The Day I Stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’

This is such a wonderful blog post that I just had to share it.  As always, God's beautiful Law of Attraction brought this to me at the perfect time.

The Day I Stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’

Operation "Get Real" - Chapter 2. Feel the Fear Within You

It has been a while since I last posted on the blog.  There has been quite a lot going on and I just haven't felt inspired to write about any one thing in particular.....until today.  For the last month I have been focusing quite a bit on acknowledging, feeling, and stepping into my fear.  I started this process by deciding to make a list of all of the things I fear.  I wasn't really sure where this exercise would take me but 3 pages later I sat there realizing just how much fear controls my life.  Some examples:

• Fear of Love - Truly being vulnerable and open.  Letting someone in to really know me, every thought and desire.  Letting them see not just the good but also the not so nice things about me.  Not just opening myself up to being loved but also allowing myself to truly love others without fear of rejection (which I will talk about later).
• Fear of Loss - I have an overwhelming fear of something happening to my children, which a lot of times is projected as anger at them when I see them doing something dangerous that could potentially harm them.  I have noticed that my fear of loss supports my fear of love when it comes to my relationship with Jason.  As much as I love him there is a part of me that still doesn't open up completely because I have a fear of losing him and I want to protect myself.  This all stems from losing my father when I was 11.  I have felt the pain of loss and work very hard not to feel it again.  
• Fear of Being Judged / Rejection - I see the way this fear effects my daily decisions and interactions, a lot of concern over what others think about me.  Do they think I am a good person, smart, funny, pretty, talented?  Am I wearing the right thing? Saying the right thing? Doing the right thing?  This fear is one of the reasons I decided to start this blog, a way of stepping into and challenging my fear.  I have made quite a number of changes in my life over the past few years (my relationship, spirituality, job, health, lifestyle, passions and desires) and I find myself constantly concerned over what my friends and family think about it all.
• Fear of Losing Control / Not Being Safe - As I have mentioned before, I have had quite a number of experiences as a young child which have made me feel unsafe, unloved, and have experienced quite a bit of grief.  So, as a coping mechanism I have found that if I am able to control others and situations, I am able to make myself feel quite safe and loved.  I would venture to say that most people that have "control issues" do so because they have fear....if this applies to you, look at it a little deeper and figure out what is motivating you to want to have control.

I have only listed the biggest fears, the ones that I feel are having the largest impact on my soul at present.  As I mentioned, I made quite a long list which included things like; fear of spiders, pain, evil spirits, etc.

AJ does a fantastic job of explaining fear and gives it quite an appropriate acronym:

False Expectations Appearing Real

I have found, through a lot of self examination that fear is exactly that.  It is expecting a certain outcome that doesn't yet exist based on a childhood experience.  As a result we make choices and decisions in our life that help us prevent that expectation from occurring....we are at that state, living in our fear.  I am also starting to understand that when fear is denied it then gets expressed as anger (annoyance, frustration, irritation, etc are all various shades of anger) and where fear exists God's Truth on that subject cannot enter our soul. 

It is with these understandings that Jason and I have made a commitment to feel our fear so that we can then allow more of God's Truths to enter our soul.  Our motto for this new commitment is "May the Fear Be With You" (thank you George Lucas).  Now naturally, we do not literally want the fear to be with us forever.  Our intention with all of this is to recognize the fear, allow ourselves to feel it and physically experience the fear so that the emotion of it can pass through us.  The end result being releasing the fear so it no longer affects our future decisions and we can accept more of God's Truth.  

If we can remember that emotion is "Energy In Motion", we can begin to look at it from a different perspective.  God made us so that emotions can be felt, passed through us, and released from our soul.  No matter how scared we may be of truly feeling our emotions, we are all capable of getting through it.  It is how we were designed.  As someone who was previously what people refer to as "New Age", I know how some of those teachings tell people to "control their thoughts", "be positive", etc.  I feel as though there is a lot of denial and suppression of emotion on that path.  Anger and fear become something that we view as bad or negative and then in turn we judge ourselves when those emotion show up.  If instead we look at it from a place of "okay, I'm feeling angry about this, I wonder what I am afraid of" or "okay, I am fearful of this happening, I wonder what I am sad about" then we could grow in love (or as "New Age" would call it, "raise our vibration") a lot faster.  There is this belief that "what you feel is what you attract".  How can that be true when God made us to feel?  It is denial and suppression which inhibits our progress.  It is our soul's condition that determines what we attract.  So if in our soul we have fear, the only way to remove it is to feel it.  My goal is to feel it all....and the sooner the better.

So, with all of that being said, here are a few of the things that Jason and I are doing to amp up our law of attraction and trigger our fears so they can be acknowledged, felt, and released:

• Starting an anger list - Every time we feel angry, frustrated, slightly annoyed, or irritated, we are writing it down and then reviewing it once a week to see if we can determine the fear that is involved.
• Focus on not reacting in anger but instead feeling the fear and connecting to the emotions of it - Jason and I have both noticed that when we are experiencing fear we both feel pain and tightness in our stomach.  You know, that icky feeling in your gut when you are scared.  Instead of "nursing ourselves" through that with certain foods, drinks, alcohol, or medication, we are staying connected to it.  Feeling the pain and focusing on our breathing by taking deep breaths into our diaphragm and allowing ourselves to experience the emotions.
• Starting a fear list - Once we recognize a fear that is present it goes on a separate list.
• Prayer - identifying the fear that causes the largest emotional response (anger, etc) and focusing prayer to God about confronting and experiencing the fear
• Taking action to trigger our fears through movies, books, and experiences.  A couple examples here:  I have a fear of losing my children so watching movies where a mother loses a child would trigger that fear in me.  I have a fear of anger from men, so confronting (in a loving way) the actions of man being unloving or disrespectful towards me..... this happened at the grocery store a couple weeks ago.  I was going through the self check and I was bagging my groceries when the gentleman in line behind me started running his items through and sending them down the line crashing into my unbagged items, crushing some of my fruits and veggies.  I normally would not say anything and instead get angry and then vent about it later.  Instead, I chose to step into my fear by confronting him and I asked if he was in a hurry.  He then realized how unloving he was being and apologized so it ended up being a great learning experience for both of us.  Jason had a similar experience recently that perhaps he will write about at some point. Moving on...
• Drinking water and eating a mostly vegan diet - It is a lot easier to connect to your emotions when your body is well hydrated and nourished with healthy clean food.  We are also not giving into our food cravings and instead feeling the emotions associated with not allowing ourselves to have the chips, potatoes, cheese, etc.

I am sure a lot of people reading this will wonder why the heck we would possibly want to engage this type of process.  It probably seems like a lot of work, a lot of pain and negative emotion, etc.  So I want to take a moment to comment on just how freeing it will be when fear is not the primary motivator in our lives.  Take  a moment and truly reflect on what you would do and who you would be if fear wasn't apart of your decision making.  What truths would you share with others?  What passions would you follow?  What business would you start?  How many are in unloving and abusive relationships but don't leave because of fear?  Imagine a day without feeling even the slightest annoyance or irritation.  Imagine not feeling rushed or pressured.  Now, imagine removing that fear and replacing it with God's love and truth.  Can you see the possibilities?  That is why we do it.  We want to feel God's love and truth, and anything that blocks that needs to go.  I have a strong desire to be the person that God intended, I want to be a better partner, mother, and friend.

 And where there is fear, love can not exist.  

Inspiring lesson of LOVE from 2 year old Luiz Antonio

I saw this today and just had to share it as it was so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes.  This young child expresses with such innocent beauty that eating animals doesn't make sense to him.  "When we eat animals they die!" Luiz Antonio exclaims. "I don't like that they die. I like that they stay standing up."  "These animals...you have to take care of them....not eat them!" 

It took me 34 years to come to this realization.  The issue of being vegetarian or vegan goes far beyond just health benefits.  It is an issue of love.  There is a lot I could reflect upon here in terms of how I came to make my own decision to become vegetarian, but I think Luiz explains it beautifully and needs no further comment from me.

If only we could all be more childlike in our approach to life....ask more questions, speak up when things don't make sense, feel and express our emotions as we are experiencing them.

Simply BEAUTIFUL.

Eli Delivers a Singing Telegram

"Rise and Shine, and Give God Your Glory! Glory!"

My four year old son, Eli, has been singing the chorus of this song for the past few days.  Aside from smiling and thinking it was cute I didn't pay too much attention to it.  Then today I woke up singing it to myself...it's quite catchy..."Rise and Shine, and Give God your Glory! Glory!"  I must have been singing that song in my head for a good 2 hours before I actually took time to reflect what my law of attraction was showing me.  LOL.  It is interesting because for weeks I have been really working on developing a stronger connection with God through prayer...asking and praying for God to share some of her love with me, asking him to show me truth on certain situations.  All the while I am doing all of this "asking" and absolutely no "giving".  And here is my 4 year old....walking around the house, delivering a singing telegram on exactly what I need to do.  Duh!  Perhaps God wants to feel our love just as much as she wants to share it.  I have heard that lesson before but it wasn't until today that I truly got it...I had an "Ah ha!".... There are opportunities to learn from our children every day if we pay attention.  I know I probably miss 95% of them.

Getting Back to Nature

We recently made a decision to get out and appreciate nature whenever possible.  We both love being outdoors and enjoying everything that Mother Nature has to offer (except ants, bees and mosquitoes...I'm still working on that).  So whether it is getting outside and working in the garden and yard or driving an hour to spend the day hiking, we both find such peace in the experience.
It has also been a great time to see and reflect on some of God's love and truth.
These pictures were taken at Starved Rock National Park.  It is about 2 hours southwest of Chicago.  We drove there last weekend to enjoy some hiking and checkout the area in more detail.  At the end of June we are looking to take the boys down there for a weekend of boating, water skiing, and tubing....as well as nature walks and explorations.  We are really excited about sharing this with them!

As we were walking around, I was reflecting on the beauty of it all.  Not more than 2 months ago those same trees were bare, the grass still brown from the winter, perhaps some snow may have still been on the ground.  And then, 2 months later, a beautiful rebirth.  A little sun and water is all it takes.  You consider land that has been devastated by forest fires.... within a short period of time, life and beauty start to peek through the ash.  Is that not true for ourselves as well?  Sometimes it is after we go through an emotional fire that new growth and beauty can seed itself in our souls.  It is reflections like these that make me continue to love and appreciate the whole process.  It is beneath all the ashy remains of prior unloving beliefs that new loving ones can begin to grow and expand.... just a little prayer and faith is all it takes.

Where We Go From Here....

So it begins.  As this is our first post on our new blog I felt it was only appropriate to explain why we are doing this and what this is all about.   My intention for starting this blog is to be able to share with others our experiences, thoughts, and emotions as we embrace God's love and truth into our lives.  At first glance, an intention like that could seem straight forward enough....which it is.  However, I think what is going to be most confronting for those reading this is just how real we get.  See, when you make a decision to REALLY see yourself just as God sees you....well, that can be quite challenging.  You see, 99.9% of us have done a really great job at building a facade around ourselves, a version of us that we show to the world.  A facade so strong that it's main purpose is to protect us and get us through our day to day lives.  Lives filled with activities that keep us busy and distracted.  Our facade functions as a shield, you might liken it to body armor, the difference being that the facade covers and "protects" our soul whereas armor protects the physical body.  We LOVE our facade, it is the person we want the world to see....it is the person who is positive (ALL the time), is strong, full of self confidence, never jealous, always loving, wants to help others, is a giver (not a taker), is a good friend, a good parent, is reliable, trustworthy, will always say "yes" when you need something, will tell you what you want to hear, etc....you get the idea.

About seven months ago Jason and I were presented with some information that completely changed the way we saw ourselves.  We are both what people would call "seekers of truth".  We will continue to ask questions about any given topic until we feel like we have reached a certain level of comfort in determining truth in that subject.  We are also both willing to "try anything" and experiment with something if it resonates with us....and we stop once it no longer does.  We have both had our doubts, concerns, reservations, criticisms, and questions with regard to just about every spiritual path out there.  So, when we heard this guy named "AJ" who claimed to be "Jesus", well you can imagine our response.  Red flags up all over the place!  A thought of "oh boy, another delusional person thinking they are Jesus and looking to form a cult" crossed my mind immediately.  But this guy had my curiosity peaked for sure....I decided to hear him out...all 4 hours of it.  At the end of it Jason and I turned to each other and both said, "regardless of who this guy thinks or says he is, there is something in this material that I completely resonate with."  AJ and Mary's description and lessons of who God is, how to have a REAL relationship with God, what Love really is, what the soul really is, why we get sick, why we age, our innate desire to find our soul-mate, what prayer is, why prayer works, how to pray, what happens when we die, why life is eternal, etc.  We were blown away by the detail.  And after a long discussion with one another, we couldn't find error or risk in experimenting and continuing to investigate what he was teaching....The Divine Love Path.  And so that is where this all began, it was at that point that we decided to experiment by developing a relationship with God.

That is what this blog is all about, it is about our experiences, comments, and reflections as we progress to become more loving and truthful in our relationship with God, ourselves, and each other.  This process is not all rainbows and roses.  There are moments that are quite beautiful with feelings of overwhelming love when we discover a new truth about God or ourselves.  But there are also moments that can be quite dark and lonely when you are feeling through emotions of anger, rage, and grief.  Breaking through the facade requires you to stop your own errors of self deception and doing that is quite confronting.  But it is also quite beautiful.  Since starting this path it is only recently that I feel as though I have truly found myself.  I can see all the fear, anger and grief within myself as a result of my childhood experiences.  My facade has protected me from feeling all of these real emotions and because of that I have been unable to release them from my soul.

So, that is a little background on how "Operation: Get Real" began.  Jason and I have both made a commitment to be real with God, each other, and ourselves.  It requires a desire and longing to want to feel God's love and truth.  It requires constant humility, that can be quite challenging.  It requires speaking truth, even when your fear doesn't want to allow it.  It requires owning your emotions and not projecting them on others.  It requires a high level of self awareness in understanding that every experience and interaction is our own law of attraction and there is a lesson of love in it all.  It requires you to feel through it all and not think through it.  It requires us to release trying to control our negative thoughts and emotions and instead allow ourselves to feel through the emotions and pray for guidance in feeling the CAUSE of the negative thoughts and emotions.

I am so thankful to be on this path and to have had this material come into my life.  And being in a relationship with a partner on the path is even more of a blessing.  Trust me, being in a loving relationship with someone that also wants to progress in love by removing all addictive and unloving behaviors between the two of you....VERY challenging!  When you make the decision to honor truth and love over everything else, be prepared to be confronted.  You will feel anger, you will feel unloved when addictions are no longer being met, you will feel sadness, hurt, etc.

For example, Jason recently hit me with a pretty confronting truth first thing this morning.  He helped me see an addiction I have in my relationships with men.  I have so much fear in not wanting to experience projections of anger from men, that I allow completely unloving behaviors (demands, sexual projections, neediness, control, anger, etc)  from them.  Confronting them with truth about their unloving behavior might cause them to be angry and I don't want to feel that, so instead I allow the unloving behavior.  I have prayed to God about the cause of this addiction and it comes back to my father.  My father used to get so angry with me, spank me and yell at me.  As a result, my facade self has decided not to do anything that would trigger that anger from men.  So, thankfully I have a partner that helps me to see these truths and I am working on feeling and releasing the pain and sadness I have as a result.  Releasing those emotions will allow me to have more loving relationships with Jason and my three boys.  So despite the pain I have to go through, the results are so beautiful....sometimes I have to keep reminding myself of that because my wanting to avoid it all is certainly at play.  I have yet to release some of the fear I have in truly engaging in the process and in having faith and trust in God that I will get through it all.

So in just the few months that we have been experimenting with all of this I have come to a few conclusions:

• I still don't believe within my soul that AJ is Jesus and Mary is Mary Magdalene, but I really don't care at this point who they say they are because I have experienced the truth of what they are teaching.
• I can feel love growing within myself and I don't want to stop this process.
• I have a growing desire to know God and have a loving relationship with God.
• I have a desire to share my experiences with others....if it helps one person discover one truth about themselves, that is good enough for me.
• I have had a very distorted view of what love really is.
• Because of my facade and errors within my soul, I have done and continue to do things that are out of harmony with God's love and truth.....and I have a desire to feel those errors and correct them emotionally not intellectually

I am looking forward to seeing where the blog takes me and all of the emotions and addictions it confronts me with.  One of the reasons I decided to do this in the first place is because I want to confront the fear I have about other people's judgments of me.  There are very few people (God, myself, and Jason to some extent) who truly know me or who I really share myself with.  My intention is to change all that.

(If you are interested in learning more, I have hyperlinked words in this post to material covering certain topics in more detail.)