Aloha!

Aloha! I just came back from Hawaii for some soul-searching, relaxation and fun! I went to Maui and enjoyed a beautiful resort and went off on some amazing tours and adventures, all by myself. The main reason, though, was to give myself the beautiful space to relax, read some life-changing books, reflect on myself and my life, and hopefully find some answers and pathways to a better life.

I got what I went for!

Obviously growth and enlightenment is a never-ending journey, but I made so many realizations. I read “The Untethered Soul” by Michael A. Singer (EVERY human being should read that book - yes, including you!) and I am halfway through “A Return to Love” by Marianne Williamson, which goes hand-in-hand with the first book, in my opinion. With this new perspective, which connected SO many dots, I took a deeper look at myself and started to finally see why I am the way I am, and that I don’t have to be that way.

So many of the issues and topics discussed in those books I already knew a lot about. I got the jist. I’d figured some of them out for myself. But these books… they take that shallow understanding and explode it out to such a deep level. It’s like going from a MD to a PhD. They explain you to yourself. It isn’t like a horoscope or something, where it says things that are so vague they’ll fit anyone and don’t really say anything at all – or that your personality fits some Commercial Off The Shelf personality type. It explains EVERYONE, no matter what your personality.

So over the course of my trip, I wrote out my thoughts and realizations. I’m going to be adding to them and posting them over the next few days. With this post, I just want to set you up for what you are about to hear, and let you know what I’m reacting to. I’ll give a very short summary of what the books teach, obviously emphasizing the things that touched me the most, and possibly forgetting other parts. I’m going to reread those books, as well, probably over and over.

So the books explain that every single human being is looking for unconditional love. Not the romantic kind – a sort of “spiritual” kind. Not even religious, just… to feel unconditional love in your soul. In your heart. About everything. About yourself. What’s keeping us from that eternal feeling of love is fear. Our egos and personalities are created simply to minimize pain, and so they create fear. Everything you’ve ever been through that caused you pain in the past, your ego adjusts aspects of you to make sure you never have to experience that again. Things influence you and your ego’s response is to shut it out. Those pains you felt cause you to judge yourself. All the pain that causes you to judge yourself becomes how you judge others, as well. You build your whole life around avoiding those painful areas – that’s where your standards and your wish for romantic love come in. You want someone who isn’t going to touch your sensitive areas in your heart. You want someone where you can stay broken and they will cushion you from the blows to those areas. Everyone that angers us is actually giving us opportunities to push through those walls around our sensitive areas. We can fix ourselves. People don’t anger us – it is how we interpret what they are saying that causes us to feel fear, which turns to anger. It doesn’t matter if the other person is being nasty or not. If they were being nasty and it just sounded so insane that it didn’t bother you, that’s because it doesn’t touch any of your sensitive areas. That’s really how we should handle all issues like that. But if someone says something nasty, on purpose even, and it causes us to get angry – well maybe that hit a nerve. Maybe they are attacking you for something you’ve been trying to prove already, or maybe it reminds you of your mother telling you you’re not good enough, or maybe it reminds you of a boyfriend or girlfriend who tried to justify how they hurt you. Whatever it is, it isn’t what they are saying, what they are intending, or anything like that. How those events pass through you is the cause of the feelings. The books point out that most events and observations just pass right through us. You don’t really even consciously notice a lot of things going on around you. The things that you do notice, you have some sort of connection to. Sometimes it is a bad connection. And THAT is why some people notice things while others don’t – because it has no significance to them. You literally seek out everything that upsets you, when others don’t. It doesn’t upset them, so they don’t even notice. It just passed right through them, just like things that upset them based on their past just pass right through you. So you literally start to dedicate your life to identifying everything that upsets you, and protecting yourself from everything that upsets you, which becomes a completely unwinnable battle. The books also talk about how nothing can ever harm you, other than your own fear personified into your ego. If you can dive deep behind all those fears, there are thoughts and situations that you need to repair. There’s no reason to be fearful or angry. Everything just exists. Events are just events. It only upsets you if it has some significance based on your pain and your fear. And your fears and pain are simply ways that you felt denied love and acceptance. But you can’t look for love and acceptance from other people – you have to look within yourself. Everyone else is going around judging people based on their own issues, so you can’t expect anything from that. You were already perfect when you came into this world, you just started building all these walls to protect yourself, and you went running in search of the feeling of unconditional love. So many things are illusions that make us think we’ve found that feeling: sex, drugs, romantic love, power, success… none of those are what we think they are. They don’t give you the love you need to forever be happy no matter what happens. There are ups and downs, pros and cons, too much and too little of all of those. No amount of indulgence in those illusions will give you the feeling you are searching for – and that is the release that comes with just giving and receiving unconditional love.

They go way more into detail, and if you aren’t buying the whole unconditional love thing, honestly I don’t blame you – everything I read about that stuff before reading these books, I was kind of like, “Eh, so what?” or “Okay, acceptance, forgiveness, whatever, but STILL, they should have KNOWN better…” But there are no mistakes… only missing the mark, as they put it in the book. Seeking out something they think shows them the feeling of that unconditional love (and again, not the romantic kind). Talk about searching for love in all the wrong places. But these books spell it out for you. They explain it such that you actually see. You get it. Honestly, there were some parts where I sort of disagreed, but I decided to pose my complaint as a question, write it down, and keep reading with an open mind. All my complaints were resolved. Some parts got a little too theist for me. But then it would explain that it isn’t what I was thinking it was.

It’s just… amazing. I highly recommend those books. I’ve got more lined up to read after these, so I’m sure I’ll be talking about those, as well.

So like I said, the posts over the next few days will be the thoughts and realizations I had over the course of my trip to Maui, and then I’ll just continue on from there. Some of them get really personal… I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with that yet. I don’t know if I want to be kind of vague or really get neck deep into the true and honest thoughts. I mean it would be honest I just don’t have to necessarily display all my dirty laundry to the world. But then again, wouldn’t that be more authentic and maybe even more helpful to everyone else who comes across this blog? Hm. I’ll keep that in mind.