WHERE DO WE START

The return of Wintry conditions has not been as bad as originally forecast. The snow that was on the ground Monday Morning was gone by noon. The sky has been gray, but all the promise of Spring is here. We have these periods, almost every year, where Spring backtracks and our patience is tested. It intensifies our longing for what is to come.

As I go through life an old insight keeps coming back to me. We know what we want. We want Love, Peace and Joy. Right! So where do we start? Of course, we know the answer, we have to start with ourselves.

I find that I need to remind myself of this. It is easy to have a negative feeling and blame it on someone else or something in the environment. Folks, especially those closest to us, are happy to cooperate, and reflect our internal state back to us. We are always, at least to some degree, looking in a mirror.

So, we want Paradise; have we been carrying it around inside us? I know I haven't been lately. We can't extend to others what we don't have. Every once in a while, I need to take a good look at myself. Hey, I haven't been a barrel of fun lately. Have I been peaceful- well momentarily. Have I been joyful- I haven't been exactly bubbling over. Have I been loving- well I hope so; but I see this and this about myself, hmmmm.

Does this sound familiar to any of you? What are we going to do? We have to face it. When we find ourselves carrying around a load of crap-we need to be honest- it is our crap! It doesn't belong to the person next to us; no matter how willing they are to reflect back to us. Yup, pointing fingers will just make it worse.

So, I have this insight again and again. I can't give love- I don't have. I can't give joy- I don't feel. I can't extend peace- I am not experiencing.

So, I come back to the place we all know. We need to begin with ourselves. I think the only place the word 'responsibility' has a place is- here. I am responsible for my thoughts and feelings. Making someone else responsible is the beginning of all agony.

Okay, we all know the solution is Love. Why am I not loving myself? Do I feel unworthy? Am I letting my ego drive the car? Sure, all of that.

We grew up in a culture that taught us that we were unworthy. I don't know if any of us escaped into adulthood thinking we were really 'all right'. We had many ways, of hiding from ourselves, that we felt unworthy. We threw ourselves into achievement, misused helpers, hid behind intellectualism; we could find many ways, of not facing, that we didn't love ourselves.

We can sort through all the things that helped create, this feeling of not being loved; going back to when we popped out of the womb. Every institution, every authority figure, every social group; they all had a hand in it, none of them felt worthy either.

This whole experience, this thing we think of as reality on this Earth, is an illusion created with fear. I [we] need to shuck it all. It is all a lie!

I am Worthy. I am Love. I don't need to be a garbage can for a frightened world. I[we] don't have to carry with us all the pain and negative teachings this world gave us.

Somewhere inside us, We Know. We know we are loved unconditionally. We know nothing else is possible.

Today I will be responsible. I will climb out of the garbage can and see nothing but love.

Love and Peace,  Gregg