A Tribute To One Of My Teachers - Dr. Wayne Dyer

I have never met Dr. Wayne Dyer in person. He has been my teacher though his books, TV programs and educational videos where he has spoken by himself or with other spiritual teachers. 

Dr. Dyer passed away in his sleep sometime in the early morning hours on August 30, 2015. He is known to many as the "father of motivation" (About the author, Hay House email I received recently). I, for one, have been motivated through the years to make many changes in my belief system and in my daily life. 

In honor of his passing and his work, Hay House is making the video "The Shift" available to watch for free until September 8, 2015. I just finished watching "The Shift". It was well worth the two hours of sitting. I hope you will find the time to also watch it. Here is the link where I found it.

http://www.drwaynedyer.com/the-shift-movie-watch-now?

Here are a few little tidbits that I found interesting from watching the video.
1.  Enthusiasm comes from two words meaning "the God within."
2.  Stop interfering in your own life.
3.  You don't attract what you want. You attract what you are.
4.  Let go of ego/self and be of service to others.
5.  How can you ignore what is in front of you? Because you are 
     too busy doing other things.
6.  Sometimes you just have to show up for life.
7.  Everything will happen perfectly.
8.  Your purpose is always found in service.
9.  Leave the planet better than you found it.

Last Sunday morning I shared a guest blog article that I wrote back in February 2008. Over the years since then I have thought about sharing the article here on my blog but that didn't happen until last Sunday, the very day that Dr. Dyer left his body behind. You will find the link to that article at the end of this post.

In the comment section of that blog article entitled "Five Ways To Leave Pain Behind", a friend and I talked about the coincidence of me posting that article on the very day that Dr. Dyer died. Dr. Dyer is the one who taught me that there is no such thing as coincidences in the Universe. God/the Universe orchestrates things to happen when they are supposed to. There is no guesswork.   There is no luck or coincidence that caused something to happen. My belief is that those things were meant to happen whether I know the reason or not. I believe there is a higher intelligence in the Universe. 

If you believe something different, I am okay with that too. My beliefs are my own and your beliefs are yours. We are each of us at different steps along the path of life. 

Dr. Wayne Dyer helped me to open my mind to new ways of thinking and seeing life and most importantly myself. He helped me to learn my own value as a human being and as a member of the ever-expanding Universe. I will always be grateful to him for that introduction into things greater than myself/my ego. Thank you Dr. Dyer for the things that you are still teaching me. I hope to be as wise as you one day.
Patricia

Related Posts:

Five Ways To Leave Pain Behind @
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2015/08/five-ways-to-leave-pain-behind.html

Healing Tools That I Have Learned

Some important healing tools that I have learned and used over the years are as follows:

1. I can't fix someone else's problems but I can listen because sometimes a good listener is all that is needed. Become an active listener instead of planning what you are going to say when the other person shuts up.

2.  If someone else's words upset me or make me angry, I need to look at where my reaction is coming from. What wounded part of me is feeling the anger, hate, fear or confusion? What can I do to change from reacting to acting? My upset is mine, not the other person's.

3.  Don't attack someone else because of what I am feeling.  I sometimes fail miserably at this one.  I have to think and act or not, rather than react to what I feel. I can do a lot of harm if I simply react out of my hurt, anger or fear. I can say I am sorry and make changes in my behavior if need be to make things right.

4.  Look at my own feelings and figure out where they are coming from. What do I still need to heal?  What steps can I take to heal these feelings? My feelings are my responsibility. The other person rarely sets out just to make me upset. What I do with my feelings is my own responsibility. I can choose to heal. I can make the committment to do my own healing work.

5.  Share from my own experiences rather than offering advice.  Advice makes me sound healthier, stronger, wiser - whatever superior word that my ego likes to add to make me appear better.  I am not any of those things.  I am equally wise and unwise, healthy and not so healthy, strong and weak in different areas and at different times.  I don't need to feed my ego to be the person I am or to be the person that I want to become. I am better than I was and I still have a long way to go to be who I want to be. Some days I am healthy and some days I am dysfunctional.  Some days I am a kind person and some days I can be mean and irritable.

6.  When I attack others, I am coming from my own place of woundedness which is something that I don't want to do.  Rather than attack, I try to look at what is going on inside of me.  Again, sometimes I am not so good at doing this one in a healthy manner. Progress is more important than perfection.

7.  My truth is my truth.  It may not be yours. I don't have the right to use my truth as absolute to attack you with.  I don't know your story.  You don't know mine.  Even when you share a part of your story here, it is just a part of your story so I can't and shouldn't make judgments about you or your story.  I ask the same consideration from you about me and my stories. I hope to always treat others with dignity and expect the same from others toward me.

8.  I am just as human, just as fallible as everyone else. Life is a constant journey with many ups and downs.  Many times I fall and have to get back up. It is the getting back up that is most important. Baby steps are better than no steps at all. Holding someone else's hand when I get scared helps. Lending someone else a helping hand helps them but it also helps me to become a better person.  Shared experiences and shared hope make for an easier journey.

9. I may be further along on my healing path than some others but it only takes one trigger to make me feel like that hurting, frightened child again. I have learned to take the time to comfort that child as my parents never did.  Reparenting my inner child has been an important step in healing.

10.  If I leave at the very first sign of trouble, how does anything get resolved.  Running away doesn't help.  It just keeps me in denial that I have a problem.

These healing tools were part of a comment that I left on the blog Emerging From Broken.  Here is a link to the article that I commented on:

http://emergingfrombroken.com/my-mother-doesn%e2%80%99t-love-me-and-the-process-of-grieving/

What healing tools help you in your life?
Patricia

Intimidating, Wanting To Be Right

Itimidating, wanting to be right---do I come across that way to you?

If I do, I apologize. That is not my intent with this blog or the many comments that I leave on the blogs of others.

I had a conversation with a friend recently and she told me that I end most of my conversations with her with the word "So." She says that she believes that I do it subconsciously. I do it so often. I asked her to say something about it when I do it. She is right. I do it without thinking about it. I even caught myself starting to say "S0." at the end of my next statement to her.

Here are my thoughts on the topic:

I can use the word "So?" as a question to get you to voice your opinion.

I can use the word "S0." followed by a blank space to give me a moment to think of the next word or statement that I want to say but lost in my train of thought. I have a lot of senior moments where I lose my whole train of thoughts. I have a mind full of thoughts that I want to share so they get jumbled sometimes because I can't say them fast enough, especially when I am excited about something.

I can use the word "So." hoping to stimulate your own thought processes on the topic.

I also use the word "So." hoping to gently help my friend come out of her comfort zone and grow with me. Maybe that is wrong. I just like her company on my path. Maybe that is a part of controlling that I still need to stop doing. Relationships can be so confusing sometimes, maybe most of the time.

I have struggled with the ego part of me that wants to be right all of the time. I may still be slipping back into that as my friend thinks I am. I don't consciously say, "I am going here. I am right. You are wrong." Sometimes I do still act without thinking about it. I need to pay more attention to my thoughts and my motives.

Most of the time I choose to see our viewpoints as being different, no less right or wrong than the other person. I don't have to convince the other person that they are right and I am wrong. How dull would we all be if we thought the same way about everything? Differences are stimulating in a person and in a conversation.

I don't have to change you and you don't have to change me.

The above is an example of how my thought processes work. I can see that we both can be right in our assessment of my use of the word "SO." I can see where we can both be wrong in our assessment of our conversations.

I don't know what you think of this as subject matter for an article unless you leave a comment and tell me. All of the above was in my head and needed to get out. Thanks for listening.
Patricia

How Clean Are Your Windows?

A friend sent this email to me a few days ago. I can't give you the name of the person who originally wrote it since it is going around the in the cyberworld without the source being included. Here it is.



The Window Through Which We Look
"A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
'That laundry is not very clean', she said.
'She doesn't know how to wash correctly.
Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.'


Her husband looked on, but remained silent.


Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.


About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:
'Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.
I wonder who taught her this?'


The husband said, 'I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.'


And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look."




As I have said before, what you see about your world and other people always comes through the filters of your ego which are created by your experiences and beliefs. When is the last time that you cleaned the windows of your mind?
Patricia

Related Articles:

The Law Of The Garbage Truck
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/04/law-of-garbage-truck.html

We Can Only See Who We Are
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-can-only-see-who-we-are.html

Limiting Beliefs May Be Holding You Back or How Incest Is Still Affecting My Life
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/12/limiting-beliefs-may-be-holding-you.html

What Other People Think About You Is None Of Your Business
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-other-people-think-about-you-is.html

Gifts Of Facing Your Fears

A few days ago I read an article called "Cash in on the Hidden Gold Beneath Your Fears" written by Tom Volkar at Delightful Work. You will find the article at this link: http://www.delightfulwork.com/2008/06/24/cash-in-on-the-hidden-gold-beneath-your-fear/ .

Click on the link above and go read Tom's article, then come back here and read mine. I'll be here when you get back. In the mean time, I will go fix myself a cup of coffee.

People keep telling me that I am courageous to write about incest. I am not any more brave than anyone else. I have just reached the grand age of 56 years old where I don't care as much what other people think about me as I once did. I do care. At 56, my opinion of me is the most important. Doing what is right for me has become more important than your opinion of me.

The praise does feel good so if you want to keep it coming, I won't object. I will even admit that I love it when you tell me how good, nice, courageous, outspoken I am. My ego is still in tact and even still in control at times. So thank you for your words of encouragement. They are appreciated.

I need to set the record straight. I am just as fearful as the rest of you, probably even more so than some of you. Yes, writing down my thoughts on this blog for the world to see is scarey business but the rewards have been well worth facing my fears to do this. Facing my fears has been so rewarding. I can so relate to Tom's article and see that when we face our fears, there is gold hidden beneath the fears.

In one of my recent articles, "Quit Playing Small And Insignificant" ( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/06/quit-playing-small-and-insignificant.html ), I faced a major fear of mine---the fear that I might be "powerful beyond measure" (Marianne Williamson in "A Return to Love"). I was fearful of letting my light shine to its full strength because you might think I felt superior to you. My ego might even try to convince me that I am superior to you. As it says in my article, I was fearful of accepting that I am responsible for my life and what I do with that life.

What have been the immediate gold that I found hidden beneath those fears?
1. I have found a new level of self-confidence that I didn't have before. I acted as if I were confident but it was only an act. Now, it is real. I am powerful beyond all measure and so are you. Each of us is powerful as magnificient reflections of the God in each of us.

2. My creativity with my writing for this blog has gone through the roof. I have never written as many articles as I have in the past week. I am not posting them all at once so you will continue to see these articles come out over the next few weeks. I wrote 5 articles last week, three of which have already been posted. This article is the second one in two days that I have written this week.

3. Tools such as Tom's article and the information that I posted from Paula Kawal that you will find in my article "Shame, The Abuser's Friend" found at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/06/shame-abusers-friend.html have come my way to be shared on this blog. Helping others has to come second after helping myself to grow since I choose to help others through sharing my own journey. These tools will give me and you more ways to heal ourselves. This is a lesson I learned about 20 years ago. I can't help others heal until I have done the work of healing myself.

4. Michelle Vandepas and CK Reyes at Divine Purpose Unleashed ( http://divinepurposeunleashed.com/ ) have helped me to look more clearly at what my divine purpose is. This blog is the tool for me to accomplish my divine purpose of reaching out to others who wish to move beyond victim and survivor to become who they really are as Divine Beings.

5. Slade Roberson ( http://sladeroberson.com/ ) and Andrea Hess ( http://www.empoweredsoul.com/ ) have both opened the door for me to learn to communicate more with my Spirit Guides. Hey guys, that voice in your head or your ear doesn't necessarily mean you are going crazy. It could be your guides communicating with you.

6. Michelle Vandepas introduced me to the new Debbie Ford book called "The Secret of the Shadow, The Power of Owning Your Whole Story." You will be hearing more from me about this book. It is the missing piece I have been searching for.

7. As I release more fears, more joy and contentment come into my life.

Next time I find myself faced with my fears, I intend to use Tom's four statements to look at my fears and his four questions to find out exactly what I am afraid of and what actions I can take to release the fears. Thank you Tom for sharing this article with the rest of us. I love it when I find tools that do what they are supposed to. With tools, we are better equipped to deal with life. Life can be beautiful. Life is beautiful. Live it to the fullest. Be as powerful as you truly are.

Your life can be glorious when you choose for it to be.
Patricia

Tools Of The Ego

Page 86, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth says the following:

"A shy person who is afraid of the attention of others is not free of ego, but has an ambivalent ego that both wants and fears attention from others. The fear is that the attention may take the form of disapproval or criticism, that is to say, something that diminishes the sense of self rather than enhances it. So the shy person's fear of attention is greater than his or her need for attention. Shyness often goes with a self-concept that is predominantly negative, the belief of being inadequate. Any conceptual sense of self---seeing myself as this or that---is ego, whether predominantly positive (I am the greatest) or negative (I am no good). Behind every positive self-concept is the hidden fear of not being good enough. Behind every negative self-concept is the hidden desire of being the greatest or better than others. Behind the confident ego's feeling of and continuing need for superiority is the unconscious fear of inferiority. Conversely, the shy, inadequate ego that feels inferior has a strong hidden desire for superiority. Many people fluctuate between feelings of inferiority and superiority, depending on situations or the people they come in contact with. All you need to know and observe in yourself is this: Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you."

I am reading so much from this book that resonates in me.

"Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you."

How often in your day do you feel one or the other of these two? The majority of my judgments about myself and other people probably come in the form of feelings of inferiority or superiority. This book is giving me so many awarenesses of the tools that ego uses to stay in control.

I can relate so much to the feelings of ambivalence of a shy person. Believe it or not, I was extremely shy until I was in my late 20's. My husband helped to tease me out of most of my shyness. He helped me to come out of my protective shell.

I remember spending most of my free time at school in the library with my head stuck in a book so that I could hide from people. I didn't know how to talk to any of the kids at school. I was so afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. I was afraid of drawing attention to myself and at the same time, I craved the attention. I was starved for attention at the same time that I was terrified by it. I remember wearing make-up to school one day. I probably put it on in the bathroom at school so my dad wouldn't see it and tell me to wash it off. One of my teachers commented on how beautiful it made my eyes. I was in heaven and hell at the same time. I was pleased at the compliment from my teacher and I was terrified by that same attention and didn't know how to react to it. I didn't know how to handle the ambivalence. I went home and washed my face and didn't wear make-up again until I was in college.

I didn't know that I was pretty until one day, I overheard someone talking about me. I was 19 years old when I heard this friend ask another friend, "Doesn't she know that she is pretty?" I had no clue. I was so shy and withdrawn. I wore neutral colors and did my best to be invisible to others. I doubt that most of my classmates would recognise me as the author of this blog. Today, I am quite vocal about my beliefs and feelings. I doubt anyone that I went to school with would imagine me as a writer.

Ego-centered selfishness vs. Spirit-centered Selfishness

My husband Daniel and I just got back from having lunch with a friend. On the way back home, I happened to see a church sign that said, "Love God, Love your neighbor, Serve Both." I agree with that statement as far as it goes.


Daniel and I got into a discussion when I told him that the sign left out the most important part of "Love Yourself." Even the Bible says to "Love your neighbor as yourself." Most churches forget the "as yourself" part when they are doing sermons. I can get quite passionate about this topic because I had to learn to love myself before I could truly love anybody else. That is what I believe the Bible quote is telling us.


Back to our discussion, Daniel said, "What about the 20 % of the population (Don't ask me where he got his percentage. He probably made it up to make his point.) that love only themselves?" I told him that is not real love.


Real love is not about being selfish. Loving yourself is not about being selfish. Taking care of yourself so that you are full and able to give to others is different than being so selfish that you are completely self-centered. Ego-centered might be a better way to phrase that. When you are ego filled you have nothing that you want to give to others unless you get something back in exchange for what you have given.


Ego-centered people don't love themselves. They become ego-centered to overcompensate for the fact that they don't love themselves. Ego doesn't want us to love ourselves. It wants us to love it. When you love ego, it feels puffed up and self-important and gratified to be the center of your attention. Ego does nothing for anyone else without expecting something in return. Ego-centered people are constantly striving for the next achievement or the next pay-off so they can feel self-important. The reality is that they are not "self" important. Very often, they hate themselves and are very busy being ego-centered in order to hide their true feelings of self-hatred.


When you truly love yourself, you become spirit-centered or Self-centered. When you become Self-centered, you do everything out of love for God, yourself and others. When you are Self-centered, you listen to your body when it tells you what it needs---rest, food, less food, water, less stress, more exercise. When you are Self-centered you are grounded in the Christ-consciousness that says we are all one. Taking care of your needs is not selfish. It is Selfish. There is a difference.

The Wisdom Of Letting Go

the Little book of Letting go, a revolutionary 30-day program to Cleanse your Mind, Lift your Spirit and Replenish your Soul, written by Hugh Prater in 2000 was introduced to me by a friend who passed the book on when she no longer had room in her book shelf. I instantly grabbed onto the book when I saw the title. Boy, am I glad that I did. This "Little book" as Hugh Prater calls it is so packed with wisom. I just had to share it even though I just started reading it.
One of the first gems of wisdom that I read was on page 5:
"Not only do we give people a piece of our mind, we give them a piece of our happiness, wholeness, focus, and sometimes, a piece of our health."

Who are you giving your piece/peace of mind to? What will it take for you to stop giving away your peace? These are questions I am going to start asking myself. How about you?


Also on page 5 is the following statements:
"Our lives are filled with useless battles because our minds are filled with useless thoughts. We never finish thinking about anything. We carry around unhappy scenes from the past as if they are still happening, and we chew on the memory of whatever we just did. This glut of thoughts profoundly affects the world we perceive and the life we live."

I know that I am guilty of doing this. What parts of the past are you still holding on to? What in your past is still hurting you? What will it take for you to let go of that hurt and those past events or relationships? What will give you closure? I am asking myself these same questions that I am asking you.


This statement on page 7 comes from Hugh Prater's wife, Gayle:
"Make your state of mind more important than what you are doing."

To do this, you have to ask the question, "What is important to your peace of mind?" None of the rest is important. A good question to ask yourself is, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?" That simple question should stop some of the outward battles that the ego likes to involve you in.

This is just a brief sharing of the treasures that I have found in this book just in the first few pages. I will share more as I get further into the pages of this book.
Peace and blessings to you.
Patricia

A New Earth

Have you signed up for Oprah's new online class. It isn't too late to reserve your seat. I would do it as soon as possible. There are a few technical things to do on your computer to make sure that you can get the webcast with very simple simple step by step directions. If I can do it, anybody can. There are also a few pre-show time homework items for you to do as well as read the first chapter of the book "A New Earth" written by Eckhart Tolle.

To reserve your seat for this event, you also have to join the Oprah Book Club or her site http://www.oprah.com . This is a world-wide event. I don't think anybody has done anything on this scale before on TV or the internet. It is a first and will possibly have wide spread results. This book can literally change the world by helping us to change our thinking. The first class starts at 8:00 PM C.S.T. in the U. S. on Monday, March 3, 2008 so time is short if you want to participate.

I bought my book from Amazon.com before Oprah decided to include this book in her book club. I have slowly been reading and absorbing a little at a time. That is the way that I like to read my books.

I signed up for this class on Thursday evening after seeing Oprah talk about it on her show.
One of the exercises that you will participate in is to write down 2 of your favorite quotes from the book, one chapter at a time as we go along. My first two quotes are as follows:

1. "An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state." (page 7)

I have always said that you can't change what you aren't aware of. You must have awareness as the first step. If you aren't aware, what can you do but continue to do what you have always done?

2. "You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge."

The paragraph goes on to say, "But it (goodness) can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness."

As my friend Slade tells me, "Trying" doesn't accomplish anything. It gives you a reason to fail. Trying is an excuse that you give yourself in case you fail. When is the last time that you said, "Well, I tried my best." Slade tells us to "Do rather than try." I think this principle would apply to the above statement quite well.

Basically what the Eckhart Tolle statement above says to me is You don't have to try to good because you already are good at the center of your being. You just have to become aware that you already are good and be good. That sounds so simple but it probably isn't for most of us because we "try" too hard.

Just BE.
Patricia
My creativity comes from the Universe and benefits the Universe through the sharing of my journey.

Welcome To My Dark Side

Fear keeps me stuck.
Laziness keeps me stuck.
Indecision keeps me stuck.
Inactivity due to Lack of committment keeps me stuck.

All of the above are parts of my dark side, the part of me that doesn't live in the Light. What Light is this, you ask? The Light of Love.

Having a dark side is not a bad thing, in and of itself. Letting it run your life is. Giving into fear, laziness, indecision and inactivity are not good things, not if you want to move forward in life, not if you want to heal.

What brought out these thoughts today? I was sitting in church this morning listening to a guided meditation and suddenly my mind was filled with the above thoughts. I always carry a small notebook along with me to write down what I want to remember of the minister's sermon or like today to catch the thoughts of importance that run through my mind. Today I didn't catch much of what the minister was saying. I had my own thoughts to deal with.

Where did these thoughts come from? For awhile now, I have been wrestling with myself over being sick and why I haven't been able to figure out how to stop the migraines that I have been having more and more frequently. I have also gained back most, if not all of the weight that I lost in India back in October.

I have been asking myself why am I getting the migraines? Why am I getting them more frequently, sometimes 2-3 a week lately? What can I do to stop them? What am I doing to cause them? When am I going to be ready to heal myself. Why am I not willing to do the work to learn how to heal myself? What am I not willing to do? What am I not willing to see or hear? What part of me is still resisting change?

At this point, I have lots of questions with only a few awarenesses and not very many of the answers YET. I put the word "yet" in bold letters and caps so that you would see, and so would I, that my intention is to be open to doing this, just not yet.

I am leaving the door open for the possibility of the answers coming. I know that I have all of the answers. I know that they are inside of me. I know the answers will come.

Why the title "Welcome To My Dark Side"? Well, I wanted to introduce you, my readers, to my dark side. Believe it or not, my dark side does exist. I am not the goody-two-shoes that one part of me wants to believe that I am. I have a dark side. She is often angry, frightened and punishing. She is also sad and lonely. Mostly, she is afraid.

Also, I intend to welcome all parts of me into the Light. I have never wanted to acknowledge that I have a dark side. I now intend to work with acknowledging and accepting all parts of me. As long as I am divided into Light and Dark, Good and Bad, I am divided. More conflict happens as long as I am divided against myself. Inner and outer peace happens when conflict ceases and acceptance happens.

As the saying goes, "I have nothing to fear but fear itself." I know all about fear. Fear of failure and fear of success do the same thing. They keep you from moving.

Laziness, indecision and inactivity due to lack of committment all keep me standing still. By nature, I don't like standing still. I like to always be moving forward, learning something new, meeting new people, going new places.

One awareness that I got this morning was that I am allowing fear, laziness, indecision, and inactivity to keep me from finding a way to heal myself from these migraines. I heard a small, whiny voice say, "It is too much work. Why can't someone else do it? I want it now without having to work so hard to get it. I want it now." Would you say that my ego is running rampant right now? I would.

I have all the resources. I have all that I need. I Am all that I need. I know.

Are You Judging Others As Less Spiritual Than You?

Yehuda Berg's Daily Kabbalah Tune Up on Monday, December 24, stated that "A common pitfall to avoid in spirituality is judging others as less spiritual than we are." This lesson was taught to me a few years ago and brought back to mind by this article.

Our ego likes to think it is bigger and better than others. About 2 years ago, my ego was doing some accessing of my spiritual growth and comparing it to where my husband appeared to be at the time.

My ego was feeling very smug and thinking I was so much better than my husband. Ego was patting itself on the back and laughing at Daniel, when suddenly I heard an inner voice say, "Maybe he is waiting on you to catch up to his growth level. Maybe he already did his spiritual growing in a past life and it is your turn to grow in this lifetime." What a shocking, enlightening idea!!! Ego drew back in anoyance at that idea.

I like that idea. We really don't see the bigger picture when we are comparing ourselves to others. I am grateful that Daniel has given me the space to do my own growing in my own way.

Who do you make judgments about that you are better than they are? Look deeper and see what gifts have come your way because of that person. Share those gifts with that person. Tell them how valuable they are to you. Tell them that you are grateful that they are in your life.

Labeling Myself vs. Experiencing What Is.

I recently read a set of 6 interviews done by Karl Staib on his website,
http://KarlStaib.com/2007/05/14/Kara-leah-from-klmasinaconz-interview/ .

Karl interviewed Kara-Leah Masina who has her own website,
http://www.klmasina.co.nz/ .

This was the first time that I had checked out Karl Staib's site. I will go back and read more. I found Karl by looking at the sites that Kara-Leah Masina recommended on her website.

I have been reading Kara-Leah's articles since I first set up my own blog. She was listed on the blogroll of another friend. I have read quite a few of Kara-Leah's articles because I feel so connected to her brand of wisdom. I deeply get what she says in her writings. When I saw that Karl had interviewed Kara-Leah on his site, well, I just had to read them. I left a comment for one of the interviews and that is where the idea for this article came from. Thank you Karl and Kara-Leah. Reading all 6 of the interviews is well worth your time.

In Kara-Leah's Interview Part #5 of 6---"Dive into the Fear", Kara-Leah says, "the fear is a pointer - it is a light that tells us where we need to go. It is not us that experiences fear, but the ego, for the ego knows that to go further along the path in that direction is to let the ego GO, and more than anything the ego wants to build itself up. Hence fear is ultimately the ego's fear of DEATH."

Kara-Leah goes on to say, "dive into the fear".

I have spent a large part of my life doing the opposite - running from the fear. I now know that any time that I am binge eating; any time that I am being controlling; any time that I am trying to fix someone else; then I am running from my own fears. It is always easier to stuff the fear with food or ignore it by trying to fix others rather than fixing myself.

My ego is terrified that I might turn and face my fears. When I have the courage to face my fears, than ego becomes smaller along with the fears. When I face my fears, out of its own terror, ego throws more fear at me to test my resolve in facing my fears.

Just try worrying for awhile if you want to see if my statements are true. How many old fears can your ego drag out of its closet to add to what you initially started worrying about? Then, how many new fears will come and form into line with the old fears? Once you make the decision to not worry, some of your fears will simply disappear because you aren't feeding them any more by worrying.

Worry is food to fear.

I like the saying, "If you have faith, why worry?" If you still worry, you are expressing doubt. If you have doubts, the Universe will give you more reasons to doubt. More reasons to doubt just means more fears.

Ego loves Doubt, which feeds Worry, which in turn feeds Fear. Fear makes the Ego feel strong.

Kara-Leah says that you have to go into the fear, the pain, the grief, the hurt, and the loss. I have learned that if I want to heal, I must do as she suggests. My recent article "Being Honest With Myself" was written because I caught myself running from my feelings. Kara-Leah gave me a new tool for "diving into the fear" when she said rather than saying "I am afraid" say "I am experiencing fear." Kara-Leah, thank you for this new tool.

At this point, I am going to share the comment that I left on Karl's site because my comment sums up what I learned from the Interview. "I will definitely begin using the phrase, 'I am experiencing'. Such a simply yet profound way of looking at one's life. I have never heard the story about searching for God's home and being afraid when you do. (Check out the interview on Karl's site for the details of this wonderful tale.) I can so relate to this message. Once I was an incest victim. Then I was in recovery and became an incest survivor. I lived in this survivor stage for about 15 years. Then I gave up that title because I realized how it was limiting who I was, even though it was far superior to being a victim. I was diagnosed and became a diabetic about 5 years ago. I called myself a diabetic and wore a medical bracelet saying that I was a diabetic. I took that bracelet off 2 weeks ago when I realized what a friend has been telling me for awhile. I don't need to accept that title as being me. I am experiencing a blood sugar disorder. I am not that disorder. Thank you both for clarifying those thoughts for me."

Giving up the title of diabetic and taking off the bracelet happened at church one Sunday just before I wrote the above comment. Rev. Joe Rowe had done a sermon about not claiming an illness as who we are. When he said that, I got it. Any illnesses that my body may have are not who I am. The illness is what my body is experiencing. The illness is not who I am. Thanks, Karl, Kara-Leah and Rev. Joe.

To read the articles that inspired me to write this article go to:
http://KarlStaib.com/2007/05/14/Kara-leah-from-klmasinaconz-interview/ .

For more articles by Kara-Leah Masina go to:
http://www.klmasina.co.nz/ .