After attending a wedding in Kolkata last month and exploring arranged marriages and the low rate of divorce in India, it made me think more about divorce, and specifically, why people cheat.
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“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
November 1843, Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Ugly Duckling was published in Copenhagen, Denmark. This amazing fairy tale has been read and re-read by adults and children alike, all over the world.
The story, as you probably know, is about a baby bird raised by a mother duck in a flock of other ducklings. The bird was teased and bullied unmercifully throughout his life, because he looked different and behaved differently. As an adult, the bird sought out and joined a flock of swans finding them to be beautiful birds. Although he expected the same abuse, the swans were open to his joining with them and they accept him. One day this ugly duck saw his reflection in the water and realized he was not an ugly duck at all, but really was a beautiful swan. He found his flock and fit right in. He was transformed.
Common to all of us is the desire to be heard, seen and understood. Many of us can relate to this archetypal story of not fitting in and finding ourselves teased, attacked or excluded. We continued to look for and hoped to find “our people”, our flock or our tribe. In the journey of doing so, we often changed our opinions or beliefs. Sometimes we gave up our voice and became silent, all in an attempt to fit in.
So often I hear someone telling another person what “the truth” is and insist on what they “should” be doing or thinking. Communication becomes about what is right or wrong. Opinions become polarized and those who do not agree with either the loudest voice or the group voice can be intimidated, shamed or alienated.
Over the years, the precious beliefs developed as young people get lost in the mass of voices and one’s self-esteem takes a hit. So often when working with clients, the undercurrent of their situation is a feeling of being unworthy or undeserving. How others have treated them guides their beliefs about themselves.
What would happen if, instead of stating your opinion and telling someone what you think, you asked the person to explain more about what they were saying? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how your relationships change if you went into conversations with the sole purpose of understanding their point of view. How would your posture change if you were there just to receive, to just hear the story?
My focus is on Relationship for 2014. Join with me in practicing, “just listening!”
Now, there will be times to share your opinion and have debates of course, and to enjoy the fun and creativity of a dispute, but let’s change it up a bit. Think about a few people in your life that are important to you. Make a conscious choice to have a couple conversations with them where you just “hold the space” for their musings, for their sharing, for how they see the world. Experience them deeply. Look into their eyes and be present to them. Give them the gift of being heard, seen, and understood. Bring them into your fold and see them as the swan they truly are. Allow your loved ones to be transformed by the incredible generosity of your listening.
Candess M. Campbell, PhD is the #1 Best-selling author of 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine. She is an international Psychic Medium, Intuitive Consultant, Speaker, and has practiced as a mental health and chemical dependency counselor for over 30 years.
You can also find this article in the January issue of Live Encounters Magazine!
Gary Chapman in his book The Five Love Languages teaches us to understand what makes us feel loved and what makes our loved ones feel loved. The five languages are 1) Words of Affirmation 2) Quality Time 3) Gifts 4) Acts of Service and 5) Physical Touch.
Have you ever had a friend who continually is asking for validation? A current or past love who is always touching you as you walk by, rubbing your shoulders, cuddling when you watch a movie? Someone who shops and is buying themselves gifts all the time? These may be clues to their love language.
If your mother’s love language is quality time, getting her a gift certificate for massage would not excite her the way taking her to an off-Broadway play would.
If you have a friend whose love language is Acts of Service, making her a book of coupons for services such as babysitting or yard work may be more important to her than getting her a new scarf.
If your loved one’s first love language is physical touch, you may want to plan a quiet evening alone and give each other foot rubs with a sensual essential oil.
You can take an online test at http://fivelovelanguages.com/ to find out your own love language. Let your family and friends know what your love language is and in doing this you may be able to explore theirs as well.
You may find you score high on a few love languages. Let your loved ones know this and how they would express this to you. My highest score is Acts of Service, although Quality Time and Physical Touch are close behind. When I think of this I remember a boyfriend who built a fence around my yard and how loved I felt. More recently friends wrote reviews for my book and it was the greatest expression of love they could have given me. The photo is of my dear friend David Sandoval, M.D., an immunologist, who wrote an incredible review that is now on the back of my book 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine.
“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Much of what I have taught over the years has been about manifesting and creating the life you want. In order to do this, often you have to bring the past into present time to heal. What I mean by this is that when you focus on the past and live in the past, your life is controlled by what you felt and thought in the past. What happens is you continue to feel those feelings in the present. Living in the past leaves no room for what you are experiencing in the present. Living in the past, having your thoughts and feelings consumed by the past, can also control your future. Your past becomes your future.
Living in the past can create depression.
Living in the future can create anxiety.
When I talk about healing the past, what I hear most is “how do I do that?” Well, there are many modalities for healing the past. One that I teach is to become aware of the memories and the wounds. Feel them and change your beliefs around them. Your feelings are a result of your beliefs. Often your beliefs flitter so quickly in your mind, you have difficulty noticing them, grabbing them and examining them.
The ones you can identify is where to start. In your journal, write out a list of people and situations where you have been hurt or angry. Allow yourself to feel your feelings as you remember. Be gentle and compassionate with yourself.
Look at where you may have contributed to the situation. Take inventory of your own actions. You can use the successful process from the Big Book of AA. When taking inventory, write out where you were selfish, self-centered, frightened, or to blame.
Now, you may not have had any responsibility in the situation, especially if you were a child. In that case, look at what was going on in the other person’s life at the time.
People do the best they can at the time. Sometimes their best is destructive and hurtful to others, but it still is the best they can do with the awareness, teachings and the consciousness they have at the time. Are there some things you would like to do that you don’t do? Are there things you do that you wish you didn’t? Have you behaved in the past in ways you would not behave today because you know better? No one is perfect
Anger is a secondary emotion that covers up pain or fear.
You may have had desires, demands or expectations of someone. Then you find they didn’t either give you what you wanted or they behaved in ways that hurt you.
If this is so and is in the past, in order to heal yourself and move on, you can forgive them. If it is a present situation, then you can make choices on how you choose to handle the situation. If choose to continue to stay in a destructive situation, it is your choice. The responsibility then becomes yours. You cannot blame the other person when you choose to stay. What happens when you blame someone else is, they then have the power to change the situation and you become a victim. When you take responsibility for your choices, you remain empowered and in control of your life.
If you still have a lot of pain or anger about the situation, write out what happened to you. You can write it over and over until the “sting” or “charge” is gone. You may want to read it over and over to a safe, loved one until it is no longer controlling you. You can forgive and move on. This does not mean you agree with what happened, it just means it no longer controls you.
Only you have the ability to clear your past and live fully in present time, thus giving you the power to create the life you want to live.
Clearing frees you to live in present time.
“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
November 1843, Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Ugly Duckling was published in Copenhagen, Denmark. This amazing fairy tale has been read and re-read by adults and children alike, all over the world.
The story, as you probably know, is about a baby bird raised by a mother duck in a flock of other ducklings. The bird was teased and bullied unmercifully throughout his life, because he looked different and behaved differently. As an adult, the bird sought out and joined a flock of swans finding them to be beautiful birds. Although he expected the same abuse, the swans were open to his joining with them and they accept him. One day this ugly duck saw his reflection in the water and realized he was not an ugly duck at all, but really was a beautiful swan. He found his flock and fit right in. He was transformed.
Common to all of us is the desire to be heard, seen and understood. Many of us can relate to this archetypal story of not fitting in and finding ourselves teased, attacked or excluded. We continued to look for and hoped to find “our people”, our flock or our tribe. In the journey of doing so, we often changed our opinions or beliefs. Sometimes we gave up our voice and became silent, all in an attempt to fit in.
So often I hear someone telling another person what “the truth” is and insist on what they “should” be doing or thinking. Communication becomes about what is right or wrong. Opinions become polarized and those who do not agree with either the loudest voice or the group voice can be intimidated, shamed or alienated.
Over the years, the precious beliefs developed as young people get lost in the mass of voices and one’s self-esteem takes a hit. So often when working with clients, the undercurrent of their situation is a feeling of being unworthy or undeserving. How others have treated them guides their beliefs about themselves.
What would happen if, instead of stating your opinion and telling someone what you think, you asked the person to explain more about what they were saying? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how your relationships change if you went into conversations with the sole purpose of understanding their point of view. How would your posture change if you were there just to receive, to just hear the story?
My focus is on Relationship for the New Year. I challenge you in the month of January, and hopefully throughout the year, to practice “just listening.”
Now, there will be times to share your opinion and have debates of course, and to enjoy the fun and creativity of a dispute, but let’s change it up a bit. Think about a few people in your life that are important to you. Make a conscious choice to have a couple conversations with them where you just “hold the space” for their musings, for their sharing, for how they see the world. Experience them deeply. Look into their eyes and be present to them. Give them the gift of being heard, seen, and understood. Bring them into your fold and see them as the swan they truly are. Allow your loved ones to be transformed by the incredible generosity of your listening.
This is a response to last week’s blog which I emailed to my subscribers. I received several comments back and this one, from Dennis Thomas I find important to share. I agree with him completely and he said it much better than I could have!
Hello Candess,
I have always enjoyed listening to you or reading some of your work and I am ever grateful that you offer this to me on a regular basis. This message you sent made me pause and consider as I too was raised in a family with a “racist” father as well as two grandfathers that were active members of the KKK and very proud of it. I too went through a time when I needed to make a choice; whether to continue with their stories or to create my own in regards to race and separation. I chose to create my own path, although it alienated some of my family, and moved me towards a better understanding of acceptance. At least that is what I believed.
Now over the many years of observing and watching the goings on of the world, I have moved into a belief that for us to find the Oneness that you mentioned we must not only understand it (clarity) but also experience it (liberation). When we changed our story, which we both chose to do, we decided that racism was bad and non-racism was good. Just a story change, nothing more. When we examined that part of our fathers that we believed was incorrect (racist) and needed healing, we did nothing more than judge one belief over another; my story is more aligned with Truth than my father’s. I am more evolved, more enlightened. In time even that seemed insufficient. I then believed that neither one was wrong. I believed that if I backed away from the “out there” experiences as a silent witness then my state of “awareness” was my actual self and I could see that all of those experiences that were creating happiness or suffering were nothing more than an illusion. I had moved from an actor in the illusion to a being in awareness of the illusion.
A lot of spiritual seekers stop at this point and become observers, believing that all is an illusion (no-thing) and tell themselves that their pain and suffering is not real, yet at the time, it seems real. But the one who has experienced Oneness moves deeper into the Truth and realizes that everything is real and not real at the same time. No-thing, appearing as everything, returning to no-thing. He knows that he is part of everything and everything is part of him; racism, no-racism, terror, pain, suffering, joy, kindness, compassion and so on. All the same stuff, all Truth. No bad, no good, just Being expressing Itself as Being.
We might use the ocean as a metaphor. We are all of the ocean and the individual waves as part of that ocean seem to express a differentiation that leads us towards an idea of separation. Some of the waves might appear as angry and crash into the surf with harsh expression and some of the waves move with the rhythms of the cosmos; in harmony and peace. We want to judge the angry waves as conflicting and disruptive while we accept the others that are more in alignment with our beliefs. But, to find Oneness we must find that part of our Being that knows that all of the waves are nothing more than the ocean itself in its perfection, expressing itself as itself. We must find ourselves in the racist and non-racist, the act of racism, the emotions that evolve from racism and all of the space in between. And, when we find ourselves in all things then we will truly experience Oneness.
I will end this note with a piece from Jeff Foster’s book, The Deepest Acceptance. “The true end of suffering come from the recognition of this total intimacy with life itself- in other words, the deep acceptance of “everything” appearing in experience. In this deep acceptance, mind and heart are one. Nothing is everything; they are never two separate things. Mental clarity and certainty give way to deep acceptance of this moment. And there, the war ends.”
Have a great day, Dennis Thomas, DVM
Wasn’t that great! My deepest gratitude to Dennis!
Candess