Be The Peace

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, 

people will forget what you did, 

but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Maya Angelou said that and she was so right...but how often do we honestly consider how we make the people around us feel in our daily lives? How often do we ask ourselves what type of energy we are projecting out into the universe on a day-to-day basis? How much time do we spend contemplating how we, as individuals, impact the rest of humanity? Not nearly enough, in my opinion.

The fact is that every single person's energetic contributions, positive or negative, are significant and impactful on the whole, therefore we must all choose responsibly and stop placing blame externally. In each moment, we must all choose peace.

If we truly want peace, we must first BE the peace. We must become the embodiment of peace, in every sense of the word, with no exceptions and no excuses, recognizing that there are no justified resentments. 

Angry speech and indignant rhetoric does little to increase peacefulness in this world - instead it only adds to the divisiveness, chaos and hatred that is so pervasive right now. 

Peace is an attitude we can all choose in any given moment. Peace is all about giving up the ego-driven need to be right and instead choosing be kind, compassionate and loving. 

Peace means seeking to understand those with opinions that differ from our own instead of responding with judgement and condemnation. Peace is the ability to see beauty in everyone and everything. 

When we make the choice to be peaceful, we profoundly impact and elevate the level of peacefulness in every circumstance or challenge we face and in every single person who surrounds us. If we truly want things to improve, it's our responsibility to radiate out to the world that which we seek: peace. 

I keep hearing how unhappy people are with what is going on in our world currently and I watch as those same people, in their effort to promote peace, unintentionally create more conflict and drive us further and further away from understanding one another which is an essential element in developing the peace we all desire. 

I think it's important to remember that thinking alike is not a requirement for peace. Peace is always possible but first we must all take responsibility for our own words and actions and make sure that each one of us is contributing to peace and not detracting from it. We must all become peace and only then will we experience the bliss that only peace can bring. 

It is an irrefutable fact that deep down, at our core, we all want the same thing: peace, harmony, to love and be loved, to be accepted and free to be who we truly are, to have meaning in our lives. The very fact that we were born is proof of that. Without peace, none of the other things can exist. 

We are all born with a spark, the essence of who we are, a manifestation of peace and divine love. Wayne Dyer once described it as a flame burning within us that may dim but never goes out completely. He said that in order to keep this flame burning brightly, we must focus on it and provide it with the peace and harmony that it craves and requires. 

As humans, we can sometimes get caught up in our emotions or ego and lose sight of the end game. When this happens, we must take notice and return our focus to the beautiful flame burning within. 

Before you speak, act, respond or post to social media...ask yourself this simple question: Am I contributing to the achievement of a peaceful world or just adding to the chaos and negativity? Because the only way to achieve peace is through peace. This I know for sure.

The Only Person Out to Get You Is You

"When you change the way you look at things, 

the things you look at change."

                                 - Dr. Wayne Dyer 

I have found that one of the most difficult challenges we face in life is to, without exception, take complete and total responsibility for the circumstances in our lives.  But I also know that once we are able to overcome this great challenge, our lives will inevitably become better and we will be able to experience it in a way that we never thought possible.  It's not that our problems magically disappear; it's that we are able to see clearly what we need to do to remove obstacles and become co-creators in the life we have only dreamed about.

Taking responsibilty for the circumstances in our lives can be extremely daunting.  Instinctively, when things go wrong and we feel disappointed, betrayed, hurt or frustrated, we instantly want someone to blame.  We want to believe that it's not our fault and that we are simply victims in a cruel, heartless and unforgiving world.  We throw ourselves a great big pity party and feel perfectly justified in drowning our sorrrows in whatever makes us feel temporarily better.  But that's the problem - the relief we get is only temporary and when it wears off we feel even worse.

The result is a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that feeds on itself in an endless loop of despair and from that vantage point there seems to be no way out.  Trust me, I've been there and it's no fun.  As long as we continue to self-identify as victims, we are stuck in the muck, like the wheels of an SUV spinning in the mud.  We find ourselves in this place of limbo, going nowhere, filled with anxiety, shame and so much confusion that we don't know which way is up.  We are miserable and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

This can apply to virtually anything that shows up in our lives, including relationship problems, financial issues, heartbreak, and even illness.  Whatever it is, it's there for a reason and until we let go of the victim mentality and figure out why, the solution will continue to elude us.

Taking resposibility for what we attract into our lives is not about beating ourselves up or self-inflicting fault or blame (that will only make things worse) - it's about coming to the realization that we have the power to change what we don't like and that victimhood is only an illusion designed to provide a false sense of security and to protect our very fragile egos.

Everything in life is in a constant state of change, of transition.  Consequently, there really is no such thing as security and, therefore, this, too, is only an illusion.  There are no guarantees that what or who we have in our life today will still exist tomorrow and yet we tell ourselves that the opposite is true.  It's not until we lose something dear to us that we realize it's transience and impermanance.  Our very deepest levels of consciencousness know this and this is why we live in a constant state of fear of losing what we have.

The world around us is set up to validate and reinforce the illusion that we are all victims who don't have the power to help ourselves, that we must always look externally to solve the problems that plague us.  We are bombarded daily by the media and by every facet of society with the idea that certain things outside of ourselves are absolutely necessary for our survival and wellbeing and that without them we will suffer or perish.  This message is delivered loud and clear from the time we are very young and we become absolutely convinced of it by the time we reach adulthood.  As a result, we lose the innate awareness of inner power and self-realiance with which we are born.

When we are sick, we believe doctors have all of the answers.  When we are depressed or anxious, we look to therapists to help.  When we feel lonely or insecure, we seek comfort in other people rather than turning inward.  When we feel empty, we try to fill ourselves up with material items, addictions, distractions of all kinds - anything to avoid being alone with our emotions.  By becoming dependent on these things that are inherently temporary, we set ourselves up for a major fall.  The only way to avoid this, or to crawl out of the giant hole we have fallen into, is to turn inward and recognize our own power, our own magnificence and to take back the reigns that we had unknowingly given up long ago.

When I began to recognize the role I had played in my own illness, it was a hard pill to swallow.  It took me a long time to admit to myself that there are no victims in this world, that I had indeed attracted into my life every single thing that I was experiencing.  I had to dig deep and unpack all of my "stuff" into a gigantic pile of horse manure and sort through it piece by piece.  At first I was really hard on myself, but as the process continued I realized how counterproductive that is and I began to treat myself with the same amount of compassion and kindness I would offer someone that I loved.

We must recognize that as human beings we are imperfect and will inevitably make mistakes - lots of them.  We will find ourselves in situations that we never planned on and would never choose if given the choice.  But we also must recognize that we always get what we need in order to advance to that next level of awareness that is required for us to understand and fulfill our purpose in this lifetime, which is the only thing that will bring us lasting peace.

You Had The Power All Along, My Dear

"Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over 

to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us."

                                           - Pema Chödrön

On this day, forty-six years ago in a hospital in San Jose, California my journey began.  I woke up this morning and realized that the greatest birthday gift I could give myself would be to start writing again.  I've been in a funk lately, feeling "stuck", frustrated and uninspired.  For some reason, I tend to write more when I'm in a good place, although given it's therapeutic effect on me, writing may just be what I needed to get unstuck.

Part of my frustration stems from the fact that my recovery from Chronic Lyme Disease had sort of stalled.  I wasn't getting any worse, but I also wasn't getting any better and it felt like my life had been put on hold.  I was living my life in black and white, getting through the day but not really experiencing much joy or pleasure.  I was feeling pretty close to giving up and some days I wondered if this was as good as it was going to get.

My family was worried about me. I was worried about me.  Nobody knew how to help me.  I felt myself sinking into the darkness again and I couldn't remember how to find the light.  In desperation, my father purchased a psychic healing from a medical intuitive he had heard on the radio.  She sent me some music and instructed me to listen to it and mediate as much as possible for the next 7 days.  The music was powerful and heavenly in the literal sense - like if you visited heaven these are the sounds you would hear.

The first few times I listened to it I immediately became very emotional, which, I was told, indicated that I was open and ready to recieve the information needed for my healing to take place.  Slowly, over the course of the next couple days, I began to see the light again and trust my own intuitive instincts on how to proceed.  It's actually hard to put the experience into words but the gist of it is that I could feel myself being lifted out of the darkness and into the light.  I felt lighter and more hopeful than I had in months.  It felt miraculous and yet subtle at the same time.  It reminded me of the line from "The Wizard of Oz" when Glinda, the Good Witch, tells Dorothy, "You had the power to find your way home all along, my dear."  I simply needed to be reminded that the power to heal myself and to stay in the light has always been accessible to me...sometimes I just had trouble remembering how to find it.

It was during that week that I picked up a book from my shelf that I had started to read but never finished called "How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can" by Amy Scher.  Amy had been in same situation and had managed to achieve 100% recovery from Chronic Lyme Disease.  A large part of her recovery was achieved through the clearing of unresolved traumatic emotional experiences and subconcious beliefs that were no longer serving her and may have even been hindering her recovery.

The first time I started reading the book, I didn't completely buy into the fact that my emotions or beliefs could possibly be affecting my health in such a significant way.  I also felt that I had done so much work in the areas of forgiveness, releasing fear, anger and resentment, trying not to worry about what other people think of me and trying to remain grateful and optimistic that this didn't really apply to me.  Wrong!

Here's the thing...the stuff that's affecting you the most is also the stuff you aren't totally conscious of.  For example, you may think one particular traumatic experience is the issue when really it just triggered the root experience which you may not even be aware of and until you resolve it your recovery will continue to elude you.  Also, (and this was a tough one for me to swallow) you may have certain unconscious beliefs that are actually preventing your body from getting well.  These beliefs may seem ridiculous at first but if you keep an open heart and mind, the truth will resonate with you and you will know exactly what is holding you back.

According to Amy, the human body is absolutely capable and even designed to heal itself but it simply cannot and will not heal until you are able to stop fighting and relax completely.  It makes perfect sense if you think about the idea of "fight or flight".  When your body is under stress or senses danger, it goes into survival mode.  Under these conditions, it does not feel safe enough to heal.  It releases stress hormones which over time will wreak absolute havoc on all of our bodily systems.  Our bodies were not designed to be in that mode for extended periods of time - continuous stress for days, months, and years is a recipe for disaster.  It's just a matter of time before your body rebels and starts to shut down.

The onset of most illnesses is almost always preceded by a period of extended stress or extreme emotional trauma.  In cases of Chronic Lyme Disease, I would venture to guess that this is true 99.9% of the time.  Lyme can lie almost dormant in your system for years and years (in my case over 20 years), only producing subtle, low-grade symptoms which are easily brushed off and attributed to a multitude of other things.  All it takes is one big emotionally taxing upset and boom!  You are down for the count.

Because it is so controversial, sufferers of Chronic Lyme experience even more trauma when friends, family and doctors don't believe them and claim they are making the whole thing up in their heads.  Add to that the extreme terror that sets in when diagnosed with a disease that is not acknowledged by most mainstream medical doctors, not covered by insurance and considered incurable.  Is there any doubt as to why so many of us can't get well?  

In my case, prior to getting acutely ill, I had endured a particularly painful, traumatic experience involving certain people in my life whom I had genuinely cared for very much and trusted completely for many years.  What transpired brought to light many revelations that were very difficult for me to understand and digest because these relationships turned out not to be what I thought they were.  Nothing was what it seemed and to this day I still grapple with unanswered questions and feelings of great sadness and betrayal.  My entire world was turned upside down and it made me question everything and everyone in my life, including my judgement about the people I choose to surround myself with.

Although I thought I had processed this experience and moved beyond it, what I realized is that it had triggered in me an even deeper, older hurt that I had never really gotten over.  I knew I had to process and clear it before I could get well.  I also uncovered some subconscious beliefs that weren't doing me any favors either!  This doesn't happen overnight and I'm still working on it but I'm making progress and seeing some favorable results.

I made it my mission to talk to as many people as possible who have fully recovered from Chronic Lyme Disease.  Every single one of them says the same thing: do not identify with the disease (you are not your disease) and you must address the body, the mind AND the spirit if you want to reclaim your health completely.  If you ignore one of them or don't fully address the issues in one or two of the areas, your chances for success will be greatly dampened.  Mind, body and spirit are fully and permanently intertwined and must all be balanced in order to achieve complete and lasting wellness.

Many people believe that the root cause of all illness, including cancer, is fear.  Anita Moorjani, in her book "Dying To Be Me", recounts her miraculous near-death experience in which her body had been riddled with cancer and she literally died - she was actually on the other side.  While there, she learned that her cancer had been caused by a deep-seated fear of being free to be her true self and still be loved and a deep fear of not measuring up, not being good enough, not being lovable.  She had felt her whole life that in order to be loved she must be perfect in every way and she killed herself (literally) trying to achieve the unattainable.

Anita had believed that if she allowed the world see her true self, the essence of who she was, she would not be accepted and valued.  She was told that if she released this fear and learned to love herself unconditionally and allow the world to see her unique magnificance, her cancer would be cured. And that's exactly what happened!  The emotional component to physical illness cannot be underestimated or ignored.  The message is simple: stop being perfect and start being you.

Fear is complex and can literally hold you hostage.  If you really think about it, the idea that there can ever be true security in life is just an illusion we create in our minds to avoid feeling fear.  But in reality, we know that everything which appears will also disappear.  Everything and everyone is always in a constant state of transition.  As human beings, we have a tendency resist, and even reject, change even though  we know that it is necessary in order for us to evolve.  We spend a lot of time lamenting the past and wishing we could go back in time and either relive old memories or do things differently when instead we should be living in the present and enjoying every moment of the "now" we have left.

Raising children is a perfect example...I get so nastalgic when I look back at pictures of my kids when they were tiny.  A part of me longs to go back to that time and experience my precious little babies again but I remind myself that my kids will only be the age they are at now for a very short time and there will come a time when I will wish I could go back and experience them being 12 and 14 years old again.  So I might as well stay present and enjoy every single minute!

When security is dependent upon other people or things that exist in the material world like money, cars and houses, we will never feel completely safe and secure in this world because those are all things that can be taken away.  In order to achieve lasting peace and contentment without fear, we must develop a sense deep within ourselves that no matter what, even if everything in our lives disappears tomorrow, we will be okay and capable of being happy again.

The only thing we know for sure is that change is inevitable and that nothing in the physical world lasts forever.  Once we are able to welcome, celebrate and embrace change we will find ourselves in a much more content, peaceful and joyful state of being.

Pema Chödrön says in her book "When Things Fall Apart", that in order to achieve this level of enlightenment, we must stop running from fear.  We must invite fear in and make friends with it.  Look fear in the eye and examine it from every angle.  I decided to take it a step further and offer it a sandwich.  Once you do this you realize that fear doesn't have all that much power when you aren't busy running away from it.  That the idea of what you are afraid of is so much worse that the reality.

Ultimately, I think the greatest fear of almost every single human is not being good enough.  We spend our lives running around trying to prove to ourselves and to everyone else that we are enough through our achievements, degrees, material items, appearance, and sometimes even through our children.  We present all of these things to the world as if to say, "See? I'm smart, I'm successful, and my children are fabulous so that must mean that I'm worthy and loveable."  This is all driven by our egos who desperately need that reassurance.  But what happens when we lose everything that reassures us that we are good enough?  We fall apart.  The good news is that we can put ourselves back together stronger, wiser and without fear.

Sometimes when your life falls apart, it's exactly what you need to get you to wake up.  I have learned that things will only resolve once you have learned whatever was intended for you to learn.  Pain of any kind indicates that something needs your attention.  Both physical and emotional pain are indications of an imbalance within the mind/body/spirit and until they can come back into balance, your challenges will remain.

In the past, my identity and self-worth in it's entirety was completely dependent on being perfect (perfect mom, perfect wife, perfect friend, perfect everything) and on pleasing everyone - everyone except myself.  I did not feel free to express my true self for fear of being judged or criticized.  I hid behind my false facade of "perfection" but deep down I lived in fear of being found out.  I had no idea who I was without those labels and that terrified me.

When I got sick, being perfect went out the window.  Chronic illness is like announcing to the world, "I'm a total failure".  I felt vulverable, exposed and terrified.  I wanted desperately for something, anything to hide behind but the fact was that I wasn't even recognizable to myself or to those around me.  Everyone, including me, just wanted the old Liz back but deep down I knew she was gone - and that terrified me even more. Ultimately, the old Liz couldn't have survived much longer.  Things needed to change, that much was clear.

When I started writing, I felt a sense of joy I hadn't felt in a very long time.  I felt like writing and helping others heal was what I was born to do.  I felt like I was finally introduced to my true self, my essence, and for the first time I felt a calling and I knew my purpose.  I'm not sure why I stopped but it has become clear to me that in order to heal fully, I need to keep writing - even if nobody reads it!

Embedded within each present moment is an opportunity to look at things differently, to turn arrows into flowers and tragedy into expansion, allowing for transformation, renewal and release.  Every single moment offers us this great gift and it's up to us to seize upon it and allow miracles to flow through us, just as they are designed to do.

When it comes to battling Chronic Lyme Disease, or any other chronic disease, maintaining a positive, optomistic state of mind is absolutely critical.  It's understandable that you will experience a dark day here and there given that you just don't feel well most of the time.  But when those down days start to add up and turn into weeks, depression can set in and it can be hard to shake.  It's frustrating when you aren't seeing the results you had hoped for or when you can no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I realize now that I had been ignoring a key part of my recovery: addressing and removing emotional blocks and subconscious beliefs that are no longer serving me.  I also believe that the healing my dad purchased for me was instrumental in leading me to that information.  I encourage anyone out there who is struggling with chronic illness to read Amy Scher's book or at least do some research on the power of the mind and the effect our emotions and beliefs have on our physical state.  It's a fascinating subject and one that cannot be ignored when trying to restore one's health and wellness.  It's not something that works overnight but over time it can make a huge difference in your recovery process.  I feel like it's already making a huge difference for me.