The Remedy is the Experience

* At 5am this morning, I woke from a dream I was having. I don't remember specifics, but in my dream, I was going about a normal day, but everything I did seemed to go wrong or fall apart. I kept telling myself (in the dream) that everything happens for a reason and there's a higher power at work here and I kept laughing off whatever thing had gone wrong, but it was getting harder and harder to laugh because I was becoming irritated as things continued to be different from how I wanted them to be.

I woke up to my alarm at 6am after dozing in and out for an hour after that dream. I thought about how I hate having days like the one in my dream and hoped I wasn't getting ready to have one today. My Hubby got called to work at 7, so I took my boys down to the end of the driveway and put them on the school bus. Hubby arrived back as the boys were leaving so we hung out and talked for half an hour. I'd planned on going to the bread store (where the bread's cheap) this morning to get a bunch of bread for my freezer, so as Hubby left for work, I followed him out of the driveway and headed off on my way.

* I get 8 miles from home..... 1 mile from my destination when a voice in my head tells me to look in my purse and make sure I have money. I grab my purse as I'm sitting at a red light and dig through real quick. I not only have no money, but my wallet isn't inside, so I don't have a debit or credit card either. I had to turn around and go back home.

As I head in the direction I just came from, I decide there's no way I'm driving all the way back up here today. My Hubby is very gas conscientious and would have a stroke anyway. I'm a little annoyed with myself because if I'd checked before I left, this wouldn't be an issue. Then I think of the dream I had. *Everything happens for a reason... there's a higher power at work here* I say to myself and continue home.

I have a mixed CD in my van. I call it my "power mix". It's just a bunch of songs that I love that make me feel good. One of the songs is by Jason Mraz. It's called "Remedy". I was listening to it during the last 3-4 miles of my trip home. The first line of the chorus is... "The remedy is the experience." Here's where it all got a little weird. LOL The following is the thought process that blew through my head at lightning speed. Please excuse me if I go in a circle at any time. Thought processes get you from point A to point B, but it's rarely a straight line!

I mulled this phrase in my head for a moment and decided.... the remedy to an experience really IS the experience. It's through the denial of your current circumstances that you perpetuate the negativity to reoccur. When you accept what's happening and actually allow yourself to experience it, good or bad, you free yourself of the cycle.

Need an example?

**A woman gets beat by her husband. She's miserable and wants out. When she accepts the fact that she's in an abusive relationship and that he doesn't really mean it when he says he's sorry, she can begin to break the cycle and remedy her situation. When she accepts the apology and denies the abuse, she perpetuates the negative cycle.

**When a person finds themselves going in circles and chasing their tails by dating the same kind of person over and over, they're in a cycle. They say they're an "asshole magnet" but the truth is, if they could look at and experience what's really there they'd see the pattern. Most continue on in their patterns though and blame the world because "All the good ones are married".

I believe that a situation will repeatedly repeat itself until you experience it fully and take away the lesson you've been trying to learn from it. If you can see a pattern in your life, there's a belief or thought process you should be examining. Shifting the belief or process to serve you will dissolve the patterns and cycles.

But it's the belief that creates the experience in the first place. So if you're miserable in your experience, the things you believe to be true are to blame. And changing the belief to serve your happiness will change your experience to suit you better.

So.... your beliefs.... beliefs being: thoughts you think over and over and identify with in some way, therefore seeing them as irrefutable truths... your negative beliefs create an experience.... you use the negative experience as PROOF that the belief you hold is true... and you struggle against the situation until you are through it... and then you say... SEE, that's why I know that (fill in the blank with the belief) is TRUE! And so as you believe what you are saying.... you are busily creating another experience to PROVE you right again. There's the pattern.

The remedy to the experience is experiencing what you've created as it IS, instead of as you've already labeled it, or as you saw it last time, or as people SAY you should see it. When you see it for what it is, it can't continue being what you used to think it was because when you don't believe in something, it can't BE.

So the thoughts and beliefs that you hold in your mind and heart that are negative and self sabotaging are like the poison..... but the experience those thoughts and beliefs create is the remedy when you experience it as it is. It's almost like the Universe reflects back your beliefs and God's saying, "Oh honey, now look how yucky you feel from creating this for yourself. Well now you'll know to do it different next time." But we don't GET that message. So we go RIGHT back out and recreate the experience again. The life you live is like looking out at a reflection of your mind. When you truly change a belief, you WILL see your world begin to change to accommodate your new belief.

*As my thoughts are wrapping up the rampage they went on, I remembered my "dream mantra".... Everything happens for a reason. There's a higher power at work here.

NOTE: This is by far the most hysterical synchronicity I have ever seen happen in my life. You can't make this stuff up! I laughed the whole last mile home!

I pulled up to the stop sign at the end of my road and was waiting to cross the intersection and into the last mile of my journey back home. A truck turned off of the main road and onto MY road heading in the same direction I was. As this white, dually truck turns in front of me... there on the tailgate, in black bold letters it says, "Higher Power". Cross my heart, hope to die.. stick a needle in my EYE...THAT'S WHAT WAS ON THE BACK OF THE TRUCK!!! (Hey K... have you ever seen this truck around?!)

Anyway, I laughed. I see synchronicities quite a bit... and I ask for parking spots a lot as we leave and get them... and I started shaking my hands and saying "Booga Booga" at the kids. They laugh. LOL So that was my morning adventure. I hope your morning adventures were fruitful.

Peace & Love,
El

Who Are You?

* I recently realized that I've changed SO much over the past 2 years, that no one in my life knows me anymore, except my Hubby. Funny how alone it makes you feel when you realize that every single person who's ever known you thinks of you very differently than you are. I mean, I USED to be that person. They're not REALLY far off base. But I'm night and day to that girl now.

My friend K uses a word that I love. It's... surfacey. Yeah, you read that right. It's a word to describe the pursuits and concerns of people who are completely wrapped up in ego and who live their lives seeing themselves as separate from the rest of the life on the planet. People who live their lives only on the surface, and cut themselves off from their own peace. That was the girl I was. We'll call her "Surfacey El".

So, I realized quite suddenly one day that every person in my life, outside my husband and children, doesn't have the slightest clue who I really am. I think I've always behaved in an individually, specific way around different individuals in my life. Not meaning to really, but this person laughs at these kinds of jokes, and that person enjoys my dry wit, while the other person enjoys my quick sarcasm. The things about all these traits is, they went away. I mean, not completely, but most of my jokes, wit and sarcasm came from a negative, disconnected place. And that negative, disconnected space in me doesn't run my life anymore. I'm not "Surfacey El" anymore. Well... most of the time. LOL

I'm still learning to cultivate emotions of love and connectedness to my fellow man, but for the most part... I manage to stay connected. I don't automatically criticize people anymore. A silly looking pair of pants and a bright hat would send me into a frenzy of "OMG! Why would someone want to wear that, bla bla bla, etc, etc." I've been learning through my children though. My 8 yr old dressed up in a way that I wouldn't, but when he asked how he looked, I asked him how he felt. He said he felt good, and so I told him ... "If it makes you feel good, then you look GREAT"

That was a powerful sentence in my life. Since then, when I see someone looking like what I would have labeled as STUPID before.... now, I think, WOW... they must feel FANTASTIC! I think the people in my life are actually disappointed when I don't come off with the same old wise cracks that I used to, but I just don't FEEL it anymore.

So here I am. This fantastic new person and I don't have anyone to share me with. Everyone expects me to be different than I am and I'm tired of switching from Surfacey El to Real El all the time. But the thing is... I didn't realize I was tired of doing that, or even that I was really doing it. It was almost unconscious. No.... it WAS unconscious. Because I'd be talking to someone and there's be moments of clarity when I would actually HEAR the things I was saying, and I'd think... WHAT!? What the hell are you saying that for?!... but then I'd get sucked back into whatever drama I was hearing about and the Real El was again forgotten until the ride home.

Then, one day not too long ago... I came out of my LOA closet. You may remember the blog post about it. To recap, I was at my friend T's house (HI T!) and we started having a spiritual/religious discussion and I totally outed myself. Told her what I thought and my ideas on the Universe and God and creation and conscious living and loa and intention/manifestation. I questioned my sanity at the time, but on the ride home, I decided that I wasn't going to be Surfacey El anymore! I'm not her anymore. I was unhappy when I WAS her. No more going back!

The funny thing about all of it though, is that, when I decided to stop being anyone other than who I am now, the Universe compensated by sending me my friend K. I asked the Universe for a friend that was more like the Real El and less like the Surfacey El 6 or 7 months ago, but I was still "popping in and out of consciousness" if you will and I couldn't have her yet. Then I decided there'd be no more popping in and out to suit the expectations of whoever I was around, and suddenly, there was the friend I'd asked for. I committed to being myself no matter what, and God sent me someone who would love, accept and understand me for the new person that I am.

Who do the people in YOUR life think you are? Are you your authentic self, or do you put on a mask? I'm so much happier being my happy, laid back, peace filled self.

Here's to having the courage to be yourself!

Peace & Love,
El