Unforgettable Love Story

No matter how you slice it, relationship breakups are difficult to cope with. For those whose relationships are suffering from problems you may find this relationship advice challenging to say the least, especially if you are/were in a committed love relationship. But stay open and read it all so that you don’t take something I write out of context. Believe me I have had plenty of experiences with relationship problems and breakups, and plenty of experience with finding peace and happiness in the midst of it. If I can do it, so can you!

One of the first things that a person needs to consider is the question, “What am I expecting from my relationships?” I know for me, when I was younger and less mature, I expected love, support, and on a deeper unconscious level…validation! But the problem with those expectations is that no one else can really give you those things.

I can hear some of my readers minds now, “What? No one can give me love? No one can give me support? You must be joking! And just for the record, I don’t need any validation. My self-esteem is just fine thank you!” Okay, so that is what I used to think and I am certain there are many others who still do too.

Of course someone else can give you love, but are you open to receive it? If you are not receiving it then what use is their giving it to you? If you are in the midst of judging another person, or even yourself, are you open to receive their love or any love for that matter? NO! If you are critical of Life and what it has been delivering to you are you open to receive love? NO! If you are worrying about how to pay the bills, or what kind of drugs your kid is smoking or what they are doing when you are not around, are you open to receiving love? NO!

As for support from others…they can give it, but you can just as easily squander it. It can even become a setback. What happens when you depend on someone and their support and then they leave? It could be divorce, it could be death, it could be work, it could be drugs or alcohol, there are many ways in which someone can leave you and take their support with them. Then where are you? Helpless and frightened and once again in judgment of Life and other people.

But the biggest problem is self-esteem. Most people don’t have it! Most people are seeking validation from outside of themselves. Low self-esteem shows up in two forms. The most obvious is when you just don’t like yourself, when your thoughts, words and actions make you feel in some way unworthy and unlovable.

There is another side to low self-esteem and that is ARROGANCE! Oh I have a great deal of experience with that side of low self-esteem. Arrogance is how I used to cope with my low self-esteem and it is insidious because it makes you feel like you are so good that you are better than others. It often comes out in words and actions. The arrogant person has to be the one to be heard; they can talk on and on and often don’t let others participate. Or they are always contradicting the ideas of others instead of finding the places that they can agree. The arrogant person is often putting other people down. But always, at the bottom of arrogance is low self-esteem. (There is a pretty cool story in my book on how I overcame my arrogance. If you need help with that issue, this book will be powerful for you!)

Relationship breakups give us the chance to face these issues in ourselves and to heal them. We get to become stronger people as a result. How would you like to be the kind of person who is never lonely, especially when you are alone? How would you like to be the kind of person who has an inner strength capable of facing any challenge that Life has to offer, especially when everyone is ignoring your requests for help? How would you like to be the kind of person who knows without a shadow of a doubt that you are thinking, speaking and acting in the right way, in a loving way, in a way that is of benefit to all people whose lives you touch, even when others are judging and criticizing you or telling vicious rumors about you? And how would you like to be happy anytime you want no matter what is going on in the outer world?

When you have to face life on your own you have the greatest possibility of growing into these life skills. When you face life on your own it is much easier to see what your creations are and what are the creations of others. It becomes much easier to understand the relationship between your thoughts and your feelings, because no one else is there to create in your experience. There is no one to blame, except yourself…of course you should not be blaming yourself either, but accepting that you have created your own reality.

I went through a pretty rough experience around a relationship break up when I was 44 years old. I had been divorced twice, had a wife die on me (story is in my book Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story), and then had my next fiancé dump me too. I felt like my life was over. I felt like all I could count on was women leaving me. I felt like my youth was slipping away and I was never going to have that long lasting really great relationship that I needed to have that would prove that I was an okay person, and that I was worthy of love. I cried a lot. I was facing financial struggles too. I was living in Australia and they were asking me to leave because I no longer had a sponsoring job. I had other friends who were judging me and my actions too.

In the midst of all that pain and suffering I went through I kept a watch on my feelings and my thoughts. I was listening to a lot of Abraham CDs about the “Law of Attraction” and the “Science of Deliberate Creation”. I got a new CD every week, and I listened to many of them more than once. It was during those times when I had my first experiences of Self-Realization. Intellectually I had learned that I was God, but those experiences were different…I remembered that I was God…it was just like I remembered where my bed was, or what my name was. I KNEW! And those experience changed me forever. I finally had the self-esteem that was previously based on other people’s opinions of me. And I finally knew without a shadow of a doubt that whatever I did or thought about another, I was doing to myself. I still had habits of thought and action to overcome, but now I would not let anything or anyone deter me from making the necessary changes in my own programming. And I also know there will never be another lifetime, or a time in this lifetime, where I will not have this inner strength and awareness. These gifts are mine forever more!

And for the first time in my life I loved being alone, so much so that when I finally did find a wonderful woman to marry, my dear wife Shyni, I was actually disappointed to lose my alone time! At first I felt like I got married out of habit, because for so many years I was looking for it and had not stop to reconsider my priorities carefully enough. Now I was reaching for the ability to go into the state of Samadhi at will and the distractions of other people and their needs was getting in the way. Union with God is addicting, it is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.

I have come to accept my choice to be in a relationship. I know I have work to do in continuing to reprogram myself and the challenges that come up when living with others is giving me the chance to do just that. So it really is perfect for me at this time, just as perfect as it was for me to lose the other relationships I had earlier in my life. Without those relationships breakups, I would not have Shyni in my life. In very many ways she is more perfect for me than any other woman has been, by a factor of ten. This is honestly the best and most amazing relationship I could ever imagine having.

No matter what challenges you face in your life, they are perfect and you have created them through the “Law of Attraction”, this includes your relationship breakups. Walk through your fire and come out the other side. Many people consider suicide when relationships breakup. Suicide is like walking most of the way through the fire, and then turning around and walking back to the other side. You suffer so much more as a result.

Suicide will not take you were you believe you will be going, to a place of peace. Suicide is trying to escape from yourself, and you just cannot do it. Wherever you go, there you are. In the afterlife, you will not be in the heaven you think you will be in; you will still be enmeshed in your life’s troubles, because the afterlife is still life. It is just life in another dimension. And you will not have the ability to change your programming there. You will be stuck with it, playing out your dramas over and over until your next physical life begins. And in your next physical life you will set up the same dramas so that you can finally face the issues and move through them. So in reality you will have to walk through that fire all over again, face the same pain all over again, and finish the walk to the other side. Don’t do it!

You can find so much strength inside of you that it will be you that other people come to for strength and support. You can find so much strength inside of you that no matter if the entire world seems to hate you, you can still love yourself and them so deeply that you only feel love. You can become so enlightened, so wise, and so powerful that you are actually a clear conduit that God’s love can flow through and heal others wherever you go. And if you become such a person, you will be overwhelmed at times by the difference you really do make in the world.

Relationship breakups are not the end, but the beginning of the next chapter your life. Get excited and know that you are in for something far better than you ever dreamed possible and your relationship breakup will be exactly that!

Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

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This is the last part of the series entitled Reprogramming Yourself. Its second installment is Reprogramming Anger.

Recently (November 2006) I have been getting very angry at the dangerous Indian drivers. We just purchased a car two months ago and with our business workings I have been driving in India much more often and much further. I have ideas of what a safe and considerate driver should be based on my experiences in America and Australia. Indians are not like that. In some ways I like the freedom from over-regulation that Indians enjoy, but too many drivers drive very dangerously or without consideration of anyone else on the road. Coming only inches from being hit by a driver who is traveling in the opposite direction at very high speeds are common occurrences. Having someone cut a turn right in front of you with no time to stop is a common occurrence. People walking in the street, with no regard for their own safety, animals, large rocks and other objects, large potholes, all add to the stress.

Just one example of how this came to a head for me and made me begin to deal with it happened in early November of 2006. I was driving home from Kottayam (a 3 hour drive). I had three different drivers get in my way for no reason while I was trying to pass them. They were going slower than I wanted to go; I drive a safe but brisk speed. I had signaled with my horn as usual. And they responded by moving into the middle of the road preventing me from passing them. They had no apparent reason for doing this. There were no blockages on their side of the road. It was not a curve. There were no oncoming vehicles. What I was trying to do was usual and expected driving behavior there in India. I believed they were blocking me on purpose and I got quite angry. I began accumulating these offenses and thinking about pulling one of them over, yanking them out of their cars, and beating them in the street. I spent a fair amount of time thinking these kinds of thoughts, never really intending to do so. Also I was accumulating judgment about all of the other oncoming busses, trucks and even cars that were driving in my lane when there was plenty of room in their own lane. The anger in me built up.

Then it happened… I was passing a bus in a very safe manor on wide open road. I had nearly gotten past the bus when I heard it lightly hit the left rear bumper of my car. I went into a mad rage. If I had thought about it I would have known he did no damage to my car. He did not affect my course of driving at all. But all of that built up emotion enraged me. Somehow I grabbed the parking brake lever and pulled it up. I never use that, except for parking and starting out on a hill. I don’t know why I pulled on it. That type of break locks into place. You have to push a button to release it. Because of the speed we were driving and not really understanding what I had just done I did not have the presence of mind to release the break. This caused me to spin my car and land on the side of the road in tall grass and weeds up against a hillside.

I got out of the car in a furious rage. I went to the bus driver’s window, climbed up, reached in and smacked him in the face. I didn’t slap him very hard, but it was insulting. Then I broke one of his windshield wipers off and threw it in the street. He got off the bus and I threatened to beat him. About twenty other men got off the bus and they were all threatening to beat me. I am sure they did not even know that the bus driver hit me. All they knew was that I spun my car and then smacked the driver for it and then continued to abuse him verbally. It was really crazy. Eventually my wife Shyni got me to calm down and we left. Thank God there was no real damage to our car or to us.

I had already been doing work to get over my anger at all of the people and cows who hang out in the road, and especially those who don’t move even when honking the horn right next to them. I had done pretty well with keeping myself calm with them. I had been telling myself that, “Everyone has a right to use the road. These people are God too.” And other things like that. It was working.

But it seemed that I just could not get over my judgment of the other drivers whose actions were dangerous and un-courteous. Well I wasn’t trying either. I felt justified in my mind that their actions were wrong and that my ideas about driving were right. Until this event occurred. After that I realized that God was prodding me through that bus driver and all of the other drivers too. It became very clear because the bus driver really did nothing to me, nor did the other drivers. But my judgmental thinking made me slap a man, which hasn’t happened to me in over 20 years. My anger nearly killed Shyni and me when I spun our car. And even after we were safely stopped, with no real harm to us or the vehicle, my anger nearly got me beaten by a mob of angry men from the bus.

In my life I have learned, more than once, and in more than one way, that if I expect the world to change, or even any single person or event to change, because I did not like it or because “I was right and they were wrong” that I would make myself miserable. And unless I catch each thought of judgment and criticism and change them, then those thoughts would slowly build up and eventually flare up in anger at some specific person or event that probably did not even deserve the anger that was heaped upon them.

It is a big job, but we must watch each and every thought and change the ones that do not serve us. Even if it is possible to evoke a change in the outer world, we must still let go of the judgment and go about changing it from a place of love and the sincere desire to be of help. I so wish I could change Indian drivers, but I cannot. There are millions of them. If I change one, or even fifty, still there will come another and another until I have wasted all of my energy, and still they will keep coming. We must use logic and reason to convince our minds to let go of its judgment, hatred and anger. We must come to recognize where our true safety lies and that is in God. There are no random events. Nothing happens in our reality that we have not earned or created with our energy.

So now when something I don’t like happens on the road my practice is to remind myself, “Nothing really happened, I made it safely. God is watching out for me. Dear God, bless them with awareness of how it is they are driving and how dangerous it is. Help them to learn to drive safely.” When I catch myself moving into judgment I remind myself about what happened and what could have happened. I remind myself of the power of my mind and stop my mind from creating violent revengeful thoughts.

The Miracle - This worked and very powerfully so…I made at least ten more long distance drives like that in India since that incident. Each time I was able to maintain this practice. Each time I kept my peace of mind. Before starting on a long journey I even paused in the driver’s seat long enough to set my mind clearly on the thought process I wanted. I prayed for all the drivers on the road to drive safely while in my presence. I prayed for them to be aware and courteous. I reminded myself that I no longer needed to police them, not even in my mind; I gave that up to God.

It was a miracle! That is exactly how my drives have been since that time. I am sure those same crappy drivers are still on the road doing their same stupid things, but not while I was around. The real world changed as a result of changing my mind. This change persisted in every single drive I made since that time, which was many. The difference in driving experiences was so remarkable that every family member who has driven with me has noticed. Certainly they noticed how much calmer I was, but more than that they noticed that the outer world changed too.

Making that change had a ripple effect in my psyche. I now calm down much quicker in other situations where anger is rising in me even if I feel justified in my perspective on a situation. We shall see what else Life has to reveal to me and in what other ways anger might try to find expression in my life, but for now I know a dramatic change has taken place within me and it is a welcome one.

One by one, piece by piece, we whittle away at our unwanted personality traits and develop new ones that serve us in ever more powerful ways.

Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski

P.S. That is not the only time the outer world changed as a result of my inner change. I will admit that was one of the more dramatic ones. I tell many more stories like it in my book Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story. These type of coincidences are (nearly) a daily experience for me. They probably do occur daily, but I still have further to go at being aware enough to notice them all.

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This is the continuation of Reprogramming Yourself

This is an incident that happened to me in November of 2006. Being a teacher of spiritual growth it is doubly embarrassing to my ego when such dysfunctional programming surfaces in my personality. This is extra incentive to me to make necessary changes and as quickly as possible. Anger has been an issue for me all of my life. Even though I have worked on it for many years and have gotten past so much of it, I still find it haunts me. This incident marked a huge change in my automatic reactions and my understanding of how life responds to our thoughts.

It occurred in India, where I live part time. India has pushed me in ways I thought I would never be pushed and brought out a lot of judgment and anger that I thought I was over. The following is an edited version of a letter I wrote to a fellow researcher of truth who was suffering from anger…

Anger, like any emotion, begins in the mind. The actual occurrence of an angry outburst may seem to begin when something happens, but in reality it begins much sooner. Stresses, other emotions like frustration, not getting something that you want, will cause a person to become stressed such that one wrong situation results in an expression of anger. This gradual build up can be stopped by dealing with the weaker emotions that add up to make the anger happen. This requires that you pay more attention to ALL of your emotions and understand where they are coming from and to change your thinking along the way.

The way that you react to life, such as being angry, comes from past programming. Your karma, your personality, your subconscious, past programming are all ways of saying virtually the same thing. It is the result of responding to life in a certain way, repeatedly, until it becomes automatic. Hypnotherapy can help you find the root cause, but still the programming will be there. The solution is to reprogram yourself.

To reprogram yourself requires awareness. You need to pay special attention to those situations that make you angry. You need to recognize when you are not feeling good and strive to make yourself feel good through proper mental exercises. Contemplation and meditation are essential to this practice. Daily you must review your thinking, words and actions of the day and decide if they are serving you or disturbing you. Then you must deliberately program your mind to take a different course of thinking when similar events occur or begin to occur.

Continued in Road Rage…

Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable - A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

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This is the second part of The Kidnapping and The Wedding story

A few hours later Shyni’s brother Shyam and his friend Chellopan were walking into Kumily town. Mohammad came upon them in an auto-rickshaw, stopped them and told them to get in. They refused but said they would walk to the Sandhya’s home-stay. Once Shyam and Chellopan arrived they were asked to go upstairs to a vacant room for a talk. They were told guests were coming and they did not want to be disturbed. Reluctantly Shyam and Chellopan agreed, so they could keep these marriage matters private.

Once upstairs and inside of the room it was locked and Mohammad and Sandhya interrogated them for four hours. Of course Shyam and Chellopan objected, but Mohammad was a large man and they were both afraid of him. The questions were more about the marriage than the motorbike. Mohammad asked insulting things like, “Are you a salesman selling your sister?”

Shyam’s reply was, “They have already married, so there is nothing you can do about it.”

Then Sandhya told Shyam, “Your sister has used this very room to have sex with many men.” But when Shyam inquired about when this had occurred, the dates he was given was the same time that Shyni had been working in Delhi. Interestingly enough there were a couple of times where Mohammad sat next to Sandhya and instinctively placed his hand on her lap, and then realized what he was doing and removed it. They seemed to display an intimacy that should not have been there, especially in India. Shyam felt quite convinced that they were having an affair.

Mohammad twisted Shyam’s wrist behind his back and tried to make him tell more, but Shyam refused. Mohammad also picked up a chair and threatened to beat Shyam, but never followed through. Shyam was in tears a few times, but he gave out very little information.

Shyni told me nothing of this incident until at two years later. Actually it was abduction rather than a kidnapping since they never asked for a ransom. But kidnapping was the term Shyni used when she finally told me about it more than a year later so I have always referred to it that way. Both Shyam and Chellopan were released without any real physical harm being done to them. But their pride was hurt and they were scared. Shyam went to stay with friends in Kottayam for a few days until he got over it.

Continue Reading - The Couple Reunite

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Selfishness is underrated, in fact we should all be taught to be selfish rather than selfless! Our society has it all backwards with their rules of how we should all behave.

If you want to have anything of value to offer to anyone you must first take care of yourself. How do you feel when someone does something for you out of duty and obligation? For me, more often than not I wish they would not have bothered. Often what they do is just plain annoying or even worse, we have to undo what they did and redo it ourselves.

The feeling that goes with the intention of “I must do this because it is expected of me” is horrible. The more open and aware you become the more you feel… when you start to feel things on a deeper level you also let go of your desire to tolerate the pain. This is a good thing.

It is like we have all been trained to keep our hand on a hot stove. If you keep it there long enough you will develop very hard tough skin and loose all sense of feeling. This is how we are taught to approach life. It will burn you so you better toughen up so that you can take it.

How ignorant is that! Our feelings are telling us to remove our hand from the stove. It is a normal and positive reaction to pain. Soft, pliable and sensitive hands are much more affective and attractive, don’t you agree?

And so it is with our lives. Our negative feelings are meant to tell us there is danger here; we are going to get burnt, back away. But back away from what? Back away from what we are thinking about, back away from where we are focusing our attention, back away from the situation we are in. Well where do we go with our thoughts and focus? Towards anything that feels better!

Sometimes it is a stretch, but reach, reach for the better feeling thoughts. Once you have a firm grip on it, reach again for an even better feeling thought.

Read More

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Continued from…

The problem with drugs is that we believe they are a problem and we lay our blame on them. In the past much of humanity used to blame our problems on sex. Money and greed also used to be the root of all evil. Rock and Roll even got the bad rap for a while.

What will be next?

Like fire, drugs are a tool, they can either heal or do harm. They are not a problem. Lack of self-esteem and awareness are the real problems. The sorts of drugs people take “recreationally” are enhancers and intensifiers. They enhance and intensify our state of mind. People who would do no harm to others, do no harm to others on drugs. There are plenty of people who consume illegal drugs and are not doing harm to others, they are even helping others.

A person who commits a harmful act under the influence of drugs, only revels the confusion and insanity that lives in their mind. In many ways it is good that they took the drugs, and finally let the sickness that was living in their minds out to be seen. Now it can be addressed… or can it? Not if one blames the problem just created on the drugs or those who sell them.

The problem is in the mind of the individual who created the problem, not the drugs.

Now, I know of plenty of reformed drug addicts who would say, “I would never harm another person, but when I was using drugs, I did.” Yet, in their energy I can feel they are still intending harm even now. Some people say that is different than doing harm. No, not really. By holding it in your intention the energy is out there and it will create. Under stress, it will come out directly through you. Drugs can put the body under extreme stress. It is at those times that the practiced, habitual thoughts comes out; in words and deeds.

This is one way to know when you have met someone who understands their oneness with the All That Is. Under stress, they continue to treat the other as they would like to be treated. And that is with Love and Compassion.

You see, we really have no right to judge others in any way. No one is free of guilt in the intending harm department. Even if you do not do it now, you have at some point in your eternal life. This could become quite a big topic, so I will just leave it at that for now.

All problems have the same source, not knowing who you really are. That is intentional. The game of life was setup that way. The only solution worth pursuing, the only game worth playing, is getting to know one’s own True Self.

Which brings us around to the war on drugs…Pushing against anything, resisting anything, only creates more of it. It is in the nature of God, the perfection of Our evolution, that it is Our focus that creates and increases creation…even if that creation is harmful. Eventually the creation will become so big that there is no denying how it came to be and how to change it.

Thus this problem we call drugs too shall pass. Would you like that to happen sooner or later? If your answer is sooner, take a different course of action. Stop pushing against drugs and accept them as nothing more than a choice, a choice we will cease to make once we have healed our self-esteem and had enough experience with living a life that does work and is gratifying.

Stop making new laws and reverse the existing laws against drugs. Stop making others feel worse for taking them. Focus on loving those who consume drugs and lead them to the joys of life. Love them so completely, make a clear and aware life so appealing, that they can see the pain they are inflicting on themselves, and see through your example a better way that does work.

It is very sad how many of our brothers and sisters and children we have allowed our legal system to imprison merely because they consume drugs. One person is too many.

Our prisons are way too inhumane to continue as they are. Please understand the insanity of our current system. We punish, torture and abuse people who are mentally ill. They must be ill for them to commit a crime. Then after a long period of time we set them free with the new skills they learned in prison. Can you imagine the new level of respect they would have for a society that would do such a thing. How barbaric, can’t you see why things keep getting worse? What do we expect? This energy came from those who drug us by the ears.

Contemplate on all We have taught you and see if you can imagine a future where we actually teach and heal offenders instead of punishing them. There are a lot of new age healers around these days who are wishing they had people to heal. Maybe we could put them to work.

What you do to the least of my brother, you do unto me.

Your children and grand children will have to grow up in this world we are creating. You will incarnate again into this world.

Love is the answer to all of our problems. It really and truly is. Please, choose it sooner, in every thought and action, rather than later.

Love and blessings to you,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

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A reader of my blogs sent me this interesting story. On the surface it makes sense, but if you look just a bit deeper you will see the flaws in its reasoning. These flaws in reasoning are common to all people living in our society today, and are the reason that we have the problems that we do have.

Please enjoy the story and then follow through by reading my comments on it…

Drug Problems - The Story

The other day, someone at a store in a small Midwestern town read that a methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farm house in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, “Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I smiled and replied, “I did have a drug problem when I was a kid growing up on the farm in southeast Missouri.

“I had a drug problem when I was young:

“I was drug to church on Sunday morning.

“I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.

“I was drug to family reunions and community socials, no matter the weather.

“I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults and teachers.

“I was also drug to the wood shed and beaten savagely when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher. Or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

“I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden, and flower beds, and cockleburs out of dad’s soybean fields.

“Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack or heroin, and if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America might be a better place today.”

Drug Problems - The Flaws in Reasoning

Those people of yesterday are the leaders, the teachers, of those of us who are living today. They are the creators of the life and culture we live in toady. It is their teaching, that we can force others to do the “right thing”, which is the root of the problems we face today.

What is the “right thing?” Well that is another problem; the assumption that there is one “right thing” and that any individual knows what the “wrong thing” for another person is.

We each can only know what is right for us. And we each can only know what is right for us in this now moment. Tomorrow, next week, or next year that right thing may now be the wrong thing and the wrong thing may now be the right thing.

The perfection in life is in our evolution. Evolution comes as we are faced with our previous creations, and we decide what we don’t like, and from that is born greater clarity on what we do want to create. From that point on, we need to focus on what we do want, rather than on blaming and complaining and focusing on what we don’t want.

In the past, for the entire history of mankind it seems, we believed forcing others to do the right thing made our world a better place to live in. Yet, has there ever been a time when we did not see problems in our world, or in the people who inhabit it? Can you see that this belief has never worked?

Forcing others to do something, anything, says to them, “You don’t matter. Your opinions, ideas, beliefs, and desires don’t matter. We know better than you.” Repeated over and over, as a person grows up from a child to an adult, this message is hypnotic and creates low self-esteem in the individual who had different ideas.

People with low self-esteem are not playing with a full deck. They are confused, delusional, needy, angry, violent and insane. Sadly this is most of the people on the planet. They are not people who know what the right thing is for themselves, let alone for other people.

Yet it is precisely these same people, with low self-esteem who are dragging others about by the ears and forcing them to do the “right thing,” merely because they have enough physical power to do so.

A person with true self-esteem, true wisdom, true understanding of life, demonstrates their wisdom in the way they live. Others flock to them to learn their secrets. They are loved in ways that most of us can only dream about being loved. They lead others by their example. And they love others unconditionally.

Yes, unconditional love really does mean loving regardless of the conditions.

Do you know what Nelson Mandela did in prison? He treated his guards, the very people who kept him in prison and even abused him, as real people. He asked them about their families and conversed with them as friends do. He became the president of the very country that imprisoned him.

How about Gandhi? He would rather starve his own body than let the people he loved go on striking back at their abusers. Thus he led a nation to free itself from the tyranny of a foreign government. Millions of people in India got to learn firsthand, by personal experience, that all people matter, no matter what they say or do. The rest of the world got to learn by observing this process.

Jesus Christ forgave the very people who tortured and crucified him. He knew there was no such thing as death and thus he showed us all the impermanence of erroneous thoughts, and the permanence of Truth and Life itself. Two thousand years later we still hold him up as a prime example of what is possible for all of mankind.

To be continued…

Kind Regards,

Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

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A Course in Miracles says that God does not condemn because there is nothing to forgive. To arrive at this conclusion however will require a different perspective than the one from which pain and suffering occur on. It will also require practice. When you are in emotional distress you have less energy, less power available to you. That is when we fall into habits and run on automatic pilot. So it is essential to develop new habits when you are feeling good, or at least in a neutral place.

Let’s explore a real life example given to me by a woman who lost her only sibling to murder. She said that she was looking forward to seeing “the day of repentance” rather than “the day of judgment” for his murders. That means she is very close to grasping the deeper lessons in her experience.

This exercise falls under the categories of both contemplation and right thinking. Ideas you can explore in such a situation are:

• Why do I suffer because a loved one is dead?
• Is it for my loss or is it because I am afraid of death?
• Can I have some sign, some experience, that tells me my loved one is trying to let me know that they are well?
• Can I savor and remember that sign when I am feeling loss?
• Can I recognize and appreciate what it is that I still do have? Perhaps their absence freed up some energy that I can now direct in new ways.
• Can I appreciate that I have plenty of things, people, loved ones, to get by for just this one day, just this one single moment?

And there are many other thoughts that you can use to transform your feeling about it. Keep on reaching for new thoughts until you feel a change. This is exercise for the mind! The more you practice the stronger you will be and the better you will get at it. If you are stuck on some aspect of this please ask for help. You must make friends with a new perspective, you must find a new way to view the pain and suffering such that the pain and suffering disappear. I assure you that it is possible. Then use this new perspective to dig yourself out of an emotional hell hole the next time you find yourself in one.

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The topics of “Forgiveness” and “Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People,” are a very close match. Underlying these two topics is a common root, perception and perspective.

First of all we would not need forgiveness if bad things did not happen, if people did not do bad things to us. Isn’t that correct? So what makes a thing or an event bad? This is a question that we must ask ourselves, and we must not stop asking until we go very deep with this question.

It is pain and suffering that cause us to label a thing or event as bad. But what if pain and suffering were optional? What if an event occurred and even if it would usually cause pain and suffering, it did not? Or what if the pain and suffering lasted only a fraction of the time it usually does, say only 1% as long? Would that make it easier to hold back your judgment about an event? To give it some time before you decide if it were good or bad?

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