“Life is either resistance or surrender… Resistance is the decision to act alone. Surrender is the decision to act with God.”This is a very deep chapter for me. Those three sentences were to me the essence. Ruiz in his “Four Agreements” wrote that we are to have no expectations. In Interpretation, Ferrini explains why. Expectations really set us up for correction. Sooner or later our beliefs and emotions will be bruised by expectations not being met. This is a sign that we need to make a correction. Experiences are not there to meet our expectations. They are there to expand our awareness. When that is not happening to the fullest we will be given a jolt to make us aware that we need to correct. What we consider failure, error or disappointment are only jolts to lead us back to the path leading to the walk with God and away from the walk alone.Ferrini goes on about how we can talk our selves into anything. We can take the truth and invert it to believe we are right, that others are to blame, that the way has been shut off to us, but we are not changing the truth we are only successfully hiding it from ourselves. Every experience we are given is an opportunity for each of us to reject the illusion we have created and to embrace the truth.He ends by saying that there is no time table for our learning only that it is happening. It can not be forced or stopped. We only have to trust that it is happening and that the Divine Mind within us is working.Relating this chapter to my recent history I realize that it wasn’t until I stopped fighting the fact that the relationship with another had ended that I realized it still existed. The form had changed. We were no longer physically close which had caused many obstacles that neither of us seemed able at the time to cross, but the spiritual link still exists. I feel his closeness more than I did when he physically was within touch. I can now re-look at us and let the lessons he shows me that I need to learn appear from our time together and our time now through emails and a connection within. Nothing is loss; all is gain.
Practicing being aware of my feelings, digging out the roots and freeing up the soil. Truly realizing where my emotions are coming from and freeing others from the blame and realizing that it is my thoughts of the situations that keep me stuck where I am. They may not have "done me right" but I am doing myself in by not seeing that by not letting go I am keeping myself in limbo. Seeing my own involvement emotionally in what ever happen and forgiving myself for whatever is keeping me stuck so I can let it go. What is keeping me stuck? Is it that my dad told me that I would never be able to follow through and make good on anything? Does every time I have quit at something go back to this or does it go back further? Was the thought there before he said it? If it wasn't why did I believe it? If I follow through from the last chapter that we come to this earth with the thoughts that need to be healed and pick our parents to bring up and then enable us to heal those thoughts then my dad saying that was just the first situation to bring up a reason I was here to heal. My dad did not cause my thoughts. He gave me awareness of a healing that I need to do. If I did not already believe it I would not have been affected by it. He was only bringing up what I needed to heal... So no more blaming my dad for doing his purpose towards my healing. Whatever his behavior mirrored off from me to him was his to learn and not mine to blame. As for me, its taken me many years to realize that I need to start being aware that I have a thought that I will fail and that means I can not follow through. For me, a lesson to practice... follow through. Continue this blog, read on and in other areas of my life such as weight loss, exercise and creative work become aware when the thought comes that I might as well give in since I will fail anyways. To heal that thought by repeating the now mantra of many, "YES I CAN."
I've spent days rereading this chapter to be able to write something of value. This morning I wrote in my handwritten journal and feel ready. I have read and heard before that we are here to work through our wounds and heal. Reading today I focused in on the words and realized that the author is saying that those wounds were brought into this world by us to heal, not received here. We came into the families that we have, found the friends and enemies we have and lived our lives as we have because we need to bring up wounds that help us find the thoughts that we were born into this life with to heal. It makes more sense than being randomly born into a family and situations that give us pain and suffering or even joy. Why else do the people we find surrounding us bring up the same emotional issues that we feel were given by our parents? In my last relationship, I remember calling Bobby "Esther" because he reminded me of my mother. Of course he did, I needed to heal. With this deeper realization that it wasn't Esther I needed to heal from but that Esther was given to me as my mother because I already was born with these thoughts life takes on a whole new reason. Everything and everyone I have ever spent time with was given to me to learn my earthly lessons. Everything that has and will happen to me has a reason and that is to heal myself. We are blessed in relationships that when two or more meet they get to mirror off each other and learn from that experience. Blaming others when our response is negative is a waste of time. We are meant to take our lessons and let them take theirs. In other words, the thought did come first and the situations are given to return the thought to love or as God thinks. The author talks about judging and condemning others and that condemning only reinforces guilt and stands in the way of healing. I don't take this as a get out of jail free card. There are people who need to be put away from others for the safety of all. It's how we need to change our thoughts about these people. They are our brothers and sisters and it is their thoughts that are in need of change. Basically I see it as fear, anger, hate being their thoughts and it is their purpose to change those thoughts to forgiveness and love. We can jail them for their behavior while not condemning them as worthless. The thoughts they have are leading them to the decisions they make and if we reinforce those thoughts they will only deepen their own worthlessness. The change has to be to get through to them and have them see that they are worthy. We are what we believe. Our purpose in helping our brothers is to respond by seeing them as our brothers and helping them undo their errors. "To be right make right." Not by preaching right to them but by treating them right and showing them by our thoughts that all matter. We have created God in our image and that image is one of fear, anger, judgment... Our purpose here is to return to God and once again see that we are created in God's image and that is one of love. God never abandoned us, we have looked away and created without him. Our reason to be here now is to return to God and create with God not apart on our own. Moving on to the next Chapter with a deeper understanding of where I am going...
