Inner180

I’ll never complain about anything again, I swear, after spending last weekend reading Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.  The author, Immaculee Ilibigiza, was just 22 years old when, in 1994, Rwanda suddenly descended into an unspeakably brutal genocide in which machete-wielding Hutus slaughtered nearly a million ethnic Tutsis.

The memoir recounts the brutal murders of Immaculee’s beloved parents and brothers, along with scores of her friends, neighbors and schoolmates.  She escaped her own death only by hiding in silence for three months in a local pastor’s three foot by four foot bathroom with seven other women, only to emerge starving and still in great danger.

This is a deeply moving love story, in which Immaculee transcends her fear and hatred of those who tore her life, her family, and her country apart.  Ultimately, she faces and forgives her family’s killers.  It is a remarkable and inspiring account of unconditional love under the most challenging circumstances imaginable.

And you think you have problems?

That it’s hard to forgive your ex?

That the economy is scary?

That you can’t let go of your dysfunctional childhood?

That life handed you a raw deal?

If you ever have whiney, victim-y thoughts, read this book.  If you hold onto your painful past for any reason, read this book.

You’ll get a new perspective in a flash, I promise.

From Joy Dieter Bonnie’s journal…

I’m up early, 4:30.  I put on Christmas music, light a fire in the fireplace, and pour the first cup of freshly brewed coffee.  I get out the card stock printed with a poem from Martha Beck’s book Steering by Starlight. I have bought a stamp of cascading snowflakes, an artsy ink pad and glitter to add a touch of magic to the insert for my Christmas cards.

I stamp the first poem. Hmmm. It doesn’t look so special. Hmmm. I add some glitter. Oh **!!??!!!**!! I blobbed. That looks stupid! I try again. I blob again! I take my finger and try to artfully smear my blob. Oh !!!XXX******1?!! I have tons of these to do!! Pull yourself together girl! After all you are an artist. This stuff, these stupid stamps and dumb glitter, is for kids for goodness sake!

I notice I don’t feel so Christmassy. My faced is screwed up. My shoulders are tight.  As I’m holding the glitter bottle, I notice that my hand and my teeth are clenched. I yell at my cat when he comes onto the table and attempts to relax amongst the craft supplies and just hang with me. Damn cat! Damn Christmas cards! Damn, damn, damn!

I move, to brood, in front of the fire. My journal is there beside the couch. I pour a second cup of coffee and write: “What are you thinking girl?”

“The inserts look stupid. I thought this would be fun. I thought they would be special. They’re not good enough.  I want people to like them, to think that they are special. I should have gone back to the place where I bought those bookmarks last year. Everyone really liked them and I got a lot of compliments.”

Whoa! Hang on one minute.
THEY aren’t good enough? Is that true?
That’s a really special poem you’ve got there.

“ I want the insert to be special. I’m giving it as a gift. I want it to be something people will like and appreciate and value.”

Sounds pretty demanding to me. Sounds pretty manipulating. You send it, and they will what?,  do what you want? be how you want?  Reminds me of a ransom note, Do this, or else… How do you feel when you think the inserts aren’t good enough?

“I feel like throwing everything out. I feel like trashing the cards, like throwing them in the fireplace.”

Doesn’t sound like peace and goodwill to me.
.
“I want people to like them.”

Like them? Tell me where I’m wrong here, but it sounds like it’s about you – about whether people like you. You want people to like you, isn’t that what’s true here?

“Okay, I do want people to like me. But, I want people to like the insert in the card. I just don’t think the inserts are good enough?”

You think, the INSERTS are not good enough?

Hmmmmmm. “Maybe I’m thinking I’m not good enough!”

What could you send if you felt, “I am good enough.”, or,  “I Am enough.” ?

“I could send love. I wouldn’t even need to send cards, I could engage every person on my card list in my heart and send them love. Or I could send love, that I’m actually feeling, with each card.”

How do you feel when you think, “I can send love.”?

“Good! I feel happy and open and Christmassy. I feel loving.”

Okay. Lets start again                                            :
Martha passed along a gift, pass it on.
Where did the gift come from?

“Hmmmm, The Source. The Source so loved the world a gift was given….
Hmmmm. The African people received the gift and passed it on.”

Good. Martha received a gift and passed it on…

“I received it and I pass it on.
The card insert receivers receive it and… that’s their business I stay out of it.”

Good! How do you feel now?

“I feel unwound, happy, relaxed, I feel Christmassy. I can feel the warmth of the fire, I can hear the beautiful Christmas music and I realize my cat is snuggled up beside me as I journal.”

How do you feel about the stamping and the glitter and everything now?

“I look forward to playing with the stamps and glitter. Really playing, joyfully playing, imprinting each card with joy and love and goodwill, blobs and all. I receive and I pass it on….I’m going to live while I’m alive!”

Live while you are alive…
Learn to be what you are in the seed of your spirit
Learn to free yourself from all things that have molded you
And which limit your secret and undiscovered road…
Never forget that love
Requires that you be
The greatest person you are capable of being,
Self-generating and strong, and gentle -
Your own hero and star…
Be grateful for life as you live it,
And may a wonderful light
Always guide you along the unfolding road.

This poem was written by Derek Walcott, a poet and writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. He’s from St. Lucia, in the West Indies, which I hear is the most beautiful island in the Caribbean, which, to me, means it must be the most beautiful place on earth.

Doesn’t this say it all, and so beautifully?

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the others welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Karen was ecstatic. She was tired of being single and sent an email to an old boyfriend. He immediately returned the email and told her he was single, too. He wanted to see her. They spoke and made a date for the following weekend.

She was elated on our coaching call. “This might be it!” she told me breathlessly. “I wasn’t ready for him before, but this time I am. I’m so excited.”

I asked her to describe her excitement. “It’s the feeling of being loved,” she told me.

“Where did that feeling come from?” I asked.

“From his call,” she said.

“Oh, did he tell you he loves you on the phone call?” I asked.

“No.”

“So, where did the feeling of being loved come from?” I asked.

“From the possibility of this working out,” she said. “I’ve always been so bad at relationships before. Now I’m ready. He sounds really interested in me. This could be it!”

“So, really let that feeling you got from the phone call, of being loved intensify,” I suggested.  “Where is it in your body?”

“It’s in my heart,” she said.

“So where is the feeling coming from?” I asked her.

“Oh my gosh, it’s coming from inside me!” she exclaimed.

“Yes it is. And what changed to create that feeling?”

Just then, she got it. “My thoughts. My thoughts about myself changed.”

Yep. That’s it. That’s the secret formula. When Karen thought the possibility of being in a loving relationship was on the horizon, she felt good inside. She became happy and excited. Before that, life was ho-hum. She hadn’t seen this guy in years, and all that had happened was one phone call. The old boyfriend didn’t do that.  Karen did–she transformed the way she felt about herself.

So, as Karen discovered, being excited and feeling loved can be generated inside of us. Once we “get” this we can create it for ourselves, over and over, every day of our lives. We can just skip the middleman (in this case, the old boyfriend) and create the feeling of being loved and the excitement of looking forward to life within ourselves.

So next time you are feeling fabulous, really explore it. Get to know this place. What do you feel? Where do you feel it in your body? Describe it. Write it down. What thoughts are you having about yourself? Write them down. Memorize everything you can about this experience.

We don’t have to wait to find the right relationship or the right anything else to feel fabulous. And, as a bonus, when we’re excited to be alive, we can attract exactly what we want–like a great relationship!