Thursday, February 23, 2012

Love is Letting Go

When you hang onto this roller coaster life to slow it down or try to make it stop, you will get hurt.
We cannot stop the changes, healings, transformation and shifts that occur.
We must trust that everything is in our own best interest.
When we resist, we hurt, suffer, grieve, rage and make up stories about “Why?”

When we let go with ease, gratitude and grace, we can feel the release without knowing pain or suffering.
When we stop asking “Why?” and start asking “How am I to move on?”. we begin to see into the mystery.
We will recognize that everything in this world changes, all the time.
Relationships change. Jobs change. Personalities change. Bodies change. Values change. Life changes.

Relationships are the most obvious healing agent or catalyst for growth.
Where we are crude and rude, we will be refined.
Where we are tender and hypersensitive, we will be toughened up.
Where we are needy and dependent, we will grow confident and independent.

Yes, some of this growth is resisted and we go from one relationship to another without learning.
Some relationships provide a step in growth, but not the full realization.
Some relationships offer us someone else who has similar healing needs so we gain another perspective.
Some relationships show up as subtle and easy growth and some as blatant and harsh.

When we realize we are here to learn to grow into our best selves, we will stop expecting others to support us.
When we know that everyone must learn the answers are within, we will stop asking for others’ answers.
When we enjoy the gift of our own love, support, respect and trust, we will be committed to ourselves.
When we honestly take responsibility for our choices and how long we stay, we see we are the chooser.

Life is more obvious that we realize.
When we are stuck in victimhood and believing in external control, we don’t see our own healing need.
When we fear responsibility in all matters and blame everyone else, we will not know our potential.
When we lack the willingness to face our own self limitation and faulty thinking, we will suffer fear.

Once we see we don’t have what we want, we change opur choices.
Once we stop depending on others to be faithful to us, we start to be faithful to ourselves.
Once we know we have exactly what we believed we wanted, we change our beliefs.
Once we appreciate and enjoy our own lives with all their changes, we are free and trust it all.

Now is the time to choose again.
Immediately forgive any place you have caused yourself pain with your unloving thoughts.
Give yourself totally to loving, respecting and trusting you, knowing your choices are to grow you.
Honor you heartfelt wishes and commit to live them, supporting yourself without quitting or betrayal.
Gently see what you have and step away from all circumstances that are toxic, limiting or unworthy of you.
Forgive yourself and others for not knowing any better than what you have thought, spoken or done.
Live your dreams by patiently persistently moving toward your goals without denying or limiting yourself.
Leave behind self-denigrating or sabotaging ways that have led to quitting on yourself.
You always and only are here to always and only be happy living the life that is your greatness.
Your destiny is giving your gifts, talents and resources to a world that eagerly appreciates and values you.

Let go and Love You,  
Betty Lue
The 5 Languages of Fear
or
The 5 Calls for Love
An intuitive look at some possible explanations for unacceptable behavior.
According to A Course in Miracles, everything is either a gift of love or a call for love. The 5 Languages of Love (Dr. Gary Chapman) teach us more about how to effectively give and receive the gifts of love, but what about responding to the calls for love? The answer is always to “give love”, but that is only possible after we have stopped reacting to the call as a personal attack. The first step is awareness.
Awareness with love is healing.
When people are in fear or pain (and needing love), they are not always sensitive, aware, articulate, considerate or even caring. They will either see you as the cause of their current dilemma or just a handy (loving) person they can strike out at so they won’t be alone in their misery. They will either deprive you of what they know you value most or what they, themselves, value most.
Here are 5 possible disguises of the call for love.
1.    The Put-Down—This includes complaining, anger, blame, guilt, insults, destructive words. If Words of Affirmation are a primary love language for you, hearing someone else’s pain directed at you can be especially hurtful.

2.    The Cold Shoulder—This includes being pre-occupied, too busy, multi-tasking, distracted, walking away, ignoring, threatening to leave or end the relationship, shutting you out. If Quality Time is a primary love language for you, being left alone or abandoned can be devastating.

3.    The Take-Away—This includes taking or breaking things, stealing, constantly saying “We can’t afford it”, not giving or sharing, being selfish. If Receiving Gifts is a primary love language for you, being deprived will be hurtful way out of proportion to the value of the actual gift itself.

4.    The Complication—This includes forgetting to do things, being too busy to help out, refusing to help out, being destructive, making messes, causing problems, adding complications and making more work. If Acts of Service are a primary love language for you, the burden of having to do more or do it all yourself leaves you feeling hurt and resentful.

5.    The Hurt—This includes hitting, hurting, outside affairs and cheating, withholding/denying touch and affection, and all acts of physical violence. If Physical Touch is a primary love language for you, either destructive touching or touch deprivation can cause you to emotionally wither and want to withdraw from the world.

Keys to responding with love:
1.    Don’t take it personally. It’s not about you. It’s about them. If you take it personally, they may think it actually is about you and fail to (eventually) take responsibility for their condition. 

2.    Take care of yourself. You may need to actually remove yourself from the situation in order to stop getting hurt and to get clear. If you let them hurt you, you create either conscious or unconscious guilt on their part, which will cause them to either attack more vigorously or withdraw completely.

3.    Listen within for guidance. Once you can bring yourself to peace and neutrality, listen to your heart about how to respond. This is clearly a call for love. What does the other person actually need or want? What will be the most helpful and the most easily received by them. Sometimes love and forgiveness is best expressed in person and sometimes it is more effective from a distance. Do you need to speak, write, think, pray, act?

4.    Do what you hear and trust it is good. Get on with your life and keep loving yourself so you can continue to love others.

Robert Waldon, Feb. 2012