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Facebook: I find so many inspirational posts there; it’s almost like going to a cyber chapel for morning meditation. Better yet, you can bring your coffee and wear your jammies.
Sometimes I save posts that really move me. Other times, I remember the gist but forget the exact wording. Here’s my paraphrase of an idea I can’t get out of my mind lately.
Everything you’re going through right now, you created to get everything you ever asked for.
You asked for it is often misinterpreted as blaming the sufferer for his or her own suffering. Suffering is real, and while walking around in physical or emotional pain, no one needs shame on top of it. That’s putting the accent on the wrong half of the sentence, the “going through” instead of the results that the adversity course offers at the finish line. For many of us, suffering is so deeply embedded into our spiritual experience; it’s hard to give up guilt and self-blame as knee-jerk reactions. One of the things I found most repugnant about my 1950s Catholic upbringing was a fixation on the suffering of Jesus, sometimes in the most gory and detailed terms. I always preferred to focus on the Resurrection.
You asked for it simply implies that our consciousness is so strong and aligned with something bigger; we have at some level accepted a cosmic curriculum for growing. The idea that you have either a conscious or subconscious role in changing your experience is not shameful; it’s empowering. It doesn’t make you bad; it makes you captain of your own ship, willing to test your survival skills in life’s storms in order to become more. Remember why you asked for it: to get everything you ever wanted. You’re in process. The completed picture is not yet in sight.
This path isn’t for the faint of heart, even for its rich rewards. I remember how quickly I learned as a kid not to bad-mouth and exclude others once I got a taste of my own medicine. Other lessons took much longer. Several enormous betrayals took decades for me to get over, much less to arrive at a healing state of forgiveness. At that, I forgave the parties involved a whole lot earlier than I forgave myself. (Who hasn’t thought or uttered the words, what was I thinking? Or how could I have been so stupid?)
From the betrayals, I also learned the importance of saying what I really feel, no matter how afraid I am of losing the object of my affections. So much would have turned out differently if it weren’t for wrong assumptions in some cases on my part—and that foolishness of youth, not standing in my own truth for fear of the consequences.
My brush with cancer (it turned out to be a false alarm) had every hallmark of what a health scare can teach us—to embrace life every minute we’re lucky to be here and to consider how we’ll handle the ending of our own story. One thing I never expected was learning how many people love me and were willing to give their time, tenderness and resources to see me well again. I remember it was the first time a dear friend said I love you. He’s the same cynic that always kidded me about being “light and fluffy.”
In the more recent decades of my life, I can honestly say that despite my devotion and willingness to do it from the get-go, I find it hard to believe that I would have “ordered” a husband with health problems. Now that they have slowly progressed to the point that I am a caregiver, I sometimes wonder why I seem to have stuffed so much learning into one incarnation. Through this blessing/trial, I have learned how to take care of myself in ways I never thought possible. No one can take good care of another without taking excellent care of him- or herself. This necessity sent me to Mindful Self-Compassion training and catalyzed a daily meditation practice, one I have been trying to incorporate into my life since 1977. It has exposed my personal reactions to stress and allowed me to alter them. I’m learning to accept what-is which makes benefiting from the experience possible. Then there’s the experience of increased trust and intimacy. That’s just a sampler of my course in progress.
“It’s All Good”
There’s a Pollyanna way of using this expression, but there’s also a metaphysical way that can change your life. Years ago I started looking for the good in every situation I encountered. Not denying the crap, mind you, but embracing the idea that the universe is friendly, supportive and here to guide me along in my growth. Once I embraced that idea fully, life started to really work. It still does: cuts, bruises and all. Pain gets our attention. Sometimes we’ll do anything to end it or heal it, including change.
Astrology Bits
If you’ve got one of those birth charts with personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter) interacting closely with a lots of outer planets (Pluto, Uranus, Neptune and Chiron, what I call the PUNCs), you’re here for an advanced course in personal and planetary evolution. Transits involving those planets only ratchet up the game in certain timeframes. Rather than complaining about what these giants of change “do” to you, start thinking about what they do “for” you. Navigate to your next destination with the pluck of Indiana Jones and the assurance that nothing in that jungle out there is beyond being a stepping stone to greater good.
This Week’s Exercise
Think about a current challenge. Make notes about what you’re learning from it. If this is hard for you, imagine or ask what your favorite cup-half-full friend would say. Do this for as long as it takes to convince you that Love’s on your side.
Speaking of love, I’d love to hear your discoveries.
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Photo Credits: Kids side kicking ~ keigo1027yasuda – fotolia.com, Girl begging - © victorbrave - Fotolia.com
Related Resources
- eBook by Joyce Mason, Outerplanetary (Extraordinary) People
- Articles on Chiron and Healing
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