Simple Practice: Dare to Be Happy
Recently I was invited to a barbeque in the backyard of a good friend. Being unacquainted with most of the other guests present, I listened to the conversations before I joined in. Most of what I heard centered on people’s misery or challenges. Not surprisingly, the general theme among the guests was: “I’d be okay if only something or other were different in my life.”
There were sympathetic reverberations throughout the crowd as people shared their varying woes, most of which I could very much relate to. There were discussions about the struggles of raising kids (I knew them well), about family members who were physically ill (I have those, too), about rising property taxes (ours have gone through the roof), about challenging partnerships (mine is among the best), and about additional realities of living in the physical, human world with other people.
As I listened, I noticed a tremendous energetic pull to be “simpatico” with those present by chiming in with woes of my own. But I know that it’s far more self-loving to be positive and peaceful in spite of all life’s problems, and I resisted the temptation to commiserate. Troubles or not, my Spirit prefers to be happy, so I chimed in with positive conversation.
When I shared my peaceful state with the other guests, the discussion came to an uncomfortable halt, and those I was speaking with quickly moved away. I tried a few more attempts at being generally positive, only to realize that it just wasn’t popular to be so cheerful.
What I experienced instead were strained smiles and a few condescending “Lucky you’s,” followed by a “How come you get to be so special?” Or people simply let the conversation die by acting suddenly distracted and walking away.
I’m not sharing this story to elicit sympathy. I just want to point out that choosing to be happy and filled with self-love won’t necessarily win you any popularity contests, especially when there’s what other authors call “a currency of misery” in our culture to which most of us are addicted. This currency is the ego running the show. It loves to share misery because it only feels misery. It doesn’t know anything else. So of course people who don’t know that they’re Spirit, and don’t connect with their Spirit, fall under the ego’s spell and complain. If you don’t resonate with other people’s egos, those egos get quite annoyed with you as a ploy to intimidate you into being a party to their unhappiness. After all, misery does love company.
So beware of this potential ambush, and stay alert. Don’t get intimidated into commiserating on an ego level with others as a way to be connected. Be true to your Spirit, and don’t be embarrassed to feel good about yourself. You may initially feel a bit out of sync with the world, and in fact you are: You’re out of sync with the dominant energy of the general populace, which is the griping ego at its worst. Stick with loving yourself and living your Spirit, and be patient with others. Although it’s hard to believe at times, there are people resonating at a higher level of vibration, and if yours is consistently high, you’ll connect to them. In the meantime, stay true to your Spirit and enjoy your peace, even if it’s unpopular.
Recognize assaults on or judgments of your happiness as attacks from the ego and laugh them off. As you raise your vibration and simply take the higher road, those who are deeply mired in the muck of ego will challenge you. See such challenges as opportunities to show these very same people another way. Their reaction may not be positive at first, but you’ll give them something to think about. Have compassion when you’re confronted with serial negativity, and see the moment as a chance for you to spread a little joy their way. You never know how it will affect them in the long run, and you may be surprised.
A dear client traveled with her aunt to a small town in Iowa to buy candy made at a local convent by nuns who were famous for their confections. Shortly after loading up on their famed caramels, my client took a bite, savored the flavor, and turned to her aunt with lighthearted exuberance and said, “I really enjoy this caramel. And I’m so grateful that I’m able to savor such sweetness in life.”
To which her aunt sharply retorted, “You should be grateful, young lady, because goodness knows, you don’t deserve such sweetness or anything else God gives you.”
Wow! That was enough negativity to knock the sweetness right out of the caramel—and out of my client’s heart, too. Fortunately, this assault didn’t hit the mark of shame it was headed for. My client did love herself, her Spirit was enjoying the candy tremendously, and she wasn’t about to let her aunt’s sour grapes take that away from her. She just smiled and took another bite.
They returned home and soon parted ways. My client laughed off the remark and didn’t give it another thought. Six months later she received a surprise package in the mail: It was a box of caramels from the monastery, sent by her aunt. In it there was a note that read: “You so enjoyed these caramels that I wanted to send you some more. Just knowing they are sweetening your day sweetens mine.”
My client was shocked. Apparently her decision to remain in the vibration of self-love had made a lasting impression on her aunt. From the note, she could tell that her aunt’s Spirit had been touched that day and, unbeknownst to her, had awakened. Looking back, she found that this made the trip all the more sweet.
My point is that you not take anyone’s resistance to your joy personally. Choosing self-love challenges the collective paradigm of guilt and shame that has controlled us for thousands of years. If we go the route of the ego, we’ll never feel worthy of self-love. If we choose to live our Spirit, we’ll be instantly liberated. And, moreover, by our example, we’ll help others liberate themselves as well . . . not immediately, perhaps, but eventually.
My spiritual teacher taught me this lesson when he said, “The way to help the miserable of the world is not to be one of them.” That’s simple enough. So although it may be unpopular, it is, nevertheless, loving to others to love yourself and live your Spirit.
It can be lonely to choose self-love. You’ll be challenged and, undoubtedly, be tested. Don’t take the negative resistance and challenges of others personally. If anything, see them as a sign that you’re breaking free from the pernicious vicious cycle of self-loathing and self-controlling ego that’s causing so much pain. The greater the opposition you feel and face, the greater the indication that you’re succeeding in moving back to the self-love of Spirit.
Judging yourself and others is a soul disease, similar to the flu. Anyone consumed with what I call the “psychic flu” of negativity is quite ill and feels like crap. Have compassion. Have mercy. But have common sense as well. Realize that this kind of energetic flu is contagious and can seize upon even the healthiest among us. Be glad that your self-love gives you resistance. With practice, it will confer complete immunity.
No matter what comes your way, stay true to your commitment to love your Spirit, and don’t get pulled off center by others’ judgments. Recognize that other people may not be spiritually healthy, and forgive them. God wants you to be happy, joyous, and free—He commands you to be so. Stay true to your Spirit and honor the Creator. Insist on enjoying life no matter what.
STEP 4
Connect with Your Soul Family
Simple Lesson: Connect with Your Soul Family
This step helps you focus on surrounding yourself with your personal soul family—those people who witness and strengthen the authentic you. It emphasizes your Spirit’s need to be in community with kindred Spirits and shows you how to find them. The practice that follows helps you set intentions that serve your Spirit every day. As you align with your authentic self, you’ll begin to feel deep and genuine love and affection for who you really are.
Connecting with family is one of the most deeply restorative acts of self-love we can choose. Our Spirit regenerates best when in the company of kindred Spirits, and to be cut off from this resource is debilitating to it. We’re pack animals by nature; and we need our tribe—our people—to help lift our Spirit, strengthen our energy fields, and reflect our authentic selves back
to us.
This ideally occurs with family-of-origin members. But “family” for Spirit doesn’t necessarily mean blood relations. Just as we have a “bloodline” made up of those who share our genetic makeup, so do we also have a “soul line.” Yours is composed of kindred Spirits who energetically see, know, and resonate with you on a deep and authentic level without dialogue, explanation, or effort. They just “get” you, as you do them.
The important thing about connecting with family, when it comes to loving and living your Spirit, is that healthy kinship bonds remind you to be true to your Spirit and bring you back to yourself better than you can do alone.
Whenever I’m with my family, for example, especially my siblings, it’s only a matter of minutes before I find myself relaxing, laughing, and remembering my authentic self. Any self-doubts or anxious thoughts I’m carrying begin to quiet. My humor kicks in, and I suddenly feel that I’m once again “home.”
When I’m with my family, I feel seen, witnessed, understood, and comfortable in my own skin. I forget about my outer self, my ego self, my “story,” or my external identity. I stop being “someone,” and I just am.
This isn’t to suggest that my family doesn’t have our struggles, fights, issues, complaints, and irritations. We’re a bunch of hotheaded French Romanians, so we have plenty of differences to banter about. But those disputes exist only on the ego level. Even with them in place, we nevertheless rejuvenate each other on a soul level. Something energetically positive occurs when we’re together, and we feel better.
I’ve noticed that the same occurs for my husband when he’s with his family. Nothing quite regenerates Patrick’s Spirit more than several hours with his brothers and sisters, in spite of the fact that he’s the eldest child in a large Catholic family, with all of its predictable pathologies fully in place. Something deep within him lights up, calms down, gets reconnected, and satisfies his soul. All the time in the world with me doesn’t do for him energetically what his brothers and sisters do. It’s not that they’re better . . . they’re just different.
The benefit of being with family isn’t intellectual or even emotional—it’s energetic. In Patrick’s case, he has had huge intellectual and emotional differences with all of his siblings at one time or another, as have they with him. It doesn’t matter. The benefit he feels when around them is strictly vibrational. His Spirit is affirmed in their company, and it makes him happy.
I believe that we all have soul connections with at least some family-of-origin members who affirm our Spirit and help prevent us from getting totally lost in the confusion and drain of ego identity. Whether it’s a sibling, parent, cousin, or grandparent, there’s always at least one member of your family constellation who does see you, the Divine authentic you, and can perceive you correctly. This relative is the one who reminds you to believe in yourself and to know that you’re loved as you. He or she is there to keep you from becoming totally lost or disconnected from your Spirit.
Drawing support from bloodline family members may feel impossible to some people. I hear many lament that their family doesn’t “get” them, and they withdraw in anger and grief. If this is the case for you, it’s important to assess honestly whether you’ve given your family a fair chance to “get you” by revealing yourself openly before you cut them off.
Just today I was on separate conference calls with a mother and son, both frustrated and deeply injured by their experience of not being witnessed lovingly by the other. The mother was a woman who devoted her life to her son, financing his education, apartment, car, auto insurance, and wardrobe; and as a result of spending this money, she felt angry that her son treated her with such disrespect.
“He doesn’t appreciate me,” she lamented, and hers wasn’t an ego complaint, but rather a heartfelt Spirit wound.
He, on the other hand, maintained her lawn; took care of her animals; and painted her house, including beautiful murals on the walls of her living room. “She doesn’t appreciate me,” he complained.
While both showed up quite dutifully in each other’s lives, the problem was that this was the only way they showed up for each other. They didn’t talk—they didn’t know what the other loved, cared about, believed in, or dreamed of. In other words, they didn’t know each other’s Spirit. They only experienced the other’s disappointments.
The mother, for example, was an extraordinary money manager and, unbeknownst to her son, had created and administered a fund that fed and housed more than 20 homeless women annually, providing medical care and job training for them as well. She was a deeply compassionate humanitarian, yet he had no idea. This part of her expressed her most authentic Spirit; however, her son only knew her to be a bossy mom who only cared about money, because this was all she revealed to him.
Meanwhile, he wrote beautiful songs and composed wonderful music, some of which he performed in various local amateur plays. He was incrementally adding to the beauty of the world, yet his mother had no idea he possessed these musical talents. Why would she? He’d never revealed this facet of himself—his true, authentic self—to her. She only saw him as a “dreamer” who didn’t work a regular, or in her perception, “real,” job.
By hiding their true selves from one another, they robbed themselves and each other of the deeper connection their souls were capable of enjoying. They settled for a less-than-authentic connection of ego to ego, rather than risk the discomfort of revealing their Spirits to one another.
I find that people make this mistake, especially in families, all the time. The potential for a profound soul connection is there, but it’s up to the Spirit within each person to see it, want it, and create it. When we relate to one another ego to ego, we can’t see these deeper connections at all. The ego views everyone as a potential enemy, even family members. When we relate to one another Spirit to Spirit, we see and feel our Divine connection right away.
My role in consulting with both mother and son on the same day was orchestrated by their Spirits to help them see each other more accurately and to reestablish a genuine soul connection once again.
After they learned of one another’s generous and creative Spirit in action, their perceptions opened up. I suggested that the mother attend one of her son’s concerts. I also recommended that the son go with her to the shelter she sponsored and observe how she helped the women there by teaching them new skills. They agreed that this was a good idea, and said that they would.
Several weeks later I received a note explaining how, after they got better acquainted, they developed a newfound respect for one another. They started talking and decided to combine talents. He and his friends would put on a concert to raise money for the homeless women, and she would approach her business associates to help sponsor it. No longer unaware of each other’s most beautiful qualities, they became friends and allies. I’m certain that this was their soul plan all along.
I share this story to suggest that before you decide that your family of origin has no capacity to witness you accurately, ask yourself if you’ve given them a fair opportunity to do so. And “fair” means going through the muck of uncovering a genuine connection.
For example, I have a dear friend who was born into an extremely toxic, alcoholic family rooted in strong Southern Baptist beliefs that judged a great deal of the human race to be less than morally acceptable. Being gay, he originally decided that his family was much too morally righteous and conservative to ever accept his sexual orientation, and he withdrew from their influence altogether by moving to another city. Not wanting to hide his true nature, he didn’t conceal his sexuality from his family, but neither did he afford them the chance to assimilate this information in his presence. He simply assumed that they would reject him, so he sent them what amounted to a good-bye letter just before he left.
Not surprisingly, at first he didn’t receive a response. In fact, several years went by without any communication from his family at all. Then, out of the blue, his sister—who was ten years you
nger than he was—showed up unannounced on his doorstep. Shocked, he invited her in and asked her, quite defensively, what she was doing there. After several hours of sobbing . . . and raging, challenging, and confronting him . . . she made it crystal clear that, although his parents weren’t energetically equipped to be part of his true spiritual family, she was. And he’d never given her that chance. He’d cut her off from him even though she needed him as part of her soul family.
The wounds weren’t forgotten overnight, but an energetic healing did occur on the spot. The minute they reconnected on a Spirit level, they both recovered a significant energy loss that his sudden leaving had caused them. Theirs was a difficult relationship, but worth it. Through their struggles, they helped each other become more authentic and connect to their Spirit in a way that no other person could have.
His parents never did connect with him once he left, and both died young, but he and his sister stayed connected and continue to enjoy self-love and self-celebration on the deepest level.
That said, it’s still nevertheless true that relatives may at times not provide the soul food your Spirit needs to feel deeply loved. If, after exploring all possibilities for true connection, you feel on a soul level that nobody who can witness your Spirit is in your bloodline, then it’s time to explore your soul lines: those souls embodied in current time with you who have been part of your bloodline in past lives and do know, witness, and love you unconditionally.
You recognize members of your soul line instantly because you like them so much, want them to be in your life, and feel completely at ease with them immediately. Although you may not intellectually know why you sense such a strong connection, you feel authentic and at peace in their presence. Their vibration energizes your Spirit.
The Answer Is Simple- Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit! Page 5
