The night I sat in a classroom listening to someone explain a type of forgiveness based in an ancient language, I remember feeling a strange relaxation, a sort of letting down, an inward sigh of knowingness.  I remember whispering to my husband, “We’re really onto something.”  It was a totally inadequate comment about the impact of the moment.

That night, I knew, I just knew, we had received a huge gift.  I had no idea then how great the gift was.

I listened to the history of a type of forgiveness being taught in a classroom in a federal prison, a classroom I would later visit with a man who helped create a course for hardened felons.  It was a course based on love…loving God, loving self, and loving neighbors.  It was a course on loving attitudes and forgiveness.  The man’s name was Dan MacDougald Jr, and his instruction changed the recidivism rate in the men who learned his methods.

Forgiveness is the greatest cornerstone of my life.  Every experience I have must pass the forgiveness test, because forgiveness has become such a habit of mind for me.   I explain, to the best of my ability, the concept of what was taught to me, based in the Aramaic language, full of psychological and spiritual implications, on this website.  Look for it on the page titled, Why Forgive.  This Aramaic based form of forgiveness can help anyone learn how to change a mindset and change perception.

When I originally began to study and use this forgiveness formula, we didn’t know what we now know about the brain.  Now we understand how changing a mindset, and ultimately changing an attitude, affects the brain.

A new study, being published in an issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that “people who think that people can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes (errors, problems) than people who think intelligence is fixed.    People who think they can learn from their mistakes have brains which are tuned to pay more attention to mistakes.”

Here’s the takeaway.  When we choose forgiveness, a total change of perception is created in the brain by shifting your mindset from an angry or fearful thought such as:  I am angry at this person, I am sad that this happened and then progressing through the steps of forgiveness.  The last step is to find the good in the person or situation.

You may end up looking for the good in the situation, in someone else, or in yourself.  So often a large part of that good we look for will turn out to be: “What can I learn from this?”

I trusted a respected business person, with an excellent reputation, to deliver a service without receiving a valid contract.  When I contacted him within the time frame we had set for the delivery, he said our agreement had expired, and refused to deliver what I had paid for.  He denied responsibility.  I was shocked and saddened.  It took me several days to find peace, and I sometimes still return to the sadness I feel about his response.  Each time I return to the sadness or the anger, I return to my steps of forgiveness.

Here’s where it gets interesting.  I had a method for changing my mindset about this situation.  I could not change what he had done, but I could change what I had wanted.  Part of what I had wanted was to work with someone I could trust.

And so, I went through the steps of forgiveness, and finally took the step to look for the good. The answer showed up as what I most needed to learn from the situation.  The biggest lesson was not to be a cynic, not to distrust others or myself,  but to be a good business person.  I continue to go back to the process of forgiving every time the sadness or anger towards this person or myself revisits me.

Here’s a wonderful part of this process that helps me to understand how much it contributes to my learning.  Each time I must take the steps of forgiveness around this same situation, I get more information.  For example, I am having a growing awareness that this person, this service, would not be the best for me and my business; that without this person, this service being removed from the picture,  I would not have had the choice to connect to someone who is helping me incredibly.  I would have been spinning my wheels with the first person,  he wouldn’t have provided what I really needed.  As so often happens when I ask for “this or something better,” I receive the “better.”  Now I’m receiving a gift which feels divinely ordered.

The good which has come out of it just keeps coming!  Forgiveness works in so many ways.

Who am I, even if I fancy myself a lifetime learner, to doubt divine order?

Joy & Blessings,
Carole  xx

PS:  One more tidbit…when you continue to make a conscious choice to forgive, you feel deserving of every bit of good which comes to you.

Read the whole article about the brain’s reaction:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/how-the-brain-reacts-to-mistakes

Inclusive:  including, relating to, comprehensive  

I grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, in the era of the civil rights marches.  I was blessed to have parents and other family, who taught me to respect and love all people, and to respect and love myself.  Dr Martin Luther King, Jr’s church was in my hometown.  It was a time of jingoism:  extreme and emotional nationalism.  I remember studying that word, jingoism, in school.  I didn’t know then why I would always remember it.  Now I understand the changes I’ve seen.

Now our country reflects our changing world.  We are finally creating a world, which Dr King once described, “a world in which my little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  Children of tomorrow will know that any limitation in their own potential will exist only within themselves.  They will grow up in the limitless consciousness of the human family that we are becoming.

The world is sending us a symbolic message.  Those of us who live in freedom around the world have great responsibility now.  It is a good time to ask ourselves:

~Am I using my gift of freedom to promote love on this planet?

~How can I love my neighbors here on the planet?

In the Aramaic language, the language of the greatest prophets who influenced the great religions of the world, a neighbor is: anyone near me, anyone I think about, and their operating selves, and belongings.

There’s a beautiful directive of love that is popularly called The Golden Rule...”Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Did you know the Golden Rule can be found in every major world religion?  In Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.”  In Christianity: “And as ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them likewise.”  In Hinduism: “Do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.”  In Islam: “None of you believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”  Judaism: “..thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” In Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”  These are but a few examples among many.

Remember, you have a whole human family of neighbors.  Love them, love yourself, love your freedom, love this planet.  Every day, I try to reflect on the words of Richard Bach, on a small plaque that hangs in my kitchen.  He said, “The bond that links true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each others lives.”

Respect and Joy….

Pass it on…Love your neighbors… Live the Golden Rule.

Joy & Blessings, Carole xx

I don’t always take the time to consciously think about what I’m doing, or why I’m doing it…I just do it!  I find I have more things to do, than I have time to do them, and I’m often concerned with just getting things done!  Sometimes I need a wake up call.  It dawns on me a lot of the behavior I want to believe is coming from my purpose, probably isn’t from my purpose at all…it’s coming from my agenda.

“We teach what we need to learn,“ is an old adage, but it’s so true. 

Will Rogers said something also about learning that really applies to me.  He said that there are “ones that learn by reading, a few who learn by observation, and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.”  Guess where I am?  Standing in line to get to the fence! 

The good part is…I remember what I learn, and it often shows up in my writing.

What does all this have to do with the subject, Purpose or Agenda? 

Whether we’re actively looking for our purpose, our life purpose, that is, our reason for being here….or we simply believe that our experience is better, richer, and more fulfilling when we embrace our purpose…purpose is still important to us. 

Why then, do we get so caught up in our agendas that we lose sight of our purpose?

Purpose can be defined as:  intended or desired result; the aim or reason for which something is done or is used.  Purpose and agenda are sometimes used interchangeably, but they mean far different things.  Agenda is:  a list, or an idea, of what we want to accomplish. 

Agendas tend to be personal, not always well formulated, often impulsive, and not based in wisdom, education, or experience.  It is our agendas which can lead us to the “electric fences” which Will Rogers spoke of.

I developed a course on overwhelm, for women, because so many people around me were stressed and overwhelmed, and were lacking joy in their lives.  It was while I was working on this course, and bringing joy back into my own life, that I learned the difference in having a purpose, and having an agenda. 

You see, I couldn’t have my own agenda while I was writing the course.

The course had a plan of it’s own, and it named itself, Surrender Your Agenda: Finding Your Life Purpose. The course taught me when I choose to surrender, to have a purpose, to be focused on a goal, a result, a reason…I am coming from my heart.  If instead, I have an agenda, that is…my idea of how, what, why, when, and where, it doesn’t work.  That agenda is usually coming from my head.

Find some quiet time.  Give yourself permission to see clearly what you need to know.  Journal, because journaling will help you dig deeper into what you have hidden from yourself.  Quiet your mind, connect with your heart, and allow yourself to know who you want to be in the world.  Ask yourself:  “Where do I have an unconscious agenda which is not in alignment with my deepest purpose?”

When you check with your heart, and realize you may surrender your agenda to serve your purpose, you will find that your heart has the perfect answers you’ve been looking for.

Joy & Blessings,  Carole  xx

I may have received my first glimpse of self responsibility as a young child, when my mother looked me in the eyes and said, “I think you did that on purpose.”  Until that day, my misbehaviors had sneaked under her radar, because she believed I was too young to understand consequences.  This time, however, I was mature enough to know what I had done, and why I had done it.  My will and intention were maturing, and mom was right…I had done it on purpose!

I once heard Dr Wayne Dyer say that the question he is most often asked is that people want to know how they can discover their life purpose. Most of us question our reason for being here at some time in our lives.  Some of us lead lives of frustration believing we are not fulfilling what we came here for.  Almost all of us have a tendency to view our life experiences in one extreme or the other.

• Good or Bad
• Win or Lose
• OK or Not OK
• Success or Failure
  

There’s an authoritarian aspect of us that causes us to perceive our experiences through a black or white, negative or positive filter.  Realistically, most of our choices, accomplishments, and our experiences tend to fall somewhere in a gray or middle area.  Don’t automatically assume that a gray area is a bad place to be…it’s where most of life takes place!

One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  You’ve probably heard it before, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Emerson was acknowledging the power of being in the present, and the reality of continuing to live and thrive without reaching a final destination.

The life purpose we all search for is not a single goal, or attainment.  Our life purpose is a series of accomplishments…actually, a multitude of intentions which lead to accomplishments.  We find our life purpose when we discover who we want to be.  Life purpose is not a single mountaintop experience.  Life purpose shows up everyday that we are living consciously, and making choices based in the intentions which reflect our deepest values.  Every experience, every lesson, every win, every loss, is a valuable and necessary part of life’s journey.

Realize you are on purpose, in your life purpose, right now.  Your will and intention are mature enough to make you aware of exactly what you are doing.

Are you becoming the person that you want to be?  Are you making conscious choices to move toward that goal, that reality, that life, of who you are, in the deepest part of you?  Each choice you make reveals choices which were unavailable to you before.

Grow your life purpose…it’s your assignment here on the planet. 

Stay in the present.  You are enough!  And by the way, wherever you are, be there!

Joy & Blessings, Carole  xx

We often hear the term consciousness used, yet seldom defined.  I love this definition of consciousness by Eric Butterworth, one of my greatest inspirations:  “Consciousness might be defined as:  All your ideas and attitudes and beliefs…both the things that come to you, and the things that have been accepted by you.  It is your feeling about life about God, about yourself.  You are a spiritual being, living in a limitless spiritual world, but you manifest only as much of that limitlessness as you feel at one with.  This is consciousness.”

Most of us go through life trying to be a good person.  When I heard someone say one day, “What I’m receiving now, I have given in the past,” a heartbulb went off.  If a person is happy, prosperous, and loved, that truth sounds good.  If life is sad, lonely, and lacking, it’s a hard truth to embrace.

I have a little box…I like boxes.  It says, “Dance like no one is looking, sing like no one can hear you, love like you can’t be hurt.”  I added, “Give like you have plenty.”

You have to give unconditionally…you know it in your heart. Giving, being of service, making a contribution, is a joy choice. You benefit every time you give, even if it’s not received…and many times it won’t be received…keep giving anyway. You will open up the flow to bring more consciousness into your life every time you give.

My dad’s name was Worth.  It’s one of my favorite words for a multitude of reasons.  Dad was a giver.  He and my mom taught me to give.  I’ve known lots of givers in my life.  They taught me that it doesn’t work if you give to receive.  If you give, you feel worthy of receiving, and then you receive naturally.

• Go way past thinking of service as just time and money
• Give anytime you can
• Give to friends, strangers, loved ones any way you can
• Take time for living things.  Communicate with people…talk to the elderly woman in the supermarket, acknowledge a service person, hold open a door, smile at someone, help!
• Give more than is asked of you
• Don’t store it, share it!  You learned that at 3 years old…share your joy, your abilities, your attention, your time, your love.