Stuff Happens (consequences)

Stuff happens. When you do stuff, stuff happens to you. Sometimes directly or indirectly, but pretty much it’s true, what goes around comes around. It’s all a process of watching, evaluating, finding a relation to things that have happened in the past, calculating and projecting variations of how this might look in the future, and basically trying to learn from your wins and/or mistakes.

You try different things, and when you discover a method that gets you what you want, it’s a keeper. It might not be politically correct, maybe a little inappropriate, but it works. In this way, you are the result of what works for you.

When people try to get you to do something that you don’t want to do, there is an initial natural resistance because, of course, you don’t want to do whatever it is. Something happens when you do stuff that is resistant, this “something” is called consequences (you might have heard of them).

This energy is the substance of the stuff which happens to us. Sometimes consequences are imposed upon us by those bigger, tougher, and meaner than us or in authority over us (parents, teachers, bosses, law enforcement, and the government).

In other times, natural consequences are just a “natural” energetic response to the decisions we make and the action we take. The hope is that we might learn from our experience with consequences, natural consequences, at least.

Imposed consequences appear to not be as effective method of training as we might like to think, as the spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child model of punishment doesn’t seem to be working very well in our modern society, or else our prisons would not be overflowing with those who insist in noncompliance regardless of any imposed consequences.

Punishment eases your mind if you’re witnessing someone being punished for doing something you don’t like. It makes you feel vindicated and is like a reward to your ego for taking the high road. It’s like, you’re not awarded any recognition for doing the right thing, but it feels good to see others punished for doing the wrong thing. This is punishment’s reward for you, seeing others suffer.

But does it work? No.

Whenever you tell someone, “Don’t,” (fill in the blank), it doesn’t work very well. If you tell a young child, “Don’t touch the burner. It’s hot and it will hurt you!” The child will obsess over the burner for the rest of his or her life, unless he or she tests it out to see if there truly is any natural consequence. If the natural consequence is severe enough, learning happens naturally. If burned from touching the burner, the child will probably never touch a burner again.

Punishment, or discipline, is not a natural consequence, they are unnatural consequences imposed by you or someone else, and the imposition of them does not foster learning. Instead, resentment is the more likely result, which causes the offender to see any imposer of unnatural consequences as a threat who must be defended against, or even punished for bullying the offender who sees him- or herself now as the victim.

Even if you or some arm of the system have obtained compliance via threat of unnatural consequence, the people who have complied will harbor resentment which may be suppressed. On the surface, this may look like a huge success for the imposer, but the truth is, there is little or no respect or love, only resentment and fear.

Repressed resentment will eventually explode into some manifestation of rebellion unless so much fear is imposed that the offender sees his or her self-submission to a life of slavery as an acceptable means of survival.

There are people who either naturally or unnaturally found their own sense of inner balance. They do not need to be told what is right or wrong or lorded over to force them to behave a certain way. They just have a knowingness within and an innate desire to do the right thing.

We would like to see more of them.

Unfortunately, our society has become so obsessed with crime and punishment that even these otherwise self-governing good people are caught up in the punishment-for-compliance system and find themselves being punished, not for doing something bad, but for being in the wrong place at the right time, or inadvertently crossing a law that was put in place to catch criminals, when no crime was committed.

We have so many laws on the books now, who could possibly keep track of them all?

Once you have broken the spirit of one of the good ones, they, too, become one of the other ones, as they give up and surrender to the system of the herd.

I think there should be only one law: Do whatever makes you happy, unless it interferes with someone else’s right to their happiness. That’s all.

Otherwise, let reaction, anxiety, fear, and panic run the show and see where that gets you.

Watching the People You Love Ruin Their Lives

You love them with all your heart, yet they make choices and decisions that bring discomfort, despair, and chaos into their life. There’s little worse than watching the people you love ruin their lives. You want to help. You give your input and suggestions, still, they insist on being their own worst enemy.

It breaks your heart every time they do it, yet you cannot prevent them from exercising their own free will and living the life they were meant to live.

What? “the life they were meant to live?” That’s right. Everyone is on their own individual journey. Each one is different and different people are destined to have different experiences, in a sense to play out the hand they were dealt in such a way to get them where their life’s journey leads.

You know, in your life, you’ve made bad decisions which have led to uncomfortable consequences. But didn’t you learn from those experiences? Weren’t there critical pivot points in your life which made you evaluate your decision-making process, change your life, and make better decisions in the future?

This is the process, and you can’t do it for anyone else. This may make you feel like you’re watching the people you love ruin their lives, but you’re not. You are not watching them ruin their lives, what you’re doing is watching the people you love make their own way through life, just as you’re making your own way through yours.

We’ve all learned key values based on our individual experiences, such as being a people pleaser or keeping up with the Joneses. Taking the easy way out, procrastination, giving up too soon or holding on too long. Asserting your superiority or not valuing others. You know all the right answers and everyone else is wrong. Not speaking your peace, or not being open to new ideas.

You know from your own experience that it’s not a good thing to bury the past and ignore it, to judge others harshly, to engage in hate speech, to think that what you want is all that matters, or to hold onto expectations so tightly that if something doesn’t go your way, your whole world collapses.

You’ve learned valuable life lessons, like having a bad experience doesn’t mean that everything associated with a similar focal point of your bad experience (stocks, cars, investments, mate choice, religion, social cliques, pets, children, relatives, etc.) is patently also potentially “bad.” You know better to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You’ve learned this over time.

You know if you feel like you can’t do it, you probably can. You’ve learned to be open to new ideas because you might end up making your own life easier or better. You’ve discovered that cutting yourself some slack, not judging yourself harshly, and taking time to relax and smell the roses are not only beneficial but necessary for living a good life.

You’ve learned that not all advice from people you care for and trust is not always the best advice.

Failure is not fatal. If you fall off the horse, you dust yourself off and get ready to give it another go. You’ve learned that you cannot give to others or love with all your heart if your cup is empty.

You’ve learned to graciously accept assistance if someone offers to lend a hand, and to avoid being seen as narcissistic by others.

You’ve learned to accept others as they are, where they are on their own individual journey. You love them, you let you make their own way, and you bless them as they learn from their own experiences.

Many of the most valuable lessons in life are learned by living life, by making mistakes, and learning from them. Why would you deny anyone that part of their journey?

The people you love have to find and make their own way, to discover all these things on their own. You may share your own story as an interesting anecdote, but do not preach to nor condemn them for having the courage to make their own decisions, and do not coddle them when they suffer the consequences.

This is their life. Honor them.

Yes, it can be hard to watch them go through it. You can pray for them, bless, them, love them, but do not judge them, for they are doing the best they can with what they have, as so have you.

Remember Everything Learn Nothing

Your memory, the things you hold inside you from your past, represents a crippling disease which stands between you and all the good things in life that are waiting for you just beyond your view. Warning: Remember Everything Learn Nothing.

That negative feeling in the pit of your stomach, the ache in your heart, any of these negative physiological manifestations of your incongruence when you think of something from your past blocks the abundance, peace, harmony, prosperity, and true love that awaits you.

Holding a grudge or discontent blocks you from love. The negative feeling associated with any memory from the past pulls you out of the flow of love, the vibration which encompasses abundance, peace, harmony, and prosperity.

Therefore, if you seek all the good things this life has in store from you with the least amount of effort, all you have to do is to attune yourself to loves vibration, take the inspired action, and all these things will come to you.

Everything you’ve ever wanted, or dreamed of, is just waiting for you. God would not have put those ideas in your head or those desires in your heart if He did not want to give it to you. All you have to do is to let go of anything that is preventing you from being in the vibration of having it, and you will find yourself enjoying it, first unmanifested (enjoying the expectant feeling of having it, while it has not been realized), then manifested. Here it is, in your life, in all its glory to be thoroughly enjoyed by you.

Now, you can also have all the things you want in life by making them happen all by yourself without regard of any vibration whatsoever, but this method is generally not associated with joy, at least not for very long.

Living in a higher vibration, attracting the things you desire and love into your life, is far more sustainable and prolongs the joy of the whole affair indefinitely.

To achieve the desires of your heart through the flesh only, by sheer determination, hard-work-and-dedication, or brute force, is effective for the accumulation of material things, wealth, or the appearance of wealth, but there is rarely any lasting joy, and the satisfaction of attainment is fleeting.

And the secret code to unlocking the sustainable love vibration is this:

Remember Everything Learn Nothing

Remembering everything (every detail of something that made you feel bad or caused you pain) leads to holding grudges and lowering your vibrational frequency, and also prevents you from extracting the precious learning which is lovingly provided to you by the experience. The more you remember and think about these things that make you feel bad, the further away you move from what you want.

Every experience you traverse through along your life’s journey has a treasure inside of it just for you. This treasure is usually represented as the gift of knowledge, something for you to learn which may not have been possible (or more effective a lesson to be learned) in any better way.

Every challenge or occasion for you to feel pain, bad, or as though an injustice has occurred, is an invitation for you to move closer to the life and everything that you want. Without the token gained from this experience, you will not be able to make it through the next gate.

Yet, God is holding all the desires of your heart in store for you and desperately wants to shower you with all you deserve, if you will only come to it. So, if you do not receive the token to allow access for you to pass through the next gate, a new opportunity will be presented to you.

As you may have noticed, some people get stuck between two gates for a prolonged period of time because they are unable to take hold of the gift to be learned which is necessary to move on. You may even have noticed yourself caught in this cycle of similar recurring challenges.

Now you know why. It is God giving you opportunities to move closer to everything you want. In this way, all pain is a gift. Pain is God’s way of saying, “Trust Me.”

Pain is a feeling. When you feel it, if it is God begging you to trust, you will find when you actually do trust Him and know in your heart that all things are in divine order, then you find yourself not feeling the pain of whatever it was that was upsetting you in the past.

You must be able to truly forgive, acknowledge the divinity of the conflict, bless all participants without judgment, and let go of the negative feeling. Wipe your memory of the negative associations you previously held in attachment to this event. Retain the lesson, the blessed learning, and move on.

When you are able to do this, you will find yourself hovering in unconditional love’s vibration, free from the negative strongholds (the feelings) of your past.

Now you are

Remembering the Blessings and Learning in Love

This is the fast-track to your heart’s desires.

I Was Wrong

If you are the kind or person who is constantly blazing a new trail throughout your life’s journey, you’re likely to experience missteps when burrowing through uncharted territory; and this is a good thing.

i-was-wrong-taking-responsibility-for-your-actions-i-screwed-up

Onlookers, casual spectators, doubters, critics and haters are watching every step you make and are likely to point out that you’re wrong to wander off the beaten path. It’s as if in the event that you suffer any damages that you deserve it because you’re not doing it right or as though something is wrong with you. The nay sayers may try to demean you, disrespect, try to discredit you or make fun of you. Their expectation is that you turn away from your cavalier exploration and return to the herd in an effort to save yourself from embarrassment, death or worse…

The truth of the matter is the haters and hecklers are not bad people, it’s just that they are incredibly frightened you might succeed and any mistake that you might make along the way, justifies their lack of taking a more proactive approach to their life. The more they exploit your mistakes, the better they feel about their own mediocrity, for at the very least, they are somewhat safe and no one is challenging their decision to remain in the life they’ve become comfortably accustomed to.

I applaud you for being one of the few of us who choose to take the road less traveled. It’s not so much that we develop a skin thick enough not to react to attacks by folks who are uncomfortable with our personal growth and progress it’s just that we wouldn’t let someone’s words throw us off track. At least they’re not using sticks and stones.

The best way to quickly recover and get back is to acknowledge you could have done better and get back to your work. If your accusers appear to have an attitude of genuine concern or reside within your inner circle of influence a little humility goes a long way. Humbly admitting

I Screwed Up

Will help people feel more empathetic to your cause if you are simply expressing your flawed humanity. No one can begrudge you for seeing us all as basically the same, all doing the best we can with what we have, even if some of us do it differently than others. On the other hand, if they are just hateful or disrespectful, you do not have to acknowledge their accusations at all.

Listen to Feedback

Occasionally, unsuspecting spectators can offer input or observations you were unable to see while entangled in the work that lead to your misstep. So, it’s good to lend an ear to those who have been watching from afar in case they may have insight that may prove to be helpful once you regain your balance and continue to re-engage your process. And you may be surprised to find helpful insight coming from hateful attackers (though it is unnecessary to acknowledge them, if it is your policy not to respond to people who are unkind), just file away the learning. In fact, for folks like us, there is no failure, only learning.

Learning from Mistakes

The most important component is that you extract all the knowledge obtained via your process of trial and error. The results give you a unique perspective which cannot be duplicated by the armchair observers as you move forward while taking responsibility for your actions.

You can spend years in college learning about all the best characteristics and techniques filling your head with practical concepts and knowledge, but the men and women on the front lines with their feet on the street actually doing the work and creatively approaching challenges as they appear on-the-fly and dealing with real-life circumstances which won’t show up in textbooks for years, they are the real heroes.

These are the innovators, not the imitators. They are setting themselves apart from the masses. To them it is better to create something from scratch, to bring value to the community for the greater good, even to aspire to make the world a better place, not just for themselves, but for the world at large for generations to come.

I am not condemning those who have opted to follow the path of academia. I applaud them for their efforts and discipline and find they make important team members. They bring skills and perspectives to the table that expands far beyond entrepreneurial street smarts, and they may well be innovators as well (and if they hang out with me for long, will find themselves spending more and more time looking outside the box, too).

Thanks for taking the high road.
We’re all on this journey together, yet independently.

-Carpe DM