As
we are finishing off the year 2012 and sing ‘auld lang syne,’ it is appropriate to reflect on the past year.
By keeping the good memories and meaningful experiences, we want let go
of the trauma, the pain and the negative ordeals. Letting go of the sufferings we experience in
daily life is crucial for peace of mind.
“Bear with each other
and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive
as the Lord forgave you.”
~ Colossians 3:13
Until recently, I have never heard of the work of Robert Burney. Then somebody send me a quote, which I can’t
get out of my mind:
Excerpt from
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
“We learned about life as children and it is
necessary to change the way we intellectually view life in order to stop being
the victim of the old tapes. By looking at, becoming conscious of, our
attitudes, definitions, and perspectives, we can start discerning what works
for us and what does not work. We can then start making choices about whether
our intellectual view of life is serving us - or if it is setting us up to be
victims because we are expecting life to be something which it is not."
"In order to stop giving our power away, to
stop reacting out of our inner children, to stop setting ourselves up to be
victims, so that we can start learning to trust and Love ourselves, we need to
begin to practice discernment.
Discernment is having the eyes to see, and the ears
to hear - and the ability to feel the emotional energy that is Truth.
We cannot become clear on what we are seeing or
hearing if we are reacting to emotional wounds that we have not been
willing/able to feel and subconscious attitudes that we have not been
willing/able to look at.
We cannot learn to trust ourselves as long as we are
still setting ourselves up to be victimized by untrustworthy people. We cannot
learn to Love ourselves enough to meet our own needs until we start to release
the attitudes and feelings that tell us that we are unworthy - that it is
somehow shameful to be ourselves. We cannot learn to Love ourselves without
learning discernment.
The black and white thinking of Codependence causes
us to either keep the baby in the dirty bath water or throw out both.
Discernment is picking the baby out of the dirty bath water."
Letting
go has a lot to do with forgiveness.
Forgiving ourselves, letting go of anger and old grudges—is to make room in the heart for peace. Emotional issues are always the hardest to
face, therefore, acceptance, awareness and discernment are the beginning of
letting go.
A
lot comes from the fact that we see and experience things from our own point of
view. A child feels guilty for her
parents break-up; we feel shame and uneasiness when we see a couple hugging and
kissing; we feel envy when a friend wins the lottery; we feel unworthy of a
complement, etc. In the Emotion Code, taught
by Dr. Bradley Nelson, we learn of a long list of emotions we have been carrying
around with us. Dr. Nelson teaches that
we don’t have to burden ourselves any longer with these emotions. Rather through a very easy method of identifying
these negative emotions, we can let them go and be free for a new beginning,
even being pain-free because trapped emotions can cause all kinds of dis-ease
in the body.
The
beauty of this letting go is that we can create new connections, wholesome relationships
and a life of true love. I watched a
video on TED by Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability. She talks about how we are all connected in
this web of life. Most of us walk around
life with many masks, covering all of our past experiences, fears, memories,
and even ancestral baggage. All this
keeps us away from “real” life and feeling worthy of love.
“True self-worth is
about feeling completely free to be your amazing self; trusting your strength
of character and your own judgment. Why is self-worth so important? When you
approve of yourself, you stay calm and move easily forward toward success, with
spirit and courage, making clear decisions, confident of the results. You become
more resilient, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. Self-worth is how you
measure inner strength.”
~ David Sharps – creator of “The Cure Is… .”
She suggests that the way to wholeheartedness
is to allow ourselves is to be vulnerable.
To
me this is the best advice for the New Year.
In our society where we are so guarded and pretend to be politically
correct, this sounds like a fresh breath of air. It is truly a way to be responsible for our
lives and experience the full range of emotions to reach an authenticity which
we can enjoy and which can change our society as well--a change which can only
come from the inside out.
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