RIGHT – WRONG

Right, wrong, good, bad these are all personal beliefs and most of these beliefs are not really our beliefs! Our beliefs were passed on to us usually from our parents, grandparents, teachers, friends and environment.

 

Our attachment to these old beliefs can cause a lot of stress in our lives. Most of our conflicts in life are created over right, wrong good, bad!

 

This week as Ron and I took time for our weekly exploration of where we are in our relationship, right, wrong, good, and bad were at the top of our list. As Ron and I came from very different backgrounds our list of what's right and wrong, good or bad are sometimes very different; this could very well lead to conflict and, I will confess, has done so in the past.

Some might say Ron is a very moral person and I can sometimes seem very immoral. You could say we see many things from a totally different viewpoint. It stands to reason as most of his beliefs , come from his mother's belief system, and I emphasize his mother here because she seems to have been the strongest influence in his life. Ron's mother was a very strong woman and she basically saw life as black or white, and she was very clear in her belief of good and bad.

I grew up in the midst of general chaos, there was very little black and white, many shades of color, and a lot of gray; therefore I am not so right, wrong, good or bad oriented. I often color outside of the lines and in the forbidden colors!

Somewhere between the 60s and 80s I began to awaken. I began to realize that most of what I had been taught did not make sense. As I began to search for something that did make sense I was led to the study of metaphysics. Metaphysics teaches us to go beyond the physical. I believe that most of you would agree that we are more than just this physical body. Therefore it seems to me that our body, our physical being, is just a vehicle that we can use for interaction on this planet called Earth. I believe that we each chose our body type, our parents, siblings and others that would present to us the challenges and the securities that would help us to complete the mission we came here for. Metaphysics teaches us there is no right or wrong; there just is what is, and the opportunity to change it to what we want it to be.

What this means to me is there really is no good, bad, right, wrong, for these are all simply judgments and usually judgments made without seeing the complete picture and most often these judgments are learned from our past. It is also true that the majority of the judgments we make are aimed at ourselves. Whenever we find ourselves judging someone else's behavior it is a signal that we need a timeout to assess how we're feeling about ourselves. For our natural human tendency is to project our feelings onto those around us.

As we open to a new awareness in our lives we begin to see ourselves more clearly and this I believe is one of the most important steps that we can take to ensure ourselves better relationships with all people.

Conflict comes first from within ourselves whenever we are feeling confused, insecure, needing to blame and needing to be right. Usually when we have these feelings we will choose the person closest to us to blame and make wrong so we can feel right. I'm sure that you will find, as I have, this doesn't work really well, but it usually results in a conflict with someone else which then helps us to feel guilty, to feel angry, to blame and feel justified and when that wears off to feel really, really bad.

Ron and I are working our way through a book I highly recommend called The I of the Storm in which author Gary Simmons quotes Hindu ascetic Muhru  “What makes us so predictable is that attention and awareness continuously reframe the present moment in the context of past influences. Who we are today is what sets tomorrow's stage . . . If consciousness is in bondage to the past or if attention is mesmerized according to ingrained patterns of awareness, the future is simply an extended line from here into tomorrow – and that's what makes the future predictable." This means then, that if we wish a different future, a different life, more love, more fun, more peace, we must change our thinking and thereby our life.

When we begin to see that we spend a lot of our time reliving and re-acting our past, still fighting the battles that we fought with our parents or our teachers or exes, on and on and on, then we begin to see a need for change.

Question is how do we change this behavior? I believe the first step is AWARENESS! When we become aware of certain behaviors that create stress in our life, understanding usually follows and we can begin to change the behaviors that no longer serve us well.

Since conflict seems to be everywhere we look in today's world, it only makes sense from my understanding that you and I must find a more peaceful way to live our daily life. A wise teacher once told us that “As it is within, so it is without.”

Trust me, 76 years has taught me conflict will come and conflict will go, however those we love may not always be here on this planet with us. So let go, turn loose of right and wrong, tune in to love, peace and acceptance and I assure you, you will enjoy your stay a whole lot more.

I share with you today from the place of much love and appreciation and a heartfelt desire that together we will make a difference. My vision is PEACE on EARTH will you join me?

Namaste’

Yoga Yaya

P. S.

Having reached this delightful older age I find there are even more colors than I knew, and many more lines to color outside! I have learned that what might be very, very right for me might not be so right for someone else! What this means in our relationships is that we each have to be aware of what judgments we are making and who those judgments belong to.

You see Ron was drawn to me because of my seeming immorality and my different way of thinking, because he was wanting to explore and color outside of some lines, move beyond some boundaries, explore what he thought was truth, and in his world of truth I seemed to be an enigma.

When we met Ron had just graduated from massage school and there I was with an established, successful healing center practicing massage in ways that were “Not Right” according to what he had been taught. He, however, was brand new in our relationship and it was to early to begin changing me.

Here we are some 23 years later and experiencing some frustrations basically because I still just won't do it right! 

But what I do, DO RIGHT is love you Ron Clark.

PEACE, LOVE! 

PATTERNS

Patterns begin probably at the time of our conception. We learn sleep patterns, eating patterns, loving patterns and even fighting patterns. Most of our early patterns are well ingrained and stick with us throughout our life unless we make a conscious choice to change them.

Studies tell us that if we can stick with something 40 days it will become a pattern. What I have experienced is those new patterns that I decide to establish, things I feel that will surely benefit me, are  difficult to stick with for 40 days. I will confess I personally have worked on a number of these 40 day plans and even completed some of them. These were plans that I felt would really improve  my life. They did not stick unless I really was ready for change!

Now there are other patterns that have stuck; that it seems took less than 40 days to stick like glue! These, as you might guess, are the ones that did not serve me well.

I bring up this discussion about patterns because I have noticed recently in my life and in the lives of others there is a pattern that often creates discomfort, DIS-EASE, and much stress. It is that pattern that  when things are going well, our life is really feeling good, we suddenly find ourselves feeling agitated, irritated and wondering why???

I call this "waiting for the other shoe to drop”. Growing up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic home it was always a given that if we had a good Christmas morning, we were going to have a disastrous Christmas Eve. This definitely applied to any other holidays or special occasions.

When I married I was determined it would be a very different life but that did not happen; the pattern was so deeply embedded in my life I took it with me.

It was many, many, many years later that I realized how well ingrained this dysfunctional pattern was in my life. I did what we all do. I lived what I had learned and followed the pattern that my parents, and their parents, had laid out so many many years before.

Thank God! For awakening and for many great educational books and teachers and especially, Louise Hay, author of Love Yourself, Heal Yourself. I inhaled this book; read it and reread it. Studied and taught it. And finally! GOT IT.

In order to have a different life, a better life, I had to first believe that it was possible! Then the next step, even more difficult to believe, was that I deserve it and then that I could do something about it. I could change the pattern; I could change my life.

I quickly learned and am now a firm believer that the first step to making a change is to recognize what needs to be changed.

The second step is to become very clear about what kind of change I want to make.

I have found that change is a very scary word. CHANGE. It used to be when I heard or thought about CHANGE, my heart would pound, my gut would tighten and I would often put it off, whatever the change might be.

In 1984 as I was experiencing my awakening time. This is a poem that came through me,

FEAR it's not always here!
Sometimes I awaken in the morning
and it's gone.
Then some time midst  the day
it stealthily slips in!

Sometimes I catch it before it
settles in and I send it out.
Sometimes I welcome it with open arms
and revel in it – cuddle with it -
hold it closely to me.

It protects me – when it's here
I am paralyzed
being paralyzed is pain
but! Movement might be more painful

Stay here fear – I don't want to move.

So yes indeed, change does often bring fear. I found another great book titled Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. It's another one of those books I read and reread and still read.

I know there are patterns in your life that need to be changed. I encourage you to explore and find the many ways in which you can do it differently.

It is time for change in my life, in your life, in our world. Today is the day to begin.

YOU DESERVE A GREAT HAPPY HEALTHY LOVING LIFE!