“What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” — Robert Schuller
To truly live life to the fullest, to be passionately pursuing life and your dreams, you must overlook the mistakes you will make. You must be slow to judge, slow to condemn, slow to be offended. You must manuever quickly because we are all human and we all make mistakes. To be an artist, an entrepreneur, you must make mistakes to be a great one. You must make big mistakes, I think that’s a requirement, it creates depth and depth is seen in your work.
I love hearing the sound of rain, the sound of cars driving on a watered road. After watching Lost in Thailand on Netflix, I had this urge to write about my recent heart journey. Ever since I came back from Hawaii, I’ve been releasing even more negative vibes out of my life. Though I had already sold all of my furniture and reduced my clothes to fit into a duffle bag, I was not done with starting over.
I also needed to once and for all forgive everyone that had ever hurt me in my life. As I started writing down names of people I wanted to forgive and release from my heart, no longer requiring their validation, approval or apologies, I realized there was a theme of “lack of affection/attention” or “negative words or words of rejection”, some that consisted of people making judgements on me even though they had known me for years, yet perhaps out of a lack of love in their own hearts, chose to see me as someone i was not…out of the attempt to control someone they could not control- me.
I also had to forgive myself for “wasted years” when the truth is….I needed to go through what I went through to see the precious worth of my time and life. I remember telling a stranger that I learned a lot from my past relationship, he replies “well you sure learn a lot after a beating” (now that’s an analogy). We don’t always need to learn from hardships or heartbreak, we can learn from wisdom, from listening to our hearts.
Well, now I can help others who struggle with self-worth and rejection. I also needed to learn what it meant to invest time, energy and heart into my closest relationship and that it was not selfish of me to spend time alone or not want to spend time with mere strangers. I saw that as my influence inclined, many people wanted to “spend time with me” to talk about “their issues”, which I do offer in my coaching sessions. Unless you are a close friend of mine, I will not invest time and energy to get “freeloaded”. In order to be the best that I can be, I need to protect my time with myself and most of all, meditate and pray. But I also learn that it is better to have a flexible heart than inflexible ritual. That’s why I’m not big on rituals or things that take away from my heart.
I commit to things because it makes me happy, not because I feel guilt-tripped into it. Who are the people you need to forgive? What did they say or do that hurt you and how did it make you feel in terms of value, worth or significance? Because unless you continue to receive forgiveness and forgive others, the manifestation of our lives are simply an image. Heart growth, heart healing is what counts, unless this is dealt with….all the fruit of our labors will rot.
Trust me on this. Everything you’ve ever worked for will become bitter fruit, wrought out of a bitter root (your heart). Allow your heart to become healthy so that love can flow freely into every area of your life. If you haven’t released forgiveness or people from your heart, they are taking up SPACE for the people that want to love and be loved by you.
My commitments in this life:
1. To know that I have already been forgiven and am free to make mistakes
2. To allow others to be themselves and to allow them to make mistakes just as I make mistakes
3. To know that there is no such thing as “mistakes” but simply detours to the right path
4. To enjoy life to the fullest And just to give you a personal update, I’ll be going up to Sacramento May 14-17 to speak at a women’s conference. From there I’ll be going to Berkeley or Palo Alto, I haven’t decided. And Thailand is on my mind, will probably go this Fall, don’t know how and what, but like any other trip, I must step forward in faith.
When you’re gracious with yourself, you’ll allow others to be themselves around you. That’s the most beautiful form of relationship!
