Sabotaging Ourselves

We say that all is one. Then we look around and there are many beings here. We say, “It may all be one, but I am seeing many and we all seem somewhat different.” In this place, we have a physical form. My form is separate from many other forms. Sometimes my body is working well and sometimes it isn’t. I know a time will come when I’m not going to be in my body any more, but right now in this physical place I have a lot of work to do. In this place we are very busy. By definition, when we’re here, we have to be very busy.

If I’m having a miserable day, what can I do?

Do I let it be a miserable day? Do I make it a miserable week? Do I make it a miserable month? Do I make it a miserable year? Do I make it a miserable life? Or do I stop and look at these things, and get some ideas and opinions from people that appear to be somewhat wise? These people are not perfect. However, once in a while it appears that, because all of the difficulties they encountered, the searching they have done and the various kinds of experiences they have had, they have some gems of wisdom that can help make life beautiful. This life is a great gift to have and most of us want to feel it as beautiful.

One of these gems of wisdom is that at some time

we have to stop criticizing our form.

This is very important. We have to stop sabotaging ourselves over and over again by complaining about all the deficiencies that we think our physical form has. “I’m not handsome enough. I’m not pretty enough. I don’t have this. I don’t have that. I’m not intelligent. I’m not … I’m not … I’m not … !”

For starters, just making these assessments about all these things we don’t have is evidence that we’ve been given a great gift in the ability to assess our situation. Even if it appears that we’re the most miserable person that we’ve ever come across and our situation seems to be hopeless, just our saying those words assesses our situation. So we have to be thankful that in fact we have come to a conclusion!

If this is our conclusion, then we must be slightly kind to ourselves and ask if we can do some little thing to slightly change this onerous perception? “I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any job. Nobody appreciates me. Nobody likes me. My family hates me. I hate my family. And I’m waiting for something to change. Is it possible for me to do something about it?”

In wisdom we have to take

a little step to make a change.

We need not be afraid of rejection. Obviously we’ve already been rejected, so what difference does it make if we’ve been rejected 10,000 times or 10,001times? We need make a move and extend ourselves to someone. Perhaps we need to say, “I love you,” or, “I’m sorry about this situation.” The whole idea is just to start to go forward.

The reason why we say we are sorry is that we are beginning to understand that there could be millions of ways of looking at the situation that is bothering us.

There is not only our way of looking at these things,

but there are millions of ways to look at that them!

So we’ve made a gigantic step towards peace and taking down defensive walls by saying, “I’m sorry.” Or we say, “I have no friends. I have nobody that likes me.” Yet if we make a small move forward, we are going to have so many people that love us that we won’t have enough time to be with all of them.

We could start by visiting small children in an orphanage. It’s not so difficult. When life looks bleak and nothing is working right, I don’t know of any other medicine that could be more potent for us than to walk into an orphanage and hug a little person and say that we love him or her, rather than being at home saying, “Nobody loves me.”