The Things People Do - An Opportunity for You in Disguise

Life can some times be a challenge, can’t it? People are sometimes vexing to the core and others ultimately self-less giving whatever they can to a moment.  It is hard to be compassionate sometimes.  It is hard not to get caught up in someone else’s wake of chaos and negativity. But, I must let you in on one of life’s many secrets, and while it may be really hard to grasp – it’s no less than true – you get caught up in it to the extent you have something really important to learn about yourself.

Its true what they say – that every person comes into your life for a reason…even that guy who just mercilessly cut you off on the highway.  The trick is trying to understand what that core-level urge within you that gets so angry and frustrated is really trying to tell you.  Some will say, “You have the right to get angry when one treats you so discourteously.”  Sure, why not.? We have many rights in this world.  But, at some point, you may become unhinged by everything that is happening around you – rude holiday shoppers, woefully unaware drivers and the throngs of thoughtless words spoken by folks unaware (or insidiously – fully aware) in a moment their words might hurt.

At the end of the day, you get to decide how you want to experience your days. Believe it or don’t, you have a choice in terms of how you want to experience a moment.  You can do it nutted up with anger and frustration or you can let go of the expectation that people will behave with common decency (remember – if decency where actually common – wouldn’t every one possess it)?  So, the world of humans and their interactions and behavior will, at times, be completely opposite to yours and what you think is right or wrong in a moment.  But, it’s that tiny little space within you that immediately spools up is just exactly the thing the encounter is intended to teach you about.

What is it about the interaction that really upset you?  Break it down. Are you tired?  Are you hungry? Are you frustrated?  Are you in a hurry?  Notice that not one of these questions focuses at all on what the other person did.  Do you want to know why?  Because you do not have the power to control anyone else that crosses your path but you do have the power to control you and your own reactions as well as behavior.  Do you need a nap?  Do you need a time out?  Do you need to chill out a second?  We’ve all done unthinking things at one time or another.  So, you can’t blame everyone for doing something without thinking about it.  To do so is missing a really great opportunity to take accountability by looking within.  Consider, is there a theme of certain kinds of behavior in others that always brings you from a simmer to a boil?  Why?  What exactly is it about that kind of behavior that gets to you?  Why do you let it get to you?  Is it worth continuing your life letting other people control your reaction in this way?  It is handing your power to other people.  Do you want to continue giving your power away?

Listen, it’s okay to get mad and frustrated.  But, but, but, before you act on that feeling, I promise you that it will always be a thousand times better to sit with it and fully experience it reflecting without doing a single thing about it than it would be to get angry or retaliate in some way.  I read a social media post not long ago about someone driving in their own lane, minding their own business when another car was coming into the lane without looking creating a potential wreck situation.  The driver already in the lane honked to let the other driver know they were there.  This person, who was acting carelessly then retaliated for being honked at and then sped up to get into the lane safely and then break-checked the driver who was in the lane several times.  This is the perfect example of twisted psychology in action.  The driver trying to merge in unsafely got honked at and likely felt bad with some level of self-frustration – so then, proceeded to get even with the other person for reminding them of their unsafe behavior.  Listen, these kinds of things can really escalate and needlessly so.  This retaliation game of escalating is really a waste of human energy.  There are lots of other choices that could have been made without wrecking the experience in that particular moment for everyone driving near either driver. The negativity impacted more than just the two drivers.

But, you see, there will always be unthinking people doing things dangerously.  Sometimes when you remind them, you become the object of their self-anger and you experience the retaliation for their poor choices.  But, you can disengage.  You can be with your own feelings without taking action that might escalate beyond anyone’s ability to save life or limb.  I don’t mean to take a passive approach – this isn’t about cowardice.  This is about the realization that acting in a moment when a psychological filter has seemingly unconsciously taken over might be a bad idea and getting peaceful with yourself before taking action.  Then, choosing a constructive approach to continuing whatever it is you were doing.  Of course, you can take on the mantel of savior of the world and brake-checking everyone else’s bad behavior but consider the outlay of energy necessary for that.  Is it really worth it?  Is that how you want to choose to behave?  Is there another way you can manage yourself? 

Sometimes we can’t get out of the way. Bad things will happen.  There isn’t anything that we can do to change the bad behavior of others.  Some people, believe it or not, are simply un-teachable and will continue the bull-in china shop approach to life.  When I encounter them, I pull back and disengage.  I don’t feel like becoming part of the wreckage (if that can be avoided by my choices).  So, well, to be honest, I get frustrated too.  Peopling is hard when you’re on the road, when you’re shopping, working or even at a family gathering.  I merely suggest there are alternatives in our choices.  You can get mad and fight back.  You can go toe-to-toe and match punch with punch.  It’s your life, do what you want.  But, if you don’t want to live your life in a continually triggered state, you’ve got to understand your triggers.  What about this experience or that experience triggers you?  Do you need a nap, a cookie, a counselor, a hug, a friend, a quiet chill out moment?  It’s up to you to take the opportunity or not.  Not is okay too if you’re okay with that.  Just know there are always alternative choices even when the emotions have been triggered.  You can choose not to react and pull yourself back until you figure out how you would most like to constructively respond.  It’s an option.  I’m not judging.  I’m just saying that there are many choices.

Look, there is a reason that it is said, “Patience is a virtue.” The experience of patience, compassion, and the ability to pause when you feel like reacting are very powerful moments to experience.  When you are in a space of accountability for self – understanding of others – patience for those less knowledgeable or aware as you – taking a breath – this is how you maintain your power instead of spilling energy out everywhere unthinkingly.  Did you know?  Well, now you do.  Again, you’ll get no judgment from me on your individual choices.  I really do understand.  We all have choices and every choice we make has a lesson for us.  But, certain life lessons will continue to repeat until we understand them.  Sometimes, until we understand the reason certain people and situations present themselves to us and frustrate or anger us, it can be a really painful set of experiences.  I wish you many moments of perfect pauses for quick contemplation that allow you to breathe, understand and respond to your experiences. I wish you much personal power and full realization of your life experiences.  I wish you an ever increasingly satisfactory set of human interactions.  Enjoy your life. Live.  Love. Understand.  Bless.

  © 2019, photo and words.

Outcome Modification Process Explained

Physics teaches us that what we focus on, we create. Until we become aware and more awakened, we unconsciously create from a place of fear, anxiety and pain. As we learn, grow and begin to heal from the wounds within (and we find them by seeing the product of our thoughts manifesting without) we learn that we can consciously create from place of love, hope and joy. Like attracts like and our thoughts magnetize the energy about us so that we draw to us what our thoughts command. Think positive, heal the source of the negative thoughts and then begin to consciously create. Unconscious creations are good for learning but when you get tired of those kinds of lessons and can stop blaming the outside world for them, you can change the outcome by what you put into your world. Positive thoughts and conscious creation will change the outcomes in your lives. Know that there is no right or wrong way to learn...there is no judgment...and we have free will to hold either negative or positive thoughts. We will attract to us what we most need to learn and in that, the creating is perfect for each either way.

To some, the above concept is a gross over simplification and nothing but new age BS.  I used to be one of those so, I completely understand.  Until the moment I realized my life was falling apart and I took a courageous look at what the common thread was in all of my life's happenings (e.g., me and decisions made that were not well thought out to say the very least), I could not complete the shift in thinking necessary to move from a negative state of results I didn't want to a positive state achieving results I did want.  I've had conversations with naysayers and again I'll say that I completely understand.  Words such as, "What do you mean I'm to blame - all of this s$%! just happens to me...everything I touch turns bad or goes wrong and nothing I do will change it...I'm sick of being hurt all of the time, I'm sick of being taken advantage of and left with nothing but pain," are not lost on me at all.  I so get it.  I remember those feelings because I once held them but there isn't some magical belief you hold that transforms you.  You really have to look with a keen eye towards the major things you were involved in in your life that went wrong and understand how you had the hand in your own undoing.  Maybe it's something simple as putting too much trust in others that had not sufficiently earned that trust.  Maybe its that you had too high of hopes out of sync with the reality of a situation and who you were dealing with and you exposed yourself.  Maybe the gamble was just too big or you were seeking a quick way out and took it without much thought to what all of the risks were.  Maybe it was really you making not well thought out decisions all along that lead to your down fall time and time again.  Believe me, I know how this feels. I've been there, done that and gotten many messy T-Shirts.

I spent 3 years in near complete solitude at one point in my life because everything had gone wrong, everything I touched lead to my pain, everything I did backfired and it got so bad all I could do was cry myself to sleep at night from the pain of it.  But one sleepless night, something happened.  I kept asking myself, "What is it?  What is it that I am doing wrong?  This victim thinking is putting my power in everyone else's hands leaving me a perpetual victim to float forever in a stream of nothing but terror and misery emotionally.  And then, I saw someone else making the same mistakes as I had made and I realized, with chills, that there was no mistake about what I was seeing.  I was going to have to spend some time trying to separate the themes and sets of assumptions I always made and based my decisions on.  I found a good number of things as I began to go deeper within.  First of all, I routinely expected those around me to behave like me - honest, high integrity and responsible - they'll do what they say they are going to do no matter what.  One of the first things I learned was that THAT was a terrible assumption and expectation on my part and quite unrealistic.  I realized quickly too that I needed to have much greater experience with people before I put forth any kind of trust.  It is not that I refused to trust, it's just that I had to learn to be more cautiously optimistic with how I expended my resources with people who talked a good talk but I had not yet experienced enough time with them to see if they could walk the walk before I trusted them with my resources or goals, plans and dreams.  I began to take accountability.  I began to become more self-reliant emotionally, physically and financially.  I wasn't making enough money for my obligations and so I took a second job rather than relying on others who said they'd help me and then didn't, wouldn't or couldn't.  I cut out all extra expenses.  I realized the assumption that I needed to hold was that I was in fact surrounded by people who could not be there for me the way I was there for them.  I had to understand that also was a theme.  Why did I feel responsible for stopping or mitigating the pain of others when there was no reciprocation - there was only taking from me in those around me and no giving.  That wasn't their bad - that was mine. I blamed them but I realized that I needed to blame me for my own assumptions and expectations. The Serenity Prayer lead me out of that one - God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdome to know the difference.  These words a genius to me!

The deeper I went into my assumptions and expectations about situations and people I had experienced, the more I began to ask, why?  Why did I do that?  What was I really after?  What was I hoping to gain from an action that lead to pain? Was I trying to change things beyond my control?  What was within the realm of my control? As I tore apart the themes, I saw what lay hidden underneath.  That is where things got very interesting.  I found a lot of pain that had laid dormant, unhealed but affecting my thoughts in the negative.  I wondered what would happen if I changed the premises of my thoughts and assumptions, maybe ditch all assumptions and seek validation and clarity in advance, if that might change the outcomes.  It did but not enough.  The trust thing came in again - even though I would validate with crystal clarity verbally in advance I still could not guarantee with certainty an outcome and began to realize that I couldn't control an outcome at all.  The only thing I could really do was set my intent, be solid in what I hoped to achieve (e.g., have a good goal that had nothing to do with anything but honest input and healthy focus for result) and then do my part to get there actively and not passively.  When I took accountability for doing my part, everything changed.  I began to see clearly that the only power I truly had was the power I exercised to control my own thoughts and actions and that the actions of others were far beyond my control.  I started to see things differently and started having better outcomes as a result.

This isn't a one-time process and you're healed though.  It takes effort every day and now today when I see an unpleasant outcome, I can quickly diagnose where I went wrong in my thought process.  I then can take the steps to focus on healing what caused me to overlook something obvious and plan to do things differently the next time. What is so funny is that the universe, in it's infinite wisdom, will give you plenty of tests to make sure your creation process is operating the way you intended based on the time and effort put into it.  I'll give you an example I see so much:  Dating - take someone who is lonely who just wants a date or a relationship but they are so fearful that what happened in the past that hurt them will happen again in the future.  I'll stop right there - this - this is a bad way to start...fear of pain from what has happened before is never a place to start.  Heal the pain first - set clear intent - and then take action so that you create from a place of curiosity rather than fear...that you create from a place of hope rather than contempt and then, then you will change your experience going further. First of all, behaviors in others that triggered past pain for you will be more visible and you won't invest time in those kinds of folks.  This will clear the path for those to date that will be more rewarding for you.  The process works just like that.  Find out where you are holding negativity and fear and clear that before you engage in a similar interaction where those emotions will rise to the surface.  If you step way back, you begin to see how it is the planning, the intent, the focus and your beliefs that create your outcomes.  Test it.  Try different things and see what happens. When lessons repeat, there is something you missed.  Don't feel bad!  Just go over the inputs again and see what you can refine or modify and then reset your intent and try it again.

Life is really amazing when you begin to understand just exactly how you create in this world.  I hope I've done a little better job on expanding the concepts in the first paragraph.  I love this lesson and test it often and it is a recipe that works...what I put into something, I will get out of something.  If I go into something with pain, I'm going to attract something that will bring me more of the same.  If I go into something with curiosity, balance and focus, I'm not going to accept what doesn't measure up to the outcome I seek and so will modify or change the resources that come at me to help me create...the outcomes will manifest if I do my homework correctly.  I love how this works now that I understand but I hated it when I didn't know what was going on.  We live, we love, we learn and hopefully grow.  I hope I've given you some food for thought at least!  When you hear that our thoughts are so powerful, well - this is just one of those ways.  If you want delicious chocolate chip cookies, you can't go into the process fearful that they are going to taste terrible!  You need to make sure you have the right ingredients, tools and process to make them come out right.  If you get a bad result, note what went into the batch, the process or timing and modify accordingly.  I'm hungry now!  I hope you get out there and create a beautiful lives for yourselves.  The tools seem to always shift and change but hey, you ARE powerful and can create new tools, look for better resources and pull everything together in a beautifully rewarding process.  You can.  Just believe it and half the battle is already won.  ~Blessings.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (Photo - this beautiful painting is not mine but I loved it - the focus is peace and serenity - smiles).

Change Your Focus

We get so lost sometimes focusing on the world of people around us that we forget the world inside of us.   There are treasures unimaginably great within if one would simply find the courage to stop all the analyzing, criticizing and judging and just go within.  I catch myself in judgment sometimes and I don’t like it when that happens so I realize whenever judgment lurks in my thoughts, I am actually being too fearful of my own soul to go deep within and find the wound I am protecting with my judgment of others.  It is no easy shift dear souls but if you can find some measure of strength, will or stamina to endure the quest, you will find it a most worthy endeavor.

You see, when you get to the truth, the heart of the matter and you find what is really at your core, no string of events in the past can tear you apart by someone come to assist with the exorcism of wounds within.  It’s a stretch and a difficult one at that but as I said, give it a try.  You won’t waste as much energy as you do when engaged in egotistical battles intended only to divert you from the truth.  I mean, think about it – do you really want to remain victim forever reacting to the labels and guilt trips people lay upon you or would you rather uncover the truth enough about you so that you could stand in your own light when the exorcists come.  Oh, and believe me, they will come.  Each will have a new face but they will attempt to expose your wounds for one reason and one reason only…to get you to find the core, the true source (you) and begin to heal when you find also within, your own love and light.

Never give up and never let the outside world or even those who love you paint a picture of you that you swallow as wholehearted truth.  They don’t know who you really are – they only know their experience of you.  No one truly defines you or your actions but you and your thoughts.  Your thoughts decide whether you will give labels born of fear credence or brush them off as a simple opinion based on one perspective of an aspect of you.  Be fearless and be strong.  You can find what makes you weak and in so doing, you’ll find your strength.  Blessings of highest love and light dear ones! 

(c) Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Thought for the Day...

Seek not to propagate judgement, hatred, enmity nor adversity. Our words are very powerful and when used in the negative, we create a very negative stream of energy that serves as a magnet for more of the same. We can judge others and things around us but how can we know the truth when half truths are spoken by those repeating what they do not understand? Seek knowledge from reputable sources - see it before you believe it and then understand what you are seeing before you speak and when you speak, speak in positive words towards positive solutions. We can distrust and decry government, politicians, companies and blame everyone else in existence for all of the problems of this world or we can focus on our own hands in our undoing. Consider focus on self and righting self actions and self thoughts. Live and breathe an example of morality, kindness, compassion, wisdom, love and understanding and let that be the energy you spread out into this world. If nothing else, you will sleep easier each night when you retire knowing you seek to contribute to long-lasting and meaningful solutions instead of spreading the problem.  Remember, we create what we experience in this world. ~Blessings of infinite love and light!