| There are many ways for us to distract ourselves from being present in this moment and from feeling our connection with our higher Source. There are reasons why we do this. The most common reason for distracting ourselves or moving away from our connection is, as I mentioned before, the fact that becoming present means becoming aware of painful feelings that may be arising in moments of stillness. You must become aware of how we distract ourselves, what our mechanisms are for breaking our connection and becoming separate and how they work. We have many stories we tell ourselves. For instance, one of the most common is that we don't have time to spend with ourselves and it is the first thing we drop when we feel pressed for time. In reality, the more time we spend with ourselves connecting to our Source, the more relaxed and efficient the rest of our life becomes. This is hard to believe but the real reason we are avoiding it is not because we have not got the time but it is not something that makes us feel good. It is interesting to look at this dynamic for one could look at it and say, "I will not spend time with me because it does not feel good." What does that mean? We can uncover many useful ideas and stories about ourselves from this dynamic. If it is not a pleasant experience to be with ourselves, what is unpleasant about it? Do we not like ourselves? Do we not feel worthy of being in our own company? Are we too emotional or do we have too much pain? What are we believing about ourselves? We don't want to hold onto these kind of stories about ourselves. They are not the truth. We must remember the truth that we are expressions of God and we are perfect in that way. Anything we believe about ourselves that is less than that is merely a story that we developed based on our experiences as we were growing up. Remember that that is all they are, just stories. There are many things we believed as children that we knew were not true when we grew up: the Easter bunny, Santa Claus. We fervently believed these but as we grew older we saw the truth. There are many more stories than we have seen. We were told perhaps that only bad people had money, sex was dirty or that all people of one race are criminals. Some of these we see the truth and let go of and others we may have never questioned. Here is the key to finding happiness in your life. The only thing that stands between you and happiness is your beliefs and the way you think. When we have been caused pain or there has been trauma in our childhood and these were not adequately able to be processed we end up with some subliminal feelings of being bad or feeling bad. That is a feeling state in us. Our minds, having forgotten what caused the original pain, uses those feeling states as a message that there is something wrong with us, that we are somehow bad because we feel bad. Whenever we find ourselves thinking that we are bad, or that there is something wrong with us we must immediately remember the truth that there is no bad and we can't be bad. We are perfect expressions of God. And so the state of feeling bad means there is unprocessed pain or trauma left over from a long time ago when it wasn't safe or appropriate or we weren't supported to process that appropriately. As adults we are now strong enough to process them but we often hold onto the fear that it is going to be too big for us. That if we allow ourselves to feel the pain it will never go away. This is merely a belief leftover from childhood, just like if you are bad, Santa Claus won't come. It is not true that if you allow yourself to feel your pain you will be stuck in it forever. The way to happiness and peace and fulfillment lies on the path through the pain. You must let go of it and release it and move to the other side of it. This is the only way. Be kind to yourself, nurture and love yourself and be sure to forgive yourself. Do not judge yourself for having been where you are or where you have been. Let go of judging yourself for anything. Allow healing to happen. |
