The people that come into our life are our mirrors. They are our teachers. Most people would probably envisage this person to be a distinguished person of good standing within the community. It could well be, but in all likely hood, it is the person that pushes all our buttons and forces us to react. They have come to teach us life lessons. They mirror or reflect back issues that we want to learn in this lifetime. For instance, you might have a person in your life where a relationship is formed, i.e. a friendship, a lover, a marriage, etc and they break or betray your trust. They may be reflecting back to you that your life lesson is to learn to forgive. The person may display inappropriate behaviour towards you and other people and they really “cross the line”. They may be reflecting back to you that your life lesson is to learn to set boundaries.

You might ask yourself, “Life lessons are all fair and well, but why did I attract these specific people into my life?” If you take two magnets and place them together at similar poles, they will repel each other. However, if you place the two magnets together at opposing poles, they will attract each other. So, as the old adage goes, “opposites attract” and maybe it’s the same with people and life lessons?

In the above example, your life lesson might have been to learn how to forgive when that person broke or betrayed your trust. The lesson that you may be mirroring or reflecting back for them to learn, might be one of humility, humbleness and having the ability to apologise. If your life lesson is to learn to set boundaries, the lesson you could be reflecting back to them is for them to be able to honour and respect other people’s boundaries. The teacher now becomes the student.

People come and go throughout our lives enabling us to learn and teach new lessons. They provide an important service for our fulfilment of self discovery. Our personal growth and development increases as we learn and teach each new lesson. This cycle of lessons learnt and taught continues so that we may become more and more refined, thus ensuring that lifelong learning takes place. So be gentle with those people in your life and show them love and gratitude for the lessons that they bring.

“All of Life is opportunity, if but only we had the eyes to see.”

So often in life we experience tragedies or suffering and fail to move past them. We sit with the pain and spend an enormous amount of time and energy reliving the trauma, playing it over and over again in our minds. One is so engrossed in the pain that we rarely look for or find the blessing in the suffering.

There are many schools of thought on how to accept and move past trauma in our lives. Many therapists and counselors recommend writing about the incident that has caused your trauma. If it is a person that has aggrieved you, write and tell them how you feel about the situation and then tell them in the letter that you forgive them. One then burns the letter to symbolize letting go and closure. Others say you should envisage your traumatic experience captured inside a huge silver balloon. You then picture yourself letting go the silver balloon. In your minds eye, you watch the silver balloon float away into the distance. The floating away of the silver balloon symbolizes the letting go of the trauma in order for healing to take place.

A few years ago, I attended one of The More to Life foundation workshops. They taught many techniques on how to move past stress and trauma in one’s life. There was one particular technique that I liked. It involved using the mind and the physical body. Firstly, the person is to have the situation or issue in their mind. They then say, “I refuse to accept this situation,” at the same time physically trying to push the situation or issue (in their minds eye) away with their arms and hands. The more physical effort and vocal the intention, the more powerful the exercise can be. Once this has been repeated a few times, the person feels emotionally and physically tired. This symbolizes surrender. The person then sits very quietly and says repeatedly, “I accept this situation.” By “accepting” the situation it allows the person to get past the emotions and start to look at ways of dealing with the situation or issue.

In Korea they have a beautiful everyday expression, “Gamsa-hapnida.” (pronounced gum-sa ham-nida) It simply means, thank you. I have found this everyday expression to be extremely useful to me. In Neuro-Linguistic Psychology (NLP), we have a saying that says, “There is no failure only learning.” Whenever I encounter a situation or person that causes me trauma or stress, I envision saying in my minds eye, “Gamsa-hapnida” to that person for bringing that situation or issue to my attention.  The more emotionally charged the situation or event is, the more times I repeat Gamsa-hapnida. Doing this allows me to remove the judgment from the situation or person, and thus the emotion. I’m now able to look at the learning without the emotion. In other words, seeing the blessing in the suffering

As an anonymous author once wrote, “I thank everyone that has caused me to suffer, without you I would have no reason to express myself.”

Gamsa-hapnida!

Imagine if everyone did one act of random kindness every day? Wouldn’t the world be a better place?

We all know the story about dropping a pebble into the centre of the pond and the ripples travel on the surface to the edge of the pond. When the ripples reach the edge of the pond they go beneath the surface of the water and return to the centre of the pond. Scientists would say this is ‘cause and effect.’ In Christianity one could equate this analogy to ‘what you reap you sow’. In Eastern religion the equivalent would be karma. So one could say that science, as well as spirituality or religion backs up the notion that whatever you put out there, it is going to come back to you. Furthermore, it is said that there are only two emotions. Namely, Love and fear. Love comes from God and fear does not. God gives us free will to choose whether we want to operate from a place of Love or fear. However, we need to bear in mind that with choices come consequences.

In the Christian Bible it mentions that the wages of sin is death. One should not interpret this as a physical death, but rather a spiritual death. A person is cut-off from God. For the purpose of simplicity, one could argue that sin is the equivalent to operating from a place of fear. If one is continually operating from a place of fear, one is cut-off from Love, namely God, because the ‘wages of sin is death’. If we go back to our analogy of the dropping of the pebble into the pond, it means that the fear we are putting out is going to come back to us. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for a person to operate from a place of Love. After all, who doesn’t want to receive Love?

As mentioned earlier, God gives us free will. He / She does not judge or label a choice good or bad. That’s a human thing. God merely holds us accountable for our choices through Spiritual Laws like karma and ‘you reap what you sow’.

While Evan Almighty was building the ARK, he went through many trials and tribulations. However, he started to operate from a place of Love by doing acts of random kindness and things started to fall into place for him, his family and the community as a whole. So you see, if we start by just doing one small act of random kindness, we not only make the world a better place for ourselves, but for our community as well.

To use a Ghandi quote that has been given much press lately, “Be the change that you want to see in the world”.
]]> http://consciousthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/the-ripple-effect/feed/ 0 alainh http://consciousthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/mind-matters/ http://consciousthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/mind-matters/#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:42:22 +0000 alainh http://consciousthoughts.wordpress.com/?p=32 Continue reading →]]> We are already half way through 2010. A time of year when most people have long forgotten about their New Year’s resolutions and list of goals that they had set for 2010. So often or not, we lose interest in these resolutions and goals that we set, and they tend to fall by the wayside or we simply don’t achieve them. Take an example of a running goal. We may have the most advanced training and dietary programmes, but still not achieve the desired result. In order to achieve our running goals, we certainly need training and dietary programmes. However, we also need to take care of our own mental limitations.

In 1974 Timothy Gallway published a book called The Inner Game of Tennis. He mentions that athletes have two opponents. An outer opponent on the track, court or field. An inner opponent being their mental limitations. You win the inner game first in order to win the outer game. To help win the inner game, runners should have an awareness of their running values and beliefs, as well as mentally rehearsing the successful outcome of their goals. You need to ensure that your goals are congruent with your values and beliefs. A simple exercise of determining and listing your running values can assist in goal achievement.

As an example, your goal might be to run your first marathon. Your values for running might be fun, social, enjoyment, health, etc. Getting up at 5am and running six times a week in order to run your first marathon might not be fun, enjoyable or even sociable for you. Your goal would therefore not be congruent with your values and thus increase the chances of you losing interest or not achieving your goal. Our beliefs about running also play a large part in whether we achieve our goals or not. Sports commentators on many occasions have asked sports people about their success after an event, and so often we hear their response that they or their team believed in themselves. Anthony Robbins is a well-renowned peak performance coach to company executives, professional sports teams, as well as to a number of prominent world figures. In his book, Unlimited Power, he mentions that what we believe to be true, what we believe is possible, becomes what’s true, and becomes what’s possible. Belief is nothing but a feeling of certainty about what something means. If we have a goal of completing our first marathon, and we believe this to be “an uphill battle”, we have “pushed ourselves a little too far this time” or “I don’t think I can do this”, we will experience those difficulties and may not attain our goal.

Finally, it goes without saying that goals need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed). Furthermore, it is also useful for the person to be able to mentally rehearse the successful outcome of their goal. This can be done by visualising what it would be like to achieve that goal using all the senses. What do you see, feel hear, smell and taste. As you imagine yourself in that winning situation. The more this picture of achievement lights you up, the more motivated you will be to attain that goal.

Mike Lipkin is one of South Africa’s leading motivators and trainers. In the book that he co-authored with Eric Parker, You’re the Boss, they mention that one of the most powerful psychological discoveries of the 20^th century, is that your mind cannot tell the difference to what really happens to you and what you imagine is happening to you. First you win in your mind and then you win in reality.

In the words of Logan Pearsell Smith, “There are two things to aim at in life, first to get what you want, and after that, to enjoy it.” Let the rest of 2010 be the year that you overcome your mental limitations in order to win your internal game and be more successful at achieving your goals.

“They can because they think they can” – Virgil.

Maybe she is as beautiful as can be,

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe she is nurturing, caring and fun,

Maybe we will only know once it is all said and done,

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe she is refined and sensual,

Maybe I will learn to appreciate her potential,

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe she is intelligent and full of energy,

Maybe I need to be alert and ready,

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe she is broken just like me,

Maybe our healing will set us free,

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe this is all well and good,

Maybe I should shout, “Halleluiah! God is good”

Maybe, maybe.

NOTE: This is about extra-marital affairs and was inspired by the chorus from the song, “Free,” by the Lighthouse Family.

I wish I could say all the things I should say,
Say ‘em loud, say ‘em clear,
For you to hear,

I wish you could see the pain on their faces,
I wish you could feel the hurt in their heart,
Then you’d see and agree to the callousness of your deed,

I wish you could see what your betrayal has done to their trust,
I wish you could feel their guilt caused by your lust,
Then you’d see and agree to the callousness of your deed,

I wish you could see the disappointment in their eyes,
I wish you could feel their shame that lies inside,
Then you’d see and agree to the callousness of your deed,

I wish you could see the turmoil in their lives,
I wish you could feel their frustration from your lies,
Then you’d see and agree to the callousness of your deed,

I wish you could see how vengeful they want to be,
I wish you could feel their anger to thee,
Then you’d see and agree to the callousness of your deed,

I wish you could see how their loss cuts to the bone,
I wish you could feel their fear of being alone,
Then you’d see and agree to the callousness of your deed,

I wish I could say all the things I should say,
Say ‘em loud, say ‘em clear,
For you to hear.

I was fortunate enough to have been given “The Purple Book” by a friend of mine in South Korea. This book is a 12-part Bible study guide that helps you get a solid understanding of the Bible. I flipped through the book to get a general feel for what it was about. However, what interested me most was what the author, Rice Broocks, had to say about having a strong Christian foundation. In the “preface” of the book, he said the following:

“Anyone who wants God’s best for their life must begin by building a strong foundation. Jesus said as much when he declared, “As for those who come to me and hear my words and put them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built (Luke 6:47 – 48). He then contrasted this wise man with one who was foolish, who heard but failed to act and found himself living in a house built on sand. Both had their works tested by the storms of life – storms that come even more often in today’s uncertain world. And in this real-life game of Survivor, only one person was left standing. The large number of damaged and/or collapsed lives in today’s church are testimony to the pressing need to once again build strong foundations.”

After reading this, my immediate reaction was to try and relate this back to people in real life who have committed adultery. Could it be that they strayed because their spiritual foundations were built on sand and could not withstand the “storm of life”? Could it be as simple as that? I feel that if this is the case, then it has an impact on all the religions and even more far reaching implications for the world at large.

Before one can draw any conclusions, one needs to look at the various religions. It would be far too time consuming to do and in-depth analysis of all the religions. What follows is a very brief description of the major religions in existence today. The Christian faith is the largest faith in the world with 32% of the worlds’ population being Christian. Christianity was established around 30AD. Their sacred text is the Bible. They believe in one God and have a set of Ten Commandments. Islam is the second largest faith in the world with 19% of the worlds’ population being of the Islamic faith. Islam was created around 622AD. Their sacred texts are the Qur’an and the Hadith. They believe in one God and that he is the creator of all things. They also have laws governing morality, justice and love. The Jewish faith is the smallest of all the major Western religions, but is older than Christianity and Islam. Only 2% of the worlds’ populations are Jewish. Judaism was established around 400BC. Their sacred texts are the Torah, Tanach and Talmud. Interestingly enough, the Christian Bible, the Jewish Tanach and the Islamic Qu’ran are all from the Jewish Torah. The Hindu faith is the third largest and oldest faith in the world. 13% of the worlds’ populations are Hindu. Hinduism was established around 1500BC. Their sacred text is the Bhagavad-Gita. Hindus believe in one supreme God. They also believe in karma and have laws with regards to pure acts, thoughts and devotion. Buddhism makes up 6% of the worlds’ population. It was established in 523BC. Their sacred texts are the Tripituka and Sutras. They are guided by the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path and the precepts. These cover things like not killing, stealing, sexual misconduct and having right understanding, thought, action, speech and mindfulness. There are many other smaller religions like tribal religions (4%), Chinese folklore (6%), Confucianism, Spiritism, Taoism, Wicca, Sikhism, Shinto and others that make up the remaining 16% of the worlds population. A point worth noting is that only 2% of the worlds’ populations are Atheists.

This essay is not about which religion is right or wrong, nor am I trying to imply that the one God referred to in all the religions is the same God. Furthermore, I am not trying to imply that we just simply all get along and put aside our differences. This would be a wonderful gesture, but I don’t think the human race has reached that level of consciousness yet. It is my opinion, that there is a place for all religions. Some people need a religion like Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, etc so that they can be guided in their spiritual practice. Others feel more comfortable exploring their spirituality on their own. However, the point I would like to express is that there seems to be a golden thread that runs through all the religions and spiritual practices. We have already seen from the above, that all of the religions and spiritual practices have laws or guidelines that must be followed in order to have a strong foundation in that religion. These laws or guidelines are all similar in nature in that they cover areas of morality, justice and love.

Therefore, we can hypothesize that 98% of the worlds’ population are in some religion or form of spiritual practice that is guided by rules or laws that are based on morality, justice and love. I believe we would be naïve to think that all the worlds’ ills can be attributed to the 2% of the worlds’ population that are Atheists. One would have to believe that a significant percentage of the worlds’ population that is engaged in some sort of spiritual practice or religion is also contributing towards the problems that are occurring in our world today. This brings me back to the point I mentioned earlier about people who have committed adultery. If the main reason for this is because their spiritual foundations were not strong enough to withstand the temptation, then the solution is simple. Take the responsibility and accountability for building your strong spiritual foundation within your religion. This solution would apply to all the religions and / or spiritual practices of the world. Imagine if 98% of the worlds’ population took accountability and responsibility for building a strong spiritual foundation for themselves within their religion or spiritual practice!

What impact would this have on all the ills of the world? If ones religion or spiritual practice is governed by rules or laws that are based on morality, justice and love, then surely one must see a significant improvement in the world.

Most people want to know how they can make a massive impact on the world so that they are able to change it. It would be wonderful if we could change the world in an instant, but that might seem an impossible task at the moment. A more realistic approach would be to do it the same way as you eat an elephant, a little piece at a time until the whole elephant has been consumed. Let us not worry what other people are doing, but rather make sure our foundations are rock solid in our religion or spiritual practice. I think the Bible aptly sums up this point in Mathew 7:3-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”. If everyone was accountable and responsible for themselves, and ensured that their spiritual foundations were built on rock, we would be changing the world a little piece at a time.

I think Gandhi summed it up quite aptly when he said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”