Personal Thoughts...
   by Liz

Why must we punish ourselves over and over and over, even for lifetimes, because of pain experienced in our lives, oftentimes years ago? Why do alcoholics drink? Why do addicts abuse drugs? Why do compulsive eaters keep eating? Why do anorexics starve themselves? Why do some people compulsively mutilate their own bodies? Why? Because we don't know what to do with the pain. We aren't taught as children what to do with pain. We aren't taught to release pain. Most of us are taught to suppress it, to hide it, to be "strong." There is no strength in hiding your self, your true feelings. Strength is in showing who you are and having the courage to be who you are. If pain is not released, it manifests itself into our lives like a stealth virus slowly eating away at our souls until there is nothing left but regret.

What can we do about the pain? The first thing to do is to feel it, to go up to it and embrace it as yours. Feel it as if you were there in the moment and let your true emotions flow. It belongs to you. Look at yourself in the pain. Feel how you feel. What do you want? What do you need in that very moment? Do you need to be held? Do you need to hear certain words? Walk up to yourself and hold yourself, say what you need to hear. Comfort yourself in the pain. Give yourself the Love, caring, and compassion that you deserve, that you would give anyone who was suffering so much, but have denied yourself, possibly for decades. Go back to your earliest memories and Love yourself all the way to today.

After you've allowed yourself to actually feel the pain, release it. Free it and you free yourself. Whatever your beliefs, there is a way to release the pain, whether to God, in writing, in sharing with others, in any way necessary to finally let it go, but it is my personal feeling that releasing the pain to God is the best way. He is there to carry our burdens so we don't have to. He knows and feels every ounce of our pain and understands. But He won't just take the pain away without your participation; you must give it to Him freely and fully--you must let it go. Let it go and He will take it far away, so far away that it won't hurt you any more. Let it go and accept His absolute Love in its place. Feel His Love and share His Love with yourself and others. Freely give Love and it's joy will return to you in abundance.

Nothing is more important in life than Love. We crave it from birth. We live for it. We look for it in all the wrong places. We die for it. And while we're doing that, we forget to Love ourselves and wonder why we don't have Love in our lives, wonder why nothing ever works out. What have we done that was so bad that we don't deserve Love? Nothing. To receive Love, to experience Love, you must give Love. Love yourself. Love others. Love everyone. Love now. Love forever. Love always.

-October 1998

Real success goes hand in hand with love, joy, and happiness. If these crucial elements exude from your life, you have achieved real success.

I recently received a motivational message that largely conveyed the way I feel about the achievement of success. I liked it so much that I've modified it to convey my personal feelings and feature it here for you. The original version is available in the August motivation :) archive.

Real Success Is Achieved When You Love What You Do It's impossible to succeed in an endeavor that you do not love. If you do not love what you're doing, you will never derive the joy necessary to fuel real success. Your success is directly proportional to the degree of pleasure you derive from what you do. Doing something you love guarantees success over time. Do something you'd enjoy spending 12 to 15 hours a day working at and the rest of the time thinking about. Never set compensation as your goal. If you do what you love, the compensation will follow. The work you choose should not be your punishment. It should be your reward, your strength, your pleasure. Your true life's work is your love made visible.

-September 1998

-June 1998

"If only...

...I was richer/taller/slimmer/stronger/smarter/pretty/happy/free..."
...I/we had stayed/left/gone/joined/thought/bought/played/won..."
...I/we/he/she/they had said yes/no/something/nothing/anything..."
...he/she/they had loved/wanted/needed/noticed/promoted/hired me..."

We've all said it. If only... then my life would be great! When in reality your "if only..." is the very thing that's keeping you from fulfilling your life.

Every time you utter--or think--those two little words, your subconscious mind records, believes, and conforms to every word that follows and you are trapped in the belief that you can only be happy/fulfilled/successful/etc. "if only..." takes place. Whenever a new idea/person/opportunity comes into your life, the "if only..." is immediately triggered by your subconscious mind, effectively destroying what could have enhanced your life.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You can change it. Your subconscious mind is a powerful thing, but it's only your auto-pilot. You're in control and never let anyone or anything influence you otherwise. Whenever you catch yourself "if'n" on yourself, don't buy it--turn it around! As soon as it forms in your mind, say to yourself, "Baloney! That's not true! I'm a great person and I can do anything I set my mind to!" Turn "if only" into I fly on!

Take charge and map out the course of your life before you end up parachuting into the trees. Fly on!

-May 1998

"Love is patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
-- I Corinthians 13:3-8

In September of 1993, at a time when I was resigning myself to a life devoid of love, I was introduced to a wonderful man, a man I thought was my soulmate, the love I had been longing for in my life. We were instantly, desperately drawn to each other, neither of us having ever experienced such an enormous degree of recognition, acceptance, and comfort from another person. We talked for hours on end, never wanting to let go. He so engulfed my emotions that the sound of his voice made me tremble. I was instantly transformed by my newfound love and happier than I had ever been in my life. Suddenly everything was right and nothing was wrong.

In a matter of days, just as suddenly as he entered my life, he was taken away by a fatal heart attack on September 13, 1993. To say that I was completely devasted would be an understatement. Had a friend not been with me when I received the call that he had died, I may not have come back from the anguish that overtook me when I hung up the phone.

Dealing with the incredible pain that his sudden death caused me was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't speak. I couldn't eat. I was completely numb and profoundly sad, completely shattered by my loss of love.

Through a friend's encouragement, and out of my own desperation and will to survive, I asked God to help me. Not being a religious person, this also was a very difficult thing for me but I had nowhere else to turn. I felt alone in my suffering and nothing anyone had to say could comfort me. Completely overwhelmed and at the lowest point of my life, I sought the comfort of God on September 16, 1993. All or nothing.

Up until that point, my life had been a series of disappointments, one after another. I expected to be unhappy, alone, unfulfilled; no matter what happened, in my mind I knew nothing good would come of it for me. It was my lot in life.

But on that day, in one moment, everything changed and my life has not been the same since. I would never have believed it (in fact I had disbelieved it for years) had I not experienced it firsthand. Love, true Love, real Love, entered my life, took over my whole being. It was so powerful that I cried tears of joy. I was laying in bed and was literally lifted from the mattress by a current of Love and joy I could never have imagined. It blew through every pore of me; I felt the wind from it and saw it ruffle the bed covers. In that instant, I understood what Love is. It was a stunning, emotional experience I will never forget. I wanted to jump, scream, and shout, "I'm alive!" I was transformed, not in the temporary way of "finding the right person," but in the profoundly complete and permanent way of discovering myself, discovering the Love that was me. You thought I was going to say discovering God? God is not like that. He's not all about Himself. He's about Us. About Me. About You.

You see, Love is not something we "find." Love is what we are. It's just that most of us don't know it and it takes reaching the bottom of the pit to realize it sometimes. You have to share Yourself, share Love, to experience Love. That means not only sharing with others, but sharing with Yourself, the Love, the You, that You are, and rejoicing in it. You are a wonderful gift to Yourself and others, and gifts are meant to be shared.

In my opinion, the wonderful scripture quoted above describes Love in the most clear, concise, and profound way possible. But it also describes the one true and lasting Love that We are here to share. Look at it this way:

"I am patient; I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I am not rude, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keep no records of wrongs. I do not delight in evil but rejoice in truth. I always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere. I never fail [myself]."
-- me

-April 1998

I truly believe there is power in positive thinking, and conversely, in negative thinking--do you know of any successful, happy person that is continually negating themselves and others? Of course not. You either draw success to you by your thinking and actions or you repel it. It's that simple. You draw to yourself what you are. And you are what you believe yourself to be.

One way of drawing success is by thinking positively about it. Believe that you deserve it and believe in yourself.

A powerful step toward accomplishing belief in yourself is with the use of daily affirmations: simple, personal statements reflecting what you want your life to be, written in first person and posted where you can see and read them on a daily basis.

I first began using affirmations in 1990, and was astonished at how quickly my subconscious mind adapted, literally drank from raging thirst, the messages. It was a dramatic turning point in my life, and the first step in reversing the damage of years of negativity and low self worth.

That one action, nearly eight years ago, has helped me through a series of trials that otherwise I might not have endured. It began in me self-worth, the belief that I can triumph over and learn from adversity, and the belief in myself that carries me through each day.

Though I feel, or for the most part, I feel that others feel, (the burden we allow others to place upon us is often harder to release than our own) I am light years from where I should be in my life, I am certain that each event I've experienced, however painful, has brought me closer, if to nothing else, to myself. In that, I find great success.

-March 1998