Be Healthier, Wealthier, and Happier

We’ve been told that we must learn to trust; yet in our life experience there seems to be enough of heart wrenching betrayals that leave us wondering what trusting others and trusting ourselves really means.

With all the good intentions, things happen sometimes.  The trouble may lie in our expectations that we expect that our trust batting average must be 100%.  No one bats 100% on anything!  Yet every betrayals and wrong decisions eclipses our confidence in others and our ability to trust.

So, what’s an acceptable trusting batting average?  Maybe for those people who are super successful, it is not that they have never been betrayed and lose, but they just kept moving until they ended up with someone trustworthy?!  They didn’t bother dwelling on the past
failures and the feelings of betrayal, they just keep moving and seeking until they find their trustworthy tribe.

It takes forgiveness to be able to move on and move forward.  Every time we stopped and licked our old wounds and talked about our “lesson learned”, essentially we are shackling ourselves back to the old wounds and those old betrayals.   Rather than letting go and moving on, we hold on to them like the biggest treasures in our lives that we must hide it deeply, never forget and remember to take it out to re-examine and “admired” periodically.   It’s no wonder that we are living a life filled with fears, false boundaries and we don’t seem to make any progress; just reliving, recreating the wounds over and over again.  Kind of like the movie “Ground Hog’s Day” isn’t it?

Trusting and forgiving is like the palm of a hand and the back of a hand; one cannot exist without the other.   As it is bound for us to trip over many times in our lives in trusting ourselves and trusting others, learning to forgive is like learning to releases the toxins injected into us by the betrayals and failures and apply healing agents to heal ourselves.  Just like any cuts and bruises we get from time to time, the cuts and bruises eventually needs to heal to allow us to continue functioning properly.  Without healing, there can be no trusting again.

Forgive starts with a clear realization that “whoa, whatever is lost is lost; I accept it.  Any more time, pain, suffering and brain power I continue to invest in it would be continue feeding more lost than what I already lost.  Why?!!!”.  When we stop picking on the wounds, wounds heals.   Whether we decide to continue dealing with the person who betrayed us is irrelevant in the forgiveness equation.  I would even venture further to say that whether we choose to be compassionate toward the person who betrayed us are also irrelevant.  Someone deserves another chance; others don’t.  We are responsible for our choices; we are responsible for the future hurts or benefits resulted from our choices.  New wounds might get formed again, but they are not the old wounds.   New benefits might get formed too and they have nothing to do with the old wound either.  Just by forgiving and letting go, we declared an end to an old entanglement.  We allow the positive energy to flow again and creates a space to trust someone or something again.

In the forgiving equation, the only person we absolute need to continue dealing with is ourselves; walking away from ourselves is not an option.  Maybe that’s why forgiving ourselves and moving on is often the hardest one to achieve.

How do we trust ourselves that we will not put ourselves in “danger” and lose again?  The truth of the matter is that as a human, the chance of us failing at something again is almost guaranteed.  Yet, the most valuable difference between others and us though is that we cannot control and change others, but we can absolutely control and change ourselves! So, rather than keep trying to prevent ourselves from ever fail or betray ourselves again, trust can be built base on increasing our own ability to learn, to adjust and competently maneuver ourselves out of a terrible situations.

While we often remembered countless times where we failed and betrayed ourselves, how often do we take the time to remember the countless other times we got ourselves out of a terrible jams and near disasters?!! Yes, there are always going to be something in hindsight we wish we have never gotten involved, but our live is not over yet.  Unless we already declared ourselves un-trainable with zero ability to learn and grow until the end of our live,  perhaps we deserves more faith in believing in ourselves that at the end of the day we will create more win than lose in our life time?

Everybody likes to talk about love, but very little people actually want to talk about being loving.  Can one really truly love when the actions are consistently unloving?

I started this inquiry by looking for the definition of loving on the internet.  Interesting enough, other than getting something general like: Feeling or showing love or great care, I don’t see anything remotely describing the specific of what the acts of being loving means.  More precisely, most articles and definitions go into the details closely associating loving as result of love.  But is love really necessary to being loving toward another? Or vise versa; are those people who love by default practices being loving toward their love ones?

Base on my observations and my own experience, I actually don’t think love translates to loving.   As matter of fact, I have seen enough people who appear to truly love another, yet their actions and words consistently hurt another to know that this is not true.  I believe while love is a state of mind, loving is a way of being and a habit.

As a habit, through watching how people around us act, we learned to treat people a certain way and talk to people a certain way.  A trained loving person doesn’t “think” about needing to act lovingly just as an unconscious harsh person doesn’t “think” about needing to act cruel; they just do.   A loving person seems to have a natural tendency of finding something kind and encouraging to say even in the worst of a situation vs. most other seems to have a kin ability to find something negative to comment on regardless how great a situation may be.  A trained loving person naturally have the habit of treating people around them with kindness, respect, courtesy,  generosity and compassion instead of the habit of showering people with their righteous critiques, negative name calling and harsh tones and voices.   A loving person also seems to have a constant awareness of the power of their words and their actions and the impacts their words and action may have on others.  They consistently choose to use their words and actions wisely as a tool to connect rather than a weapon to dominate,  justify and destroy.  When they are
around, there is an undeniable sense of gentleness, warmth and a safe space where people feel they are accepted and understood.  It is no wonder that people love to hang around them!

So why do some people who love able to also consistently act lovingly yet most others who love found themselves consistently act cruel?  When I took a closer look, it seems love have nothing to do with it. Rather, it depends on whether we are properly trained
and whether we have a loving role model that helps shape our habits of interacting with others or not.   For the lucky few who have been taught, demonstrated and learned through their environment to practice being loving, it has become their personality; they are able to treat people lovingly regardless whether they know them well or not; for the most trained one, in many incidences they didn’t even have to like the person to be loving toward them!  This is profound!  For the rest of us, we were left to figure it out for ourselves.  Without actively discovering and re-creating our habits, most of us end up acting and reacting just like our parents and our close environment; monkey-see; monkey do.

I wish I can say I am a trained loving person; but I can’t.  As matter of fact while some parts of being loving comes naturally to me like respecting others, being courteous and not calling other negative names, I really struggle with being generous and being compassionate sometimes.  It’s easier to resent and withhold then to forgive and be generous.  While I am able to tone down and reduce my habit of being righteous through years of retraining, I still catch myself getting irritated when people don’t do what I
suggest.   I admire those who have learned and master the art of being loving toward everyone.  Not only I want to be like them; I want to be around them (for the obvious reason).

As I continue to catch myself and retraining myself, I hope one day I will also be able to declare myself a master at being loving and attract more loving people into my life.   Even though, I failed many times, I’m not giving up.  It just seems more exciting to learn how to be a person who lives and breathe giving lights to others than someone who by default adding darkness into others’ live. Isn’t it?

From time to time, there is this pit in the stomach type of feeling that seems to be reminding us that we are in danger, something “bad” is going to happen to us, or a sick feeling that we are being “attacked”, “looked down on”, “laugh at”,….It seems that everything directing at us are negatives, criticisms, chipping away any sense of our own worthiness.  We get sad, we get afraid, we get angry and we want to fight back and really give it to those who put these feelings upon us.  How dare they?!!! They are our enemies and we must destroy them.  Right now! 

Does this sound familiar?  The fights we end up having with our loving one, the one we care; at that moment they don’t seems like our love one; they are our enemies and they must be DESTROYED.  Well, most often, we don’t mean destroyed physically (although, in some case it seems to go that extreme), but we will muster all of our know-how to destroy their self-esteem, their accomplishments, their sense of well being and worthiness just like how they appear to be doing it to us.

So, what doe these sounds like?  People at war!  Yes, it all starts from that tingly feeling of insecurity and inferiority we felt about ourselves well within inside of us.  As people, we go to war with people around us base on it.  As a nation, we go to war with other nations base on it. 

That appear seemly innocent seeds of insecurities and lack of confidences really are not as innocent as we make them out to be.  From insecurity, people become jealous of others.  From insecurity, people become paranoid of everything that is said to them. From insecurity, people become envious of others and dissatisfied with what they have.  Insecurity in reality is a powerful destructing energy that disguises itself as a weak, powerless, victim like character.  It gave us righteous reasons to do what we do and say what we say even though for the most part it served only to destroy rather than to heal; it serves to break people apart rather than unite.   The world is where it is because of this collective insecure energy within us.  Inside of these insecurities, everything that is said and done is interpreted as bad and/or insincere.  Inside these insecurities, every neutral intentions and well attempts gets interpreted as conspiracies to destroy.  There are no trust, no hope, no love; just measures and counter measures; the sign of struggling and surviving; not living.

When the moment of our live turn dark and despair,  rather than lashing out and defend, perhaps it’s better to remind ourselves to take a deep breath and check-in to see whether it’s our own demon called Insecurity that is nudging us to do a  foolish thing and say something destructive that we are destine to regret.  It is good to be reminded that our loves one are not our enemies, so stop treating them like one.  The feeling of insecurity comes from within us and NOT from them.  It’s up to us to learn to let go of our own insecurities and embrace our own worthiness day by day and minutes by minutes.  We need to always ask ourselves this question:  If the other person truly having such an ill intention toward us, having such a low opinion of us and/or is as bad of a person as we said they are, then why do we still hang around with them?!!!  What story are we perpetuating here?  If they are truly bad, it is time for us to leave; that would be the courageous thing that we must do to support our own well being.   If they are not truly as bad as we said though, then why are we not protecting, respecting, cherishing and loving them?  What permission are we giving ourselves that we truly have no rights of in ways of how we treat another person?

As a human, we are not mean to be perfect; however, as a human we have infinite capacities to reconcile and bring more lights into our lives and other’s lives.  It all starts from the awareness that our insecurities kills.  It is our responsibilities and NOT other’s responsibility to manage our own demon within moments by moments.  While being a human, we will feel insecure.  It is like weathers, we will get showered on from time to time.  Like dealing with weather, aside from acknowledging and accepting this humanness within us, there is NOTHING we need to do with this insecurity.  

It is amazing to realize that when we stop feeding our own insecurity by acting out from it and respond or react to it in anyways, it stop dominates our live.  Insecurity comes and insecurity goes, before we know it, our focus shifted, our energies changed.  We are no longer so addicted to the dramas that generated from insecurities, instead we have more room to experiment, play and engage with our live.  We no longer need to worry about what other people think, do or said as much.   People are going to think, do or said what they are going to think, do or said.  It really doesn’t impact us until we let it impacts us.   While as a human, it’s difficult to not allow anything to impact us, but even if we only raise our own awareness by 1 % and choose to be secure in the face of our tendency to be insecure just one more time than before, collectively we would have changed the landscape of our life and our environment drastically for the better.  So, is it going to be war or peace?  We choose.

Lately, I am experiencing a lot of tensed relationships around me.  I often wondered how a relationship ends up where they are now.  I am certain that people didn’t decide to marry someone so they can torture each other, tear each other down, criticizes each other and destroying each other’s self esteem.  However, it seems that very often that’s how a marriage ended up.  It’s no wondering that comedian Dave Spade equated marriage like going through the Japanese game show “Wipe out”. Once a while we see one person flying through the obstacle course with ease and grace; most often though, no matter how one tries, we see one quick wipe out after another.

So what are we doing in a relationship that seems to aggravate more than nurturing? What are we not seeing what we are doing that’s causing such turmoil in our live and the live of the one we claimed we love so much that we married?

I just read a book called “The path of least resistance – Learning to become the creative force in your own life” by Robert Fritz.  It got me asking: humm, are we problem solving our relationship or are we creating our relationship?  What’s the difference anyway? 

While the book started kind of slow and the book seem to end on a tangent, I really appreciated how the author clearly distinguishes the difference between creating and problem solving.  He pointed out the importance of having a clear understanding of knowing whether we approach live predominately with problem solving orientation vs. creative orientation.  He further pointed out the pitfalls of mistaking problem solving for creating. 

For most of us, we choose to be in a relationship and we choose to be married.  We choose the person we are in relationship and we choose who we would marry.  In essence, we created our relationship and we created our marriage.  I love what Robert Fritz said about creation.  “The only reason you would create anything is because you LOVE IT ENOUGH to see it exist! “  For any other reasons, we are merely problem solving.  So, if we really sit down, thinking about and reflect, maybe when we thought we “chose” and “created”, we actually went into a relationship or married someone to solve a problem?!!! Perhaps, it’s is our lack of understanding of the difference between creating and problem solving that is tripping us up in life and in relationships?

Moreover, we may have further our own demise when we confusing our wants from our needs.  It is most certain at least for most of us in a free society that relationship and marriage are like a piece of timeless art or music, we really DON’T need to be in a relationship nor be in a marriage to survive. We created our relationship and our marriage just like artists created their art and the composers created their music because we love it enough to see it exist and the creations enriches our lives immensely beyond our basic needs. 

When we hold on, going into a relationship or staying in a marriage with the mistaken notions that we need it, or we are obligated in some way, we essentially killed our possibility to create in these realms; instead we committed our relationship and marriage to endless problem solving and surviving.  If we found our relationship and marriage end up to be merely an exercise of problem solving and surviving rather then endless opportunities to create, perhaps it’s a clear signal for us to stop what we are doing and considered that we may have went off the road and miss the point somewhere.  Rather than continue to slug it out in miseries or just give up, maybe we need to seriously reflecting on where we went off course in the first place?

What I love about learning the realm of creation is that from time to time when a successful artist realized what they are working on clearly won’t fulfill their vision, rather than keep trying to fix what’s clearly not working, they have the freedom to throw away what is not working for them and start over with a blank new canvas.  The vision didn’t change but the approach maybe drastically different.   In the realm of creating a fulfilling relationship and marriage, the opportunity is also there to wipe the slate clean and start over with the same person (the same vision).  However, this is only possible when we clearly know what we want, clearly choose what we want, be willing to be brutally honest with ourselves on our current state of affair so we know how far we are from our vision and where we went off course, dump all of our old resentments and baggage and start over again. 

I am not saying wiping the slate clean and start over is easy to do; I wouldn’t say that it is too hard either.  It’s not easy because it takes courage to face our reality (what it’s so) without pointing finger at anyone or anything.  It’s also not easy because in order for us to face our reality clearly without dramatic smoke screens, we need to train ourselves to let go of our precious ego (or false pride) continuously.  On the other hand, it is not that hard either because when one got clear of what is truly more important to them in their life (creating a fulfilling and peaceful relationship or creating countless trophies that show everyone that “See, I’m right! She’s an irresponsible bitch!” or “See, I’m right! He’s a big ass, no good jerk!”), the mind can switch in a second and actions follows it can changes drastically.  I know it’s possibly because I’ve seen it done over and over by people who found clarity on issues that have troubled them for whole life.  I’ve seen people change their life course just like that; in a second; with clarity!

From reading Robert Fritz’s book, I have a renew hope.  It is possible for all of us to create a great and fulfilling relationship that enriches our life more than torturing our live.  For those who may be struggling, confused, resigned and angry with their current state of affair in their relationship and in their marriage, perhaps it is time to revisit every choices they have made along the way; even the original decision to get into the relationship or the marriage in the first place.  The opportunity to wipe everything clean starts with revisiting these choices and re-choosing them separately and together as a team.  All is well even if upon revisiting that you found the original choice and decision was a mistake; if you had to do it all over again, you would not choose each other.  All is well because this time around, regardless whether you choose to stay or go, you would choose and take a stand for your life out of clarity and nothing else.  If you stay, the team you created with each other would be a totally different team than you created out of a totally different reason.  This time, you will give your relationship and marriage an honest chance because it will come from a place where you brought to existance only because both of you love it enough to see it exist and live on.

What  is it that makes us create such asses of ourselves when what we really want is to be champions?  What within us causes that wrong turn, leading us to become idiots instead of the heroes we strive to be?  Well, in my case, pride.

Once again, I find myself recovering from a stumble.  No, not a stumble, an outright face-first fall.  I let my pride get in the way of my responsibility to my best friend.  There’s no excuse for it, plainly.  You’d have thought by now, I’d have learned that needing to be right is no substitute for actually being right.  Hurting someone I am supposed to protect is my prize for standing by my failed reasoning.

The truth is that she is the real hero and I’ve known that since we first met.  She has endured so much from me and I honestly don’t know how or why she does.  I thank God for her, but still I fail to take every opportunity to treat her like the wonderful, powerful treasure she is.

I ask her to forgive me for being an ass and an idiot and a fool.  I can’t promise I won’t ever be these things again, but I can promise to learn to kick myself when I am.

I got the information below from a friend.  What a great idea!  I thought rather than just using the jestures to show gratitude to those hard working military personnels, why not extending to everyone you meet that you like to say thanks but felt too awkward (especially those that are close to you? )?  Our world can really use some good vibes all around. 

Here it goes:

Have you ever seen one of our military walking past you and wanted to convey free us cellular audiovox ringtones | polyphonic ringtones for sony ericsson | free ringtones sent to your phone | cingular wireless ringtones | free sprint cell phone ringtones | yahoo ringtones free download | download free mobile ringtones virgin | cheap mobile ringtones virgin | download free ringtones to cellular phone | download free ringtones | ericsson polyphonic ringtones sony | free funny voice ringtones | cingular free go phone ringtones | c139 free motorola ringtones | free cingular music ringtones | polyphonic ringtones | cricket ringtones | crazy download free frog ringtones | music real ringtones | cingular download free ringtones | to them your thanks, but weren’t sure how or it felt awkward?Recently, a gentleman from Seattle created a gesture which could be used and has started a massive movement to get the word out. Please everybody take just a moment to watch…. The Gratitude Campaign …and then forward it to your friends!
http://www.gratitudecampaign.org/shortmovie.php

As I was driving home, it dawns on me all of the sudden the magnitude of what a marriage vow is all about!  I got that marriage vow is really an ultimate expression to the other person promising that they can count on you for the rest of your life.  Yet looking at the reality, listening to my friends’ complaining about the little things that their husband repeatedly promised and didn’t do and my own frustration of dealing with incidents of broken promises but fill with justifications with my boyfriend, I can see how a otherwise great marriage or a great relationship can and do deteriorate overtime right in front of our eyes by these appearing inconsequential and innocent broken promises!  Each broken promises no matter how small it appears done repeatedly, just reinforce the message that “Na, I’m kidding, you can’t really count on me, you shouldn’t count on me and how dare of you counting on me!”.

The worst part is talking to couples years later, they often speaking of falling out of love with such confusion and mystery.  Yet, I see no mystery anymore.  When one person finally decided they can’t  and won’t count on the other person to do what they say they are going to do ever again and start seeking other solutions, over time, the connection is broken and when couples continues to ignores it and not working to restore the integrity behind each words said, the game will be over.

Yes, when a promise is broken in a marriage or your relationship, you often expect the other to “understand”; you get upset with your better half for not being a considerate partner.  Yet, the funny thing is that the same you would not dare to repeatedly breaking your promises at work; the consequence for doing that at work is clear; if you break your promises at work to someone important in the company often enough, you are guarantee to be out of work soon.  However, most people often fail to realize that keeping a marriage or a great relationship is no different than keeping your job!  If you fail to keep your promises and do what you said you will do often enough, you lose your credibility, your trustworthiness the same way;  you may not lose your marriage or your relationship, but you are guarantee to have a rocky marriage or relationship that fill with irritation, distrust, argument and coldness.   So, if your marriage or your relationship is really as important to you as your work, why is it OK for you to not be as diligent with you words in your relationship as you do at your work?  Think about it, Women maybe from Venus and Men maybe from Mars, but the basis for a great relationship is really no rocket science!

Do you ever getting into a situation where no matter how careful you tried saying something or how precise you tried to communicate something, the other person seems to always find the “worse” interpretations of what you said and fight you all the way?  Do you feel frustrated?  Do you feel suppressed? Do you feel hopeless and angry at those moments?  (By the way, this can totally go the other ways too. i.e. someone trying to say something to you and the more they said the angrier and defensive you got…)

Yet, in other instances, your communication with another can be quite sloppy; sometimes you didn’t even need to finish your sentences, the other person will get it anyway?

Well, Robert and I had a couple episodes like the first case last month. It seems like the more we want to “communicate” with each other on this particular topic, the more we get angry with each other.  Knowing that we usually communicate and “get” each other so well in so many areas of our relationship, it baffles me that we can totally lose relatedness with each other on this one topic to the point of wondering why we stay together.  Needless to say, there was some drama in the air surrounding our relationship.

Finally, instead of attempting to throw even more communication at each other or tries to “communicate” yet a “different way”, I decided to give each other a “time out”.

In my “time out” period,  I sat back, playing back in my head what I said to Robert and what he said to me, he’s reactions to what I said and my reactions to what he said; like watching a video recording, I paused, rewind and slowed down frame-by-frame many times.  I asked myself: How exactly did the conversation went so badly? 

Surprisingly, an answer came into my head like a switch: “You are solving the wrong problem!  It’s a trust issue and not a communication issue, girl!  Communicating with each other is not your problem!”

Duh!  Of course, on this particular case, due to my past reactions to what he told me, Robert didn’t trust that I would support him and based on his past actions (or inactions), I didn’t trust that he would do what he said he is going to do!  So how can we really come to an understanding that give both of us comfort and assurances that we need, when we don’t trust each other?  The answer is no way!  Regardless how much we communicate with each other and how refined our communication techniques were, it would have made no difference!

Fortunately, proper awareness of what is the real issue is indeed the first step needed to start restoring our harmony.  From there, instead of jump into yet another communication session on “the topic”, we took the time to acknowledge our fears, our distrust and where we lost each other’s trust.  From there we discuss how we can both improve in gaining each other’s trust.   

Life is good again, I’m grateful to have gone through this experience and get that when something is not working, more communication or better communication may not be the solution.  When communication fails, it is time to step back and check whether or not trusting is the real issue. Without trust, no communication; regardless how fine the technique you use, will ever get through to another person.  So, let’s work on trust first.

p.s. On the topic of trust, I recently found a wonderful book that really helped me get a lot of clarity on this topic.  It is called “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen M. R. Covey (He is the son of Stephen R. Covey, the author of 7 habits of highly effective people).  I highly recommend this book as a resource to start tackling on any trust issues and start opening a constructive dialog on trust with people you run into issue with.