The greatest pains we ever feel never have anything to do with anyone other than ourselves.

The greatest pains you ever feel are never caused by anyone other than yourself.

You are the cause and effect of every one of your experiences.

(I’m now taking a deep breath and waiting for your discomfort to surface ….)

I expect a montage of memories just kaleidoscoped before you – every one a story of injustice. Unfairness. Pain and wrong-doing. Down-right dirt-baggery.  The bastard(s)!

And here I am saying that he, she or they did not, in fact, inflict the pain you are so certain they did.

They didn’t.

They had not the power.

They had not the brilliance.

They are nothing ….but characters in the story you’re telling yourself about your experience.

And what stories they are! Full of saints and sinners; right-and wrong-doers; pains and pleasures that you say you’ve endured.

Really?

Think of an experience that long ago felt real painful. Got it isolated in time? Where were you? Who was with you? What was happening? Got it? Good.

Now – answer these questions:

How did that experience serve you? What were it’s benefits? How did it shape your life? With whom did it connect you? To what did it open your eyes? How did it energize you? What did it make you do or stop doing?  What was its biggest gift?

Got it? If not, ask the questions again. If you don’t want to, ask yourself: do I want to be right, or do I want to be free?

Back at it.

Got it?

Can you see that the thing you once believed was so ‘bad’ was in fact full of ‘good’?

And please don’t hypothesize. Don’t choose made-up scenarios that you weren’t involved in. Pick an experience that belongs to you. One that is real to you. One you hold dear to you. And get smart. Ask mind-expanding questions. Challenge your own sense of ‘right-ness’. Be brave enough to acknowledge the whole picture even if it breaks conventional boundaries and leaves you on shaky ground with ‘reality’.

Trust me. You’ll survive.

I know. I’ve been there again and again. Not comfortable. Not easy. Not fun. But oh so inspiring. And humbling. And liberating.

What an extra-ordinary universe we live in! What a mind-blowing experience it is to come face-to-face with the Grand Organized Design. We are so loved that no matter what we have done or not done we are always embraced in the matrix of wisdom that ensures: for every pain a simultaneous pleasure; for every negative a simultaneous positive; for every loss a simultaneous gain.

We are the ones who distort that truth. Who block out chunks of the whole then write our histories with the parts.

I am not saying this is wrong. Or dysfunctional. I know that it’s not. There is brilliance in it.

But I do want to say that there is also brilliance in taking apart our stories. In challenging their validity. In seeking their opposite. In surrendering the parts for the sake of the whole.

There’s wisdom in allowing yourself to be ‘wrong’. Expanding your heart by opening your mind.

If you want to expand. to evolve, to heal (become whole): Ask every question that challenges your sense of ‘reality’! Get curious! Be courageous! Thinking elegantly. Breathe ….

Rumi said it best: “Out beyond beliefs about right-doing and wrong -doing , there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

I want to meet you there! In the field of infinite intelligence that is Love! I want you to know how to get there.

I dream of a world in which everyone knows what it is to be Loved.

Thank you, Simon Sinek, for the encouragement (yesterday) to say that out-loud.

And thank you, John Demartini, for your genius, for it has ignited mine.