He Took That From Me. I Gave That To Him.

Two narratives. One full of stress. The other full of generosity and peace. Which world would you rather live in? But this is a story repeated every day, in hundreds of different matters, at a consequence of great suffering. Whenever my mind is saying "You should…" or "He has to…" I know that I am in a narrative of poverty, not generosity. When a business deal goes bad and you lose all your money, the reality is you lost all your money. You can try to change that - people do - and sometimes you succeed, often you don't, but the cost is great personal suffering and stress. It may not be about money. It may be about love. She left me. She deceived me. She lied. What if you just didn't bother with that? What if you didn't bother seeking revenge, vindication, proof of your rightness? When you seek redress in these ways, something weird happens - you fail to see your own generosity. You gave that love. You really cared. You spent your money. You wanted it to work. How wonderful of you. Do you realise that about your Self? When you think "he took my money" you fail to appreciate your own generosity. No one forced you - you gave that money. How generous of you. You say: "Oh, but I gave him the money so he would do this, but he didn't do it!" So your old narrative starts and again and you fail to see the simple truth: "You gave him the money." In love, in business: what you imagined would happen, and what he imagined would happen - that's a tale of two minds. You can write it down, you can make a marriage contract, or a business contract - it is good to do that - but life happens. Those written words don't change, but the world does. It moves on. The paper becomes irrelevant, but you continue to live in the world where the paper means everything. It's your fantasy, that's all. It means: 1.You feel stress, anxiety, worry; 2.You fail to appreciate your own generosity, your great ability to love. These days when I find my Self repeating a narrative in my mind - "He should, she must" - I know I am perpetuating a lie. A falsehood. Generosity does not need energy to keep it going, it is ready to act in new situations - but a narrative that is false needs a lot of work. You have to keep feeding it, forever repeating in your mind the same thoughts, the same beliefs. A man talking to himself on the street - you conjure up fantasy images of a non-existent future, then react to that as though it was real. You keep on fuelling the narrative until you actually come to believe it is true, and it's mere existence supports your denial of everything that is waiting to be known by you. Have you got any narratives going these days? Muttering in the shower, telling your Self a story about some person or event that fills you with unpleasant feelings? It's a lie. Believe that. You are working hard to deny the truth of your own wonderfulness. He made me do it. She made me do it. You most likely did something very generous - you loved, you gave - but you are giving all the credit to someone else! He tool all my money? No. I gave him my money. She abused my love? No. I gave my love to her. When I believe these, I feel better. I am ready to let go and move on. Isn't that a more peaceful way to live? [NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area getting more practical about my general comments above with the other teachers and students in my ATSuccess group. You can join anytime to be part of our discussions.]

This is another interlude post, based on my personal learning today about forgiveness and peace of mind. It's all about BCLA (BodyChance Los Angeles) and cleaning up the messes in my mind about the end of that. Let me tell you the story… There was a reasonable amount of money left over after I decided to close BCLA, In fact I'd sent Brett another $34,000 just a few days before I came to see that the party was over. In my imagination, I expected to get a good chunk of that money back. However, Brett ended up with two months severance salary ($14,000), a $10,000 bonus (for his wife's contribution), all the equipment and furniture - including a new computer - his personal legal fees paid, and another $3,500 in cash for a list of actual and imagined things. I thought that was enough. Instead, according to Brett's narrative, I still owed him another $103,125. But he was happy to forgive that debt, if I signed on to his narrative in legal terms. Of course, that wasn't my narrative, not even close, and I felt a lot of unpleasant emotions and thoughts over the last two weeks. I threw his proposed contract into the garbage, vowing I would never sign onto that rubbish. However, what I noticed is that as long as I continued to believe my narrative, all I felt was disgust and denial of all that Brett had risked in taking on BCLA. I love Katie's definition of forgiveness, because you escape any self-loathing or guilt about your actions. Forgiveness, Katie says, is when you realise that what you believed happened, never happened. I was believing that Brett took all my money, but what I came to understand was that I gave Brett all my money! Since he is going to take it anyway, why don't I just give it to him? There's way more peace in that. And I get to appreciate my Self for what I did, instead of feeling like someone who had something terrible done to him. No more victim, just a man who gladly spent a lot of money trying to realise his dream. I like that narrative a lot more. I thought you'd appreciate understanding where this blog was coming from. It was my personal work. I signed his contact, and finally I could write a letter, thanking Brett for all he did and wishing him well in his career. I feel the truth of that within me. Half of my life savings are gone, but the wonderful part is: I still have half of my life savings! I am finally coming to be at peace with what has happened. My work is not done yet, I know that, but I look forward to that day coming. https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/ PS Obviously this is all Private and Confidential. Just for you.