Life Lessons
Learning life’s lessons is a little like reaching maturity. You understand the world around you better, and you’re at peace with yourself. It’s about seeing the life as it was meant to be. You will be delight with the imperfection of life.
Our basic, underlying nature is loving, peaceful, balanced, and harmonious. We are innately compassionate, caring, and kind. We are souls. Over the course of lifetimes, an overlay of fear, anger, envy, sadness, insecurity, and many other negative thoughts and emotions accrues and covers our beautiful inner nature. This outer covering is intensified and reinforced by our childhood training and experiences in the current life.
Our task is to unlearn those negative and harmful emotions and attitudes that plague our lives and cause us misery. As we let go of these negative traits, we rediscover our true nature, our positive and loving self. It has been there all the time, covered over, obscured, and forgotten.
When we remove the outer layer of dirt and debris, the negative thoughts and emotions, when we clean and polish away the outer overlay, then we can once again discern the true diamonds we really are. We are immortal and diamond souls. We have always been diamonds underneath. In learning life’s lessons you simply remove the excess to reveal the precious essence, which is the wonderful you inside.
We are put on earth to learn our own lessons. No one can tell you what your lessons are; it is part of your personal journey to discover them. On your journeys you may be given a lot, or just a little bit, of things you must grapple with, but never more than you can handle.
More learning can occur when there are many obstacles than when there are few or none. A hard life is not a punishment, but rather an opportunity. A life filled with obstacles presents the most opportunity for soul’s growth. All of life’s challenges and opportunities have the potential to be of great assistance in the process of spiritual growth and personal transformation. Once we have learned the lesson, there is no need for further suffering. We are here to learn, not to suffer. We are merely in a school.
From the beginning to the end of life, life is a school, complete with individualized challenges. When we’ve learned all we can possibly learn, and when we have taught all we can possibly teach, we return home. It is the place from which we have come, and the place to which we return when our work is done. Earth, the three dimensional world, is not really our true home. We are spiritual beings, and our true home is a spiritual one, a timeless place that many call heaven. Death is the shedding of the physical body as the immortal soul progresses to the other side. In a small way, people re-experience the joy of going home.
When we return home, we take our knowledge, experiences, character traits and personalities and leave behind our material possessions. And indeed, by knowledge we approach wisdom and understanding and love, of what use are material possessions, power and fame, when they are an end in themselves and not a means to that approach? To be greedy or power-hungry has no value whatsoever.
1. Lesson of Love and Relationship
Love is the only truly real and lasting thing of life. It is the essence of relationship. It is the source of happiness, the energy that connects us and that lives within us.
Most of us want unconditional love, love that exists because of who we are rather than what we do or do not do. If we are lucky, very lucky, we may have experienced a few minutes of it in our lifetimes. It felt so good to have let go of the expectations, to stop trying to fix him/her and just love him/her as he/she is.
Many of us think we were taught about love. Yet we do not find love fulfilling, because it is not love. It is shadow darkened by fear, insecurities, and expectation. We demand a lot from our romantic relationship: healing, happiness, love, security, friendship, gratification, companionship, etc. We also want to fix our lives, to lift us out of depression or bring us incredible joy. We’re especially demanding of these relationships, expecting them to make us happy in every way.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a companion in life, but there is a difference between desiring a loving joyful relationship and needing someone to complete yourself. The solution doesn’t lie in romance. Whether you’re married or not, if you want more romance in your life, fall in love with the life you have.
We can only find peace and happiness in relationship when we release the conditions we place on our love for each other. Conditions on love are weights on our relationships. When we release the conditions, we can find love in many ways we never thought possible.
One of the greatest obstacles to giving unconditional love is our fear that the love may not be returned. We don’t realize that the feeling we seek lies in the giving, not in the receiving. Feel the freedom to love without holding back, without reserve, without condition.
Feel the freedom in giving away without expecting of return.
When you argue with loved ones, you believe you are upset because of something they did or did not do. But if you love them in spite of what they did or did not do, you will see changes. You will see their hearts melt open. Only love is real. Love is an energy of incredibly power and strength. The purest form is unconditional love.
We must try to see love in the big picture, not in detail, not in small stuffs. A detail such as small stuffs can be a distraction from real love. “I became increasingly angry she didn’t call back,” etc. The detail such as a single phone call can be a distraction from real love. This is how the rules, the games, and the measurements interfere with our expression of love for one another.
Relationship needs nurturing and attention. Devote time and energy to the other person. Bring your full awareness and attention to the relationship and its problems. The relationship is more important than television, magazine, or newspaper. Eliminate distractions. Turn off the television; put down the newspaper. Respect the other person.
Do not take relationship for granted. Do not stay in your rut. Renew the relationship through loving actions. The relationship is living, alive in the present. Soulful relationships bring true joy into our lives.
Try to communicate without criticism, without judgment, without any intent to hurt or harm. Communicate your love and caring and compassion. Do not communicate to harm or to win. Doing that which promotes love, understanding, and cooperation is true winning. If you promote negative thoughts and emotions then you have lost.
Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. The past is over. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.
See the gulf between you and your partner fade away and fill with a beautiful energy. See and feel this connection. Send your light and love. At some level he or she will receive it. We are all connected to each other.
Most of us have never experienced love. We experienced rewards. We learned as children that we would be ‘loved’ if we were polite, got good grades, smiled, or washed our hands often enough. We worked our little rears off to be loved, never realizing that this was conditional, thus false love.
How can we possibly love if it takes so much approval from others?
We can begin by nurturing our souls and having compassion for ourselves.
Do you nurture your soul, do you feed it? What activities do you do that make you feel better about yourself that you’re really glad to have done?
When we love ourselves, we fill our lives with activities that put smiles on our faces. These are the things that make our hearts and our souls sing.
Life has its ups and downs. We can’t solve all of our loved ones’ problems, but we can be there for someone. Isn’t that, over the years, the strongest sign of love? One of the greatest secrets of love: love is being there and caring. Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond our control, we can’t be there physically. But that doesn’t mean we’re not connected in love.
2. Lesson of patience and Surrender
Many situations teach us big lessons in patience and understanding. Patience is one of our hardest lessons, perhaps the most frustrating one to learn. But we must learn patience.
We often have to do one of the things we hate the most – wait. Everywhere you turn there is a lesson in patience, especially when you are sick or dependent. I suppose patience will be everywhere until we learn it. We truly have to learn this lesson from the inside out. One lesson of patience is that you don’t always get what you want. You may want something right now but may not get it for a while, if ever.
People no longer know how to wait, or even what waiting means. It’s nice to have what you want when you want it but the ability to delay gratification is important. Children who are able to wait, to delay gratification, did much better later in life. Patience is clearly an important asset.
So many of us don’t know how to live with things as they are, how to live in a situation as it is. We feel we have to change it, make it better, we don’t think things will be okay if they’re left alone. We think there is a different between something not happening soon enough and its not playing out the way we think it should. Yet these thoughts come from the judgment that the situation is wrong the way it is. What does being impatient ever get us?
Patience is like a muscle that must regularly be used, it must be exercised and trusted. If we don’t practice using the muscle in little in everyday situations we won’t have a strong muscle to support us through life’s bigger challenges.
The key to patience is knowing that everything is going to be fine, developing the faith that there is a plan. It is easy to forget this, and therefore many try to control situations that would work out as they were meant to in their own perfect time. When you find the trust and develop the understanding that things are moving the way they’re supposed to and in their own time. Then you can relax.
We must have patience. Patience and timing. Everything comes when it must come. A life cannot be rushed, cannot be worked on a schedule as so many people want it to be. We must accept what comes to us at a given time.
Since the mind will always seek to change things, we need to reassure ourselves that things are happening exactly as they’re supposed to. The mind want to believe that changing our circumstances will bring us peace. The mind thinks we’ve got to do something. But the reality is that we can relax in the circumstances as they are now, knowing that deep patience will bring deep peace and healing.
Life is a series of experiences everyone goes through. There is a reason for every experience, even if we don’t see it. Everything that has happened has occurred so that we can get the lessons we need. Every experience will move us toward greater good. The wonderful news about things we cannot change is we don’t have to do anything to get it right. When life is dictating the story line, we need to find a way to relax in the situation as it is.
We simply live life as it is happening.
The first step in becoming more patient is giving up the need to fix or change things that cannot be changed. It is having the awareness that some things are the way they are for a reason, even if we can’t see it.
If something is not changeable, try to see it as not broken. Try to find a little faith in the process and the unfolding of things. Despite our belief that things need our assistance, most of the amazing things that happen in the world occur without our help, interference, or assistance. There is a power in the Universe. Trust that all things are moving toward the good, even we don’t recognize it. This is faith. Having patience is having faith.
In faith, you remember that no experience is wasted. Most people at the end of their life would not even trade in their bad experiences, for they learned from everything that happened to them. Everything you go through, every windstorm in life, happens so that the perfect you can emerge. Remember, that your timing hasn’t always been the greatest, and that there is a plan. You can afford to relax and let life unfold.
When we use the word of Universe, we are not just referring to the vast cosmos of galaxies out there, for all that is simply the accumulation of an infinite number of other worlds. No, we are using the word in a more transcendent sense. The word Universe, in its literal meaning, is “the whole body of things,” the basic unity of all life. The words God and Universe can be used interchangeably, referring to the whole of things, or Allness, which is present all and through all.
We may think the story is about our health, work, or love life and want to change it. Remember that it is not about those things, it is about you. It’s about the love, compassion, humor, and patience you bring to your life and its situations. The Universe is not ultimately just working on the situations, they are working on you. The Universe has much bigger picture than what’s going on. The Universe is concerned with who you are, and it will bring into your life, in whatever the situations, in whatever time, what you need to learn to become the person you’re supposed to be. The key lies in trusting the Universe and having patience. Patience means to endure.
There is no weakness or pain in surrender. We equate activity with strength and passivity with weakness. Instead, there is comfort and strength in surrendering to the knowledge that all is well, all is being taken care of.
Even in the small trials of life, it is hard to surrender. We want to handle the situations, we want to make things happen. The idea that letting go may be positive can be difficult until we realize that much of life is supposed to be lived with ease. We are not supposed to be in situations where we are banging our heads against the wall. We can let ourselves relax. We don’t need constantly seize hold on the relationship or situation. We can simply relax, knowing that life will unfold as it is supposed to.
Think of life as roller coaster. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to try to make the roller coaster go the way you want to? Not only would you not able to steer it, you would miss the experience of just riding it, with all of its highs and lows. Stop the worrying, stop the constant fighting, which is so destructive. The struggles create fear, which gives us false belief that we must control every aspect of our lives, all the time. We just make things worse if we don’t surrender. We have to come out of denial and quit fighting the unfightable. Now is time to surrender, to swim with the current of life, not against it. By surrendering we can find peace and quality in life again.
When we control people and situations, we want them to do it our way for their own good. But our way is not always the best. We have all become so very controlling. Why should other people do it our way? Why shouldn’t they bring their uniqueness to everything they do? We become more powerful in relationship and life when we let go of control, realizing that we cannot control people, things, and events. Life does not become chaotic when we release control. Instead, it falls into the natural order of things.
Many of us labor under the illusion that control is always good. But is our control really necessary to the working of the Universe? The Universe runs this amazingly complex planet, with all its flowers, trees, animals, winds, sunshine, and everything else, quite well, yet this is the power we are afraid to surrender into. It may sometimes be hard to find the good or the lesson in a difficult situation. None of us really knows why events happen in our lives. But all will be revealed in its own time.
How do we surrender? How do we stop fighting? We simply let go. We learn to trust the Universe and relax. In letting go, we release our mental pictures of how things should turn out and accept what the Universe brings us. We accept that we don’t really know how things should be. If we look back to our previous experiences “bad” situations often led us to better places, and that what we thought was good wasn’t necessarily best for us. The truth is that we don’t always know what is in our best interest. We have to stop insisting that we always know what is right and must stop trying to control the uncontrolable.
To surrender we simply say, “I surrender to the knowledge that my plans are just a blueprint. There will be changes, paths I didn’t expect. Wonderful surprises, maybe scary surprises. There will be situations that will lead me on new journeys. I trust that all this will lead me in a direction that will bring my being, my soul, to its greatest unfolding.
Refusing to accept the situations we cannot change exhausts us, strips us of our power and peace of mind. Refusing to surrender is the same as saying, “I can’t possibly be happy until condition change.” We take back our power and regain peace of mind when we let things be as they are. Relax into the situation and move in whatever direction we are supposed to. When we finally surrender to the worst possible scenario/situation, we find peace.
I am talking about situations we have decided are insurmountable obstacles to happiness. We insist that we absolutely cannot be happy unless these situations change but they can’t be. If someone you love does not return love, you can’t force love. If you had a bad childhood, you can’t go back and make it a happy one. In these situations we can be as unhappy as unhappy can be, but we will never change the facts. Surrendering into life as it is can be the quickest and most powerful way to get the lesson out of the situation. You can’t change your childhood but you can create a meaningful life. You can’t make someone love you, but you can stop wasting your time and energy on him or her.
To surrender to life “as is” can miraculously transform situations. It is in this surrender that we are able to receive new ideas and insight. We surrender to a force bigger than we are. When we surrender, we accept it just it is.
If something should be changed and you have the power to change it, go ahead. But learn to recognize the situations that cannot be changed. These are the times when we must accept and surrender, or our struggle consumes us.
A man of forties told about his story: “I thought about how all my dreams had just been snatched away. It was like being told, ‘Sorry, you can’t have what you want anymore.’ And it was true. I couldn’t have that. It would just have been too difficult to be in a foreign country, away from the treatment and monitoring I needed. But I say I still had some sense of choice. I could try to live the old, now impractical dream, or I could surrender into the new life. After I quit fighting the reality of what is, new ideas and dreams began to surface. Now I have settled down here in a way I never expected to. So many new and wonderful possibilities popped up when I surrender into this new future. To find the good in the bad is one of the most rewarding lessons I’ve learned.”
If you want to change what cannot be changed, it’s time to surrender.
If you feel that you’re responsible for everything, it’s time to surrender.
If you don’t feel at peace, it’s time to surrender.
Letting things be instead of constantly struggling to make them happen is a wonderful gift we need to give ourselves. If we look back on life, we will see that some of our best moments and greatest opportunities did not come out of the struggle to set things right. They seem like lucky coincidences, as if they occurred because we were in the right place at the right time (Everything comes when it must come). That is how surrender works, and that is how life work: subtly.
“Devine Love grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
3. Lesson of Loss
We eventually lose everything we have, yet what ultimately matters can never be lost. Our material possessions, our youth, and even our loved ones are just loan for us. Our reality here is not permanent. Everything is temporary. Realizing this truth give us a greater appreciation for the many wonderful experiences we had with our loved ones. We no longer take our relationships for granted. And we will do our best to be fully present on all events with our loved ones and not just half there.
Losses feel just as they feel. They leave us feeling empty, helpless, immobilized, paralyzed, worthless, angry, sad, and fearful. Perhaps the only certainty about loss is that time heals all. Unfortunately, healing is not always direct; it’s not like ascending line on a graph, quickly and smoothly carrying us up to wholeness. Instead, the process feels something like being on a roller coaster – you climb toward wholeness then suddenly plunge into despair; you seem to regress, then you move forward; then you feel you’re back at the beginning. That is the healing process. You will heal. You will return to wholeness.
The pain of separation from someone or something we care about is one of the hardest things we will ever experience. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it makes us feel sad, lonely, and empty. However we do experience loss many times, in many ways, and react to our losses. With loss comes experience of its terrain, making us better equipped to cope with life. From a first glance at our lives and losses, it can be hard to see how we’ve grown. But grow we do. Those who suffer losses ultimately become stronger.
The five stages, which describe the way we respond to all losses, whether big or small, permanent or temporary is like this: Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance.
Typically, parents who lost their children to cancer say the experience is the end of their world, which is understandable. Years later they have learned that it is better to have loved and lost them than never to have loved at all. And the truth is, we would rarely trade the experience of having and losing our loved ones with never having had them at all.
People who lose someone through divorce or separation will often say that they realize death is not the ultimate loss. Rather, it’s the separation from loved ones that is so difficult. Knowing about someone’s continued existence but being unable to share it with him or her may cause far more pain and make resolution far more difficult than permanent separation through death.
A man in his thirties told me that his wife had unexpected left him. He felt absolutely devastated. He spoke about anguish he was going through, then looked up at me and asked,
“Is this what loss feels like? Lots of my friends have lost people to breakups and divorces, and even death. They were sad and they told me they were hurting, but I had no concept that it felt like this. Now I know what it’s really like, I want to go back to all those people and say,
‘I am sorry, I had no idea what you were going through.’
I’ve grown and become much more compassionate. In the future, when a friend is dealing with loss, I will be a completely different person, much more helpful to them. I will be there for them in ways I would never have thought of before and understand the pain they are going through in a way I could never have imagined.”
This is one of the purposes loss serves in our lives. It unifies us. It helps us deepen our understanding of each other. It connects us to one another in a way that no other lesson of life can. When we are joined in the experience of loss, we care for one another and experience one another in new and profound ways.
There are many steps to healing loss. Feel and acknowledge the loss when you are ready. Remember, that you will feel your feelings when you are supposed to. You will find the only way out of the pain is through the pain. Many times an understanding of loss comes in years, not days or months. You will find that you can accept a world in which the loss has taken place.
In watching people deal with death you will notice much symbolism. At first, you’ll see people taking lots of photos of themselves, as if to say, “I was there.” Then as their disease progresses, they often come to a new level and quit taking so many photos. They realize even the photo will not last; in the best scenario the pictures will be handed down to the generations to people who never knew them. They find that what matters more is their own hearts and the hearts of their loved ones. They find that part of loss that we can transcend. We can find the genuine parts of ourselves and loved ones that do not get lost. We can even learn that what really matters is eternal and ours forever. The love that you have felt and the love you have given cannot be lost. Love is all that matters. Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us in our hearts.
Try not to become attached to things. In the three-dimensional world we all know that we cannot take things with us when we leave but we take our behaviors, our habits, our knowledge, our character and personalities with us. We may gain and lose many material objects during the course of our lifetime. But we will not meet our possessions in the afterlife, but we will meet our loved ones. How we treat our loved ones and others in relationships is infinitely more important than what we have accumulated materially.
The watch from my father has always been a bittersweet reminder of the temporariness of life on earth. I really had to sit with the feeling and the knowledge of how temporary everything we have is, how it is truly on loan to us and that I, too, would say good-bye to everything someday. And in this saying good-bye to all, I find something inside myself that does not get lost – it’s my love to loved ones.
In lessons of loss you find sometimes the small things in life become the big things. A woman in her sixties had a stroke that left her paralyzed. She spent the next few years at death’s door. Because of her illness her life is confined to the hospital bed in her living room and the chair next to it. She said,
“I am grateful that I haven’t lost some of the things most of us take for granted. With the help of bedside commode, I can at least go piddle for myself. To me, it would be an enormous loss if I couldn’t go to the bathroom on my own, if I couldn’t take a bath by myself. Now, I’m grateful for just being able to still do these things for myself.”
When we face the worst that can happen in any situation, we grow. When circumstances are at their worst, we can find our best. When we find the true meaning of these lessons, we also find happy, meaningful lives. We can live life profoundly.
4. Lesson of Play
The number one regret people at the edge of life have when they look back on their lives is, “I wish I had not taken life so seriously.” They look back on their work accomplishments and other achievements with a sense of pride, but they also realize that there was more to life than work. They discover that if their work achievements weren’t balanced by high points in their personal life, the work feels empty. They often realize that they worked hard but they didn’t really live. You may find yourself working nights and weekends not to get ahead but just because your job culture requires it. If it’s temporary, it may be worth it. But if that’s just going to be your life, if you’re never going to have nights or weekends off, you may wonder if it’s worth it.
It’s obvious that those moments we had spent with our loved ones: the moment we had laughed together, the moment we had shared in our leisure time, in our fun time, at play, are the moments that precious at the end of our life. We’ll probably say,
“Do you remember the time we went to beach?”
“Do you remember the time we talked and laughed the whole evening?”
“Do you remember when we rode our bikes in the country?”
They are all precious moments in our lives.
Playing keeps us young at heart, puts passion in our work, and helps our relationships thrive. It rejuvenates us. To play is to live life to its fullest. The primary lessons people at the edge of life teach us is to live every day to its fullest.
When was the last time you really looked at the sea? Really tasted and enjoyed the food? Looked into the blue sky? Many people live near the ocean but never take the time to look at it. Do we really touch and taste the life, do we see and feel the extraordinary, especially the ordinary? When the last time you fully experienced that day?
We have to remind ourselves that play is doing the things that bring us pleasure, for pleasure’s sake. Play is an experience of fun that transcends all boundaries. Playing is inner joy, outwardly expressed. It can be laughing, singing, dancing, swimming, hiking, cooking, running, playing a game, or anything else we have fun doing. Playing makes all aspects of life more meaningful and enjoyable. It makes us feel younger and more positive. Play adds balance to our lives and improves our mental states. Laughing and playing – they give a natural high to our lives. Work and play do not have to be completely separate activities. It is good, very good to find fun and creativities in our work. Then we will feel, we have never worked in our lives, but only fun and creativities.
Celebrations are an obvious chance to have fun. Don’t save joy for special occasions; celebrate at every opportunity.
You also need quality time alone – time that is just for you. It’s time you designated for yourself, time you give to you and your happiness. This is the time you can be by yourself and for yourself, do what you want, when you want it, and in just the way you want.
5. Lesson of gratitude
A grateful person is powerful person, for gratitude generates power. All abundance is based on being grateful for what we have. True power, happiness, and well-being are found in the fine art of gratitude. Being grateful for what you have. If you do not know how to appreciate the things and people you have now, why would you be able to appreciate more things, people, and power when you get them? You won’t, because you have never worked on your “gratitude muscle,” you never learned or practiced being grateful. Instead, you will think,
“This second million dollars, this bigger house, this luxurious car, are still not enough. I need more.”
And so you will live, continually wanting more or wishing things were different than they are, playing the game of “more” instead of being grateful for all you have.
Plato said, “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.” A tremendous insight! A grateful person is great because he or she has turned on all the lights within. The grateful heart actually opens the way to the flow and becomes an attractive force to draw to itself great things.
The grateful heart will always attract to itself in one way or another, through human hands or through wonder-working ways, the great things needed to solve the particular situation. It is an outworking that you can stake your life on. You do not need something to be grateful for. You need only the desire to feel grateful. As you feel grateful, you become attractive, not only in your beauty and radiance, but in your relationship with people. More important, you release a vital energy that draws to you opportunities, employment, and a secure flow of money. Everything begins to work in your life in an orderly and creative way.
6. Lesson of Happiness
Most of us think of happiness as a reaction to an event, but it actually a state of mind that has very little to do with what is going on around us. True happiness is not results of an event, it does not depend on circumstance. Happiness comes from within. You, not what’s going on around you, determine your happiness. You will not miraculously become happy if someone else changes, or if the outside world changes, but only if your change. Happiness depends on how we handle what happens. Our happiness is determined by how we interpret, perceive, and integrate what happens into our state of mind. Our emotions and realities determined by our thoughts, not the other way around.
We can never be happy if we compare ourselves to others. Each one of us is a unique person. No two people have ever experienced the world in quite the same way, with particular history and events that happened to them - thus each of us is a unique person. We’re always less and more than someone else in one way or another.
7. Lesson of Change
Our lives continually change, yet we actually do not like change. Even when we’re prepared for it, we often resist change. Change may be our constant companion, but we don’t tend to think of it as our friend. Changes scare us because we may not be able to control it. It’s the changes that happen to us that make us uneasy, that make us feel as if life may be going in the wrong direction. But whether we like it or not, change happens – it just happens.
Change is saying good-bye to the old, familiar situation and facing a new, unfamiliar situation. It’s the time of transition that unnerves us. In life when one door closes, another door open but the hallways are bitch. That’s how change works. It usually begins with a door closing, an ending, a completion, a loss, a death of loved one. Then we enter an uncomfortable period, mourning this completion and living in the uncertainty of what is next. This period of uncertainty is hard. But just when we feel we can’t take it anymore, something new emerges: a reintegration, a reinvestment, a new beginning. A door opens.
If you fight change, you will be fighting your whole life. That’s why we need to accept change. Stop the worrying, stop the constant fighting, which is so destructive. The struggles create fear, which gives us false belief that we must control every aspect of our lives, all the time. Now is time to surrender, to swim with the current of life, not against it. By surrendering we can find peace and quality in life again. In surrender, we accept what the Universe brings us. There is a power in the Universe. Trust that all things are moving toward the good, even we don’t recognize it. This is faith. If we don’t need to control everything, we can let life unfold.
8. Lesson of Forgiveness
Forgiveness can ironically be a selfish act in that it matters more to the wounded than to those who did the wounding. When we do not forgive, we hang on to old wounds, hurts, and upsets. We keep the unhappy parts of the past alive and freed our resentments. To forgive means we let the hurt go for our own sakes when we realize that holding on to grudges forces us to live in unhappiness. People who are reluctant to forgive need to remember that they are not punishing anyone except themselves. Living in the hurt keeps us perpetual victims; in forgiveness we transcend the hurt. We don’t have to be permanently wounded by anyone or anything. There is a great power in this awareness.
Once we forgive others, or ourselves, we are restored to a place of grace. Our relationships and our lives can be stronger when forgiveness heals our wounds.
Ironically, the person we most often need to forgive is ourselves. Anything we think we have made a mistake, we must forgive ourselves. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t be here at all. Souls who are still incarnating are far from perfect.
9. Lesson of Fear
Our fears don’t stop death, they stop life. More than we care to admit, more than we even know, our lives are devoted to dealing with fear and its effects. Fear is a shadow that blocks everything: our love, our true feelings, our happiness, our very being. In fact, there really isn’t a big correlation between what we fear and what happens to us. Most of what we fear isn’t going to happen anyway. One of our biggest challenges is to overcome these fears. We are presented with so many opportunities and we need to learn to make the most out of them.
Suppose you’re extremely worried about a project at work. Peel away that fear and underneath you’ll find the fear of not doing well. Underneath that fear you’ll find successive layers:
- Fear of not getting the raise.
- Fear of losing your job.
- And finally fear of surviving.
The fear of surviving underlies many of our financial and job-related fears.
Since every fear has its roots rounding death, learning to relax about the fear surrounding death will allow us to face everything else with greater ease.
Finding our true work and becoming the persons we’d like to be are crucial to our fulfillment in life. If we did the things we’re longing to do, we would still be old one day – but we would not be filled with regrets. We would not be ending a life half-lived. Thus, one lesson becomes clear: we must transcend our fears while we can still do those things we dream of.
Ask yourself constantly in any given situation,
“What would I do differently right now if I am not afraid?”
It is fear itself that brings us so much unhappiness in life, not the things we fear. Practice doing the small things that you are afraid of doing. Your fear only holds enormous power over you when not challenged. Fears grow more fear, especially when it is hidden. Action feeds and strengthens confidence; inaction develops fear. The longer we postpone the more scared we get. But once we take action, fear disappears. Action cures fear. As by-product of getting things done we gain confidence, a feeling of inner security, satisfaction, fulfillment, and even happiness.
True freedom is found in doing the things that scare us the most. The situation I like the most is when the sky seems to falling. It’s exciting! In such a situation we can learn in one week more than we could probably learn in one year. Take a leap of faith and you will find life, not lose it. Living a safe life in our comfort zones is probably the most dangerous thing we can do.
10. Lesson of Guilt
Sometimes events, even the most tragic of events, happen, and it’s no one’s fault. Unhappy self-judgment is rooted in what we were taught as children. We were usually taught to be good little boys and girls, tending to the wishes of others rather than forming strong identities for ourselves. Shame and guilt are deeply connected. While guilt is about what you did, shame is about who you think you are. Shame and guilt began to grow before we knew we were responsible for our mistakes as young children, but we were not our mistakes. If our needs and our parents needs clashed, we felt we must have done something wrong. We began to believe we were wrong. This was the source of the feeling of guilt, and guilt precedes shame.
Shame in our childhood makes us feel more responsible for our situations than we are. If we were abused, we feel we caused the abuse. If we are ashamed, we feel we deserved the shame. If we were unloved, we feel we are not worthy of love. We feel we are at fault for our bad feelings. Guilt clearly needs to be processed out.
11. Lesson of Anger
As long as it’s not inappropriate, violent, or abusive, anger can be helpful and healthy response. As one of the body’s important warning systems, anger should not automatically be stifled. It warns us that we are being hurt or our needs are not being heard; anger can be a normal and healthy reaction to many situations.
In dealing with anger, we need to learn how to take the second step, looking into ourselves to explore the fear underneath. Here are some clues to what may really be going on:
Anger: I’m angry because you weren’t there.
Fear underneath the anger: When you’re not there, I fear you’re abandoning me.
Anger: I’m angry because you are late.
Fear underneath the anger: I am not as important to you as your work.
Anger: I’m angry because you didn’t do a good job.
Fear underneath the anger: I’m afraid we’ll make less money and not be able to pay our bills.
Anger: I’m angry because of what you said.
Fear underneath the anger: I’m afraid you don’t love me anymore.
We are here to heal and move through feelings. Babies and young children feel their feelings and move through them. They cry and it passes, they get angry and it passes. We can learn to live lives where anger is a feeling that passes, not a state of being.
Our basic, underlying nature is loving, peaceful, balanced, and harmonious. We are innately compassionate, caring, and kind. We are souls. Over the course of lifetimes, an overlay of fear, anger, envy, sadness, insecurity, and many other negative thoughts and emotions accrues and covers our beautiful inner nature. This outer covering is intensified and reinforced by our childhood training and experiences in the current life.
Our task is to unlearn those negative and harmful emotions and attitudes that plague our lives and cause us misery. As we let go of these negative traits, we rediscover our true nature, our positive and loving self. It has been there all the time, covered over, obscured, and forgotten.
When we remove the outer layer of dirt and debris, the negative thoughts and emotions, when we clean and polish away the outer overlay, then we can once again discern the true diamonds we really are. We are immortal and diamond souls. We have always been diamonds underneath. In learning life’s lessons you simply remove the excess to reveal the precious essence, which is the wonderful you inside.
We are put on earth to learn our own lessons. No one can tell you what your lessons are; it is part of your personal journey to discover them. On your journeys you may be given a lot, or just a little bit, of things you must grapple with, but never more than you can handle.
More learning can occur when there are many obstacles than when there are few or none. A hard life is not a punishment, but rather an opportunity. A life filled with obstacles presents the most opportunity for soul’s growth. All of life’s challenges and opportunities have the potential to be of great assistance in the process of spiritual growth and personal transformation. Once we have learned the lesson, there is no need for further suffering. We are here to learn, not to suffer. We are merely in a school.
From the beginning to the end of life, life is a school, complete with individualized challenges. When we’ve learned all we can possibly learn, and when we have taught all we can possibly teach, we return home. It is the place from which we have come, and the place to which we return when our work is done. Earth, the three dimensional world, is not really our true home. We are spiritual beings, and our true home is a spiritual one, a timeless place that many call heaven. Death is the shedding of the physical body as the immortal soul progresses to the other side. In a small way, people re-experience the joy of going home.
When we return home, we take our knowledge, experiences, character traits and personalities and leave behind our material possessions. And indeed, by knowledge we approach wisdom and understanding and love, of what use are material possessions, power and fame, when they are an end in themselves and not a means to that approach? To be greedy or power-hungry has no value whatsoever.
1. Lesson of Love and Relationship
Love is the only truly real and lasting thing of life. It is the essence of relationship. It is the source of happiness, the energy that connects us and that lives within us.
Most of us want unconditional love, love that exists because of who we are rather than what we do or do not do. If we are lucky, very lucky, we may have experienced a few minutes of it in our lifetimes. It felt so good to have let go of the expectations, to stop trying to fix him/her and just love him/her as he/she is.
Many of us think we were taught about love. Yet we do not find love fulfilling, because it is not love. It is shadow darkened by fear, insecurities, and expectation. We demand a lot from our romantic relationship: healing, happiness, love, security, friendship, gratification, companionship, etc. We also want to fix our lives, to lift us out of depression or bring us incredible joy. We’re especially demanding of these relationships, expecting them to make us happy in every way.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a companion in life, but there is a difference between desiring a loving joyful relationship and needing someone to complete yourself. The solution doesn’t lie in romance. Whether you’re married or not, if you want more romance in your life, fall in love with the life you have.
We can only find peace and happiness in relationship when we release the conditions we place on our love for each other. Conditions on love are weights on our relationships. When we release the conditions, we can find love in many ways we never thought possible.
One of the greatest obstacles to giving unconditional love is our fear that the love may not be returned. We don’t realize that the feeling we seek lies in the giving, not in the receiving. Feel the freedom to love without holding back, without reserve, without condition.
Feel the freedom in giving away without expecting of return.
When you argue with loved ones, you believe you are upset because of something they did or did not do. But if you love them in spite of what they did or did not do, you will see changes. You will see their hearts melt open. Only love is real. Love is an energy of incredibly power and strength. The purest form is unconditional love.
We must try to see love in the big picture, not in detail, not in small stuffs. A detail such as small stuffs can be a distraction from real love. “I became increasingly angry she didn’t call back,” etc. The detail such as a single phone call can be a distraction from real love. This is how the rules, the games, and the measurements interfere with our expression of love for one another.
Relationship needs nurturing and attention. Devote time and energy to the other person. Bring your full awareness and attention to the relationship and its problems. The relationship is more important than television, magazine, or newspaper. Eliminate distractions. Turn off the television; put down the newspaper. Respect the other person.
Do not take relationship for granted. Do not stay in your rut. Renew the relationship through loving actions. The relationship is living, alive in the present. Soulful relationships bring true joy into our lives.
Try to communicate without criticism, without judgment, without any intent to hurt or harm. Communicate your love and caring and compassion. Do not communicate to harm or to win. Doing that which promotes love, understanding, and cooperation is true winning. If you promote negative thoughts and emotions then you have lost.
Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. The past is over. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.
See the gulf between you and your partner fade away and fill with a beautiful energy. See and feel this connection. Send your light and love. At some level he or she will receive it. We are all connected to each other.
Most of us have never experienced love. We experienced rewards. We learned as children that we would be ‘loved’ if we were polite, got good grades, smiled, or washed our hands often enough. We worked our little rears off to be loved, never realizing that this was conditional, thus false love.
How can we possibly love if it takes so much approval from others?
We can begin by nurturing our souls and having compassion for ourselves.
Do you nurture your soul, do you feed it? What activities do you do that make you feel better about yourself that you’re really glad to have done?
When we love ourselves, we fill our lives with activities that put smiles on our faces. These are the things that make our hearts and our souls sing.
Life has its ups and downs. We can’t solve all of our loved ones’ problems, but we can be there for someone. Isn’t that, over the years, the strongest sign of love? One of the greatest secrets of love: love is being there and caring. Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond our control, we can’t be there physically. But that doesn’t mean we’re not connected in love.
2. Lesson of patience and Surrender
Many situations teach us big lessons in patience and understanding. Patience is one of our hardest lessons, perhaps the most frustrating one to learn. But we must learn patience.
We often have to do one of the things we hate the most – wait. Everywhere you turn there is a lesson in patience, especially when you are sick or dependent. I suppose patience will be everywhere until we learn it. We truly have to learn this lesson from the inside out. One lesson of patience is that you don’t always get what you want. You may want something right now but may not get it for a while, if ever.
People no longer know how to wait, or even what waiting means. It’s nice to have what you want when you want it but the ability to delay gratification is important. Children who are able to wait, to delay gratification, did much better later in life. Patience is clearly an important asset.
So many of us don’t know how to live with things as they are, how to live in a situation as it is. We feel we have to change it, make it better, we don’t think things will be okay if they’re left alone. We think there is a different between something not happening soon enough and its not playing out the way we think it should. Yet these thoughts come from the judgment that the situation is wrong the way it is. What does being impatient ever get us?
Patience is like a muscle that must regularly be used, it must be exercised and trusted. If we don’t practice using the muscle in little in everyday situations we won’t have a strong muscle to support us through life’s bigger challenges.
The key to patience is knowing that everything is going to be fine, developing the faith that there is a plan. It is easy to forget this, and therefore many try to control situations that would work out as they were meant to in their own perfect time. When you find the trust and develop the understanding that things are moving the way they’re supposed to and in their own time. Then you can relax.
We must have patience. Patience and timing. Everything comes when it must come. A life cannot be rushed, cannot be worked on a schedule as so many people want it to be. We must accept what comes to us at a given time.
Since the mind will always seek to change things, we need to reassure ourselves that things are happening exactly as they’re supposed to. The mind want to believe that changing our circumstances will bring us peace. The mind thinks we’ve got to do something. But the reality is that we can relax in the circumstances as they are now, knowing that deep patience will bring deep peace and healing.
Life is a series of experiences everyone goes through. There is a reason for every experience, even if we don’t see it. Everything that has happened has occurred so that we can get the lessons we need. Every experience will move us toward greater good. The wonderful news about things we cannot change is we don’t have to do anything to get it right. When life is dictating the story line, we need to find a way to relax in the situation as it is.
We simply live life as it is happening.
The first step in becoming more patient is giving up the need to fix or change things that cannot be changed. It is having the awareness that some things are the way they are for a reason, even if we can’t see it.
If something is not changeable, try to see it as not broken. Try to find a little faith in the process and the unfolding of things. Despite our belief that things need our assistance, most of the amazing things that happen in the world occur without our help, interference, or assistance. There is a power in the Universe. Trust that all things are moving toward the good, even we don’t recognize it. This is faith. Having patience is having faith.
In faith, you remember that no experience is wasted. Most people at the end of their life would not even trade in their bad experiences, for they learned from everything that happened to them. Everything you go through, every windstorm in life, happens so that the perfect you can emerge. Remember, that your timing hasn’t always been the greatest, and that there is a plan. You can afford to relax and let life unfold.
When we use the word of Universe, we are not just referring to the vast cosmos of galaxies out there, for all that is simply the accumulation of an infinite number of other worlds. No, we are using the word in a more transcendent sense. The word Universe, in its literal meaning, is “the whole body of things,” the basic unity of all life. The words God and Universe can be used interchangeably, referring to the whole of things, or Allness, which is present all and through all.
We may think the story is about our health, work, or love life and want to change it. Remember that it is not about those things, it is about you. It’s about the love, compassion, humor, and patience you bring to your life and its situations. The Universe is not ultimately just working on the situations, they are working on you. The Universe has much bigger picture than what’s going on. The Universe is concerned with who you are, and it will bring into your life, in whatever the situations, in whatever time, what you need to learn to become the person you’re supposed to be. The key lies in trusting the Universe and having patience. Patience means to endure.
There is no weakness or pain in surrender. We equate activity with strength and passivity with weakness. Instead, there is comfort and strength in surrendering to the knowledge that all is well, all is being taken care of.
Even in the small trials of life, it is hard to surrender. We want to handle the situations, we want to make things happen. The idea that letting go may be positive can be difficult until we realize that much of life is supposed to be lived with ease. We are not supposed to be in situations where we are banging our heads against the wall. We can let ourselves relax. We don’t need constantly seize hold on the relationship or situation. We can simply relax, knowing that life will unfold as it is supposed to.
Think of life as roller coaster. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to try to make the roller coaster go the way you want to? Not only would you not able to steer it, you would miss the experience of just riding it, with all of its highs and lows. Stop the worrying, stop the constant fighting, which is so destructive. The struggles create fear, which gives us false belief that we must control every aspect of our lives, all the time. We just make things worse if we don’t surrender. We have to come out of denial and quit fighting the unfightable. Now is time to surrender, to swim with the current of life, not against it. By surrendering we can find peace and quality in life again.
When we control people and situations, we want them to do it our way for their own good. But our way is not always the best. We have all become so very controlling. Why should other people do it our way? Why shouldn’t they bring their uniqueness to everything they do? We become more powerful in relationship and life when we let go of control, realizing that we cannot control people, things, and events. Life does not become chaotic when we release control. Instead, it falls into the natural order of things.
Many of us labor under the illusion that control is always good. But is our control really necessary to the working of the Universe? The Universe runs this amazingly complex planet, with all its flowers, trees, animals, winds, sunshine, and everything else, quite well, yet this is the power we are afraid to surrender into. It may sometimes be hard to find the good or the lesson in a difficult situation. None of us really knows why events happen in our lives. But all will be revealed in its own time.
How do we surrender? How do we stop fighting? We simply let go. We learn to trust the Universe and relax. In letting go, we release our mental pictures of how things should turn out and accept what the Universe brings us. We accept that we don’t really know how things should be. If we look back to our previous experiences “bad” situations often led us to better places, and that what we thought was good wasn’t necessarily best for us. The truth is that we don’t always know what is in our best interest. We have to stop insisting that we always know what is right and must stop trying to control the uncontrolable.
To surrender we simply say, “I surrender to the knowledge that my plans are just a blueprint. There will be changes, paths I didn’t expect. Wonderful surprises, maybe scary surprises. There will be situations that will lead me on new journeys. I trust that all this will lead me in a direction that will bring my being, my soul, to its greatest unfolding.
Refusing to accept the situations we cannot change exhausts us, strips us of our power and peace of mind. Refusing to surrender is the same as saying, “I can’t possibly be happy until condition change.” We take back our power and regain peace of mind when we let things be as they are. Relax into the situation and move in whatever direction we are supposed to. When we finally surrender to the worst possible scenario/situation, we find peace.
I am talking about situations we have decided are insurmountable obstacles to happiness. We insist that we absolutely cannot be happy unless these situations change but they can’t be. If someone you love does not return love, you can’t force love. If you had a bad childhood, you can’t go back and make it a happy one. In these situations we can be as unhappy as unhappy can be, but we will never change the facts. Surrendering into life as it is can be the quickest and most powerful way to get the lesson out of the situation. You can’t change your childhood but you can create a meaningful life. You can’t make someone love you, but you can stop wasting your time and energy on him or her.
To surrender to life “as is” can miraculously transform situations. It is in this surrender that we are able to receive new ideas and insight. We surrender to a force bigger than we are. When we surrender, we accept it just it is.
If something should be changed and you have the power to change it, go ahead. But learn to recognize the situations that cannot be changed. These are the times when we must accept and surrender, or our struggle consumes us.
A man of forties told about his story: “I thought about how all my dreams had just been snatched away. It was like being told, ‘Sorry, you can’t have what you want anymore.’ And it was true. I couldn’t have that. It would just have been too difficult to be in a foreign country, away from the treatment and monitoring I needed. But I say I still had some sense of choice. I could try to live the old, now impractical dream, or I could surrender into the new life. After I quit fighting the reality of what is, new ideas and dreams began to surface. Now I have settled down here in a way I never expected to. So many new and wonderful possibilities popped up when I surrender into this new future. To find the good in the bad is one of the most rewarding lessons I’ve learned.”
If you want to change what cannot be changed, it’s time to surrender.
If you feel that you’re responsible for everything, it’s time to surrender.
If you don’t feel at peace, it’s time to surrender.
Letting things be instead of constantly struggling to make them happen is a wonderful gift we need to give ourselves. If we look back on life, we will see that some of our best moments and greatest opportunities did not come out of the struggle to set things right. They seem like lucky coincidences, as if they occurred because we were in the right place at the right time (Everything comes when it must come). That is how surrender works, and that is how life work: subtly.
“Devine Love grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
3. Lesson of Loss
We eventually lose everything we have, yet what ultimately matters can never be lost. Our material possessions, our youth, and even our loved ones are just loan for us. Our reality here is not permanent. Everything is temporary. Realizing this truth give us a greater appreciation for the many wonderful experiences we had with our loved ones. We no longer take our relationships for granted. And we will do our best to be fully present on all events with our loved ones and not just half there.
Losses feel just as they feel. They leave us feeling empty, helpless, immobilized, paralyzed, worthless, angry, sad, and fearful. Perhaps the only certainty about loss is that time heals all. Unfortunately, healing is not always direct; it’s not like ascending line on a graph, quickly and smoothly carrying us up to wholeness. Instead, the process feels something like being on a roller coaster – you climb toward wholeness then suddenly plunge into despair; you seem to regress, then you move forward; then you feel you’re back at the beginning. That is the healing process. You will heal. You will return to wholeness.
The pain of separation from someone or something we care about is one of the hardest things we will ever experience. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it makes us feel sad, lonely, and empty. However we do experience loss many times, in many ways, and react to our losses. With loss comes experience of its terrain, making us better equipped to cope with life. From a first glance at our lives and losses, it can be hard to see how we’ve grown. But grow we do. Those who suffer losses ultimately become stronger.
The five stages, which describe the way we respond to all losses, whether big or small, permanent or temporary is like this: Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance.
Typically, parents who lost their children to cancer say the experience is the end of their world, which is understandable. Years later they have learned that it is better to have loved and lost them than never to have loved at all. And the truth is, we would rarely trade the experience of having and losing our loved ones with never having had them at all.
People who lose someone through divorce or separation will often say that they realize death is not the ultimate loss. Rather, it’s the separation from loved ones that is so difficult. Knowing about someone’s continued existence but being unable to share it with him or her may cause far more pain and make resolution far more difficult than permanent separation through death.
A man in his thirties told me that his wife had unexpected left him. He felt absolutely devastated. He spoke about anguish he was going through, then looked up at me and asked,
“Is this what loss feels like? Lots of my friends have lost people to breakups and divorces, and even death. They were sad and they told me they were hurting, but I had no concept that it felt like this. Now I know what it’s really like, I want to go back to all those people and say,
‘I am sorry, I had no idea what you were going through.’
I’ve grown and become much more compassionate. In the future, when a friend is dealing with loss, I will be a completely different person, much more helpful to them. I will be there for them in ways I would never have thought of before and understand the pain they are going through in a way I could never have imagined.”
This is one of the purposes loss serves in our lives. It unifies us. It helps us deepen our understanding of each other. It connects us to one another in a way that no other lesson of life can. When we are joined in the experience of loss, we care for one another and experience one another in new and profound ways.
There are many steps to healing loss. Feel and acknowledge the loss when you are ready. Remember, that you will feel your feelings when you are supposed to. You will find the only way out of the pain is through the pain. Many times an understanding of loss comes in years, not days or months. You will find that you can accept a world in which the loss has taken place.
In watching people deal with death you will notice much symbolism. At first, you’ll see people taking lots of photos of themselves, as if to say, “I was there.” Then as their disease progresses, they often come to a new level and quit taking so many photos. They realize even the photo will not last; in the best scenario the pictures will be handed down to the generations to people who never knew them. They find that what matters more is their own hearts and the hearts of their loved ones. They find that part of loss that we can transcend. We can find the genuine parts of ourselves and loved ones that do not get lost. We can even learn that what really matters is eternal and ours forever. The love that you have felt and the love you have given cannot be lost. Love is all that matters. Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us in our hearts.
Try not to become attached to things. In the three-dimensional world we all know that we cannot take things with us when we leave but we take our behaviors, our habits, our knowledge, our character and personalities with us. We may gain and lose many material objects during the course of our lifetime. But we will not meet our possessions in the afterlife, but we will meet our loved ones. How we treat our loved ones and others in relationships is infinitely more important than what we have accumulated materially.
The watch from my father has always been a bittersweet reminder of the temporariness of life on earth. I really had to sit with the feeling and the knowledge of how temporary everything we have is, how it is truly on loan to us and that I, too, would say good-bye to everything someday. And in this saying good-bye to all, I find something inside myself that does not get lost – it’s my love to loved ones.
In lessons of loss you find sometimes the small things in life become the big things. A woman in her sixties had a stroke that left her paralyzed. She spent the next few years at death’s door. Because of her illness her life is confined to the hospital bed in her living room and the chair next to it. She said,
“I am grateful that I haven’t lost some of the things most of us take for granted. With the help of bedside commode, I can at least go piddle for myself. To me, it would be an enormous loss if I couldn’t go to the bathroom on my own, if I couldn’t take a bath by myself. Now, I’m grateful for just being able to still do these things for myself.”
When we face the worst that can happen in any situation, we grow. When circumstances are at their worst, we can find our best. When we find the true meaning of these lessons, we also find happy, meaningful lives. We can live life profoundly.
4. Lesson of Play
The number one regret people at the edge of life have when they look back on their lives is, “I wish I had not taken life so seriously.” They look back on their work accomplishments and other achievements with a sense of pride, but they also realize that there was more to life than work. They discover that if their work achievements weren’t balanced by high points in their personal life, the work feels empty. They often realize that they worked hard but they didn’t really live. You may find yourself working nights and weekends not to get ahead but just because your job culture requires it. If it’s temporary, it may be worth it. But if that’s just going to be your life, if you’re never going to have nights or weekends off, you may wonder if it’s worth it.
It’s obvious that those moments we had spent with our loved ones: the moment we had laughed together, the moment we had shared in our leisure time, in our fun time, at play, are the moments that precious at the end of our life. We’ll probably say,
“Do you remember the time we went to beach?”
“Do you remember the time we talked and laughed the whole evening?”
“Do you remember when we rode our bikes in the country?”
They are all precious moments in our lives.
Playing keeps us young at heart, puts passion in our work, and helps our relationships thrive. It rejuvenates us. To play is to live life to its fullest. The primary lessons people at the edge of life teach us is to live every day to its fullest.
When was the last time you really looked at the sea? Really tasted and enjoyed the food? Looked into the blue sky? Many people live near the ocean but never take the time to look at it. Do we really touch and taste the life, do we see and feel the extraordinary, especially the ordinary? When the last time you fully experienced that day?
We have to remind ourselves that play is doing the things that bring us pleasure, for pleasure’s sake. Play is an experience of fun that transcends all boundaries. Playing is inner joy, outwardly expressed. It can be laughing, singing, dancing, swimming, hiking, cooking, running, playing a game, or anything else we have fun doing. Playing makes all aspects of life more meaningful and enjoyable. It makes us feel younger and more positive. Play adds balance to our lives and improves our mental states. Laughing and playing – they give a natural high to our lives. Work and play do not have to be completely separate activities. It is good, very good to find fun and creativities in our work. Then we will feel, we have never worked in our lives, but only fun and creativities.
Celebrations are an obvious chance to have fun. Don’t save joy for special occasions; celebrate at every opportunity.
You also need quality time alone – time that is just for you. It’s time you designated for yourself, time you give to you and your happiness. This is the time you can be by yourself and for yourself, do what you want, when you want it, and in just the way you want.
5. Lesson of gratitude
A grateful person is powerful person, for gratitude generates power. All abundance is based on being grateful for what we have. True power, happiness, and well-being are found in the fine art of gratitude. Being grateful for what you have. If you do not know how to appreciate the things and people you have now, why would you be able to appreciate more things, people, and power when you get them? You won’t, because you have never worked on your “gratitude muscle,” you never learned or practiced being grateful. Instead, you will think,
“This second million dollars, this bigger house, this luxurious car, are still not enough. I need more.”
And so you will live, continually wanting more or wishing things were different than they are, playing the game of “more” instead of being grateful for all you have.
Plato said, “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.” A tremendous insight! A grateful person is great because he or she has turned on all the lights within. The grateful heart actually opens the way to the flow and becomes an attractive force to draw to itself great things.
The grateful heart will always attract to itself in one way or another, through human hands or through wonder-working ways, the great things needed to solve the particular situation. It is an outworking that you can stake your life on. You do not need something to be grateful for. You need only the desire to feel grateful. As you feel grateful, you become attractive, not only in your beauty and radiance, but in your relationship with people. More important, you release a vital energy that draws to you opportunities, employment, and a secure flow of money. Everything begins to work in your life in an orderly and creative way.
6. Lesson of Happiness
Most of us think of happiness as a reaction to an event, but it actually a state of mind that has very little to do with what is going on around us. True happiness is not results of an event, it does not depend on circumstance. Happiness comes from within. You, not what’s going on around you, determine your happiness. You will not miraculously become happy if someone else changes, or if the outside world changes, but only if your change. Happiness depends on how we handle what happens. Our happiness is determined by how we interpret, perceive, and integrate what happens into our state of mind. Our emotions and realities determined by our thoughts, not the other way around.
We can never be happy if we compare ourselves to others. Each one of us is a unique person. No two people have ever experienced the world in quite the same way, with particular history and events that happened to them - thus each of us is a unique person. We’re always less and more than someone else in one way or another.
7. Lesson of Change
Our lives continually change, yet we actually do not like change. Even when we’re prepared for it, we often resist change. Change may be our constant companion, but we don’t tend to think of it as our friend. Changes scare us because we may not be able to control it. It’s the changes that happen to us that make us uneasy, that make us feel as if life may be going in the wrong direction. But whether we like it or not, change happens – it just happens.
Change is saying good-bye to the old, familiar situation and facing a new, unfamiliar situation. It’s the time of transition that unnerves us. In life when one door closes, another door open but the hallways are bitch. That’s how change works. It usually begins with a door closing, an ending, a completion, a loss, a death of loved one. Then we enter an uncomfortable period, mourning this completion and living in the uncertainty of what is next. This period of uncertainty is hard. But just when we feel we can’t take it anymore, something new emerges: a reintegration, a reinvestment, a new beginning. A door opens.
If you fight change, you will be fighting your whole life. That’s why we need to accept change. Stop the worrying, stop the constant fighting, which is so destructive. The struggles create fear, which gives us false belief that we must control every aspect of our lives, all the time. Now is time to surrender, to swim with the current of life, not against it. By surrendering we can find peace and quality in life again. In surrender, we accept what the Universe brings us. There is a power in the Universe. Trust that all things are moving toward the good, even we don’t recognize it. This is faith. If we don’t need to control everything, we can let life unfold.
8. Lesson of Forgiveness
Forgiveness can ironically be a selfish act in that it matters more to the wounded than to those who did the wounding. When we do not forgive, we hang on to old wounds, hurts, and upsets. We keep the unhappy parts of the past alive and freed our resentments. To forgive means we let the hurt go for our own sakes when we realize that holding on to grudges forces us to live in unhappiness. People who are reluctant to forgive need to remember that they are not punishing anyone except themselves. Living in the hurt keeps us perpetual victims; in forgiveness we transcend the hurt. We don’t have to be permanently wounded by anyone or anything. There is a great power in this awareness.
Once we forgive others, or ourselves, we are restored to a place of grace. Our relationships and our lives can be stronger when forgiveness heals our wounds.
Ironically, the person we most often need to forgive is ourselves. Anything we think we have made a mistake, we must forgive ourselves. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t be here at all. Souls who are still incarnating are far from perfect.
9. Lesson of Fear
Our fears don’t stop death, they stop life. More than we care to admit, more than we even know, our lives are devoted to dealing with fear and its effects. Fear is a shadow that blocks everything: our love, our true feelings, our happiness, our very being. In fact, there really isn’t a big correlation between what we fear and what happens to us. Most of what we fear isn’t going to happen anyway. One of our biggest challenges is to overcome these fears. We are presented with so many opportunities and we need to learn to make the most out of them.
Suppose you’re extremely worried about a project at work. Peel away that fear and underneath you’ll find the fear of not doing well. Underneath that fear you’ll find successive layers:
- Fear of not getting the raise.
- Fear of losing your job.
- And finally fear of surviving.
The fear of surviving underlies many of our financial and job-related fears.
Since every fear has its roots rounding death, learning to relax about the fear surrounding death will allow us to face everything else with greater ease.
Finding our true work and becoming the persons we’d like to be are crucial to our fulfillment in life. If we did the things we’re longing to do, we would still be old one day – but we would not be filled with regrets. We would not be ending a life half-lived. Thus, one lesson becomes clear: we must transcend our fears while we can still do those things we dream of.
Ask yourself constantly in any given situation,
“What would I do differently right now if I am not afraid?”
It is fear itself that brings us so much unhappiness in life, not the things we fear. Practice doing the small things that you are afraid of doing. Your fear only holds enormous power over you when not challenged. Fears grow more fear, especially when it is hidden. Action feeds and strengthens confidence; inaction develops fear. The longer we postpone the more scared we get. But once we take action, fear disappears. Action cures fear. As by-product of getting things done we gain confidence, a feeling of inner security, satisfaction, fulfillment, and even happiness.
True freedom is found in doing the things that scare us the most. The situation I like the most is when the sky seems to falling. It’s exciting! In such a situation we can learn in one week more than we could probably learn in one year. Take a leap of faith and you will find life, not lose it. Living a safe life in our comfort zones is probably the most dangerous thing we can do.
10. Lesson of Guilt
Sometimes events, even the most tragic of events, happen, and it’s no one’s fault. Unhappy self-judgment is rooted in what we were taught as children. We were usually taught to be good little boys and girls, tending to the wishes of others rather than forming strong identities for ourselves. Shame and guilt are deeply connected. While guilt is about what you did, shame is about who you think you are. Shame and guilt began to grow before we knew we were responsible for our mistakes as young children, but we were not our mistakes. If our needs and our parents needs clashed, we felt we must have done something wrong. We began to believe we were wrong. This was the source of the feeling of guilt, and guilt precedes shame.
Shame in our childhood makes us feel more responsible for our situations than we are. If we were abused, we feel we caused the abuse. If we are ashamed, we feel we deserved the shame. If we were unloved, we feel we are not worthy of love. We feel we are at fault for our bad feelings. Guilt clearly needs to be processed out.
11. Lesson of Anger
As long as it’s not inappropriate, violent, or abusive, anger can be helpful and healthy response. As one of the body’s important warning systems, anger should not automatically be stifled. It warns us that we are being hurt or our needs are not being heard; anger can be a normal and healthy reaction to many situations.
In dealing with anger, we need to learn how to take the second step, looking into ourselves to explore the fear underneath. Here are some clues to what may really be going on:
Anger: I’m angry because you weren’t there.
Fear underneath the anger: When you’re not there, I fear you’re abandoning me.
Anger: I’m angry because you are late.
Fear underneath the anger: I am not as important to you as your work.
Anger: I’m angry because you didn’t do a good job.
Fear underneath the anger: I’m afraid we’ll make less money and not be able to pay our bills.
Anger: I’m angry because of what you said.
Fear underneath the anger: I’m afraid you don’t love me anymore.
We are here to heal and move through feelings. Babies and young children feel their feelings and move through them. They cry and it passes, they get angry and it passes. We can learn to live lives where anger is a feeling that passes, not a state of being.
posted by Inspirational Articles at 2:18 PM
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