Better Bend Than Break

There’s an old fable about the competition between the reed and the oak during a gale storm. As the wind howled, the oak boasted, while the reed said nothing. The wind became a tempest, and the reed bent down flexibly to the ground. The oak fell, uprooted.

Sometimes we seem strong but we are just being stubborn. We become rigid in our moral positions and don’t even try to understand the problems of those around us. We like to be thought of as uncompromising and tough.

Maybe we’re frightened. Perhaps we fear that if we even start to compromise we will be lost; on sign of weakness and the dam will burst and we’ll be up to our old tricks again.

Don’t confuse rigidity with true strength. To be strong we need to be tolerant, responsive, and gentle. We need to be strong in a loving, flexible, human way. This is a central part of one’s personal growth.

Afraid of Dying

What I fear most about dying, is not knowing for sure where I’m going. I remember when I was in training as an orderly at a nursing home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the training instructor taught us to never just get behind the wheelchair of a patient and start pushing. She explained that while a resident is sitting in their wheelchair, perhaps even dozing off, that the initial start can frighten them half to death, and that not informing the resident beforehand like this, “I’m going to take you to the dining room now, Mr. Schmitz”, erodes the dignity of a resident. They may feel a loss of control.

Would mother Universe please tell me what it will be like? I have begun to form my own concept. By working on this gradually, I’ve noticed that my anxiety over transitioning has lessened to a degree. My version that I’m comfortable with for now, goes something like this:

My version is much like what the renowned psychic, Sylvia Browne suggests in her books, which is gleaned from her own psychic journeys beyond with her spiritual guides and from her impressions during psychic readings. In her version, which I easily claim as my own belief, is that the actual transition itself is painless, and that there is no further attachment to this physical world in the mind.

A tremendous and brilliant white light is our Guide and we will have an overwhelming sense of trust and love in our Guide. Others who have gone before us are there to greet us. Even those beloved pets we lost are there! I’ll see my grandfathers, my mom, even my dogs Heidi, Jessie, and oh my dear CoCo. And my cats Samantha and Maya!

Everyone on the other side looks the way they did when they were around 35 years of age. Communication isn’t through words any longer but rather telepathically. There is a continuous beautiful melody of music everywhere. Time on the other side is different from this world that we know now. What we know as a lifetime to us here is a mere blink of the eye on the other side. Before we know it, those that we left in this world, are right behind us. That comforts me knowing that Christopher won’t be too far behind. I worry about how he’ll manage when I’m gone.

It has been explained to me that we didn’t know where we were going when we were born, or came to this world, and that it is OK not knowing or fully understanding where we’re going when we make our transition. That’s something I’ll have to work on; trusting in mother Universe’s ability to take care of me. Even the last leg of life’s journey is packed full with lessons. Right up until the bell sounds for the next class to begin.

Courage Is A Lot Like Love

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment. -Napoleon

Courage never operates in a vacuum; we can always try hard and see ourselves as courageous about something. We also need to believe that there will be some consequence to our acts of bravery. It seems we are all looking at the long term for some kind of deliverance for ourselves and others.

Love, too, needs a sense of future, time to develop and flower. It is only passion that lives for an instant and passion, like the red rose, doesn't last out the full year.

So I believe, love and courage are similar and work together for our own good and the good of others. By working on ourselves through a form of personal growth and development we treasure love and courage as we find ourselves with greater wisdom and more abundance of peace with ourselves and others. I believe that this is one of the ways we have faith in the long term and in things that endure. No one is suggesting we can change overnight, but with love and courage and the hope on which they depend, we can all work wonders! I believe in my courage to change day-by-day.

When Decisions Are Made Out of Fear

Declare your independence of all fear-based limits. -- Alan Cohen

I have found fear to be one of my most worst and ineffective tools for making decisions. By “tools”, I mean the emotional coping mechanisms our mind creates during our life time and from our own set of unique and personal experiences. These tools may be useful during a certain time period in our life because they protect us. As humans we change, and therefore some of our tools must change as well. As a child, fear may have been an important tool, because it kept us out of harm’s way from something. For example, I have a friend who has a two year old, and to keep the child away from certain things around the house tells the child, “It’s hot.” So now, whenever the child wants to touch something, he asks, “Hot?” My friend has been effective at keeping his child away from certain harmful elements, but obviously, as the child matures, this tool must change. As adults, I find that our tools don’t change frequently enough. Fear based tools are common for us to carry with us into adult hood. Fear based tools may distort reality, giving one an unrealistic platform for certain functions, such as decision making.

Fear is the absence of love. Fear is where our higher power (God or the Universe) is not. Making choices out of fear keeps us from looking at the true cause of our pain or anguish. Pain, misery, aggravation are just a few of our negative emotions. Our mind, our Ego, tells us that something out there in our world is causing us fear. We then believe we must resolve an issue or problem in order to get rid of the fear. This process tends to distort reality, blinding us from the true source of our fear, the Ego. It is our Ego, our mind, causing the fear. Our mind hides this fact from us. If we knew the true cause of our fear, we might feel we were wrong and put ourselves to blame, which then creates guilt.

Our Ego shelters us in this same way from guilt with all of our emotions. Anger, frustration, embarrassment and sadness are not ours to own responsibility for; it is the outside world to blame. Something or someone “out there” is the cause of the emotion. The problem with this tool used by the mind is that it leaves us feeling powerless. It leaves us feeling unable to change our feelings. Our power is surrendered to something outside of our own self and at the mercy of this “thing”. Many of us have learned by now that we can’t change another person. So we believe we cannot change “it” nor can we change our own emotions or feelings. We believe that this “thing” in the outside world must change for us to feel better. The same holds true for every one of our emotions. If the outside world or something or someone in it is the cause of our emotion, then we are not to blame. Clearly, it is that “thing” “out there” that is responsible for our emotions. This way of thinking makes us feel we are not to blame and not at fault. The only way to truly heal the problem is to heal the fear.

Through our awareness that it is our reaction to an event and those stories we have fabricated in our mind creating what we believe to be the truth, our power is restored. We have the power to create change and happiness. We begin realistically and authentically to heal the fear. No longer is there a dependency on the outside world for our own true joy.

Making choices or decisions out of fear are actions not from God or the Universe. When an individual has even a remote feeling that a choice or decision is being made from a fear based emotion, I recommend one to stop and take time to do the necessary inventory of one’s own feelings. Do not make a decision based on fear. Some of my personal friends and acquaintances go so far as to even do the opposite that a fear based decision may suggest. I recommend that if one becomes aware that a decision is being made with fear as a driving force, to stop. Breathe deeply in and out and go inside one's inner Self for direction. I often suggest the use of a simple technique I refer to as “STAR”. STAR is an acronym for: Stop, Think, Assess and Redirect to a healthy alternative. Even the simple exercise of breathing deeply in and out will help to release the fear. Susan Jeffers, a life coach and spiritual guide suggests, "Feel the fear and do it anyway."

Straightforward Sincerity - Honesty

Honesty: The open quality of truthfulness, straightforward sincerity.

An honest person can be trusted to be straightforward and sincere. Telling the truth and being sincere help to develop honesty.

I received this "Honesty" figurine from a very special person, at a time when I was facing a decimated life, a result of my seemingly endless, perhaps even sociopathic ease with being a dishonest person. Through these lessons, I have become the man of integrity I am today. I am an honest person. It has been said that those that chose to remove me from their life due to my dishonesty in the past, now wish I could have been as honest then, as I am now. There is a feeling of disappointment and loss. Life would be so different today, had I chosen a path of honesty.

I can't imagine how I could have done it before; being so incredibly dishonest in so many areas of my life. It all seems so heavy to think back upon that time in my life. My mother always said that I was a very bad liar. She proved right on that point. It was my inability to maintain and organize my lies; what I told to which person, and so on. I made many mistakes, and my "cover" was blown.

This process of becoming an honest person in my journey of personal growth has been one that I shall always look upon with much joy. It hasn't been easy, but the life I have as a result, is easier. I am not perfect. I am an imperfect human trying to learn my way through this existence and lifetime. I make mistakes; lie about something here or there, as anyone does. In my awareness, I make every attempt to correct any misinformation and soon after spend time taking a look at the reason behind the lie. Often, the lie comes from my fear of a certain reaction. Or, the lie may stem from my own feelings of inadequacy.

- Be honest. Admit mistakes. Avoid cheating others -

What Happens to You When You Feel Fear? This Is What Happens to Me.

Courage is fear that has said its prayers. - One Day at a Time in Al-Anon

Nothing freezes me in my tracks like fear. How many times have we let fear stop us from doing what we really wanted to do? For me, I know fear stopped me from finding new clients for my business, finding a job, being honest with someone close to me, finding a new place to live and even from asking someone out on a date. But I couldn’t because I was afraid. The truth is, the moment our fear takes control, our self-will also takes control. The first thing to do is to admit to ourselves that we’re afraid. The second is to find out why. Discovering why may mean calling someone to talk, meditating or taking a “personal inventory” of ourselves. To feel the fear lift is to have ourselves back again. Then, when we know how we feel, we’ll know what to do. Susan Jeffers, a well known author puts it this way, “Feel the fear, and do it anyway”.