Challenging People

12Feb13

The most challenging people in your life are there for you to learn how to maintain your light. The real value of the connection is for you to be able to remember who you are and to evolve from lifetimes of suffering, sacrifice and martyrdom into the power of your own presence. Our healing occurs when we stand in the light in spite of the darkness we are surrounded by. When we release our guilt over being in the light when others appear to be in darkness (which is their choice), we become better teachers and leaders. We can lead others out of darkness not by showing them how dark it is in the dark, by become an example of how much more powerful it is to live in the light. We didn't come to the world to turn our light off but to shine it brightly, so shine on and live in joy, without guilt.

I've been trying to ask the Universe for help lately. You know how you can ask yourself a question and get an answer to it in random places?

I've got a couple of really challenging people in my work life. One of them looks for ways to punish me repeatedly because he's mad at me. I told him he was nasty when I discovered him flossing his teeth in the office. I'm sorry, that is nasty. And the other challenging person has been a challenge for 6 years now. I've tried everything. I've tried to avoid this person. I've tried to befriend this person. I've tried to ignore this person. And then some.

This person is like my Mercury Retrograde Nemesis. She'll be calm and forget about me for months at a time and then like Mercury Retrograde she'll peek back around wreaking that murphy's law type of havoc in my life. I don't get it. I've always been of the belief that we agree we don't like each other so let's just stay away from each other. The Challenging ones never seem to live by that motto.

It's been about two weeks now since she's begun her campaign again. Lord only knows what set her off.
But the one Wednesday she blamed me for something that clearly wasn't my fault and I knew it was time to move into avoidance mode as much as possible. Hey I'm a Pisces, we can disappear while standing right in front of you. We have skills. lol Sadly the avoidance mode hasn't been working. It's like she made a pact with herself to remember to pick at me from every angle.

I started to feel anxious about the whole thing because I was thinking it through too much. I was thinking, preparing, myself for all the angles she was going to come at me from. Thinking about where I might need to cover myself. Thinking about what I might say in my own defence. Thinking, thinking, thinking and driving myself a little crazy. Okay more than a little.

Yesterday I got up to get ready for work and I felt dread. The chatter in my head was about: I've fought all these battles before, I've proven myself time and time again, I don't want to have to do this anymore, I can't do this anymore, Oh My God I'm going to have to find another job! I worked myself up and then I realized, I can't go to work like this. So I got quiet.

What am I going to do? I looked up a little and said, "Okay, can you help me out here? I need your help, I don't know what I should do."
I thought I'll do some yoga to stretch out my body and calm my mind. Now I usually just slip a DVD into my laptop but instead I decided to slip it into my TV DVD. I turned on the TV and the channel was on an informercial on depression. Some CD program that you listen to that gives you tips on how to deal with depression and get you off the meds if you're on them. "Yep, yep, it's my thinking," I said and thanked the Universe for the quick help.

I did my Kundalini Yoga session and during the meditation portion of it I heard the thought, you can heal your life.
Right? I pulled out Louise Hay's book, You can Heal Your Life and went straight to the Relationships chapter and read it. This book was the first self help book I ever bought and I turn back to it when things get beyond tough for me. The gist of it is that it's not others we need to change it's us. So I kept it in my mind that what will change this challenging relationship for me is me changing somehow. Good direction.

I got myself bathed and as I was getting ready for work I thought that listening to the news wasn't going to help me none so I flipped around looking for some TV church. I found a channel and the Evangelist was talking about FAITH. Having faith, keeping faith, believing with faith. Good good.

As I walked to work I thanked the Universe for the help. Actually I looked up at the sky and said, "Thank you for that. I know you heard me."

I read more of You Can Heal Your Life last night. The stuff about blessing the person. Whenever the person comes into your mind, "bless them with love every time you think of them." I've been working on it. A part of me wants to ask her, Are you okay? Or maybe ask, can we go to lunch and have a chat? And the other part of me is still pissed at these years of torture. Hey I'm only human.

In my 'only humanness' and flipping back and forth today between blessing her and being pissed off I came across this message from Jennifer Hoffman that really was a strong message and reminds me that blessing her is my only option if I want to move forward in my joy. Being pissed off just attracts more of the same.


Here is Jennifer's full message:
“The most challenging people in your life are not there for you to heal their darkness, they are there for you to learn how to maintain your light. While their healing is an option (which they have to choose for themselves) that your presence affords them, the real value of the connection is for you to be able to remember who you are and to evolve from lifetimes of suffering, sacrifice and martyrdom into the power of your own presence. Our healing occurs when we stand in the light in spite of the darkness we are surrounded by, not by how many people we convince to leave their darkness for the light.

When we release our guilt over being in the light when others appear to be in darkness (which is their choice), we become better teachers and leaders. We can lead others out of darkness not by showing them how dark it is in the dark, by become an example of how much more powerful it is to live in the light. When we live in the darkness for the sake and purpose of reminding someone of the darkness' limitations (which they already know), we aren't serving anyone.

We didn't come to the world to turn our light off but to shine it brightly, so shine on and live in joy, without guilt. How powerful is it to stand in a dark room and tell someone that there is a better option that we'll show them, as soon as they decide to get out of the dark room. How much more powerful is it to be in the most brightly lit, joyful and powerful place we can imagine for ourselves, see them standing at the doorway and inviting them to come in?
Jennifer Hoffman from my upcoming book: Evolving at the Speed of Soul”


I expect there will be more challenges before things change for the better but I have Faith that I can stay within my light and I don't need to be dragged into the darkness that this person chooses to live in.

2013 feels like a year to focus on gratitude. These messages from the universe are definitely things to be grateful for.


EY

Acceptance

8 Aug08 Friday 9:41pm

When I was a child my brother, who is 4.5 years older than I am, used to beat me up. As older siblings often do, he would bug me and tease me and sometimes beat me up. Of course I'd cry and sometimes I'd tell my mom and sometimes she'd hear my screams, like when he threw hockey tape at me and hit me in the head. Every once in awhile my brother would bug me when I was busy doing my own thing and I'd lose my temper and I'd beat him up. He'd go crying to mom and she'd say, "What were you doing to make Shelley that mad. That girl never gets mad. If she hurt you, it's your own fault!" ha ha.

Not much has changed, my biggest anger comes out when I am minding my own business, doing my own thing, and someone comes along, takes me away from my focus over to theirs and then plays with my head. That's where it's been at with the dastardly dude. It's all about innuendo with some men. I hate innuendo. You can never really argue with innuendo. If you say anything like your actions came across as genuine interest or like we were building toward some sort of relationship/friendship etc. The person can always say, "I was just being friendly, that's not what I meant." *sigh*

I hate innuendo. So as I come to terms with a certain persons lack of being a man of his word or simply just not being a worthwhile friend, I find that this week's theme is all about acceptance.

It started with the book that I'm currently reading by Gurmukh, "The 8 Talents: Restore the Balance and Serenity Within You with Kundalini Yoga." In it, she tells a story about a Jewish father and son who come at odds because the father has orthodox beliefs and the son doesn't. The father disowns the son and they never reconcile. The son, after finding out that that the father has died decides to go on a pilgrimage to Israel hoping to find some peace with his relationship with his father and wishing that he could turn back time and tell his father that he always loved him despite their differences. At the Wailing Wall in Israel, the son prays for his father's understanding even though it was too late. He prays the prayers that he learned from his father then prays his own prayer asking for his father's understanding. He notices that other people are writing notes asking for a miracle and placing them in the wall. He decides to write his own note and tries to find a spot to place his note in the crowded wall. His note asks for the father's understanding and says that he's always loved his father even when his father disowned him. He finally finds a spot and as he places his note in, a note falls out into his hand. He opens the note and it's in his father's handwriting. The note is written to the son saying that the father loves him, has always loved him even when the son had turned his back on the father's faith.

After reading that story, I decided to see my situation with the Guy in a different light. I decided to accept that he isn't the person that I had hoped he'd be. I decided to see him as he is, the guy who I see regularly and have pleasant conversations with. That person I can like and not feel any animosity towards.

As Wayne Dyer says, "Change your mind and change your life."

I listened to Doreen Virtue's podcast through Hay House radio and so many thing came up about acceptance and how to find acceptance. And last night I worked with 27 year old sweet guy at my part time job. I think I'd like to nickname him my Spiritual Son. I've felt since the first time I met him that if I ever had a kid, he is the kind of self aware kid I'd wish to have. The first thing I asked him about, when we had quiet time, was the female heartbreaker. It wasn't a great story. Things didn't work out for him but I suspected it wasn't going to even though I'd hoped it would. It's so ironic that all the tales I've heard about his relationship reminded me of my past Capricorn relationships. It felt very Capricorn - Pisces.

Anyway, my Spiritual Son talked about acceptance and putting the whole relationship into perspective, not unlike me seeing the guy who comes into my office as someone I have pleasant conversations with. My Spiritual Son wrote an unsent letter to the heartbreaker which he acknowledged was really more for himself then for her and he let me read it. Oh what a beautiful young man! We talked about whether we could be friends with our exes and both agreed that you can't really. There is always ulterior motives involved. One hopes that if you wait long enough you could get back together and the other always gets to feel that there is this person who still has designs on you. Plus if you can't be happy about a person finding someone to love who isn't you, you're not really his or her friend.

Somehow we got onto the topic of miracles because my SS, at his most heartbroken, was standing in a line at a store and this stranger told him that she was sorry that his girl was treating him so pitifully and then proceeded to get in depth about how the heartbreaker would regret letting him go. I told him my two similar miracle stories and showed him the little angel that I'd found the one day at work when I was really down. I also said that I like to look for daily miracles because, 'they happen all the time you know? You just have to look for them and not get bogged down with all the day to day crap.'

I finally asked him what sign he was and ofcourse, he's a Capricorn. I swear I'm going to start keeping track of all the Capricorns I meet. And yes his ex is a Pisces.

We had a good chuckle about my Capricorn stalkings epecially the three guys with the same name and same birthday.

Acceptance. This is what this is. It doesn't matter how much I wish it away or hope it was different, this is what it is. This is how I live. These are the people that I meet. This is how some people treat me. This is how some people inspire me. Accept it. Acceptance.

And I've discovered something about myself. That I need time to evaluate rather than react immediately especially when it comes to men. When I react immediately I end everything, don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't come near me. When I evaluate which can clearly take me a couple weeks I can change my mind and change my life.

Flying up in the air to light the olympic flame? Seriously? Totally awesome! The Olympics have begun. Cycling is on now. Cadell Evans is there from the Tour de France. Also Mark Cavendish should be there, I haven't heard his name mentioned yet. Mark left the tour early to prepare for the Olympics. Thankfully we have a television at the p/t job so I should be able to catch the lalympics, as I lovingly call it, when I'm working.

And finally, So You Think You Can Dance ended last night. I watched the finale with my SS. I had him cracking up as I got emotional when Katee won a newly awarded prize for the top female. 50 grand! And when the final male won. I told my SS that I had decided Wednesday night that I wanted Twitch to win and then when Cat said Joshua's name as the winner I spontaneously screamed, "My Baby!" ha ha! So clearly I was happy for either of them. It was a thrill to see two hip hoppers as the final two. And considering Katee and Joshua really never did any wrong throughout the season, it was really sweet to see them as the top female and male dancers.

The next three weeks I do my split shift sleeping between the day job, the part time job and the Olympics. I slept from 6pm to 9pm when I got home after work tonight and now I'm going to lie down and watch the cycling until I fall asleep again. Then up for the p/t job for a very early day and I'm scheduled with my SS. And somewhere in all there, I write.

I had my little birthday party for Zelda who turned two yesterday. Cat nip was sprinkled liberally for each cat. Zelda has grown from copying what Quincy does with cat nip to doing her own thing of chatting with it with loud screaming meows, spreading it around with her feet, flipping her tail wildly and then plunking herself into it and rolling around. Gatsby just looked at all the big girls like they were nuts. He's still too young to get it plus he has more than enough youthful energy without the need of cat dope.

hmm, and I think I may be an Earth Angel . We call them caretakers but I like the term Earth Angels better. I got the term from Doreen Virtue's podcast.

EY