فصل 8

CHAPTER 8

REINTERPRETING YOURSELF

When left unhealed, the past will destroy our lives. It buries our unique gifts, our creativity, and our talents. And when these parts of ourselves go unclaimed they stagnate inside us: we use them against our world instead of in harmony with it. We think we’re mad at the world, that we want to change the world, that if only the world were different we’d be able to live our dreams. But it’s we who need to change. We’re angry at ourselves for not persisting, for not honoring the god force inside us, for not giving ourselves permission to express ourselves as we truly desire. We think we’re mad at our parents for repressing us early in life. Actually we’re angry at ourselves for perpetuating that repression. It’s as if, a long time ago, someone put us in a cage and although the cage hasn’t been there for years we still struggle against its imaginary walls. The cage is our self-imposed limitations, our self-doubt, and our fear. We were taught that it’s hard work to go after our dreams. We may not have understood that it’s even more difficult living day in and day out with the knowledge that we don’t pursue them. We are left without desire, which is the key to fulfilling our full spiritual potential. We are left with desperation, which builds up slowly and expresses itself in our bodies as disease and in our psyche as rage. If we’re unwilling to make peace with the past, we’ll simply drag our desperation and rage into the future.

The strength to look clearly at your past and take back aspects of yourself that you’ve given away lies within you. All you have to do is close your eyes, go within, and ask. The power you need is there, but it will only come out when your desire to change your life is stronger than your desire to stay the same. It’s always easier to blame others for the condition of our lives. When we lose touch with ourselves we lose touch with our divinity, and because we don’t trust ourselves we come to believe that other people can’t be trusted. For some people the pain of the past is so great they believe the only way they can cope with it is to blame and deny. You must embrace your past if you want to change your present. If you want to manifest your desires you must be accountable for everything that takes place in your world.

If you want to see someone’s future, often all you have to do is look at their past. The past leads us to conclude that all we can hope for in the future is a variation on what we already have. This stops most people in their tracks. It clouds their vision and lets their dreams slip away Look around and you’ll see that most people stay the same. You could look at their lives now, and then again in twenty years, when you would see only a slight variation on the original theme. Our core issues, whether they are based on sex, wealth, relationships, health, or career, often remain dominant throughout our lives. Our past shapes what we say, what we see, and how we live. Some of us are not only dragging our own past around, but those of our parents as well. Pain is passed down from generation to generation, and if it’s not questioned, we’ll never break the cycle.

We begin to disown parts of ourselves because of our core beliefs, which are always tied to our families and early childhood. What our parents did and didn’t do had great impact on our lives. Our caregivers and teachers also contributed to who we are now. The pain you experienced when you were two, six, or eight is just beneath the surface of your consciousness. Until it’s transformed, it’s always there driving your life. Most of us never explore our core beliefs to see if we’ve consciously chosen them. I meet people every week who want to be artists or write books, but they are sure they can’t fulfill their desires. When I ask them why, they tell me they’re not talented or educated enough. They have confidence in their reasons, but not in their dreams. And when we explore the origins of their beliefs, we learn that most often they’ve been told by someone they love, verbally or non-verbally, that they weren’t capable of fulfilling their dreams. Since they never questioned this idea, they’re trapped by it. They never even try to attain their heart’s desire.

Core beliefs that run our lives sound like this, “I can’t do it. It will never happen to me. I’m not deserving. I’m not good enough.” Recently a young woman whose name was Hallie came to one of my courses. She was twenty-one years old. Because she suffered from depression and wasn’t able to take care of herself, she lived at home with her mother. When the course began Hallie sat quietly, looking down, avoiding eye contact with everyone. She had a nervous habit of tapping her hand on the table, which was distracting to anyone sitting near her. During rest breaks Hallie could often be found on the ground in fetal position. I asked everyone to eat meals with someone else, but Hallie sat alone. On the second day, I walked by Hallie and asked her if she had owned “poor me.” She looked at me with a puzzled smile and asked, “Me?” I couldn’t help laughing. Hallie’s silent message was so loud it was screaming at us. I sat down next to her and asked her what she thought she was communicating to the world. Hallie said she didn’t think of herself as a “poor me.” In fact, she hated “poor me” people, her mother being one of them. When my assistant Rachel and I pointed out Hallie’s behaviors to her the entire puzzle of her life seemed to fall into place. Hallie told us that deep inside she believed she was unlovable. “Poor me” was a way of getting attention. Since she had grown up in a home where her mother acted like a child, even spoke like a child, Hallie had learned to outdo her mother for attention.

This core belief that she was unlovable was well hidden from Hallie because she had projected it onto her mother. She couldn’t see herself clearly. All her energy was devoted to believing she wasn’t like her mother. But when we showed her how she appeared to us, Hallie realized her behavior was a direct result of observing her mother. By embracing “poor me” and becoming conscious of her little girl act, Hallie allowed the opposites of these traits to surface. What developed in her was, “I’m a responsible woman.” And within a few months, Hallie got a job and moved out of her mother’s house into her own apartment. Feeling confident, Hallie met a man and began an intimate relationship for the first time in years. As soon as Hallie was willing to see the core belief that was driving her, and to examine it honestly, she gained the freedom to choose a new path for her life.

We adopt many beliefs unconsciously from our families, and the rest of the life choices we make are colored by these beliefs without our ever asking, “Does this belief empower me?” We’re often just following in the footsteps of our family members. This is fine if the reality you adopt is making you happy, but if it’s not, question it. Prejudice is passed down. Pain is passed down. Guilt is passed down. Shame is passed down. Are your problems your own or have you inherited them from former generations?

My grandmother is a chronic worrier. Her core belief is, “Something bad is about to happen.” My mother doesn’t worry at all, but I adopted my grandmother’s worrying. I often have the same types of thoughts that she has. We mirror each other’s worries about the safety of my son. As obvious as it seems now, it took me years to realize that I adopted this trait from my grandmother who adopted it from her father. When I find myself worrying now, I have to stop and ask myself whether I’m really worried or am I just acting out one of my old core beliefs. As soon as I identify that I have nothing to worry about and acknowledge being stuck in a family pattern I can affirm my own truth. Every time I break up my automatic responses by looking closely at myself, I elevate my consciousness. Then I can shake free of my past.

Many people have decided that they will not be like their parents. But we all must acknowledge that we’ve spent years absorbing our parents’ positive and negative qualities. Our parents did the best they could given their own pasts. We cannot change the way we were raised, and when we’re willing to look for the lessons in our experiences, we’ll be able to see that each incident provided us with an opportunity to learn and grow. One of my best friends, who was sexually molested by her grandfather for years, once said to me, “Thank God for all the abuse of my past because I have become one of the most resourceful people on the planet. I got here by learning how to deal with all the pain and abuse of my past.” All negative events are blessings in disguise. Some of us choose to live under the illusion that bad things happen for no good reason. But pain has a purpose. It teaches us and guides us to higher levels of awareness. One night, while I was meditating after seeing five or six young men being arrested and handcuffed at the beach, I asked God, “Why, on this glorious summer night, did these boys have to start a fire at the beach?” A voice within me said this was Spirit guiding these young men back home. Getting in trouble was a wake-up call from the God force inside them. In prisons you’ll often see hundreds of tough young men reading Bibles and attending religious services. Men who’d never spent so much as an hour of their adult lives thinking about God are now searching their souls for answers. The challenges in our lives can provide insights which help us free ourselves from a past which strangles our passion and keeps us from our spiritual center.

An ancient teaching says, “The world is a teacher to the wise man and an enemy to the fool.” No event is painful in and of itself. It’s all a matter of perspective. It’s important to understand that everything happening in the world is as it should be at every moment. There are no mistakes. There are no accidents. The world is a heavenly sky and a bottomless pit. When we understand that we cannot have one without the other, it becomes easier to accept the world as it is. I look back at my own past filled with lies and deceit, hurt and pain, drugs and sex. But I see that without all these experiences and without all the darkness I carried around for so long, I wouldn’t be able to teach as I do today. Every incident from my past, every sleepless night, every tear carries me a little closer to fulfilling my soul’s journey. No one says what I say in the way I say it. No one does the things I do in the exact way I do them. I am me and you are you. Each of us is unique and we all have a special journey of our own.

I was thirteen when my parents divorced. This event upset me emotionally for many years. During holidays I became sad and depressed, wishing the New Year would come soon so things could get back to normal. Then one evening I had a specific insight into why I felt so bad. I always spent those holidays with my mother, and it occurred to me that the thought of my father being without his children on Thanksgiving was upsetting me. And what was more upsetting was my being without my father.

I stayed in my sullen mood, knowing there was nothing I could do about the situation. Feeling unworthy and powerless, I declared the past complete. I said out loud, “I did this.” I created this so I could grow and if I don’t like the reality that is in front of me I’d have to create a different one. I started imagining different scenarios. Going to my father’s for an early dinner and then to my mother’s for a late one. I imagined just going to see my father and not my mother. All these scenarios also seemed depressing but then I got an idea. I called my mother who always hosted Thanksgiving dinner and suggested that I host it this year. Enthusiastically she said it sounded like a great idea. Then I quietly suggested that I’d like to invite my father and his family. I told her it would mean so much to me to have everyone together. At first there was silence. I thought the line had gone dead until I heard my mother say, “If that’s what you’d like, go right ahead.” Joyfully I called my dad and invited him and his entire family to my house for Thanksgiving. He was surprised and asked me what my mother was going to do. I told him she would be coming with her entire family too. He agreed and there it was. In moments I had created a situation I had never thought possible. When I called my sister and brother and told them everyone was coming to my house for Thanksgiving they were shocked and skeptical, but everyone came. The event was a success. I invited some of my friends and their families to ease the stress and set up big long tables to accommodate everyone. Thirty-three people came, everyone brought their favorite dish and everyone brought a genuine holiday spirit. For the next three years, until I sold my house and moved out west, I hosted these holiday dinners which included both sides of my family. By taking responsibility I was able to see a new reality emerge, a reality that even to this day seems like a miracle.

In order to gain wisdom and freedom from your past, you must take responsibility for all the events that have happened in your life. Taking responsibility means being able to say to yourself, “I did that.” There’s a big difference between the world doing things to you and your doing things to yourself. When you take responsibility for the events in your life and for your interpretation of those events, you step out of the world of a child and into the world of an adult. By claiming responsibility for your action and your inaction, you give up the story line of “Why me?” and turn it into “This happened to me because I needed to learn a lesson. This is part of my journey.” According to Nietzsche, to wish away our past is to wish ourselves out of existence. It’s nearly impossible to steer our lives in a particular direction until we come to terms with our past. Each significant event in our lives changes how we view the world and ourselves. The thought of reviewing our entire past is often overwhelming. But it’s an essential part of the process. Our past is a blessing that guides and teaches, and it carries as many positive messages as it does negative.

A friend called me one day to complain about her life. Every time Nancy looked in the mirror she saw her body getting softer and her face looking more like her mother’s. She said she could see all the stress, worry, and disappointments being etched into her face. Nancy asked me what she could do to deal with her hot flashes and her sad, falling face. She said she realized she was gaining weight in order to look pregnant as a way to reclaim her lost youth. Together Nancy and I designed a program for her to journal, meditate, and do anger-release work every day for twenty-eight days. She needed to complete her past and to release all her stored emotions. Nancy willingly opened herself up and batted while focusing on the words old, fat, pathetic, and ugly: the words that she didn’t want to be. After twenty-eight days of doing this release, Nancy felt complete. Different issues came up for her along the way, so she took whatever time she needed to journal and invent new interpretations for each event. It was a long month but at the end she felt totally ready to love and nurture herself.

The next twenty-eight days Nancy spent loving every part of who she was. She told me she needed to be hugged and kissed, so she hugged and kissed herself. She forgave herself completely. Finally she was at peace. Recently Nancy called me to tell me she had decided to have a face-lift. She said having embraced “old” she could now embrace “young” at a whole new level. She wanted to know if I thought she was still running away from “old.” We chatted for a while and it was clear Nancy didn’t need the surgery, but it was a decision that would empower her in her personal life and in her job. Nancy is an esthetician and makeup artist. I explained that many people love themselves the way they are but choose to shave their underarms or wax the hair above their lips. We do these things to look better and there’s nothing wrong with it as long as we’re the ones choosing and as long as we’re not running away from ourselves.

Nancy explained that it had all fallen into place like a miracle. One day at a plastic surgeon’s office where she worked part-time the nurses asked her if she would like to create a fantasy face on the computer. Nancy thought it might be fun. The new image of Nancy turned her on, but still she had never thought seriously about having her face done. Months later, Nancy mentioned the experience to her husband. Without even being asked he told her if she wanted to have a face-lift he’d pay for it. Nancy said the moment just fell into place. Nancy had the surgery and loves the results. She said it wasn’t until she felt good about who she was that she could even think about having plastic surgery. Nancy’s pain had guided her to do inner work. By transforming her inner self she was able to transform her outer self.

Our pain can be our greatest teacher. It leads us to places we’d never go on our own. How many people would choose to spend twenty years in pain so that they could find and fulfill their soul’s journey? If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I might still be stoned, sunbathing on the deck of a race boat in Miami Beach, talking about myself. The positive and the negative got me where I am today. Would I choose to go through all the pain again to have what I have now? The answer is yes! I bless my past and my pain. But before I embraced my darkness I hated it. I resented pain, and I resented others who seemed to live without it. It took me a long time to accept responsibility for my actions. I had tried so hard not to take responsibility for anything. It wasn’t until I was ready to look at a higher version of my life that I realized God was trying to teach me something and that I had a special gift which I would find only if I went through the darkness. Today I strive to take full responsibility for every incident in my past to learn what was necessary to get me where I needed to go.

Taking responsibility is a huge task. Most of us are willing to take responsibility for the good we create in our lives, but we often resist taking responsibility for the bad. When we take responsibility, we can be empowered by everything. Even if we feel hurt or ashamed by something that happens, we can find peace in the knowledge that somehow it’s helping each of us to fulfill our dreams or direct our soul’s journey. We can look at ourselves and say, “the world is my canvas and I drew this event into my life to teach myself a valuable lesson.” We become accountable for everything that happens. We say to the universe, “I am the source of my own reality” This is the place of power from which you can alter your life.

Until you look the past directly in the eye it will always be there, bringing more of the same into your life. Psychologist Rollo May defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” We must learn from our past and reclaim the parts of ourselves we have disowned. This is how we can break the cycle. Those who have learned from a bad experience, taken responsibility for their feelings, and made a conscious commitment to have their life be different will seldom create the same situation again. If we approach our lives with awareness we can begin to make new and different decisions about what we want to create. A shift in perception is all we need.

To alter our perception we must search each moment in our past until we find a powerful interpretation that allows us to take responsibility. We waste valuable energy creating reasons for why things aren’t our fault. It’s always easier to blame someone else for what we don’t like about our world, but that path is a dead end. There’s always pain when you are a victim of circumstance: the pain of desperation and powerlessness. But you live in a universe where everything happens for a reason. Find a blessing for all the events that have taken place in your life and you will find gratitude. You will experience what it’s like to be blessed.

Every word, incident, and person that still has an emotional charge needs to be retraced, faced, replaced, and embraced. We need to retrace our steps back to the genesis of the emotional charge. Then we face the incident, owning up to its reality as part of our past. We need to become fully aware of the influence it has had on our life. Then we look at the incident from a different perspective which allows us to replace our negative feelings with positive ones. We take control of our lives by choosing our interpretations. That enables us to embrace our disowned past and unplug ourselves from other people.

We must choose interpretations that move our lives forward rather than leave us feeling alone and helpless. It’s my belief that inventing a new interpretation is the simplest way to transform something negative into something positive. Everything that occurs in our world is an objective event. It has no inherent meaning. Each of us sees the world through different lenses, so each of us will perceive a particular incident differently. It’s our perceptions and our interpretations that affect our emotions not the incident itself. It’s our perceptions and interpretations that deny responsibility and lay blame. Whom do you blame for your selfishness? Your addictions? Your failures? Now is the time to stop being a victim. Accept responsibility and you will accept your selfishness, addictions, and failures. You will also unleash your generosity, your grace, and your divine right to have it all. Each of us has to come to terms with how we’re affected by holding on to an old, unevolved view of ourselves and our lives. Each of us has to make a conscious decision to alter our world by altering our interpretations. Shift your interpretation of a word, and not only will it lose its negative charge, it will return your own power to you.

Here is an exercise that will help you alter your interpretations. I will take a word that has an emotional charge, which I still don’t want to be called. The word I want to create a new interpretation for is “ugly.” I go back through my memories and find an early incident in my life that caused me pain and formed my judgments about ugliness. When I retrace, I remember my father used to tease me by calling me “pignose” and “bucky” when I was a little girl. My interpretation: my father doesn’t love me and thinks I’m ugly. I know this feeling has haunted me, so now I must choose to face the incident. I allow myself to experience the feelings of pain, humiliation, and shame I still attach to that moment and to that word. Then I begin to create a new interpretation of the event in order to embrace “ugly.” NEW INTERPRETATIONS

Positive

1. I am beautiful, so my father became nervous around me. The only way he knew how to deal with his nervousness was by calling me names that he thought were cute.

2. My father thought these names were cute and used them with affection.

3. My father loved me so much that he wanted to prepare me for the real world. He thought he could protect me by downplaying my beauty.

Negative

1. My father hated me and was trying to damage me for life.

2. My father thought I truly was remarkably ugly and the only way he could deal with it was by teasing me.

Now I can look at all the interpretations and see which ones make me feel good and which ones make me feel bad. And I can choose to replace my old negative interpretation with a new positive interpretation. I always ask myself, “Does this interpretation empower me or disempower me? Does this interpretation make me feel weak or strong?” If you have an inner dialogue that disempowers you, it won’t change until you yourself replace it with a positive, powerful, internal conversation. But some of us are very strong-willed, and our addiction to pain and suffering won’t allow a new interpretation. This is why it’s so important to write things out and look at every single way you might perceive a particular incident. Just the act of writing down the words shakes loose the emotions that are tied to the incident. When we’re willing to have some fun and play with our interpretations we can re-examine our choices. When we bring them out of the darkness and into the light, they can be healed.

The new interpretation I chose in this instance was that “My father loved me so much he wanted to prepare me for the real world. He thought by downplaying my beauty he could protect me.” I picked it because it made me laugh. It seemed a little ridiculous when I wrote it down, but when I closed my eyes and asked myself which interpretation nurtured my soul, it was this one. Once I chose to replace the old interpretation I was able to embrace “ugly” without feeling past pain. Now my internal reference point has shifted. Now my father’s old habit seems almost light and sweet. Regardless of his true motives, I’m now at peace with that experience. I no longer walk around fearing that someone will think I’m ugly. Nor do I project the ugliness I felt about myself onto other people. The gift of ugly is the freedom to walk out of my house without combing my hair or putting on makeup and still feel great.

You can use the exercise we just did with any incident or word you are having problems with, however trivial or intense. A woman I worked with was understandably having great difficulty finding any blessing in the fact that she had been held at gunpoint and raped. She took from the experience a feeling that she was a disgusting, sleazy whore and deserved it. She had carried this interpretation around for more than fifteen years. I asked her to try to invent three positive interpretations and two more negative interpretations. She could see clearly that the one she had chosen was disempowering and painful. So she invented the negative ones first.

Negative

1. . Because I was a rebel and hated my parents, I dressed provocatively and I got what I deserved.

2. . I am a low-life scum who has no value. I deserve to be used and abused.

Positive

1. . I was a lost and naive young girl just trying to belong. This event helped guide me toward becoming a more conscious, careful, aware person.

2. . This incident was a blessing in disguise. As a result of it I learned how to respect myself and respect my body.

3. . I learned I never had to be a victim again. This incident was a wake-up call, part of a divine plan to awaken my spiritual self.

Once Hannah had come up with all these interpretations, she realized that she had a choice. We had gone through the negative interpretations first because Hannah had thought it would be impossible to invent positive ones. But by the time we had finished, Hannah was able to find many different interpretations that could empower her. She even admitted that the one she chose felt like the truth. She chose the second of the positive statements above: This incident was a blessing in disguise. As a result of it I learned how to respect myself and respect my body. As soon as Hannah made the decision to alter her interpretation she was able to embrace “sleazy” and “disgusting,” two words that had run her life for over fifteen years. By allowing these aspects to present her with their gifts she also made room for their polar opposites to emerge. Proud and beautiful were what Hannah longed to be, and now she had access to these integral parts of herself.

As you become more conscious it will be increasingly evident that it’s your responsibility to choose empowering interpretations. It is sometimes easier to be a victim, but a negative perspective provides you with a guarantee of more of the same. The more aware you are of the gifts of life the faster you will choose your own perspective on everything that happens to you. Tragic events happen to many of us. It’s a part of life. It takes courage to empower yourself through these events. But when you use these times to grow they become blessings.

Another courageous example is the life of a beautiful young woman named Julia. Julia had desperately wanted a child for a couple of years. When she finally became pregnant, she and her husband were ecstatic. Around the fourteenth week of her pregnancy, Julia noticed she was bleeding. Frightened, she immediately went to see her midwife. When they couldn’t find a heartbeat, she went in for a sonogram. Again, no heartbeat—the baby was dead. Julia was devastated. She cried for days, mourning her loss. While the dead fetus was still inside her I was privileged to do some work with Julia. I asked for her interpretation of this tragic event. Julia began to cry. She said, “I’m not good enough to give birth to a child. It must have been the alcohol I drank before I knew I was pregnant that damaged my baby.” To the natural pain of her grief, Julia was adding the blame she placed on herself. As we spoke, it became clear to me that Julia wanted to make this a sacred event, not just another bad thing that had happened to her. When we began our work, Julia wanted to create the negative interpretations first.

Negative

1. I’ll never be able to carry a child full-term because I’m genetically defective.

2. I’m being punished for all the abortions of my friends and family.

Positive

1. This is a practice run for my body, preparing the way for the baby I will love and nurture.

2. This confirms that my desire to have a baby is real. I no longer feel any ambivalence.

3. The pain of loss and separation gave me experience that will help me be a better mother.

Julia choose to embrace the third positive statement: The pain of loss and separation gave me experience that will help me be a better mother. She could feel the power of this interpretation in her body. Knowing there are no accidents, Julia wanted to remember this child for the gift that it brought her rather than the pain. This was truly an act of love and courage. It empowered Julia to go on with her life and get ready for the beautiful child she would eventually mother.

Each of us must trust that if we do what is necessary to clear out the past and embrace our pain, we’ll find our unique gifts, the gold in the dark. If we allow it, the universe will give us more than we can possibly imagine. We each come into this world with a different mission, and it’s up to us to play that out. From this perspective you’ll see that all the events in your past provide an opportunity to learn, grow, change, and explore.

When we’re reconciled with our past, the process of taking back our projections becomes much easier. These disowned emotions and behaviors are giving away our power and our capacity to be great. When you deny a single aspect of yourself, you’re denying a part of what you need to be whole. We give away our most treasured aspects to those we hate and those we love without knowing it. We can’t embrace certain things because we have so much invested in our judgments and criticisms. We lack the courage to be wrong, to be responsible. We’re afraid of being imperfect, of realizing that the things we hate most about others are really just the things we hate about ourselves. We are afraid that our power and our brilliance will isolate us because all we see around us is mediocrity. We are so fearful of being rejected that we sell out our most precious gifts just to fit in. We’re taught this as a means of survival, and we do it until we can’t stand ourselves anymore. Then the toxic emotions become so painful that we create situations in our lives to continually show us we’re unworthy, to prove we’re not deserving of our dreams. Only you can stop the vicious circle. Only you can say, “No more. I want my greatness. I deserve my brilliance, my creativity, and my divinity.” For years I experienced a painful lack of trust with all of my intimate partners. I believed that men could not be trusted and if given the chance would be unfaithful. It never occurred to me that this might have anything to do with me. So I kept constant track of my boyfriends, threatening to end our relationship if they did anything to break our exclusive bond. Finally, one man suggested that I was projecting my own lack of trustworthiness onto him. I immediately rejected the idea. I was certainly loyal and trustworthy. Later, after we’d had an argument, I noticed the first thing I did was think about the next man I’d have a relationship with, my next Mr. Right. We hadn’t even discussed breaking off our relationship and here I was having a fantasy about another man. But because I told myself it was only a fantasy, I was able to deny this part of myself. As soon as I could acknowledge my own untrustworthiness I was able to stop projecting that lack of trust onto those around me.

Discovering that I was the one creating turmoil in my relationships was very upsetting. My first response was loathing for what I perceived as a sick part of myself. I closed my eyes to see if I could talk to my untrustworthy sub-personality. The first image that came to me was that of a small, frail girl who trembled at the sight of men. Her name was Scared Sue. When I asked her what she needed to be healed, she said compassion. Hearing these words and seeing her fear opened up my heart. I allowed myself to feel my own fear, and with my eyes closed I held Scared Sue in my arms. Compassion for ourselves is essential. Where it is absent, we feel fear and self-loathing. Since it’s unbearable to hate ourselves, we project that hatred onto the world. We’d rather be victims of the world than victims of ourselves, and by blaming the world we can avoid the pain of facing ourselves.

Now is the time to look honestly at everyone in your life to whom you react strongly—your mother, father, partner, boss, or best friend. Make a list of who they are and which of their qualities trigger a reaction. This is a process of continual discovery. Once you own one layer of traits another layer will expose itself. Any resentments you hold are red flags, signaling that you’re still energetically plugged in.

In her book A Course in Love, Joan Gattuso illustrates an easy exercise she learned from author Ken Keyes. Write down the name of a person who affects you at the top of a page. Draw a line down the center of that page, and write down all the things you like about the person on one side and all the things you dislike on the other side. Even if we dislike someone we can usually find something about that person that is okay. Your list might look like this: Now write, before each item in the left column, “I love myself when …” I love myself when I have good taste. I love myself when I have passion for my work. Then write, before each item in the right column, “I don’t like myself when …” I don’t like myself when I am lazy. I don’t like myself when I am sloppy. I don’t like myself when I am emotional. I don’t like myself when I am loud. This is a simple way to recognize that what you see in another person is really about you.

One day I got a call from my friend Laurie, who had taken my course. She was very upset. Laurie’s former college roommate Christina was someone whom she’d admired for years. At the last minute, Christina had backed out of some plans she’d made with Laurie, and Laurie was aghast at her friend’s behavior. She told me Christina was a spoiled, selfish, arrogant know-it-all. I gently reminded Laurie that when we’re affected by someone’s behavior it’s a projection of our disowned qualities. Laurie insisted this had nothing to do with her. She was sure that Christina was finally showing her true colors. I asked Laurie to write down the things she did and didn’t like about Christina. Here’s her list: Laurie went through each positive trait and wrote, “I like myself when I am a leader, when I am elegant, when I am spiritual, when I am successful, when I am beautiful.” Then she wrote, “I don’t like myself when I am egocentric, when I am selfish, when I am arrogant, when I am a know-it-all, when I am uncaring.” Laurie saw she was not owning the negative aspects of Christina, or the positive ones. Laurie had given Christina all her power by projecting onto Christina all the positive aspects that she wasn’t connected to. When Christina disappointed Laurie, revealing her imperfections, Laurie felt cheated. When she found out that this perfect, spiritual, beautiful, elegant woman had flaws it underscored Laurie’s flaws. Laurie had projected so much of her disowned self onto Christina that she felt lost and angry when Christina was being herself. In order to unplug, Laurie had to take back the parts of herself she’d projected onto Christina.

I told Laurie to try writing Christina a letter expressing her feelings. Even though she was never going to mail this letter, it was important that Laurie be able to express all the anger and resentment she was feeling. By the time she’d finished writing the letter, Laurie had decided she didn’t want to give her power to Christina or anyone else. Laurie was ready to own her beauty, success, elegance, spirituality, and leadership qualities. One by one Laurie identified these aspects within herself. She reclaimed all her positive projections, and then her negatives. For Laurie, it was harder to own the positive than the negative. In fact, as soon as she embraced the positives she had no charge on the negatives. When we fully own something on one side of the scale, it often brings the opposite quality into balance. Christina turned out to be a catalyst for Laurie in finding her beauty and her light.

People come into our lives to help us restore our wholeness. The margin by which most of us judge ourselves is very narrow. If all the good is on one side and bad on the other, most of us will live in the middle, owning a small portion of our good and a small portion of our bad. We need to learn how to live in the full range of human capacity, and to not feel bad about doing it. Every emotion and impulse is perfectly human. We must fully embrace the dark in order to embrace the light. God, spirit, love: to me they are all the same. They are always there even if we cannot see them. They are waiting for us to invite them in. The doorway is in our hearts. When we’re willing to open our hearts to all that exists, and start looking for the good rather than the bad in everything, we will see God. We will see love. Remembering we are the ones choosing what we see is essential. On some level, we ask for all the lessons we learn in this lifetime. Every incident, no matter how horrible, has a gift for you. And if you get your gift then I will get mine, for I am you and you are me in the world of the spirit.

EXERCISES

1. Take a few minutes and create a relaxed environment. Now close your eyes and take five slow, deep breaths. Imagine stepping into your internal elevator and go down seven floors. When the door opens you’ll be in your sacred garden. Walk towards your meditation seat while enjoying the beauty of your garden. Then ask yourself this question: What are the core beliefs that are running my life? Take a few minutes and then make a list of your core beliefs.

Then gently close your eyes and imagine the first statement on your list. Ask yourself the following questions. Take your time and listen for the answers coming from deep within.

a. Is this really my own idea, or did I adopt it?

b. Why do I have this belief?

c. Does this belief empower me?

d. What would I have to give up to alter this belief?

Take time to write in your journal when you have answered all the questions.

1. Write a short letter to each belief on your list, thanking it for serving you. Now invent a new belief to replace the old one. Make a verbal commitment to honor this new belief. Then open your eyes and write down the new empowering belief.

2. Write down a word you still cannot fully embrace or love. Close your eyes and find an early incident in your life that affected you in such a way that it made this quality offensive. Now, write down your interpretation of the incident. Underneath your interpretation write down five new interpretations of the event. Three positive ones and two negatives. If you can’t think of any ask your friends or family. Thinking up new interpretations is a creative act that takes practice. Instead of being stuck with one interpretation try on many. You want to loosen the interpretation that has been causing you pain. Refer to page 122 if you have any questions.