Day 86 Rescuing People

We were taught by our parents that we have to do things for other people in order to achieve some kind of self esteem for ourselves. Even if it was to get a beer for dad from the fridge or clean up the dog poop or wash the dishes so mom could sit down and watch TV we were trained from day one to do things for others. If we did good we were rewarded with feelings of love. So we grew up thinking that love was s conditional thing, a barter chip. If you do this I will love you and approve of you. But if you don’t then you are a pile of dog poop and I will withhold my love from you and tell you that you are worthless. Wow! This is what we do to kids! I heard recently that kids hear 300 negative comments about themselves and only 60 positive comments about themselves each day. So we grow up completely out of self esteem and the only way we know to get it is by helping others. But mom and dad are out the picture now. We may have a boyfriend or wife or husband or children now and we do things to help them. Often things they don’t want done! But we also try to help them out of problems or troubles or situations that may cause them suffering.

The fact is that everybody hates change. They don’t’ want to change anything in their lives and then something comes up that no longer benefits them and they know they need to change that thing but they don’t want to change so they start whining and complaining and tell us that they hurt and are suffering and we think it would be good to help them and do something to help them get out of their pain. The truth is they have set into motion the wheels that will cause change to happen in their lives. They have begun the machine that will push them up against the wall and force them to make that change they need to make that will benefit their lives but that they don’t want to make. WE set this machine in motion by our own intention! Its how people get to the point of being able to make a change in their lives. But you see this person suffering and being squeezed and yelling loudly about it and you (or anyone) marches right in there and rescues them from the very machine that was set in motion to benefit their lives! And you keep going in and rescuing them over and over and over, preventing them really from having to make the change that they even know they need to make! Wow!

If you have any friends with teenage kids you can see this machine in action very plainly. The point I am trying to show you here is that we should not rescue people from the very machines they created to force themselves to make a beneficial change in their lives! If people liked change, if people could embrace change, no one would create these machines. But since people hate change, this is what they do. Please don’t try to rescue them from their own machines. Its far kinder to let them go through this experience they chose for themselves and make the change and get on with life. I am sure you can look at your own history and see how many times you created such a machine to force  you to do something you didn’t want to do.

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Day 61 What causes my suffering

It is those non benefitting beliefs, those untrue beliefs that we were given by outside sources that make us struggle and suffer . The fact that they are not true makes it impossible to live under those beliefs comfortably or easily. Its like trying to get your foot into a size 4 shoe because someone told you had to! By choosing to believe that there is some fate, some kind of destiny you cannot control, your whole life has turned upside down and you are powerless at this point. However, at this point in your life, you are all grown up now. What other people have told you to believe, for the most part, were neither correct or completely true or beneficial to you at all. So now, as an adult, its time to review what you were told to believe and determine for yourself which of those childhood beliefs still benefit you today and which ones are hogwash and you wish to replace. Then choose beliefs that do benefit your life today. I can help you do this if you like. When you have beliefs that do benefit your life today you will find that you no longer suffer or struggle at all and your life becomes a beautiful thing indeed! Just like Mine!

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Day 57 Betrayal

In every person’s life as a child, there comes  a day when we discover that our parents lied to us. It is usually not a very big lie, but these parents who we trusted completely and believed every single thing they said and did and we even attempted to imitate them thinking that they knew what they were doing and were experts on how to live life in the best possible way, we catch them in a lie. It might be simply that there is no Santa Claus, it might be that we see them doing some act of selfishness at our expense. It might be one of those do as I say not as I do events. It might be overhearing our parents talking trash about us in the heat of an argument saying things they don’t really mean. But in every child’s life there comes a moment when that child realizes that her parents have lied to her. And this feels like the ultimate betrayal. It is usually the first time we are betrayed by anyone we truly loved. 

So it depends on how that child handles that betrayal that can color their whole life experience. Most of us suddenly realize that our parents are not gods. We may realize that our parents are struggling and suffering and not having a very good time here after all. We may realize that our parents do not know everything after all and so we change how we see them and they become human beings instead of gods and we learn to rely on our own selves from that point on. This is that moment in a young teen’s life when she stops confiding in her parents, when she starts making her own decisions, when she would rather choose for herself than rely on her now human parents to make choices for her anymore. This is normal and healthy. 

But there are some kids who are so traumatized by the idea that their parents would actually lie to them,  that they never got over it. They feel such a sense of betrayal that they cannot forgive their parents for being human. It becomes blown out of proportion in the child’s mind and there is no one around to seek counseling from, to explain this betrayal is just a human being- being human. 

And, instead of going through what most of us go through and learning at this time of childhood that it is better to make our own way than to rely on other humans to do it for us, this person has not recovered from this natural point in every child’s life when they catch the ones they trust doing untrustworthy things. She did not reach that decision to create her own life the best she could and instead just rejected her parents as defective and she is still thinking that there are gods in the world who can run her life for her and not betray her. So time and time again she trusts in someone and makes them the parent god for her life and tine and time again they betray her. It is a broken record. 

What she needs to do is take responsibility for her own life, just like that teenage girl who decided it is better to make her own decisions for her own life, no matter how bad or mistaken they may be, rather than to let any other human being run her life for her. We learn by experience how to make better and better choices as we go along. But this person has not even picked up the baton and tried to make her own choices. She has spent her life looking for someone else to make her choices for her. I would encourage her to stand in her power now and begin to create her own life for herself rather than looking for another parent figure god. There are no gods in this world. There is no one else here who would know how to live her life in the best way. Only she can determine that and create that for herself.

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