Good Morning! Take a deep breath, close your eyes and be in that still quiet place within you. Have a healing during today’s message.
Happy Valentine’s Day! We all love relationships, right? Valentine’s Day is fun, full of red hearts, endearments, chocolates and kittens. Sometimes, to some, it may seem like a torturous rating system around how lovable we are! No matter what, I think we can all agree that we’ve experienced some confusion about love this lifetime!
And what a great thing it is to question and explore love. In the big spiritual picture, Love is the only thing that is real. You can’t really fall into love, because you never have left love. Yet love has been used as a manipulation tool within families, between lovers and friends, religions, the media and advertising, so much so, that it is barely recognizable. How can we see through the hodgepodge of programming about love and experience it in its truth?
One way is to remember that the most important relationship you can cultivate is with yourself. It’s the only one you can control and heal! Relationships with others are just a means to an end: to love yourself more. Relationships are gifts that allows us to evolve, because they show us how we are experiencing each moment. We are creating our reality, attracting people and experiences to us that reflect what we are being. “Be the change you want to see,” said Ghandi. Another version of that quote is: “Be the God you want to see.”
So give this important Valentine’s gift to yourself: deepen your ability to love your self. We treat others the way we feel about ourselves. Noticing how we react to those around us is our road to spiritual freedom. As extensions of God and divinity, you are out in the world everyday, relating and extending the treasure of who you are. You are constantly evolving because you are always relating to something through your thoughts, feelings and actions and in each moment you make a choice of how to relate.
Sometimes a person is so relieved to be out of an unhappy relationship or situation, because they think they are rid of it. But relationships never end. Even though we may be divorced, our relationship with that person lives on in our mind, and only we know if it’s a peaceful one, or still rife with anger, blame or judgment. If the peace and forgiveness isn’t there, we will create scenarios that mirror the emotion until we heal it within. Same with the workspace. Can you reflect on that boss or coworker and see the gift by looking beyond the old pain or fear they mirrored to you? If not, your next job may result in a similar situation, as you have not healed the pattern in your space yet.
Sufi poet Hafiz says, “All a Sane man can ever care about is giving love.” How many minutes in the day are we insane because we are thinking or acting from an intention other than love? We become distracted and unconscious about our behavior and what is motivating us.
Thinking only about giving love can seem a tall order. But you are living from that awareness more and more each day. What if every time you looked in the mirror your eyes reflected nothing but love and compassion back to you? How would you feel being touched by the depth or your own love? You would have no choice but to radiate that same sensation to all around you. And, you would absorb love back within you, because like attracts like.
When we are surprised by life mirroring to us something other than love, it is a gift because it is then that we discover that we were operating from a thought rooted into an unloving belief that we didn’t know we had! Self awareness is the best tool to disconnecting from lies that keep us afraid to respond from love.
In Gregg Braden’s book “The Divine Matrix”, he writes of Gnostic, Coptic and Essene texts discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 that present a series of mirrors that every person encounters at some point in their lives.
Let’s do a little healing on each type of mirroring. Sometimes what’s being mirrored back to us from a person or experience is intense. But it’s often the most difficult moments in our lives that challenge us to bridge the painful emptiness back to the true love and compassion that we are.
The process of seeing what life mirrors involves identifying the mirror and then learning why you perpetuate that pattern in your life. It will be rooted in one of three universal fears that we each know so well: fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, fear of trust and surrender. Breathe and acknowledge the big three! Know that your intention is to release more patterns that hold those fears within you.
The most obvious mirror Braden calls the Mirror of the Moment. This mirror helps us identify a pattern that shows us something we are doing in our lives. When we are triggered by what someone else does to us, we can realize that it is mirroring something that we do as well. The mirror gives us a chance to recognize the pattern, find its cause and heal the pattern.
We find ourselves perhaps being treated the way we have treated another. We are learning to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. When we see a behavior mirrored to us that we regret in ourselves, we can ask what we are afraid of. Through understanding we bring compassion to ourselves and the situation. With that level of compassion within ourselves, we easily have it available for another person, instead of judging and condemning them. We treat others the way we feel about ourselves.
Imagine a bubble out in front of you of a memory you have of being triggered in this way. Can you see yourself seeing the pain in the person instead of taking their behavior personally? They are reflecting your pain back to you. You may choose to not hang out with this person, but your ability to see them with more compassion is what makes you a God/Goddess to believe in. Release fears of abandonment around this trigger, or low esteem. How about and fears of trust or surrender? Sometimes we can’t let go of someone’s behavior because we think they need to be punished, or educated or changed in some way. Can you let it go, give it over to God, to Love? Release these energies into the bubble, and then pop it and let it go!
But I felt a charge from it so I welcomed the chance to forgive them and release judgment. I got to release old pain within me from my past where I was ignored or not seen. I got to let myself be seen by the only person who matters, me.
After I breathe and release the energy, I am quickly back in amusement and joy. It feels good to radiate gratitude and love to the person who was my mirror. That is a lightweight example, but if we do it with the small things, it’s easier to do it with the big things! Now in my life, this action has no charge for me, and it has helped me be neutral to many other experiences as well.
When we are able to bless those that hurt us, we heal the cycle of pain that has been within ourselves for perhaps lifetimes. We need only separate from the pain pattern for a moment for a new pattern to get established. It only takes little light to illuminate a dark corner.
Allow yourself to see a situation where you have judged. Put the energy of it into a bubble in front of you. Give yourself some space to bless and forgive. The pain they are igniting in you didn’t come from them, it’s in you or it wouldn’t have been triggered. Release the pain into the bubble in front of you. Any abandonment issues? Lack of trust? Low self esteem? Let those old lies flow into the bubble and then pop it! Take a deep breath!
The third mirror reflects where a person or experience mirrors to us an aspect or ourselves that we think is gone or lost. The fact is that it’s not lost, it’s just so covered over with lies that it’s seemingly out of our reach. This is a great one to look at so near Valentine’s day, because it explains our seemingly never ending quest to find the right person or our soul mate.
The search for our soulmate is actually the search for our higher self. We separated from our higher self and our conscious connection with Oneness at birth, in order to have a body with some amnesia in it. When we meet people that we fall in love with, they are mirroring a part of us that we perceive as lost. But it isn’t lost, it is buried inside of us somewhere.
That is why so many people go from relationship to relationship looking for something that they will never find in that person. Or, they can be in a wonderful relationship but think that other people they meet have that special thing that they are missing. Ahh the pain of comparing and competition! Until we know that we are not missing anything, we will try and let others fill that void. Or, sugar, alcohol or other addictions can fill that void. It doesn’t last, because it came from outside of ourselves.
Key to healing this level of mirroring is to ask yourself while you are in contact with a person, “What do I see in this person that I’ve lost in myself, given way or had taken from me?” Let yourself be aware of someone who you think has it all, or makes you think you aren’t enough, or perhaps it’s the person you think you need. When you identify what you think they have that you don’t, know that you already have it within you. This not only happens with your lover, but with anyone you meet who you compare yourself to. Recognize that the feeling they illicit in you is the result of something you think you are deficient in. You respond to them through your sense of lack versus seeing the feeling for them as a chance to validate something that you have within you already.
Many relationships are created from what each person thinks they lack versus how whole they feel about themselves. Imagine being able to discern this, and feel confident about making friends, falling in love and or whatever you want in relationships because you know that you can discern true affinity from a yearning coming from a lack of self love.
The fourth mirror is reflections of our dark night of the soul. It’s purpose is to allow us to take a huge leap in awareness, by having to confront our biggest fears. Often this trigger comes in the form of a death, illness, or a loss of magnitude such as home, career or relationship. Although it can be the toughest, it’s the biggest catalyst to change. Take a moment and validate a time in your life when your biggest fear was triggered. Let go of the fear into a bubble and pop it. Have the transformation. You are being asked to master something big. Welcome it and thank the universe for the amazing gift! It’s difficult when a person is in this kind of life mirror to recognize their power and how capable they are to have created such an intense experience. They did it to grow and heal themselves and the planet. See yourself encountering a dark night of the soul with your trust and wisdom. If you have the honor of being present for someone who is experiencing one, be the mirror of the power and admiration you have for them versus seeing them as a victim or deficient.
The fifth mirror reflects our greatest act of compassion. Our greatest act of compassion is the ability to see ourselves with absolute love, perfect in who we are, no comparisons, no judgments. Braden asks in his book, “How would your life be different if you allowed everything you do to be perfect just the way it is, regardless of how it turns out?”
This is key to our enlightenment which entails total acceptance and love of self, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Our spiritual path is intertwined with every moment of our life; with every breath, what we see and hear, how we look, how we are doing, on our best days and our worst days! Visualize a bubble in front of you, and release patterns that perpetuate thoughts that you are not enough or there is something wrong with you. Release fear of surrender in the process. Release fear of abandonment and that lie that you are ever alone. You may hear a voice, a word, or see a color that represents a limiting energy. Let it go into the bubble. When the bubble is full, explode it.
As you do this, you discover the internal conditions that you need to treasure within you in order to master your world. You are creating every moment of your life from compassion, which feeds passion, a passion motivated by love. A life created free from judgment, punishment and fear is a sweet place to live in! Breathe and validate the lifetimes of experience you have had that have brought you to where you are right now.
You are capable of seeing more than another is showing you. When you make a choice that supports your love for yourself but goes against what you were taught to believe, you are creating a big blueprint for others to match in their quest to experience themselves and others as loving beings. You are creating a new reality. And believe me, this reality from love you are creating far surpasses any example of anger, cruelty, judgment that you see playing out in the world around you. There is nothing that can keep you from the love that you truly are, the only thing that is real.
When you find yourself in that dark place where you can’t trust, or are judging yourself and others, or tearing apart friends it’s time to let something go and drink in some love. If your experience isn’t feeling right it may just be a reflection of something you can’t love about yourself. You are being asked to extend compassion and love to the situation.
Love is as unlimited and eternal as you are. As you become more and more sane, all you will care about is this level of love and the sharing of it. May from this point forward, you have ample opportunities to see the magnitude of the love you are capable of sharing and mirroring to this world. You don’t even need to say a word. You are being it.
Be the God you want to see, sharing an infinite amount of light and laughter and truth. Silence the doubts and fearful voices in your head long enough to hear and experience the loving voice of love within your soul. It’s not of the intellect. It’s a feeling in the heart that sings the world into existence.
You don’t have to know how it’s done. Spirit knows. It’s the natural order of things if we would only surrender and get out of the way! Imagine the world whole, healed and beautiful. Imagine everyone with plenty to eat, housed and educated. See everyone provided excellent health care with support and caring people around them. Imagine the world with sanctuaries side by side of different faiths, honoring each other’s path and suspending judgment. Imagine a world with no racism, no need to fear differences in others. See our planet loved and treasured, and the unique creative spirit of each of us valued.
Imagine that now, and feel how it feels. You are being the benevolence and goodness of you. It pours out to others. See the paradigm of love completed, and feel the sweet results of loving yourself and loving the world into existence. Amen.
