June marks PRIDE month, a time to celebrate diversity and acceptance. Unfortunately, fear sometimes drives us to harm others with our words and actions. This fear usually stems from outdated beliefs and conditioning, causing us to choose hate and disgust over love and compassion.
However, failing to challenge our beliefs and conditioning can result in pain and suffering for ourselves and others. We can overcome false perceptions and prevent conflicts by taking the initiative to understand and learn what we don’t know or comprehend. Doing so allows us to respect others’ truths without interfering in their lives and demonstrates genuine love and acceptance. Take a moment to slow down your thoughts and question why you hold the beliefs you do.
While I respect the Bible as a primary source, it’s worth considering the possibility of conflicting messages and the blending of man’s ideas with God’s teachings causing some confusion. It’s important to note that love and acceptance are common themes in many significant religious and spiritual texts. It is essential to approach messages that contradict this message with a critical eye. I am confident that parts of individual spiritual texts, such as the Bible, have been influenced by the beliefs of men of that time and may not accurately reflect the original teachings.
Remember, those beliefs that are inflexible, unchallenged, and deeply ingrained will only cause harm to both ourselves and our planet.
We search for experiences to make ourselves happy. But experiences come and go, don’t they? They never offer lasting happiness. We also look to push away anything that makes us unhappy, thinking this will make our lives peaceful again, never dealing with the root cause but looking to blame things outside of ourselves as the reason. We think that if we only do these things, everything in our lives will be perfect. These thoughts are illusions of the mind. But still, we think we have all the power to control what happens to us and around us. Is this the truth?
Remember that this world and life were here long before your birth and will be here long after you are gone continuing to create and flourish. On the other hand, we only have a short time to experience this life. If we always skip by the here and now, trying to avoid the unpleasant while only seeking out the pleasant, we will never be satisfied. We must look inward to feel and let go of uncomfortable things. To understand ourselves at a deeper level than we do now. Otherwise, we are not living fully; we are only surviving and will never rest in our true nature.
Ordinary thinking has its place in daily affairs. However, if you let your thoughts guide you unconsciously, they will mislead you often. Verify this fact for yourself by paying attention to your thoughts throughout the day and noticing when they are misleading or causing you to suffer. Once you have observed them for any length of time, I know you will agree; if you ignore them, they will always convince you that they are truthful and correct, even the rambling that occurs quietly in the background, which is what you want to notice.
The key is not to try and stop the thoughts; this is impossible and will only lead to more anxiety, frustration, and suffering. You only need to notice them and then let them go. It sounds simple to do but requires commitment and persistence. Notice when they have distracted you once again and let them go. Do this for the rest of your life as best you can, whenever you can. You will notice the peace you have been seeking was there all along because that is your natural state of being underneath all the meaningless and unhelpful thoughts.
Life becomes much more challenging when we do not question our beliefs, become aware of our conditioning, and notice the judgments we make daily. By bringing more awareness to our thoughts and actions, we can see their impact on our lives and relationships. By continuing to use awareness, we can begin to see the concepts created within us by them. When we fail to do this, we will always wonder, isn’t there more to life than this?
You may think this is a daunting task or that you do not know how to do it. Thoughts like these keep you stuck, and they are not true. Remember, it is as simple as bringing more awareness to your thoughts and actions rather than unconsciously going through your day without paying attention. Therefore, attention and awareness are two of your greatest allies to living a happier and more fulfilled life.
The overwhelming grief cracked me open, and my love for this person began pouring out. Then I noticed when I was ready that love began filling the cracks. I saw beauty in these cracks because they reminded me of my love for this person and our time together.
Then the love that helped me grieve began to nudge me forward. And I began living again because I fully felt my loss and faced the truth as I knew it. Their presence and body were gone, but my love for them and all the memories will never cease.
Remember, our grief is an expression of loving someone deeply. Please do not mistake it for weakness or feel ashamed of what you are experiencing and expressing. Instead, see it for what it is and feel everything you need to because doing anything less will feel incomplete.
I woke up at 5 am yesterday. Usually, when this happens, I cannot fall asleep again; I will toss and turn until I get up. However, this time I fell back asleep. I know because I had a dream with a message. Although I cannot remember the entire dream, the ending stuck with me even after waking up.
I saw this person and knew I needed to say something to them. I sensed they did not believe they could heal. I walked up to them, rested my hand on their shoulder, and said, how do you know you cannot heal? I could see them thinking and searching for an answer to my question without results.
I then said if you believe you cannot heal, your chances of healing decline. And going through the experience will be much more challenging, and you will suffer more because of this belief.
However, your odds increase if you believe you can heal. While this will not guarantee that you will heal, it puts you on a different path. And your experience on this path will be more manageable, if not all the time, most of it. But do not forget, we are all allowed to feel and experience what we need to feel and experience. No pretenses, only experiencing the truth of your journey in each moment.
Now please remember that a belief is very different from a wish. You can wish to heal and still have a belief that it is not possible. Therefore, you must look at how you think about your experience closely to confirm that it is your belief and not just a wish. Otherwise, there will be resistance to the experience, and you will suffer more.
Remember, you can never successfully resist what is happening in your life. You can undoubtedly postpone or ignore it, but that is only temporary. Life unfolds as it will. Yes, we have choices, but we must recognize that we ultimately do not control life. Whatever happens, is happening. It happens even if we do not like the experience or want to overlook it.
Remember, the random thoughts that appear are not necessarily the truth and must be examined. Ask yourself this essential and helpful question, do I know this thought is one-hundred percent true?
If you get lost in thought again, that is okay. Just bring your attention back to observing your thoughts and ask the question again. Do I know this thought to be one-hundred percent true? Repeatedly doing this will change your experience. Do not let your mind agree with me here, and move on too quickly from this point. The mind pretends to be an authority over you; however, you can and should question it. Know that you do not have to believe everything your thoughts say, that you can observe them and examine them.
So put it into practice and see for yourself what happens. Perhaps what you perceive to be your worst experience in life will someday be seen as a gift. There are several things throughout my life I could say this about; for example, my alcoholism and back injury, to name just two. Perhaps you already have something you can now see in hindsight that was not easy, and it turned out to be one of life’s greatest gifts to you.
Tim Custis 