Why Do Marriages Fail?

Every single one of us who has ever walked down that long aisle, knows the feeling. We all believed that what we were entering into was something that would last forever. Our marriage was going to be different, we told ourselves. And we believed it. Our hearts were open, full of hope, and committed to the person who stood by our side on that oh so glorious day. We would never be one of those couples who quit. And then, for 60% of us, we wound up where we never thought we would; divorce court.

Marriages fail for tons of reasons, but for the most part, the real reasons we get divorced are pretty simple.

When we get married, we have such high expectations about the relationship we are in. Most of us believe in fairy tales, pure love, true love, commitment, and the sanctity of marriage itself, otherwise we wouldn't have decided to get married in the first place. Unfortunately many of us spent more time worrying about how the wedding was going to turn out, rather than how the marriage was going to work out. We assumed because there was so much love in the beginning, that it would always be there. Then the years past on, and on, and on.

When we enter into unions assuming everything is going to be peaches and cream, we set ourselves up for failure. When we have such high expectations of a relationship as well as a marriage, we are often times disillusioned by the honest hardship marriage can sometimes be. What is marriage really anyway?

If we enter into relationships expecting our spouse to fulfill us, or make us happy, or make us whole, we unknowingly set the relationship up for failure. When instead we enter into the union understanding that the intoxicating feelings that got us to the altar in the first place will eventually end and will be replaced with something more solid, we elevate our chances of succeeding in marriage tenfold.

Marriage is more a commitment to another, than it is about "feelings". Feelings change as often as winds. To base a life on what one feels, is like building an empire on sand. Entrusting your destiny however to a knowing, like "commitment" is like buying insurance. When the storms come, you know your covered.

Marriages fail because expectations are not met. Whether we think we are going to have great sex every time we have sex, or we think every morning we wake up to our snoring spouse, we are going to feel the butterflies in our bellies we felt the first time we met, or we expect our spouses to understand every emotion we feel, we are creating ideas in our heads that are not only unrealistic, but unbeknownst to our partners.

If you want your marriage to last, consider being less unrealistic in your expectations, and more serious about the concept of commitment. Talk to your spouse about what their expectations of you might be, and share yours with them as well. Be open and honest, and together discuss what expectations you can each meet, and which ones should share the pail next to your recycling bin on the curb.

What Do I Do With All This Shame?

Shame is just a feeling. It is a feeling however that is supposed to be used to help us curtail behaviors in ourselves that we are not necessarily proud of. Shame in its intended form, is one of those feelings that help us look in the mirror after we have desecrated our own personal code of ethics.

Unfortunately for many of us, shame was a tool that was misused by our caretakers while we were growing up. We may have been told, "You should be ashamed of yourself", and we probably were. Whether by through a disapproving look, body movements, or through some verbal assault, the message we received was, 'be ashamed-be very ashamed'.

If our parents could shame us, they could get us to go back into our little boxes of souls, and get small. If we could get small, we wouldn't have been such a problem. If our teachers could make us fear laughing, or having fun, they could get us to quiet down so they could teach. If our siblings could shame us into thinking no one wanted to be our friends, they could get us to stop wanting to hang out with them.

The problem with shame is, it stains a soul. It's like tar on ones spirit. It's nearly impossible to wash away.

As adults, when our shame buttons get pushed, the stain resurfaces, and we are right back to wanting to get small again, someway, just so others are not upset with us. We know we are being asked not to be who we are. And so, out of fear of feeling this awful thing called shame, we shrink, and pretend to not feel what we feel just so that we don't have to look at the stain anymore.

In every upcoming moment, is another chance to heal it all, or at least some of it. We must know in our hearts what is right for us, and shame is never right for us, when it is being used by others to help them manipulate what we think, want, or do. It is better for us to recognize shame for what it is, and when we feel it, to simply feel it, rather than wish so badly to want to make it go away.

If shame pops up in you, first ask yourself if there is anything, YOU think you should change about what you have done. If your behavior breaks your personal moral code, then forgive yourself and thank shame for showing you what you needed to change. If however shame shows up, and you find that someone in your life is trying to shame you into doing something you may not want to do, or is trying to get you to feel shame for what you have done, evaluate the situation for what it is and embrace it.

It is better to embrace whatever is, rather than to pretend what is isn't. This is where denial gets involved.

If you feel shame, and believe it is being used by a parent, a child, a teacher, a friend, or a spouse to manipulate behavior out of you for the others sake, it is best you stare that shame in the face, peel off its ugly mask, and ask it to leave.

If shame or guilt or fear work on you, chances are you were abused emotionally as a child. If when you were younger the message you received was, you are wrong. What you think is wrong. How you behave is wrong. Your stand is wrong. Your laugh is wrong. Your wants are wrong. Your needs are wrong; know you were lied to.

As adults it is time to embrace what is. What is, is simple. We are all connected to God, which makes us all perfect at our core. In the end, this is the only truth that will matter. In reality, loving yourself is what your creator intended you to do. It is no longer okay to live a shame based existence.

Boundaries

The need for boundaries in our personal lives is often under appreciated.

While the need for boundaries seems apparent is some situations, {like with children} we adults sometimes forget we still need them too.

Without personal boundaries, we can find ourselves often times feeling bewildered and even under attack. We may experience feelings of powerlessness, disillusionment, fear, guilt, shame, anxiety and even panic. We are so lost inside our own heads, that life is passing us by. It passes us by, because we forget where our emotional fence line ended.

When we allow ourselves to be so engulfed with the emotional stuff in our minds that we forget where we begin and other people end, we are said to be suffering from enmeshment. Most often enmeshment occurs when one person is taking care of a substance abuser. However, enmeshment can occur in relationships that have nothing to do with substance abuse at all.

Many times people write asking me to give them advice on their personal relationships. After counseling hundreds of clients one on one, as well as answering questions on line, the one issue that seems to resonate within most committed relationships is "enmeshment".

Enmeshment goes hand in hand with co-dependency which in my opinion, is at the root of all dysfunctional relationships. While co-dependency is a broad term and one very misunderstood concept, once studied seriously it becomes like a ray of light on a dark, confused existence.

Boundaries help children feel loved. As adults it is our job to know where our own boundaries are so that we can always feel safe and loved. No one is going to knock us on our heads and say, "hey you, that's enough". It is our personal responsibility to ourselves to know when we have had enough in a relationship. Sometimes relationships need air. Sometimes people need to separate so that they can go back and find their selves again. Sometimes couples need to love each other enough to know the relationship is engulfing them both.

Personal boundaries are as unique as we are. What works for one person may not work for you, and that is okay. You must know who you are and convey that to the people in your life so that they know where you stand. If they love you, they will listen. If they are co-dependent, they will push you until you run past your yard and into theirs.

Relationships and Love

It is an amazing concept. Humans have the ability to hear every voice in the room, but their own.

As humans, we can walk through life, almost intuitively aware of what others need, and yet be completely unaware of what our needs are. We tell ourselves we are being good when we put the needs of others before ourselves. We fall to the illusion that whispers to us ideas that encourage us to believe that martyring ourselves for the sake of the happiness of others, is honorable.

Many of us grew up in homes that encouraged these ideas. These ideas implied we were to worry of what others thought of us. What our neighbors believed about us, was more important than what even we believed true of ourselves. We marry, divorce, and marry again, and sometimes divorce once more, entrapped by this veil of lunacy.

Truth is simple, yet obscured.

Love of thy self, is the purest of all love. Without a love of ones own self, it is impossible to be able to love purely and with conviction. Love requires a sense of knowing who one is on the deepest level. When one knows oneself as deeply as is required to know the love for another, one is sure; certain and solid.

Love requires boundaries. Love knows what love it needs, in what form, and in what amounts. Love is as unique as are the snowflakes that fall from our December skies. Love comes to us in many forms, yet we will be required to know what love to accept when it seems to show up. Perhaps it may be, that the love that arrives, is not the love that you require. Unless love of thy self is true, one may wind up as dazed as a coyote on a sandy beach.

Love is not a feeling. Love is not confusing. Love is not anxiety, nor panic or sleepless nights. Love is a knowing; a simple, knowing.

The Gift of Thy Body

We all do it. We all wish we looked different, in some way, some how. We stare at our reflections in the mirrors we pass during our days, and scrutinize our bellies, our hair, our thighs; you name it, we see all our flaws; even ones that do not exist.

As a personal trainer and self esteem coach, I have had the pleasure of training hundreds of clients who are brave enough to come see me so to change their lives for the better. Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely, very large woman who told me all she wanted to do was know what "pretty" felt like. My heart melted.

The goals of personal trainers vary and they are vast. My goal is and always has been the emotional well being of my clients. I am of the belief that only emotionally peaceful creatures can acquire long term fitness results. When the spirit is unsettled, it is difficult to watch ones diet, or keep up with a specific exercise program. But when the heart is hopeful, God shows up, and loving ourselves becomes a way of life.

What I told my client is what I wish to tell you, my readers. We are all created in the image of God. We are all loved, deeply. Our bodies are the gift God has given to us that enables us to exist in this physical world. While we are here, we get to engage in all that is human; the good, the bad, the beautiful and often times the ugly. It is God's intent to give us all the opportunity to know triumph over evil, and the sweetness of success.

Life is often times challenging. It is supposed to be. Challenges give us opportunities to be great, and to tackle mountains. Only by conquering that which has threatened to knock us down, can we possibly know the wealth that comes from rising to the demands life has brought to our doors. Being obese is obviously a challenge; one that is conquerable.

Our bodies are temples that embody our divine spirit; the one that connects us all to our higher power. Our bodies are gifts we need to cherish regardless of how round or lumpy they are. Our bodies are the vessels that carry the "who" of what we are. Our bodies are gifts given to us as we share our time with one another on earth. The time will come when our bodies fail. We are all here temporarily. What our bodies look like is far less important than what is in them, and how we feel about them.

The body is a vessel that houses the spirit. Our worth is in what cannot be seen, not in what can be seen, although society bases value on that which is material. It is the conscious minds of those among us that must fight against this insanity, and help spread truth. As a personal trainer and self esteem coach, as well as a free lance writer, I make it my goal to spread truth wherever I can.

Fighting against the norm is not an easy thing to do. Society will continually try to manipulate your ideas of beauty, as well as tell you what success is. Money is what fuels this insanity. If society can convince women they are not enough, then women will spend billions of dollars a year trying to live up to the airbrushed, unrealistic image of what ad agencies tell us beauty is. This simple fact is the reason we all must band together to fight these misnomers. Those of us who know truth, must share truth.

The body is a gift. Not the perfect body, just the body, as is, regardless of shape or size. The body is a gift.

The Body Never Lies

If we were all healthy integrated human beings, we would never doubt our own minds.  If we were all connected to our bodies, there would be no need to ever doubt our own thoughts.  

Our bodies were designed to signal to us certain dangers.  When our hearts race or when we fill with panic or anxiety, these are signs something is amiss.  Too often our heads ignore the warning signs our body is trying to send out, because we have been taught in various ways to deny what we think.

Throughout childhood, we are conditioned to worry what others think, want and need.  We are programmed in overt as well as covert ways to fear  the criticism of others and to avoid upsetting others at all costs.  While our well intended parents might have been hoping they produced unselfish children, the truth is they taught us to be self less instead.  

Built into our bodies are voluntary as well as involuntary response systems.  All that is involuntary is designed to save us at all costs, including emotionally and physically.  When we feel threatened either physically or emotionally, bells will sound within the cells of our bodies. These bells are meant to force our minds to help us get out of whatever dangerous situation we are in.

Unfortunately, many of us ignore our internal warning signs.  We stay in relationships we know we should end or in the jobs we know are draining us.  We run towards drama rather than away from it.  We drink, drug, lie, obsess, spend, or have affairs all while our internal security sirens and bells are blaring.  We hear ourselves justify or rationalize why we are doing what we are doing.  We lie to ourselves about the lies we tell others.  We justify staying in the emotionally draining relationships, rather than accepting how taxing they are on our souls.  We hear the bells within us, but ignore them away....

Stress lowers body pH, elevates cholesterol and increases inflammation in the body.  Eventually those of us who continue ignoring our bodies signals wind up with some catastrophic disease.  We develop cancer, asthma, diabetes, obesity, diverticulitis, heart problems, high blood pressure and so on.  Slowly we help create havoc within the cells of our bodies, that eventually destroy us.

The key to happiness, is the bridge that links your soul to your body.  On this bridge truth is discovered.  When you learn to interpret your bodies signals correctly, rather than ignoring them, the bridge becomes your guide.  The more in tune you are with your body, the better able you will be at navigating your life.

Mothers and Time

Once an ocean,

Now a  lake.

Steady thievery,

Stops naught.

A cornerstone no  more,

Power has shifted through time.

Sands of time,

Slip away.

Replaced,

Her beauty, her strength.

Yesterday, the center of their world,

Today a visitor.

Not long ago; a lioness,

Time demands a new queen.

A knowing heart, 

Now a heavy one.

Inclined to hold on,

Grace urges her to let go.

Life has never stopped,

Nor not changed.

Nature requires not cooperation,

Nor the desire to be liked.

A mothers time, so like the seasons,

Has her own.

Mothers love eternal, 

Withstands it all.

Details busy our hands,

As life slips through them.

Time whispers to us in dreams,

To embrace the inevitable.

Squeezing harder,

Does not stop time from slipping through our fingers.

Fighting,

Intensifies the pain.

Instead, 

Look, see, feel, embrace, and breath.

Millions of others, 

Have walked this path.

It is winding, 

It is wise, it is the way it was intended.

Rising Above What We See

To only see with our eyes, is to live life blindly.

To not know there is so much more to what is, is to live life asleep.

What we see, is far less real than that we cannot.

Humanity is divine.

Within us all lies the ability to create life as well as destroy it.  True, a life can be lived, without being lived at all.  Can there be any greater tragedy?  

This place we call "the world", so full of the allure of materialism, is one we all must learn to adapt to.  It is a place far from where our spirits care to dance, yet our feet belong.

To be a fully integrated human being, requires the being that is us, to somehow make peace with the various parts of who we are.  It is not enough to be of intellectual minds, nor of robust physiques.  To be truly alive, is to know all of ones self, including that which most of the world is blind to.  

The world; it's thirst for superficial flare, serves only as a playground for our material forms to exist in.  The physical parts of us, require a physical realm.  It is the responsibility of man however, to then find places for the divine in us to roam; to grow; to splendor.

To live, is to live the life we were given, through the eyes of our awareness, rather than through our optic nerves.  Awareness, is akin to rebirth.  Once asleep, and dead, as humans, in each moment we get another chance to "choose" to rise above what we see.

The ability to "choose to think" in and of itself: Divine.

When Others Fall

The recent headlines about the young woman named Becca Beushausan, left me feeling low.

Once this was a woman with an internet following in the millions.  Each person following her blog, was captivated by the gut wrenching story, about the death of her child.  Her followers were full of warmth, love, and good wishes for this woman they did not know.  Strangers; complete strangers embraced her, relating to her pain.  What Becca was going through, struck an emotional chord in so many.  These chords, so deep, so riveting, found in us all.

When it was unfortunately revealed that Becca's story was fabricated; that in fact she had deceived the public, much of her following turned on her.  Angered by the feeling of being manipulated, twisted the minds of her once loyal community.  Outrage spewed from parents who had in fact lost a child to the same disease, that Becca claimed had stolen hers.  Understandably.

Becca claims that, although she blogged daily, as if experiencing the death of her child  in the "now", the truth is she had lost her child some time in the past.  Her re-telling of her story, was simply that; a re-telling of her story.  Because Becca pretended as if she were going through the loss, as if in present day, many feel as if Becca is a woman who simply lied to gain some kind of sympathy or attention.

We may never know Becca's truth: Did she lose a child, or instead fabricate the entire story like so many believe?  I say, who cares?

There is a larger lesson in this young woman's story.  One we can all learn from.  For certain, Becca has been humbled, evident by the sincere apology letter on her blog.  This child has learned.  She has fallen to the innate vulnerability that makes her human; the ego.  Becca made a mistake.  Yes, she lied.  But who amongst us has never?  Was this a terrific lie?  Did it hurt others?  Yes, but that was not this woman's intent.  

Becca wrote what she wrote, because for whatever reason, she needed to.  Pain lives within her, otherwise she would not have needed to do what she did.  Blogging gave her a way to release whatever was hiding in this woman's soul.  If you are one of those angered by her deceit, I ask you to forgive her.  I ask you to rise above the temptations of anger, and continue to connect with what first attracted you to her blogging; pain.

More than ever Becca needs forgiveness.  Although her blogging may have afforded her the avenue to release some of her hidden pain onto, the truth is, more than anything, this woman needs a healing.  As a society, what we need is compassion.  Becca falling, has the ability to help us all become better human beings.  Her sin, can teach each of us something about humanity.

Undoubtedly, this will follow Becca all her days.  I pray she has the strength to forgive herself.  If she were my child,  I would wrap my arms around her, and say, " Today is a new day.  What happened yesterday is done. Let it go; move on.  Learn from what has taken place, and be a better person from now on for it".

I pray the millions of followers to Becca's blog choose to offer this woman forgiveness rather than to walk with anger in their hearts.  She made a mistake.  We all have.  

When others fall in front of our faces, it is our chance to help them back up.  When we do, we raise the level of human consciousness up a notch.  In doing so,  we help change the world.  I can think of no better way to live a life.

Forgiveness

We can surely all remember a time, back when we were tiny children, when perhaps we did something we knew we should not have.  We worried what mom, dad, or perhaps what our teacher would do when they found out.  Our stomachs churned, and our minds raced, as we tossed ideas of gloom back and forth in our heads like ping pong balls.  It was awful; the anticipation.

If we were lucky, mom put her arms around us and told us everything was going to be fine.  We knew we had been forgiven, and felt relieved, almost absolved of our ills.  The feeling of forgiveness was like nothing we had ever felt before.  Feeling forgiven, made us feel whole again.

Far too many of us hold onto anger when we should simply let it go.  Many of us are addicted to feelings of rage and chaos, but don't realize it.  We hear our friends claim they are looking for peace, but instead, every time we turn around, our friend is adding more chaos to his life.  He speaks of revenge, of jealousy, of fear, and of all things negative, yet, he claims he wants nothing more but a little bit of peace.

The truth is, he doesn't want peace.  He wants the same things he has always had; chaos.  If someone truly wants peace, he/she needs to change their mind.  In order to attract peace into our lives, it is necessary for us to let go of those things we are used to.  If we are used to thinking thoughts that include rationalizing rage, anger, jealousy, or fear, then we need to decide to no longer allow our minds to rationalize them.

We are thinking human beings.  Thoughts that pop into our heads are more programmed thought patterns than they are actually products of a "thinking mind".  Thinking requires conscious effort.  One must decide to judge their thoughts if peace is ever to replace a chaotic mindset.

Forgiving others, is as much a gift to someone else as it is to you.  When you decide to let go of anger, the soul heals.  It is unnatural for the spirit to hate, which is why rage makes people feel so heavy, and love makes us feel so light.  Forgiving someone for something terrible they might have done to us, does not mean we forget, nor does it mean we accept what has been done.  Forgiving others means choosing not to carry hate in our bodies against anyone any longer, for any reason.  

I have been wronged many times throughout my life.  While I do not accept nor condone some of the terrible things that have been done to me by others, I do accept that whatever was done to me was done by someone who was not as evolved as he/she should have been.  Only someone who is lacking spiritual enlightenment can seek to intentionally harm another human being.  Because this is so, instead, I tend to feel empathy for anyone who does not know that when they seek to intentionally inflict harm on another, they show the world how unenlightened they truly are.

I can forgive, because I know only a mind that is lacking, can need to harm another.  

Jesus said, "Forgive them father, for they not know what they do."  Jesus died full of forgiveness, as well as peace, because he understood how unenlightened the average mind of man was.

By allowing forgiveness to overcome our ego based rage, we help elevate ourselves to a place of higher spiritual enlightenment.  When we spread forgiveness, we enhance the peace that is on our planet, and in doing so, we help make the world we live in a better place for us all.

The Psychological Skin

I recently heard the term "Psychological Skin", and fell in love with it. We humans are such complex creatures, much like Shrek describes Ogers; we are like onions with many layers.

If man possesses a psychological self, surely he possesses an intellectual, emotional and physical self as well. With all these layers of self, it is no wonder human relationships are so complicated. For every person we relate to, we are interacting with at least four layers of who they might be, while they are interacting with the four layers of who we might be. So when you think there are two of you in the room, there are actually eight.

When relating to others, it is nearly impossible to know what that individual has experienced and subsequently, how he has perceived his past experiences. The adult self is a result of the sum experiences and perceptions of the child self.

We get one psychological skin in life. If that skin has been battered and bruised by verbal, emotional or physical abuse as a child, the psychological self of that individual will certainly be more sensitive later in life. What may ignite the emotions in one, may not in another. How and what we react to as adults, lies parallel to what we experienced as children.

I learned very early in life, that I could not trust my mother with "me". It was not safe to cry, to feel, to want or to need. As a result, to prevent feeling unaccepted by my mother for "feeling", I learned to disown my emotional self. It was the way I learned to cope. Feeling unaccepted far outweighed my need for hugs and kisses then.

Sensitive to feeling overpowered, I learned to stay on guard, and as an adult I still am. So often consumed by my mothers anger, I now refuse to be put under the emotional thumb of another. It is a conditioned response I must learn to acknowledge when dealing with others. It is a human condition of mine that has both aided as well as hindered me in my life.

My adult skin; the one that holds the many layers of all else that make me me, still lives in the psychological skin of my many yesterdays. It is my intellectual self however, that helps me ease the old battle wounds of the past.

When relating to others, it is important to try and understand what thoughts have created this mind. Was this psychological being hurt, demeaned, tormented, or perhaps content and joyful as a child? Had this mind felt powerless? Was this being taught to control, manipulate, or throw tantrums to get his/her way? Was anger the one emotion that masked all others?

My best friend was verbally abused as a child. Her father was a rageaholic. She feared him. She feared his words. As an adult, she has become him. When she was young, she could not protect herself from him she thought. As she grew older, somewhere inside she would refuse to ever be in that situation again. Today she is her father. Today her children fear her just as she once feared her own parent.

Thankfully my friend is working on her psychological self through her intellectually self, with the help of her emotional self. She is courageously committed to self actualization and is doing very well on her journey towards self awareness.

It is helpful to grasp the concept of "many selves" when dealing with others. It is healing to also comprehend the idea that we are too, "many selves". Our reactions to things are very much tied to our experiences from the past. In order to heal today, it is necessary to go back to the place in time when skin was first wounded.

What Have You Done

It snowed here in NY today. The sky was a light grey, and the roads were covered with a thin layer of slick powdered looking ice. The snow that fell from the sky was heavy and wet. Snowflakes fell to the ground quickly, almost as if they were racing one another. Between each swipe of my windshield wiper blades, my visibility was easily obscured.

My daughter Lisa sat buckled in the backseat, as she chatted about her day at school and all the happenings of her very dramatic 6th grade day. I listened; laughed; listened and added my mommy two cents whenever she dared to take a breath. As I approached the corner of the block we live on, a small child of perhaps 2 yrs of age, broke free from his mothers busy arms and darted directly in front of my car.

It was if I died for a moment, as I swerved to the right to avoid running this innocent little being over with my SUV. Lisa raised her arms and screamed, " Mom watch out for the baby". The childs mother let out a sound that I will never be able to release from my minds ear. It was the sound of doom, grief, horror and regret. It was the groan of a mother, almost certain her child would be hurt, as she watched powerless to stop the momentum of the idealic disastrous circumstances that might take her babies life.

I did not hit this child, although only inches separated my life from his. If I had not had to stop at that last red light, perhaps our paths may have crossed, sadly.

No tragedy took place this afternoon. In fact the circumstances were miraculous in my opinion. Yes, I know this to be true, but I can't help but feel shaken by them nonetheless. I could have killed that child. I could have. I honestly could have, and that thought sobers me from any nonsense that may have been swirling about in my mind today. In one second, or perhaps two or three, my priorities reorganized themselves.

I sit here almost compelled to watch the marathon of snowflakes that pass outside my bedroom window, wondering, what have I done with my life? I find myself in deep appreciation for the simplicity that defines my everyday. I know now, more clearer than an hour before, that life is meant to be lived happily, morally, and passionately. I am thankful for the lack of drama, noise and meaninglessness, yet know I must work diligently at staying consciously aware of the thoughts in my head.

This child woke me up! This tiny bundle of blue helped me become more aware, conscious and oh so grateful.

Learning To Observe Our Own Mind

The greatest tragedy of man is fear.

Fear is nothing more than an idea we have been programmed to create in our minds. Most fear is silly, irrational and dis empowering. We fear catching colds, failing exams, illness, and death. We fear rain, snow, wind and the sun. We tell ourselves we cannot get sick, fail tests, die, go out in the rain, drive in the snow, walk in the wind or play in the sun. We fear what people think of the way we look, speak, talk or walk. We fear fear.

To fear catching a cold, is silly. What is there to fear; a headache? If we failed an exam, would our left leg fall off? If we got cancer, would we die the following moment we discovered the disease? If we died, would be around the moment after we ceased to breath to experience the fear of that that had already taken place? If it rained heavily, would we shrivel up into a crinkled ball of flesh? If it began to snow, would our cars turn to solid stone? If it was windy during our walk, would we float away into the sky like a feather caught being tugged by the clouds? If people did say horrendous, hurtful things about us, would heaven fall?

We fear because we attach ourselves to people and to things. We fear because we foolishly believe we have the power to get situations and people to do what we want them to do. We want to be healthy, so we fear being sick. We think we should never catch a cold or develop a disease. We think we can control all that touches us, but we cannot.

Humans fear change, yet all that is must continually flow with the harmony that regulates life.

We silly ego based humans assume we can control it all; our jobs, our kids, our husbands, our friends, our weight, what people do, what people think and what people feel. Ha!!!

One day we wake up and we are forced to deal with the harsh reality that is our truth. We have spent a lifetime trying to convince others we are good enough, thin enough, sexy enough, smart enough, rich enough and perfect enough for them to approve of us, only to come to the realization that we have lost our true self all while trying to control what others think.

The only thing man has control over is his mind. The conscious mind; the mind that possesses the divine ability to observe his own thoughts and behaviors, is all that man can ever hope to be blessed enough to control.

Feelings are not enough. Man can hold anger in his heart for his neighbor, but need not act on that feeling. The consciousness of this man that is able to observe his anger, so not to allow his behavior to follow the road anger has lit up, is the holy part of him he can learn to control.

A man can lust after a woman other than his wife, but he need not act on that lust. The consciousness of this man can speak inside his own mind. He can hear the divine voice within telling him it is not necessary to act on every feeling he feels. Once contact with consciousness has been made, true thinking can be born.

Without the ability to observe ones own mind, man can never hope to conquer his greatest enemy; his own ego.