Bad people

I had a bit of an emotional meltdown a couple of days ago and, as therapeutic and cathartic as it ultimately was, it was a violent shaking of my peace of mind. These moments are hard, but not to be missed on the path to enlightenment.

We all have people in our lives who challenge us. Sometimes in areas that are unpleasant and huge, like patience and our ability to forgive. These interactions can be very intense.

But I continue to believe, in my soul, that these are valuable people who come into our lives to push those buttons. What we learn about ourselves in our most uncomfortable moments is knowledge that is worth its weight in gold. But sometimes you have to dig through some ugly stuff before you get it.

There is a person in my world who does and says things that I wholly disapprove of. If I am honest I will say I don’t really like this person. And yet, the very core of my spiritual beliefs tells me that we are not separate, there is no us and them, no me and her. Which means my disapproval of her affects me. Just as our personalities reflect various facets of our soul, each one of us is a part of the same great Source. When there is absolutely nothing else you can rely on to help you appreciate a person, there’s always that.

What do I always come back to? Remembering that none of us wants anything different from the rest of us, we all just want to be happy and avoid suffering. Some people go about it in ways that are thoughtless or hurtful. Most of the time probably out of complete ignorance of others.

When I thought about this person who is like a thorn in my side, I became very upset. The universe appears to bless this person no matter what. No matter how horribly she treats others, she continues to succeed and prosper. And I had to wonder why that is when everything I have ever read about success stresses being kind. The thing I realized is that it’s not so much how this person behaves as it is what she believes that creates the things that show up in her life. She feels entitled and she does not hesitate to let the entire world know it. And the world responds. The part that she leaves in the fine print is that she’s ruthless. And that is the part I disapprove of.

Ultimately, there is more than enough of everything to go around. There is an entire universe full of creative power. And the key to receiving? Feeling worthy.

Recently I read a quote by Oprah about the difference between feeling deserving versus feeling worthy. There is a difference. Everyone is deserving and most of us can say we feel like we deserve good things, but not everyone feels worthy or worthwhile. It’s a hard thing when those insecurities surface, but it’s worth looking at because feelings of unworthiness can keep truly good people from ever realizing their dreams.

The truth is: We are worthwhile because we were born. We’re here. We showed up for this human experiment. And we should all be living lives of abundance and blessings. 

When you think about it, there really can’t be any truly bad people. There are people who misuse the energy that flows through them, but we’re all just doing our best to feel okay and sometimes we are unskillful. The person I was upset with–and if I’m truthful, envious of–has a lot of emptiness in her life…in areas where mine overflows. She may have some of the things I think I want, but I have been blessed beyond measure with gifts that cannot be bought, nor acquired through manipulation. She deserves compassion, not envy.

Seeing the ugly parts of myself in the moments when I experience things like envy and jealousy is heartbreaking. Even though my thoughts were focused on someone else, my heart was overwhelmed with disappointment in only me. And I am the only person whose behavior I have to be concerned with. I am willing to see the truth that comes from the darkness and become the person I am meant to be.

Lesson learned: I am not a bad person…and neither is anyone else.

Envy, gratitude and angels

A couple of days ago I was driving in my neighborhood, admiring some of the lovely older homes nearby when I began to wonder if envy is normal and if so, when does it become a problem that is detrimental to the person who envies?

Of course I’d rather be grateful in all things.  I  try to see the positive and have something to give thanks for regardless of what is going on around me, but I’m so hard on myself that I don’t even really give myself enough leeway to have a moment’s worth of what may be harmless envy, if such a thing exists.

As I was looking at the nice houses, I felt a sense of longing to have the things these homes represent to me–safety, security and stability.  And I began to wonder if it is possible to have a grateful heart at the same time as disliking the feeling of instability that currently permeates my existence.  The reason I limit instability to a feeling or perception is that is truly all it can ever be.  There is no such thing as stability in reality.  Everything we can perceive with our senses is inherently unstable.  There are no guarantees in life.

Consider the people in Japan.  On the heels of one of the worst natural disasters in history, these people are facing incredible instability, not only in the need to clean up the devastation, but having a volatile nuclear situation unfolding as they try to recover the bodies of their dead and find those who are missing.  The relative instability of my situation is nothing compared to that.

My real point about Japan is that the earthquake and tsunami destroyed everything in its path, it didn’t pick just the poor people or the ones who failed to think positively for a few minutes.  There were many people who were living successful, seemingly enviable lives who lost everything, including their lives in some cases, in the blink of an eye.

So back to envy.  I know that there is toxic envy in which one wishes to have the possessions of another or wishes that person did not have what they have.  That’s not really how I feel, which is why I started wondering.  When I feel what I was thinking was envy, it’s more like a wishing to know how it feels to work hard and have something to show for it and have even a little certainty that things are going to be okay on a continuing basis, barring, of course, natural disasters and the like.

When good things happen to people, I usually feel happy for them.  I don’t feel especially jealous and I don’t wish it was me instead of them, but it doesn’t really stop me from wishing it was me along with them.  And I wonder if  that is impeding my success in life.

Does the universe want me to be truly happy that I don’t have enough money to meet basic living expenses?  Because I really am trying to see it that way if I’m supposed to.  When I get to feeling sorry for myself, I try to switch my thoughts to things like how nice it is to get to spend this time with my kids and how if I was working I wouldn’t see them as much.  I know there are positives to every perceived negative, but I’m having a bit of trouble finding that place of true gratitude sometimes.  And honestly, that makes me feel like crap about myself and like I’m an ungrateful jerk who doesn’t deserve anything good because I can’t appreciate what I have.

Told you I was hard on myself.

Last night I had a bit of an emotional meltdown about all of this while I was upstairs alone in my room.  I do not like to share my insecurities with my kids.  They don’t need to be worried just because I have been.

During this emotional episode I was praying as earnestly as I know how and telling God that I want to be strong and confident, but I am scared and I feel very alone and I don’t feel like I can do this on my own.  I asked for guidance and for help from the angels.

There were actually two of these conversations with God yesterday, one in the afternoon and the other at bedtime.  Both times I felt the presence of archangel Michael.  It’s hard to explain for a couple of reasons.  One is I do not know what others’ experiences with angels have been so I don’t know how to explain it in a way that doesn’t make me sound crazy by what I perceive to be societal norms.  Second, it has only been recently, the past couple of years, that I have had any understanding of the angels at all.  I now realize that they have been with me my whole life.  There is no way any little person could have made it through what I lived through without them.

So, last night when I was experiencing such painful doubt and fear, I felt the angel surrounding me, protecting me with his wings.  Suddenly, I started to cry uncontrollably.

I know in this blog I have mentioned a lot of the tears I have cried recently, but the truth is, I don’t cry very much.  I used to be the kind of person who almost never cried and I can remember going months at a time without crying because I thought it was a sign of weakness.

While I was crying last night, feeling humbled and yet safe in the presence of the angel, I heard the angel say to me: I will protect you. I did not hear this audibly, lest anyone think I was hallucinating.  It came as words revealed to my mind and heart.  Again, so very hard to explain, but I know what I experienced and I know how it might sound to someone who thinks such things are hogwash.  Believe me I know, when I was a Christian of all times, I used to think people who reported such things were full of shit and either crazy or making it up.  Suffice to say I don’t think that anymore.

My experience last night eased the pain of the envy I was feeling and helped me let go of the fear, which is huge for me because my circumstances appear to be unchanged.   I believe all is well, I just can’t see it yet.  I fell asleep with the feeling of peace and protection, for which I am so grateful.

To anyone who is hurting or who feels afraid, I wish for the angels to visit you and for you to feel the peace and safety I felt last night.

Thank you, archangel Michael.  And please help Japan and the rest of the world find peace and safety in these chaotic times.

Cheryl