I find your insights incredibly rewarding and helpful. I have been looking at your website (and bless you for making so much free btw), and one thing I see missing is anything about dealing with grief. I have recently lost my boyfriend to an accident–and I have been having incredible metaphysical experiences, which I believe actually brought me to your sight–and it looks like dealing with every emotion is in there except that one.
It’s a toughy, and I haven’t seen anything anywhere that is really of much use. I would love to hear what you have to say about it.
Thanks,
S_______________
Hi S,
It’s hard to talk about an emotion that raw,,, and real.
I spend most of my efforts addressing how we create unhappiness and misery for our selves unnecessarily by putting our faith in beliefs that are false. Real grief is not like that. You are going to feel emotion and there is no story behind it. You are going to feel emotion and cry and there aren’t going to be any words to describe it,,, so what does one say. Any words about such a real experience of grief will likely distort it.
There is a life after wards,,, there is a shifting in ones emotions over time. Grief is not a permanent state. There is a perspective,,, developed with a great deal of awareness where we don’t feel the pain anymore. Actually we feel grateful for the time,,,, any time,,, every moment that we had with them. But that comes with the acceptance of the nature of death… the dissolving of all things physically manifest. They are all transient. It’s a big perspective… one that is also difficult to talk about or put on a web page in text. I talk about it in my more intensive retreats such as Zion or Mexico. There’s more time to work with it. The outcome,,, intended, anyways,,, is the realization that we are all here for a very short time… so don’t waste it. And,,, if you do get some beautiful moments,,, and you get to experience something called unconditional love with someone, for someone, for god, the earth, your body, the stars or any unconditional love for anything at all,,,, then be grateful for the time that you had. Because not everybody does. It’s a different perspective about life when you take death into account here,,, a bigger perspective,,, and one that can lead you to appreciate everything, and every small thing in a profound way.
So that is why I don’t have much on this site about grief yet.
God Speed,,,, may you find peace when you are done.
Many people write to me and thank me for how I have helped them. Some are so grateful that they are at a loss, and ask how. I will tell you how I want to be thanked.
Live a happy life with love, gratitude, and respect. Love your self,,, and love others.
That is how you can thank me. If you express thanks to me,,, and to others who have helped you in this way,,, you will have really appreciated what I have tried to share.
You will find that to thank another in this way is a bit more work than verbalizing words or sending a card. You will also find that this kind of a thank you is a gift back to your self.
Some people define faith as a belief in something for which they have no evidence for. Others think of faith as a set of religious beliefs. These are limited uses and understanding of faith. Faith is a force. Think of it as a life force energy that you direct, consciously or unconsciously. It is a force you use every day. People and use faith every day in ways that are very real and practical but hardly notice. This force of faith that you use has profound impact on your thoughts, emotions, and behavior.
People use faith when they exchange money. A dollar has value largely because people believe it has value. People have invested faith in the idea that dollars can be traded for food, gas, clothing, services, and other things. Because other people also have faith in this same use of money it works and appears to be truth.
We put our money in a bank because we have faith that a bank is a safe place for our money. When people have fear and doubts about the safety of that bank their faith dissolves. Or more specifically they invest faith in the idea that the bank is unsafe. Then they withdraw their money. If enough people withdraw their money from a bank, it can collapse. Even if the bank is solvent it can collapse because people no longer have enough faith in the bank. You could say that the strength of a bank is more dependent on faith of people than the actual balance sheet of the bank.
The price of a stock is largely determined by faith. People will value and pay for a stock dependent on what their BELIEF. Faith is the force that makes that belief strong. If people lose their faith in that company, then they sell their stock. The action of selling stock is determined by where they invest their faith. The value of a stock is determined by the faith people have in the value of a company stock. You could say that the whole stock market is help up by the power of faith people have in its overall worth. That’s why prices of stocks and the whole market can change so quickly. When people shift what they have their faith in things can change quickly. When you change what beliefs you have invested faith in your life can change very quickly.
The value of stock, a piece of real estate, a dollar, euro, or peso is largely a matter of faith. They are worth what people “believe” they are worth. Only when other people believe the same thing does that belief appear real. When people no longer put the force of their faith behind the value of a stock the price falls. More precisely we can say that they have taken their faith out of the “idea” that the stock’s value. People don’t invest their faith in a stock, but rather in the idea of a stock’s value. Then they put their money in the stock based on how much faith they invested in the idea of value for that stock. If you see this relationship it becomes clear that our actions are based on the power of faith we have invested in ideas.
Faith Impacts How We Feel
Faith in yourself can give you a feeling of confidence. If you believe that you can do something, you have faith in your ability and you produce a feeling of confidence. When you doubt your ability, you are also investing faith. You invest your faith in the ideas and images that you will fail, and that people will judge you. When you put faith in those ideas and images you create emotions of fear or insecurity. In both cases, you are expressing the energy of faith. It is just that you express it into different conceptual ideas, outcomes, and self-images and this produces different emotions.
Suppose you did something in your past and later wish you hadn’t done. If you invest faith in that idea then you will create emotions of guilt. If you invest faith in the idea that you are a bad person for what you have done then you will create emotions of shame. Guilt is an emotion based in something you have done, while shame is an emotion based in a belief about what you are. The strength of the emotions you feel will depend on how much faith you have in these ideas about your self. With the force of faith you can create these emotions within your self even if the story is not true. But by creating these feelings the story will feel true.
Most everything you feel about yourself derives from the faith you invest in various ideas about yourself. Two people could have the same experience of hardship and failure, but invest their faith in opposite interpretations about what would happen next time. One might believe he will fail again, while the other person might invest faith in the idea that she will do better next time because of her commitment or what she learned. Failure didn’t determine how a person felt, but rather what ideas they invested their faith in did. Each person is using the energy of faith and investing it in one belief or another about themselves and the future. Each creates a different belief system, and produces different emotions. One person will become more focused committed and feel confident,,, the other will generate insecurity. The action that each person takes from then on will be congruent with where they have invested their faith.
If you are feeling emotions of fear, shame, guilt, and unhappiness, it is because you have invested faith in conceptual ideas that create these emotions. The ideas that are in your head and your self images are not the truth. But if you invest faith in them they will produce emotions and create the feeling of being real. The emotions you create with your faith are real, but the images and ideas of your beliefs are not. If you want to change how you feel one of the things you will have to learn to do is divest your faith from these false beliefs.
In recovering the power of your faith from these false beliefs not only will your level of happiness change, but your actions and behavior will changes as well. Another benefit of recovering your faith from these false beliefs is that you will then have the personal power to choose a new set of beliefs and take the actions to create a new life based on what you really want.
Learning how to gain control over the force of your faith is something that the Self Mastery course will help you do.
I can get away posting this video here because it relates to happiness. I can also do it because it’s my blog space and I can post if I want to. But more seriously folks, this video covers a lot about our belief systems, and how our beliefs cause us to do things that don’t make us happy. There’s no one to blame or get mad at for it. That step doesn’t help. Its about:
Being educatued,,, being aware,,,, and then take action to make changes.
What’s the most important thing for your happiness?
The simple answer is Love.
Love is not only a beautiful feeling, but an incredibly transformative force. When we express love we create a feeling of happiness. When we are filled with love there is no room for fear or the emotional pains that come with self judgment. Love can be a powerful experience that leaves no room in the mind for that chattering internal dialog that can keep us up at night when we are stressed. Love can displace all that chatter and keep you in a state of quiet peacefulness. That’s the simple answer. Of course it’s not that simple.
If you desire to make changes in your life because you are not happy,,, then you aren’t starting in this state of love. Where you are more likely involves fear, self judgment, insecurity, anger, and lots of stressful dialog that can keep you up at night. At that stage of the process Love is foreign that doesn’t mean anything and just having it suggested to you can make you more angry. So maybe you can’t feel any love and the best you can manage is to just reach acceptance of where you are.
Of course when we consider acceptance the big judge in your mind can jump in and complain about how this whole situation is unacceptable. Maybe it points out that we’ve done so much self help type of work that we should be way past this. We shouldn’t be having emotional reactions like this any more. The victim story in our mind is afraid to accept this situation because it interprets it as defeat and failure. So maybe at this stage acceptance isn’t much of an option and the best we can do is just refrain from drama as best we can.
Of course this to refrain from following into the emotional drama behavior our mind is projecting is challenging. When that is the case then the most important thing is Will power. We need will power to refrain from acting on the drama stories.
Of course if you haven’t been breaking down your false beliefs very long it is unlikely that you’ve recovered much will power to have at your disposal. In that case the most important thing is to get some will power. You need to break down some of the false beliefs in your mind and recover the personal power that you invested in them. To do this you need some skills and techniques at breaking down false beliefs. At this stage the most important thing you can do is identify and dissolve false beliefs in your mind.
If this is challenging it’s probably because you haven’t yet adopted a neutral observer perspective. This is the first step to changing beliefs. Maybe you can’t do unconditional love, acceptance, or will your way out of the emotional reactions, but you can observe the story of the judge, the victim, and all the emotions and chatter in the mind. Then that is what you can do and that is the most important thing to do. Trying to do more than you can do won’t help you at this point.
Of course in order to shift your point of perception to being a neutral observer you will need to have the desire to do so. That desire has to be big enough that you make a commitment to make changes in your sabotaging emotional behaviors. It’s no longer about just wishing they would go away. It’s no longer about waiting for other people to change before you will be happy. You make a commitment that you will change the false beliefs and negative thoughts in your mind and you will be happy no matter what. So if you haven’t started really observing your self then the most important thing you can do is to make a commitment to do so.
Of course that kind of change is generally resisted. The decision making process in the mind is wired such that the very beliefs that are causing all the emotional drama, also have influence in how we go about solving them. They tend to point us in the direction of: Trying to change other people, Building a more positive self image and trying to become that image, Intending to will our self not to do the same emotional reaction again, (even though we haven’t changed any of the underlying causes), Or the preferred distraction of ignoring the problem. So before you make a determined effort to change the underlying dynamics of your belief system you’ll need to become tired of all the excuses, distractions, and denial that makes up the resistance. What this means is that you eventually have to become tired of being unhappy.
At a certain point the misery of unhappiness just becomes too unbearable and you have to do something about it. You decide to change what you believe. Misery, unhappiness, and emotional suffering is the mother of commitment to change. And when you are just starting out, a commitment to change is the most important thing.
Unhappiness will continue until you are tired of it and you decide that you are at the bottom. No one tells you that you are at the bottom. You have to decide where it is. From there you decide to make changes in your belief system and your life. With authentic desire for emotional change a commitment is naturally declared. With that commitment you begin to take the action to become the observer of your thoughts, fears, emotions, and false beliefs. You take the action to develop the skills to dismantle the false beliefs that you find. As you dismantle these false beliefs the power of your faith previously invested in those beliefs returns back to you. As you recover your personal will power you are better able to refrain from the emotional drama. The critic of the judge and the internal victim don’t seem as believable from your new observer point of view. It becomes easier adopt an attitude of acceptance for where you are. From that new plateau of acceptance,,, you begin to experience Love.
And some times all of this is just a bit overwhelming. There’s ten things on the list of important things to do to be happy and you don’t feel that you are very good at any of them. We’ll at certain junctions of the journey the most important thing you can do is to show up and ask for help. Show up in the presence of someone that is going to love you unconditionally. Show up in the presence of someone who will accept you just the way you are. Show up in the presence of someone who doesn’t judge you. Show up in the presence of someone that will help you break down the big fearful beliefs into smaller ones that you can manage. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is to find a good guide that can help you on your Pathway To Happiness and show up where they are.
So what is the most important thing? It depends where you are in your process that day? This process of doing the most important thing depends on how much awareness, will power, skills, and acceptance and love you have that day. It depends on how strong the emotional reaction is that you are dealing with. It depends on how much suffering you’ve experienced and whether you believe it means that things will never change,,, or you decide to believe, “That’s enough. I’m going to do the most important thing. I’m going to do what it takes to be happy.”
For practical insights on and actions to take on changing core beliefs, developing personal poer, and creating happiness in your life I suggest you listen to the Free Audio Podcasts and practice the exercises in the Self Mastery course.