Forgiveness- a way not to empower others

Forgiving someone isn't a sign of weakness it means you refuse to let them hold that power over you and always know respect is earned.

Most people have little experience with understanding what forgiveness really is in our lives. We all rubber stamp our behavior saying we forgive someone. They may cause us hurt feelings, act badly or done something so unforgivable that we say for years they do not deserve to be forgiven. It is a power of ours to not forgive someone who has hurt us even to the day he dies in hopes that they do not get the blessings they would normally. Yet how many of us understand the effect of forgiveness on our lives.

People believe forgiving someone is giving away your control or power over a situation and that it shows approval of others bad behavior. They never put themselves in the other persons shoes when it is something petty and think how could that have happened where this problem occurs. We have all done things that others have needed us to forgive them over or ask to be forgiven by others. Yet people never consider why is forgiveness so important.

Forgiveness is important as the quote says because it releases the energies that people generate that are holding power over you. They have your anger, your hurt feelings, your grief, your sorrow, and the trauma you suffered for the rest of your life.  Once a trauma happens to someone it can affect them in two ways. They can become a victim and be sure that it happens again and again in their mind and energies. They do not know how to release the evil and say good always wins out and every thing will be alright if I make it through this problem. 

I have a friend who is a sheriff and had to solve a case with a brutal rape and murder. The person who did it was easily caught and the victim's family quietly sat through the trial. they listened to every thing said and done while he was given the penalty of life in prison. The defense talked about his childhood and how he was raised and it surprised my friend that the Mother and Father wanted to see the prisoner before he went to prison. He and the other deputies were ready to protect the prisoner. Instead the people talked to him and said they forgave him. They said he should be in prison because he hurt others but they forgave him for what he did to their daughter. They would not suffer for the rest of their life with hatred for him.

My friend said before this happened that the guy had a tough guy attitude. The Mother and Father left and he burst into tears. He killed himself with in a year in prison. The people did not want that to happen to him because they had forgiven him and released the emotions of hatred and revenge. The prisoner did that to himself because the forgiveness released the humanity with in him that knew what he did was wrong.

Forgiveness releases the emotions to what ever belief of the divine that you hold in your life. You release the lower hurt painful emotions to a higher force that understands what happened. No one wants anyone else hurt yet sometimes it can not be prevented. If someone tries to kill you then you have to fight back or die. If you are a soldier you do things that are horrible to mainly help everyone you have grown to be around like a brother. It is not the big deal of political purpose but the fact that you bond like a family. 

Yet at these times it is something that gives you respect to forgive others and yourself. It releases you to a new life of change. If you hold on to revenge and hatred then you trap yourself in the bad cycles. Romance and Family are the hardest ones to forgive. Loved ones are not supposed to act in many ways. We have the best expectations of them and how they should act. Especially brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers as they have books on what a loving family acts like. Expectations make it so we judge others by our standards and then forgive them by our standards. We do not respect them and ourselves and understand that things can happen which make it so bad choices are the only things left. We feel if it did not happen to us then it is something they did wrong and they wronged us.

I have had people tell me forgiveness is rubber stamping bad behavior. I always tell them that forgiveness is releasing the energies. You never have to allow them to be around you again nor do you allow anyone else to act that way to you. It is a sign of respect for yourself, and others. It is also a way to heal so you do not carry emotional baggage around for the rest of your life.

It does take time but the relief of knowing that you are freed from the negative emotions that drag you down is immense. No one can move into the future that is stuck in the past. 

Prayer-Manifesting the good into our lives

·        "Prayer is the best answer to all of the trials that face us, because without prayer, even if we succeed in accomplishing some great goal in the eyes of men, we have failed in our sacred responsibilities, and thus we have failed in what is truly important.-- Thomas Yellowtail, CROW  I know that most people think of Prayer as being Christian in the United States. Prayer always means something to do with the Bible. Yet the Christians and Muslims learned to pray from the Jewish people.The Jewish people learned it from observation and what worked. They learned effective methods that made it so there is great similarity between all of the children of the Book. Yet every religion and belief system in the world has prayer. All religions have rituals and things to do when praying. All prayer is said and guided in such a fashion as to be effective. The things I have noticed for successful prayer no matter what religion a person is practicing is very similar to magic. It could be called magic which is basically the creation of miracles. Start the day out with some sort of prayer by what ever name you call it. It is a way to bring positive energies into our lives and also a way to show our day to connect to the sacred and divine energies. Starting the day out in a good mental space is priceless. It should be seen as a obligation to fulfill for our inner selves to thank existence and the sacred energies for our lives, the things we love and the people we love. Connect the love in your heart to the sacred energies. You can call it God's heart, Allah's heart, Buddha's heart and the list goes on but the main thing is to connect all sacred and divine energies to love and light. They do not involve anything but the divine help we need each day to move ourselves forward into the path of our life purpose. It is our sacred duty for all the good things that we receive in our lives no matter what religion we are practicing. Gratitude and appreciation needs to be shown.. Focus, visualization and concentration are next. Have you ever noticed when you are really upset and needy how you can focus on asking for help. I ask the divine and sacred energies each day for help. Yet most people do not do that and many times that is how a miracle is made. Focus, visualization and concentration are key for this. It means you can draw the energies that you need for the day, to help others, and to be blessed each day by doing this when you pray. The length of the prayer does not matter but the methods above do matter. Say what you feel and know that you will be understood. Life can be hard to figure out and all of us need the help of a positive start to the day, and divine help to solve the puzzle. The next is belief and faith. I have seen people nonstop pray but nothing happens it is as if their words are never listened too. You ask them and they state things like they do not believe they will be helped. The lord helps those who helps themselves. Yet you have to ask for help and then help yourself. It is how it works.  Faith is a difficult subject and hard to do. Yet it is the belief that everything will turn out OK and that things happen for a purpose. I have seen this mentioned in other ways. The soul evolves by all of the challenges we go through and they are never punishments. They can be lessons to help us in our soul development and to challenge us to have faith. The way to have faith is to visualize the end results of what you want to happen. It is hard to keep when things do not manifest right away but life is not instant. Starting the day with prayer and manifesting the end results of what we want in our life will create miracles. Prayer is also useful to create miracles for others that we know need help, that we love, and that we want to protect. To do this focus on good for the person you are trying to help and include them. Then say a prayer to bless them with all of the good things of life. You will be amazed how often this will help others to experience miracles.

How to be a Spiritual Person

How to be a Spiritual Person by Tzvi Freeman

X is an enlightened being.
He spends his life in the wilderness far from humanity, focusing his mind on the higher realms.

Harriet Goldberg is a schoolteacher.
She spends her life cultivating small minds, hoping to give them a sense of wonder for the world they live in.

Who is closer to G-d?

If the world came from G-d as light comes from the sun, spontaneously, but with no real interest, then X is closer.

If G-d created a world deliberately, because that is what He desires and cares for, then Harriet is closer.

You choose.

I have felt that living in this world and improving it was always what God wanted in our lives. I copied this quote from a website called www.chabad.org . I have found a great deal of wisdom in the quotes and articles. It is a Jewish website but I know that it is more in tune with what I feel about spirituality.

 I have had many clients work to be evolved, worry about it, do new things and try to be of higher vibrations. They are waiting for the next shift or the rapture. I feel that spirituality is meant to be shared. It is easy to be enlightened when you do not have to pay the bills, worry about feeding others, or taking care of the people in your life. I have found most of the people who do this are judgmental and try to fit you into their expectations. They try to structure and control their lives as if they are the ones who decide what happens to them not God.

People who do this will receive a great shock when things do not work for them. Everyone has ups and downs in their lives. I had a friend who broke her hip. All of her evolved and enlightened friends looked at her and said you wished this upon yourself. Not a single one helped her when she needed the help because they were too busy judging her and feeling like they were special. People need to deal with life and other people.

Isolation may be good for types of insight and problem solving. A rest, or relaxing in nature but it is all about connecting to something outside of ourselves and not worrying about others opinions. You may say but I do not worry about others opinions I am enlightened or evolved. Yet why would a person say that unless they did care about others opinions and want them to all know how special you are.

A real evolved and enlightened person in my opinion is the man who will be a garbage collector to feed his family because he has no other way to make money. He is taking care of his family first.A person who does not care if they are evolved or perfect but celebrates life to help others in one way or another. A person who appreciates their life and does not judge others just enjoys them as people. I can list it off continuously but it is not necessary.

Real people are precious and they are spiritual whether they are religious or not. They believe in doing what they can and what they feel is right. They have ethics. They do the best they can, and accept responsibility for themselves and their actions. They adhere to being good and doing good even with learning lessons about how life works. They are the ones I feel are evolved.  

I feel kindness, charity, and helping others is the real goal in life. Not worrying about status, looks, enlightenment or evolving. If you do good every one will think of you in a good way. Thinking only of how you appear and look to others, worrying about others opinions will trap you in a cycle where you are not doing the will of God. God is love. 

Guardian Angels

The guardian angels of life fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us.  ~Jean Paul Richter

I am a person who believes in angels and guardian angels. I am sure my guardian angel has covered her eyes many times after saving me. I can see her saying Nita just survived that experience. I feel many people have had their guardian angels working overtime. Yet they never get proof of them in their lives. I have had that proof constantly.

A few years ago Don and I decided to drive to Laughlin, Nevada. Don is my ex-husband that I still take care of as he needs someone also. It is only about fifty miles from where we live. It is also a place where they have reasonably priced prime rib and both of us like to watch movies. Everything went fine but I heard a weird noise.

Don's normal response was to tell me I was being worried over nothing. I always jinxed his cars worrying about noises as it grew to a low roar. He was yelling to be heard but of course the sound was nothing. He could not ignore it by then but his comments were just to start an argument as if I had gone back and poured cement in the back end of the car. Totally discouraged I just shut up.

All of a sudden there was a loud bang, and we started to turn in circles. I was too scared to scream and I got to see semi-truck grills close up as we went through about 5 spins, and stopped from dropping over a cliff by inches on my side.  I was just sitting there shaking when the semi-truck grill I was seeing in the spins went by us and pulled up and stopped in front of us.

A older lady got out of the truck and said I made her believe in God. She said she had never been religious but had seen angels stopping the car from rolling, stopped the car from hitting their new truck and stopped us from going over the cliff. The new semi-truck was a car carrier so they winched our car up on the back of the truck and took us home.

They would not accept a dime and were excited over seeing angels. They dropped us off in our driveway, and then left. Don's main comment was guess we don't get to eat prime rib tonight.  Everyone says Don is bored stiff when I am traveling and gone.

Don told a couple of friends about what the lady said about angels. They said how do you know it is not true and shared their angel stories with us. Everyone has had a time where the prayers of others or their own prayers bring the guardian angels to protect them. I hope you get to see your guardian angels and know that God loves you.

Genuine Friends

Friends, genuine friends, are attracted by a warm heart, not money, not power. A genuine friend considers you as just another human being, as a brother or sister, and shows affection on that level, regardless of whether you are rich or poor, or in a high position; that is a genuine friend. - Dalai Lama

 I find people who I feel are family that I like to include in my life. They are my friends and many of them are closer to me than my family. All of us have let the wrong people into our lives at times. They become our challenges and the way to learn to respect ourselves. Yet people that become true friends can be closer to us and more understanding than many of our family members.

Good friends are just like this quote mentions. They have a warm heart and like you for yourself. They may shake their heads at times as they have done the same things and it did not work out well. They are there for you even after you have made an utter fool out of yourself.

They love you even when they do not see you and seem like family. Affection is very important and friends will show that to you. They miss you and call up up just to show you they care. The best marriages always have both people liking each other as friends. Good friends are a blessing and a gift. I see peoples souls and occasionally fool myself believing that the person acts the way their soul shows them to be.

It is not always true as challenges in life can cause us to act very differently than what our soul shows us to be. It is overcoming the challenges and shining the light of our true selves upon others. It is not always easy to do and a real friend will keep being a friend. So I dedicate this blog post to all the people who are real friends to others, who try to do something nice for their friends, who cheer them up when they need it, show their friends respect, and are just there for them. They are truly the blessings of this world.

Gossip, Bad words, and Hurting Others

"If those bad words come, I let them come in one ear and go out the other. I never let them come out of my mouth. If a bad word comes in your ear and then comes out of your mouth, it will go someplace and hurt somebody. If I did that, that hurt would come back twice as hard on me."

-- Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA  I wonder if anyone keeps track of how many times they say something that could hurt someone? I know everyone will repeat things about others both good and bad. Yet even saying good things can cause problems. Some times it is just like some bad word going into your ear and coming out your mouth. You can even watch yourself say something and wonder why you are doing it. Everyone also says things that can hurt others. No one is innocent of this form of harm and gossip. The Jewish religion calls it Loshon Hara and it is one of the forbidden things to do to others. You are not supposed to use words to hurt or harm others even if the facts are true. It is so common there are children rhymes to make it easier to take. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." It may sound good but it is very untrue. People judging others, and treating others badly hurts. The words can cause problems especially with making the things said more dramatic. Gossip does hurt others. People seem to stick together in groups. We also put others into groups. We do not see others as real people instead it is seeing ourselves as separate. The groups can be anything. Yet once something is classified as outside of the group and separate then it is when danger can happen to anything not in the group. We have examples through out history of people picking scapegoats and making them a bad example or using them to get everyone to do violence or that cause group problems. Helen of Troy had problems for being beautiful. The Japanese were interned in camps because they could be identified as separate. The color of the skin has been used by every race to say bad things and make others different. Beer commercials make it sound as if the beer is more understanding than the women of the world. A scapegoat used to be the goat sacrificed to appease everyone. In King Kong the actress sacrificed to King Kong was a scapegoat. Anyone that stands up and takes the hit for the group he is a member of is a scapegoat. Many people in jobs can not feel good about themselves unless they pick an office scapegoat to feel superior over. So it is more on the same subject of how we treat our fellow man. Responsibility is the one of the ways to resolve these issues and competing with ourselves. It is not easy to do. Yet in the end it comes down to one thing. We can watch our own actions and hope that good manners become contagious.We can watch ourselves and not do the bad actions that have harmed us.