You get what you need!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

But someone's gotta do it!

To those of you who are experiencing so much flux in your life.  Relationships in crisis.  Finances in ruins.  Children running amok, etc. etc. etc.  You've asked for it.

Ouch!

Now, I'm not really that big into 'law of attraction' stuff, I don't believe that just because you have a negative thought something negative is going to come of it.

What I have noticed though, in those who seem to be in chaos and crisis mode right now (and what I've noticed in my own life as well) is that what is coming about right now is an accumulation of negative thoughts, not just last weeks thoughts, but last years and the year before that and the year before that.

Yikes!

I don't know about you but I've thought and said some pretty negative/damaging things over the past years and yes I can see all of that creeping up and showing itself to me now in fits and spurts.  I do understand where they are coming from and thankfully I've learned some tools on how not to let these things bring me back to that negativity.  One of them is staying in the present moment.

I think it's extremely important to recognize where it was we may have asked for what we are currently receiving/experiencing.  I'm kicking myself now for not knowing this before or I'd have been asking for a million dollars all those years ago!  For those of you that had the foresight to do that, I commend and congratulate you on a job well done (can we do lunch?).

Anyway, I have a theory on all of this "past thought haunting" that happens to all of us.  I believe that as we grow and mature and realize our personal responsibility to ourselves, these past thought accumulations come into our lives at beautifully timed intervals to help us hone our responsibility skills even further.  It's not necessarily the Universe sending us 'tests', it's our own thoughts coming back to us.

Here's one:  If your child has been giving you a run for your money since he was 2 and all your thought energy (and what you tell everyone around you) is put into "He's such a handful, he never stops, he's going to be the death of me, etc." then what you are going to experience when that child is 10, 14, 18 is exactly what you have been thinking about him since day one!

Here's another one:  If your marriage (relationship, career) has entered a rocky area and that's all you can think about even when you have surpassed the rocky area and are doing well, and all you do is talk about 'when so & so did this or when so & so did that" a hundred and one years ago, then guess what?  Yep, you guessed it, your marriage (relationship or career) is going to deteriorate little by little until one day it just doesn't exist anymore.

This one reminds me of a guy I knew who worked for one of the big 3 automotive companies years ago.  Nothing this guy ever said about his job, the pay and the company was nice, not one grateful or appreciative comment.  Then one day (as well all know) these companies started laying off their employees because of decline in auto sales.  This guy went berserk!  How dare they lay him off, didn't they know he worked for them for 20 years, didn't they know he was a committed employee, blah blah blah!

I couldn't help but say to him "Isn't this better than working for them?  Aren't they doing you a favour? You seemed miserable working there, nothing they did was right.  What's the problem?"

Needless to say he didn't like me pointing out the obvious.

Here's what we need to remember about life.  Negative attitudes and people bashing don't get us what we want, they get us what we need.  And sometimes what we need is a kick in the ass to get us on the right track.

From my perspective, all of his thoughts and words acted like a prayer "please, please, please get me out of this miserable job that doesn't pay enough, that I hate, that I despise going into every morning"!

And the Universe responded to that prayer.

It wasn't his version of what he wanted (suddenly the crappy pay was better than the alternative which was NO pay).  But it was what he needed.

So my advice to you.  When your faced with a situation like the ones mentioned above (or any of the other gazillion experiences we can have) take a moment to see where you might have asked for what you are experiencing. 

And if you can feel this kind of situation arising (and trust me we can all sense when the shit is about to hit the fan), do something about it.  You still have time to change what happens. You can do this by thinking loving thoughts and praying a new prayer.  Change your attitude, put a smile on, do a happy dance. 

Or accept what happens, learn from it and move on but don't make it part of who you are, don't let it establish another 10 years of unhappy thoughts and unappreciative words... 

Because guess what you can expect then?

Remembering to BE

Lately I've been spending a little bit of time with my grandmother in the hospital. 

She sleeps alot.  She's worn out from her 92 years on this planet.  Her gas tank is nearing empty.

So when I'm there, I'm not doing much.  I feel like I'm not doing anything to help her feel better.

When it's time to get her food to her and help her eat, I fumble.  I can't get the tray to sit right across her bed on the first try.  I am afraid I am going to stab her delicate lips with the fork (so I made her eat small chunks of chicken nuggets with a spoon).  I want to say something to her and I don't know what that something is.  I worry about missing her mouth and getting soup down the front of her (where did they put that big bib anyway?)  And don't get me started on getting the straw for her water into her mouth and not up her nose!

I've been laughing alot while I'm with grandma.  Laughing at my vulnerability and the ridiculous-ness of it all.  Laughing at this 'near end of life' comedy that seems to be unfolding, maybe just in my eyes.

The other day I laughed at my worries that I'm not DOING enough for her. 

I stayed with her a few hours and I read a book, I let her float in and out of sleep, I fed her what little she would eat for dinner and then I rubbed her hair and I rubbed her legs.  I said a quiet prayer for her.

She told me to go home.  I told her not to tell me what to do (my husband recently told me that my spunk reminds him of her).  Then I told her that I want to BE with her.  Just BE.  That everything at home was fine, that the boys will see me when I get home and that there was a big pot of homemade soup waiting for them for dinner.

She smiled.

And just then I let go of my worries about doing enough and we sat there....  being....

Poor Me......

There seems to be a whole lot of "poor me" going around lately.

Maybe it's something in the air?

Yesterday I had lunch with my mother in law and she said something that totally hit the nail on the head.

She said "Life is tough....get a helmet!"

Why do we spend so much time in 'victim' role?  Why do we waste so much energy on accumulating sympathy as we share our 'poor me stories'?

If we are so preoccupied with being a victim, how are we going to be successful? 

We cannot 'survive' if we are constantly living as a victim.

Playing the victim is a byproduct of giving your power away.

Playing the victim is not attractive and does not attract the kind of people into your life that will support you in your healing, instead it will attract people into your life that enjoy hearing your hardship stories which really means, they like to listen to all the shit you've been through because it makes them feel better about themselves.  Are these the kinds of people you want surrounding you?

The jury is still out on whether or not playing victim for even 5 minutes in your life is worth it.  What is the pay off?  What's the reward?

There's no prize at the end of your life for the person with the most dramatic story.  In fact, if you listen to that victim story for too long, you may just believe it and for sure it's going to become more and more dramatic each time you tell it, because let's face it, the bigger the response from the person you are sharing with the bigger that story gets.

Victim stories don't always sound like whining, sniveling and crying.  Sometimes they are filled with anger and so we don't hear them or see them as victim stories, but they are.

Oh, and I equally enjoy watching a victim justify their behaviour with "it's because of the abuse, the neglect, the abandonment, etc.".

Right.....  I totally believe you!

 

Nobody's perfect.....

We hear that all the time don't we?  Nobody's perfect?  It's how we excuse ourselves for mistakes.  Convince ourselves that it's okay to be flawed.

I've said it many times about myself in the past.  In fact one of my favourite lines when I was working out of the house was "I don't remember putting "perfect" down on my resume", when something didn't work out as planned or I had fallen short of a goal.  It was an excuse.  Plain and simple.

My belief now is not that we aren't perfect, but that we absolutely are.

Some would think the things I've done in my life are all mistakes.  All of my decisions the wrong ones.

I suppose it's easy to guess that since most of what I have done and most of the decisions I have made were made because they were the right ones for me and not for someone else.

I don't make excuses for my decisions and mistakes anymore.  I know that all of it is perfect.  It sometimes doesn't look that way on the surface, and it is sometimes confusing for the people around me to experience, but they are perfect.

I had a friend tell me once that she is an "experiential learner".  I believe we are all experiential learners.  This earth is our classroom and we are earning (as another dear friends likes to call it) a Ph.D. in life.

We all have a story.  And isn't that the point?

I believe heartache, tragedy and life experiences are what bring us as human beings together.  To be able to hear someone tell a story that touches your heart because you remember  being in that position at one point, you remember the emotion, the physical feelings of it, you remember it like it was yesterday and so therefore, you can relate and you can send love and support to the other person experiencing the same thing.

The moments when this happens for me confirms my belief in perfection.  Nothing is left for chance in this world.  Every event, everything that has happened and will happen in my life will be perfectly planned to give me the opportunity to learn and to become a better human being. 

It's there for all of us.  If we just take the time to see it.

A+

You know when you plug through life doing the best you can, always wondering "am I really doing the best I can?" or "what if what I'm doing isn't good enough?".

Maybe you don't, but I do on occasion....  Okay, who am I kidding...  I wonder about this ALL THE TIME  It's an obsession really.....

I can't tell you how many evening prayers end in "and if you could please send me some sort of progress/report card I would sooo appreciate it, K?  Thanks".

Well, this week I got what appears to be an answer to that prayer.  Well, not the kind you get in the brown envelope with your name on it, the kind that looks like your kids doing an amazing job transitioning into their new school.

I never had to experience this as a kid.  Moving anywhere.  I lived in the same house from the day I was born until the day I moved out at 18 and I stayed with the same friends all through public and high school, some of them stuck with me through marriage and kids.  So, I had no idea what to expect when it came to asking my boys to leave all of their friends behind.

I was really nervous for them, crossing my fingers that they made at least one friend they felt comfortable with and who would make this transition a bit smoother.

Needless to say my worrying was completely unnecessary.

My kids went into that school like little pros.  Picked up every kid they could lay their eyes on and pronounced them friends.  It really was amazing to watch!  To hear the stories of all the children they were meeting and how much they love their new school.  It made my heart fill right up!

I thought of it again today as my son and I rode our bikes side by side to a new friends house so he could hang out.  I thought about how I rarely ever take credit for these types of things in my children's lives, I've been home with them for 12 years now and I truly believe that if it weren't for that constant nurturing and coaching they wouldn't be the confident, true to themselves people that they are today.

So today I am going to take this week as a progress report.  I'm going to read it as though there are a bunch of A+'s on that sucker (since I rarely EVER got A's in school) and hold my head up proud.

Like every mother should when their child succeeds at something!

Who wouldn't befriend these guys???