The Answer Is Simple- Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit!

by Sonia Choquette

  If you can’t laugh at yourself, you don’t stand a chance of being in Divine mind. Rather, you’re a complete hostage to your ego, and you can only expect misery because that’s all it’s capable of creating. And although everything may feel serious to you, you can be assured that those not absorbed in the drama will see you as ridiculous. So it’s best to start seeing your ego as ridiculous first.

  When I suggest laughing at yourself, I don’t mean in a mean-spirited, unkind way. I just mean that you should be objective. Rise above your emotional, ego-invested suffering and see it from the outside.

  The best way to laugh at yourself is to be the first to reveal your own vulnerabilities. “Tell” on yourself often. Be the first to share your floundering, embarrassments, tragedies, disappointments, and ill-fated maneuverings with others; and don’t allow your ego to hide behind the fear of not being perfect.

  The more painful the experience you’ve had, the more urgent the need to laugh about it. One of my mentors once said, “Laughter sends the devil running,” meaning the world of false appearances and ego-mind illusions. Laughter instantly frees you from the grip of fear, among other things, and that alone is Heaven on Earth.

  Besides, laughter bring blessings. It’s contagious and brings out the Divine in everyone. Thirty years ago I set off on an adventure to France with a girlfriend. Arriving in Marseilles at midnight, with no idea where to go, we accidentally wandered into an unsavory section of town and happened upon a street brawl. Terrified, we screamed and ran, only to find ourselves confronted by police moments later and thrown into the back of their paddy wagon. Shocked, frightened, and stunned, I abruptly burst out laughing, My Spirit found it all so sudden and absurd. All I could do to absorb what was happening was to laugh . . . so much so that I couldn’t stop. I laughed so hard that my friend started to giggle and then the cops did, too.

  Soon, we were all laughing so hysterically that no one could speak. Once the laughter subsided, the cops figured out that we were two dumb travelers and took us to the home of one of their family members to stay. It couldn’t have been better orchestrated by the angels themselves . . . on second thought, it probably was orchestrated by the angels. The best part is, I remained friends with the cops. Through our laughter, we bonded in Spirit.

  Chuckling at yourself invites others to do the same. The more willing you are to laugh, the more immediately you enter the high frequency of Spirit. Through laughter, you can even take others with you. Rather than connecting on a “frightened, controlling ego to frightened, controlling ego” level, you communicate on a Spirit-to-Spirit level. Ego to ego is an unsafe place—it’s a “me against you” place. Spirit to Spirit is safe because in Divine mind, we’re all one. So as you laugh, not only do you heal, but you become the healer as well.

  To develop your “laugh” muscles, it helps to build a library of amusing resources to draw from when life gets you down. Your laugh library can include funny movies, TV shows, and books; irreverent comics, newspapers, and comic books; amusing Internet sites; and humorous greeting cards. Start by making a list of your top 10 to 20 all-time-favorite comedy movies, and refer to it when you need a good laugh. If possible, buy the DVDs so you can just grab one and pop it in.

  Some of my favorite comedic films are This Is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, Blades of Glory, Elf, Starsky & Hutch, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Cat Ballou, Dick, and Moonstruck. These ones are just off the top of my head from the past few years. I can go further back and recall more.

  When ego mind has you in its grip, it won’t let you think of a funny movie. That’s why it’s smart to have a few ready in advance. It’s also a good idea to ask friends what their favorite comedies are as well, not only to build your library, but also just to encourage lighthearted conversation. This beats the habitual commiseration the ego so easily falls into.

  In addition to movies, there are, of course, humorous TV shows to use as a laughter resource as well. Every country has its own version of the American Friends, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Seinfeld—not to mention the classics such as I Love Lucy or my all-time favorite, The Jackie Gleason Show. I end every night watching a funny rerun, and I always try to go to bed laughing.

  Having copies of good TV shows or renting them from the local or online movie store is a quick way to reach for laughter when life doesn’t seem very funny. The easier you make it to distract your ego with laughter, the better trained your laugh muscles will get.

  The key is to choose laughter over misery. Rather than wallowing in fear or self-pity, make a Spirited choice that in the midst of life’s darker moments, you’ll go for the humor . . . first.

  If you find yourself deeply stuck in ego mind, make a deal with your ego to suffer only for a while, then get to humor. For example, if you’ve had a bad day or have received difficult news, allow yourself 30 minutes of genuine upset. Then agree to 30 minutes of humor afterward for balance.

  It will take serious discipline to adhere to this formula because, naturally, your ego won’t feel like laughing —not only that, but those around you may very likely encourage your suffering. You may even be accused of using humor to escape reality.

  If this is so, admit it! Of course you’re using humor to escape the grip of the controlling, defensive, self-absorbed, humorless, and miserable ego mind. Why wouldn’t you want to break free of it? In fact, thank goodness you can escape through laughter—that’s what our Creator created it for.

  We need to escape life’s dramas in a healthy way from time to time, and laughter is how to do it. So be prepared, both with tools of laughter and the discipline to overcome resistance from within and without. Just announce to yourself and others that laughter is an important spiritual practice for you. Work to acquire a preference for comedy over drama. Don’t be a misery addict. Download comedy skits on your iPod, and bookmark funny Websites on your computer such as www.jokes.com.

  Put amusing screen savers on your computer. Carry comics in your wallet. Post silly sayings around the house, in the car, or in your work area. Read humorous books—of course, I don’t mean exclusively, but do have a healthy inflow of good lighthearted laugh material to balance the weight of the world.

  Practice making light of life. Humor and wit exercise the brain. Laugh out loud, often, even if you don’t feel like it. Forced laughter eventually leads to the real thing. And fake laughter is better than none at all. Besides, it makes you aware of just how much your ego has you in its grip and won’t let you find humor. If you fake laughter, your Spirit is at least in the process of breaking free.

  I recently watched an episode of Oprah on the subject of happiness. On this particular show, Oprah’s makeup artist came on the program and expressed how miserable he was over a significant relationship breakup and how he couldn’t stop crying.

  He then attended a “laugh-fest,” a group where people laugh for the sake of it. He started out resistant, judgmental, uncooperative, and not invested in lightening up at all. His ego mind was hardly in the mood to be happy, and these forced laughers annoyed the heck out of him.

  Nevertheless, he joined in and halfheartedly went through the motions—only to his surprise, he caught the Spirit of the gathering and in less than 15 minutes, he genuinely started to have fun and laugh for real. Like all manifestations of Spirit, the laughter of others was contagious. Soon, it was too difficult to remain miserable in the collective vibration of joy. He threw his despair to the wind and started to laugh and join the others with gusto.

  When it was over, he’d forgotten his woes. He felt great, which surprised him. He actually had to make an effort to find his misery once again. He did, but he had to look for it.

  Laughing is Spirit taking charge of your life. It’s freedom from the ego. It’s Divine-mind perspective and absolutely the best medicine you have.

  To laugh at life, with life, in life, about life is to live your Spirit fully. It’s one of the most soul-affirming acts of self-love you c
an choose. Practice laughing out loud just for the sake of it. Remember how as children you and your friends often tried to make each other crack up by laughing in a silly way? It worked then—it will work now.

  STEP 8

  Accept Life’s Lessons with Grace

  Simple Lesson: Accept Life’s Lessons with Grace

  This step erases the illusion that self-love and joy in life are only possible when problems go away. The practice that follows clears the thick, heavy fog of emotional fear and anxiety. You’ll stop trying to earn affection and start feeling the unconditional love that your Spirit and God have for you, now and always.

  Perhaps the biggest obstacle to loving yourself and living your Spirit is the belief that you can only do so when all your problems are solved, all your worries are alleviated, and all your concerns and fears have disappeared. The truth is, this will never happen. As long as you’re in a physical body and possess a human ego, you must live with the stuff of being human.

  We’re not here to get over our humanness, but rather to accept and make peace with it. And yet we mustn’t allow our human experiences to distract us from living the peace and personal joy of our Divine self and our Spirit. Being human brings challenges—that goes with the territory. Not all of them are the same, yet we all have an equal share. In fact, facing our challenges with good Spirit is the primary sport of the human experiment. As souls, we incarnate to learn certain lessons, the most important of these being to remember our Divine nature while having human experiences.

  Life’s lessons, challenges, concerns, obstacles, recurring themes, and difficult patterns make up what we colloquially call the “stuff” of our lives. Every one of us—from the beggar in India to the broker on Wall Street to the Dalai Lama—has “stuff” or personal soul work that provides challenges. Even Mother Teresa, who is revered as a modern-day saint, struggled with a lot of “stuff” in her life. Recently, in fact, a collection of her personal letters revealed how she even doubted her faith in God.

  These lessons, or the “stuff” of our lives, are our souls’ work. They may be lessons of love, of creating prosperity, or of physical health. They may be ones of trust and commitment or of relationships and family. They may be lessons of poverty, abandonment, and loss . . . or just the opposite—of wealth, acquisition, and devotion.

  No matter the lessons we encounter in life, there are several things of which we may be certain:

  First, we can know that on a soul level, we volunteered to learn the lessons facing us, whatever they are.

  Second, there’s no lesson we run across that’s too difficult for our soul to learn.

  And finally, once we learn a soul lesson, another will take its place. Lessons will never stop presenting themselves as long as we’re alive.

  The very reason we’ve taken on a physical reality is to grow our soul, which we do through facing challenges. Life is school for the soul and, therefore, should be embraced—difficult lessons and all. Unlike human school, where we graduate and then are expected to enter the “real world,” when it comes to the soul, the “real” world is that of endless lessons, one after another, encountered throughout our entire physical existence as a means to reclaim our Divinity.

  It’s not getting beyond our “stuff,” overcoming our personal challenges, rising above our doubts, and conquering difficult situations that gives us the permission to love ourselves and live our Spirit—quite the opposite. It’s rather the ability to love ourselves and live our Spirit that gives us the means by which we can face and successfully work through our stuff and learn our lessons.

  We all have soul work; we all have areas of personal growth and spiritual maturity to develop. Don’t let your lessons rob you of your joy. Instead, cultivate joy of the Spirit to help you successfully work through life’s stuff. If you deprive yourself of love and kindness, you’ll fail to learn anything. You must love your Spirit and listen to it, because without doing so, you won’t be able to honestly or capably overcome any challenges. Only self-love and faithful expression of your Spirit teach you what you must learn.

  Don’t allow your ego to convince you that your stuff is more serious than it is, or more profound or important than the next person’s, thereby giving you permission to wallow in it.

  Mother Teresa dealt with the poorest and sickest of India under the worst of conditions and still managed to love herself and live her Spirit. The Dalai Lama lost his entire country yet must serve as the spiritual light for hundreds of thousands of displaced souls—this is very difficult stuff. However, he is filled with absolute joy.

  Your present-day challenge may feel no less difficult right now. That it is so is exactly the reason to love yourself and live your Spirit—so you can work through it. It’s far better to approach any problem with the love of Spirit rather than the fear and control of the ego.

  Living your Spirit allows you to see beyond life’s immediate drama and points you toward solutions. Self-love helps you access your creativity and solve problems. It reduces conflict and eases fear. Your Spirit is your best ally when facing pain of any sort. It gets you past, through, or over your “stuff” more quickly.

  For example, my client Marion had a son in prison for sexually abusing his own 12-year-old daughter and had another son living on the street with a heroin addiction. She’d also been diagnosed with early-stage colon cancer. By any standards, hers was quite a bit of “stuff.”

  For the first six months after her son went to prison and she received the cancer diagnosis, Marion languished in shame and fear, becoming more and more depressed—and sicker as well. One night, at the end of her rope, she went to bed and prayed for a miracle. The next morning she woke up and found herself suddenly feeling a bit stronger than she had felt in months, if not years. Not exactly sure why she felt better, she didn’t question it. She simply rejoiced.

  Suddenly, around noon it occurred to her what exactly was different: She wasn’t beating herself up about all the problems she faced anymore. Somehow her prayers had been miraculously answered in the night. She was free of the inner tyranny that her ego had relentlessly subjected her to. There was no more blaming and shaming for everything that wasn’t going well in her life. In its place was a peaceful acceptance that the issues at hand were simply her lot to face in life and nothing more. In her sudden clarity, she knew that she would get through.

  The first change was that she stopped agonizing over her sons. Instead, she put her efforts into getting better. With determination and focus—and God’s grace—she recovered from the cancer. Next, she adopted her granddaughter. Not able to undo what had happened, she knew that she could at least help her granddaughter not blame herself. She was also aware that she couldn’t teach the girl to love herself if she, Marion, didn’t do the same. So she accepted the challenge and began to self-love in earnest. She spoke kindly to herself. She ate well. She went to bed early. She appreciated her strength. And she forgave the past.

  Not only did she recover her health, but she also recovered her heart. The gift behind all of this tragedy was that in addition to learning to self-love, she also received the beautiful gift of guardianship of her granddaughter . . . and the most delightful love she’d ever known.

  She even understood why her sons had such difficulties. They didn’t have self-love, either, which drove them to such heinous behaviors. Marion forgave them and even began to send them love, something not possible before. I don’t know what happened to her sons. I do know that Marion and her granddaughter moved to another state and started a small lavender farm together and are now living in healthy, quiet peace.

  The best way to remain self-loving and aligned with Spirit when facing life’s challenges is to remember that they all are lessons—so stop feeling as though you’re a victim. This isn’t to suggest that the ones you face at times aren’t difficult or painful. It only means that until you acknowledge that your challenges exist to teach you something on a soul level, you can’t even begin to get past or rise above t
hem. Whatever problem you encounter, know that it presents itself because there’s something in that situation that your soul wants to learn. The more quickly you acknowledge your problems as opportunities to acquire wisdom, the more manageable they become.

  For example, in my life, my primary “stuff” or soul lessons have centered on my partnership with my husband. On a personality level, he and I are like oil and water. Consequently, we don’t see or experience life in the same way, and this has led to conflict over the years.

  If I let my ego deal with the situation, I could suffer tremendously over our differences and not allow myself to feel love or my Spirit at all. But, fortunately, by the grace of God and a few great teachers, I don’t allow my ego to run the course, at least not most of the time. I know on a soul level that intimacy and partnership are my challenges for growth, and I accept this lesson. It can be difficult upon occasion, but loving my authentic self and being good to my Spirit makes it far easier.

  Self-love allows me to confront my “stuff” with my husband with greater resiliency, humor, creativity, and compassion. These gifts of my Spirit help me with my soul lesson. I’m the first to admit that I haven’t yet mastered my lessons in this area, but we have been married 26 years and counting, and every day—with the love and help of my Spirit—it’s getting easier and easier.

  My friend Debra has different soul lessons to contend with in her life. Personal relationships and intimacy have come easily to her, and she’s quite peaceful in her partnerships. Her “stuff” centers more on money. She has difficulty creating prosperity and feeling financially secure.

  After being laid off from a job of 25 years, she has lived from paycheck to paycheck, often falling short of acquiring the means to take care of her bills. However, she does love herself and live her Spirit, so although the uncertainty of her financial future is challenging, she still enjoys a peaceful assurance that all will somehow work out. This fearless confidence, arising from her Spirit, keeps her ego from collapsing with fear.