with the reality that I actually have a magic wand in my hands. Not afar… IRight here, inside. Go figure, how could I have anywhere else outside. I am so grateful to me, for allowing myself to see it. Every day. The alternative would have been more of the same and we all know how that feels.
In the beginning, it was difficult. Hard work, but just because you have to pay more attention, and attention towards the inside is something you are not accustomed to. That’s the hard work. To put the effort into getting accustomed to something. It’s not too bad. The rewards are effortlessly dancing the power of your life without distractions or interruptions. You redirected the attention to the center. From the center there is a better view of everything.
Those thoughts that seem harmless. However, they are preventing you to be you…and is so many of them. Millions. Dr Stanley Haleakala Hew Len, the Hoopono master, co-author with Joe Vitale of “Zero Limits” says there are about 15.000.000. An imaginary giant “white out” would go a long way. You just picture it in your head and click to any disposable thought. Imagine, 15.000.000! It’s too long the list of bad habits that have to be erased from our database. It will take some effort. In a way is like unlearning all the learned. To see again with the freshness of your innocent child. Your essence. You might start doing it. without delay. This is the kind of thing you don’t postpone.
Those thoughts that trespassed the fences of your free will, installing themselves in your head. The lamenting choir of the oracle, weaving a patched up reality that does not pertain to you. That’s the worst part, they are not even your own thoughts. They made their way through, when you were little or vulnerable, you couldn’t help it. Then, they grew roots. You got used to them. Attached to the missconceived concept of comfort. The comfor of the known. You see through their eyes a lot of the times. The thing is, your life ought to be seen only through your own eyes.
You keep having doubts or indecision ? Assert your right to fail.
Imagine that you call a mandatory meeting.
Yes, invite all those people having a conversation inside your head. They show up in the form of one of your parents or both, your siblings, your friends, one neighbor, your grandmother your spouse or the 3rd grade teacher. All those voices whose volume is louder than yours. Whatever voice that’s influencing your behavior, instead of the voice of your soul.
Those familiar voices. The baby blanket that we have outgrown. A part of you wants to hold on to them… you have been doing it for years… The uncertainty of the unknown makes you nervous. Nevertheless, they only are memories from the past, trying to assert themselves in the present. They belong with a photo album. With their whisper of wisdom from their experience. Not a vital voice in the stage of your life today.
Invite them to sit around a round table and tell them how grateful your are for them. How you appreciate their existence in your life. And yes, you love them. Or you don’t. Or you don’t know…But for the gods sake this is your life and you need to find your own ways. Tell them that you as-well as they came to this world with a sacred purpose and it’s your duty to decide what path you take to find it. You will take charge of your duty. You will take their advise when necessary. Many times they are right, many times they are wrong. It’s irrelevant. You are willing to assert your right to fail, read the perfection of your errors with them and discern, together. Like the lovely old song, one of my favorites…”the famous man that had to fall to rise again and picks himself up, dust himself off and starts all over again.” He picks himself up.
Get them all to join forces on your cause and support you. Work together. There is always light in the ashes of your errors. It’s up to you to look hard and you need more eyes. They will help look, and understand . Create unity. Team.
Take full responsibility every step.
Under your leadership they will become the mastermind group dedicated to your growth.
Get into the habit of guarding those thoughts.
White out the irrelevant ones. On regular basis.
With the others you follow up like a hawk.
They will adjust with a sense of relief. Before you know, they will be a team on automatic pilot, helping you find the path of your purpose. Your own cheer leaders. Your own support group. Like any project with a good foundation. A healthy mastermind group in your head to project to the outside world. And then you can change the world. You started with you. It’s just a doable strategy.
Don’t forget the phrase, it’s the thoughts, stupid! nothing else. It will be a reminder.In the meantime, share the experience and tell the stories. Is helpful, very helpful.
I’ve heard it several times. But this time it hit a nerve.
It was at the Bill Maher’s show. (Thank the gods for Bill Maher)
“But we didn’t know what was going to happen in Iraq”
(What did you say…? I beg your pardon…
What do you mean… wedidn’tknow…
I’m not with you on this one, maybe another one, but not this one…Not.
Nor are with you all the people who showed up on the streets and protested around the world against the war.
Nor the people and communities who gathered in their houses to share the pain of impotence, looking at each other with dismay and disbelief.
We all knew. We have a relationship with History. We have a sense of human nature.
We know that if foreign people invade our houses with weapons, kill the SOB of our father, plus a few family members, and take our resources from our own home, to give us candy afterwards, we are not going to be happy. After all, is our house and our father. Regardless of how evil he was and how weird our way of living seems to the foreign people who invaded us. We’ve been doing this for centuries. It’s Our blood… Our tribe… Our territory. Basic human needs. If those needs are taken away, there is not much else to lose. Is there…?
We also know that Iraq’s political borders are recent, enclosing diverse and millenary cultures in an artificially marked territory… “A country younger than Paul Newman”, in Bill Maher’s words. Another fact that doesn’t make things better at this point, after the fact . Don’t you think that we should get it by now?
Messing with people’s houses, territory, and blood, will only make them want to die for the cause… is a worthy cause, isn’t it? Wouldn’t we do the same? What else do they have to lose?. It’s just human nature. Somebody interfering with the natural order of things and most primary needs of a group of human beings is not going to become their favorite person, or hero by magic. No matter how much you wish. Not even in 50 years.
“It’s amazing” -said my father-”that the Vietnamese won the Vietnam war with a bowl of rice, rudimentary weapons, and agricultural tools. Americans spent the same amount of money spent in the 2nd world war.”
And we went on to have the conversation about the strength of the human spirit and how the power of fighting to defend your land in your land, changes the rules of the game, putting the forces of power to test. Transforming weakness into power and power into weakness. Facilitating the emergence of a larger power. The power of the human condition. We were talking about it in the 70s…!
“The Vietnam Conflict” happened in our lifetime. Less than 50 years ago. Oblivion to history and the lessons carrying the knowledge of the experience is a pretty alarming thing when it comes from anybody in a position of authority. Unless there are other interests, of course, in which case, the experience becomes irrelevant.
Salvadorean people have a great saying, when someone is trying “to cover the sun with one finger…”
In the nineties, I had a poster in my bedroom with a picture of Albert Einstein that read his quote: “Knowledge is only experience”. I would wake up every day with Albert Einstein reminding me, that my experience was worth living, because it woud derive in knowledge. Exactly as it is. It stayed there, on the wall, for several years. I guess I took it out when the message was incorporated in my system.
Well, it has been three weeks since I wrote my last post here. I tell you, I am so thrilled that our community is much more crowded with members than it was three weeks ago. I have enjoyed watching it grow, like a duck in the water. Happy, fulfilled, content and satisfied. Welcome everybody. It’s such a pleasure opening the page and being able to see your faces, your photographs, your videos, your writing and above all your THOUGHTS. THANKS to all for joining, and thanks in advance to the ones that are to come. 
Yes, can you believe it? It’s the thoughts, it was like that all along. After all these years thinking the solution to our problems laid in a foggy castle of a far away and foreign reign with the illusion that somehow, in a magic pastel color way one day is going to materialize in front of our eyes and fix everything… too much of misinterpreted fairy tale mentality over too many years. Now we have to discern. Who would have thought that the magic wand to the miracle of change is in those millions of unimportant and irrelevant thoughts marching in our head daily and persistently.