Surrender and fall in love

Ernest Holmes, the author of Science of Mind, said, "The world is for all of us, not against us."

It's the half glass full/half empty concept. Where's your attitude? For or against?

Mine is for. The world is not out to get me. Events happen, crises arise not because the world has set out to get me, but rather because -- events, positive and negative happen -- that's life. That's what happens. My responsibility is to get up and get on with being my perfectly human self in all kinds of weather.

Holmes also said, "I do not believe that God has imposed suffering upon anyone to punish them or to teach them a lesson."

I couldn't agree more.

My experience with Conrad was not an angry God teaching me a lesson in life or punishing me for unknown transgressions. I believe the Conrad experience resulted because along that pathway I did not awaken to my truth. I did not step into my power. I used my will to take me further and further along the road to hell because I was resisting my truth and embracing his lies. Not because of who he was, but rather, because I refused to be who I am by accepting what he told me as truth about me -- that I was not enough, that I deserved his abuse, that I was meant to live in the shadows of his lies.

In awakening from that relationship, I stepped into my power. I embraced my truth and joyfully accepted, in all my pain and sorrow, my right to be perfectly human -- without fear or anger or shame. The truth is, before Conrad I was struggling to find my way. After Conrad, I could see my way clearly. There were 1,000 paths I could have taken to get to where I am today. That is the one I chose.

When I was in that relationship, I put a lot of power into Conrad. I put a lot of belief in his ability to hold dominion over my mind. In the act of giving into him, I gave up on me and resisted my own power. I pushed aside my right to claim centre stage in my own life and stepped into his assertions he knew what was best for me. And that's why I fell so deep.

Buried deep within me was the lie I had folded my thinking around when I was a child like a mother folding cake batter around a quarter in the centre of a birthday cake -- that lie was, bad things happen to me because I'm a bad person. As a child, the bad things that happened to me were not because of me -- they were because the adults in my life did not or could not do any better than they were doing because that was all they knew to do. It doesn't mean abuse is okay -- it does mean, it's not okay to carry the abuse inside me from childhood into my adult life. As a child, however, I did not understand that what was happening to me was not because of me. I couldn't understand why I felt the way I did and did not have the ability to make sense of what was happening in my world. I wanted to be joyful about my life -- and felt only the sadness of knowing I was not who those I turned to for love wanted me to be -- or so I believed. I did not have the power to stop my pain, and so I perverted what was happening to me into the lie that I deserved it because I was not worthy of love.

I was lucky. I am inherently positive by nature. I didn't like the way I felt inside and so kept trying to be happy on the outside. As I matured, I struggled to find balance in my life by aligning my inner being with my outer being. I believed in the miracle of life. I believed in the wonder and possibilities of the universe -- I just couldn't see my way clear to having it all. To see the miracle of me when I looked in the mirror. I didn't want to feel so badly about myself -- especially when I knew I was meant to feel the awesomeness of being human. In my twenties and thirties I was in an out of therapy. In and out of self-help bookstores. Constantly seeking the answer to my dilemma -- if I'm a child of God, why do I feel like the devil inside?

By my forties, I knew a lot -- but my knowledge was head based, not heart inspired. I struggled to take that 18 inch walk connecting the two and then one day, in walked Conrad. I could have gone either way with him. When the first pink flags started to fall I could have said -- your ideas and values don't fit my life. -- and carried on without him. But, I was still unsure of my truth. Still unsure of my centre ground. I stayed a moment too long. In my hesitation, his lies took hold in the fertile ground of my imagination and I became lost on the road to hell because -- well... I was looking for a short cut to happiness and he offered me a free ride into the beautiful rosy pink dawn of happily ever after.

I don't regret that experience -- I can't change it. I can't undo it. I can accept it. It was hell. It hurt a lot of people whom I love and I hurt myself. In coming through it, I have been blessed with forgiveness. With peace of mind. With a loving heart -- mine and those I love. In my blessings, I have embraced the truth -- bad things happened to me, not because I deserved them, but rather, because I did not believe I deserved better. I did not believe in my own miraculous being. My awesome light. My beauty, my greatness, my limitless love.

There was a time when I wanted to take up the warriors sword. To cut down all the 'bad' people in the world, including Conrad because they are the cause of all the bad in the world. Truth is, when I blame them for the 'bad' in my life, I am in victim's mode. I am not taking 100% responsibility for me. I am looking out there for my feelings in here.

Bad things happen in this world. There is no doubt. Millions upon millions of good things happen every where as well -- it isn't what happens that makes the difference, it's what we do with life's happenings that creates the life we live. As long as I focus on changing the bad, and not multiplying the good, I am putting power into negative and draining the energy from the positive.

Who I am inside makes the difference to my world outside of me. When I embrace my beauty, warts and all, I embrace all of me and celebrate myself exactly the way I am. In my celebration I joyfully accept my power, my creativity, my divine right to be a wondrous child of God standing in the light of her creation.

Step into your day embracing the awesome truth of your life -- you are a wondrous child of God, a divine being living a human existence filled with the limitless possibilities of life when you live it fearlessly, joyfully and lovingly.

Step into joyfulness on your journey today and surrender to the awesome truth of who you are as you fall,

In love.