Sunday, July 11, 2010

Lighten up on yourself!


Over the course of this weekend I had an opportunity to spend time with some really close high school girlfriends that I haven’t seen and spent this kind of time with in a very long while.  We were celebrating one of the little ones birthday and it was so much fun watching our kids playing together or not as was the case with a couple of them, teenagers you gotta love ‘em, right. While the kids played, we did what women do who haven’t seen each other in a while, we laughed! We talked and reminisced about old times we shared and we had a blast! However, in spite of our laughter, there were a few serious and heartfelt moments where I was able to see yet again where we carry with us an enormous amount of guilt and induce self-punishment for the mistakes we have made in our lives.
Let’s take a moment and talk about mistakes.  I will be the first to say I have thrown myself upon the cross and nailed myself down for what I have felt were damning mistakes at least, I don’t know, more times than I care to really say at this present moment.  I would beat myself up and torture myself with the coulda, woulda, shouldas for what I have now found was no reason.  I have come to understand that mistakes are very useful and essential tools afforded to us for our personal growth and ascension (which incidentally is our real purpose for being here anyway) and that they are impossible to avoid in life.  We are experiential creatures and learn primarily through what we experience and not so much by example. It is because we are experiential by nature that it is impossible for us to avoid mistakes. Let me give an example of what I mean.  How many times have you listened when someone told you not to do something because x, y, and z would happen and you turned right around and did that very thing, while saying to yourself that will not happened to me because _______________ fill in the blank with whatever wisdom filled reason you had given yourself at the time. We have to have our own experience in order for us to have a real frame of reference, which then allows us to make informed decisions from that time forward.
Think about it, how boring would it be if we went through life never having any experiences of our own.  That is how it would be if there were say a select few who went about having experiences, making some mistakes and then reporting to the rest of us and we all said ok got it I will not do that.  By giving up your experiences and mistakes that is what you would be reducing life to.  I don’t know about you all but for me, some of the best times I have had in my life were had in the midst of a “mistake”! You came here to have experiences, both good and bad.  Life is not about getting from the cradle to the grave as safely as you can, you are supposed to muck it up and make a stinking mess of it.  I am really confused as to where the notion came from that we are supposed to following this certain path that leads to the perfect mistake less life.  That is absurd! Name one person you either know personally or have ever heard of who has done such a thing, there is no such person. Life would simply not be the same without your mistakes.  Let us stop taking them so seriously and let us begin to examine them and see where and how we can gain from them and then begin to seek to grow from them.  I say change your perspective about mistakes as well as everything and your life begins to change as well. Lighten up on yourself and we will have some more talks about this as I believe we have some work to do around this subject.
Loving You!

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