I enjoyed a blast from the past in June when my 1998 public television special “How to Get What You Really, Really, Really, Really Want” appeared among the films and videos available to view during the 2014 Hay House World Summit. It was fun to see the family scenes included in the footage, when my kids were little and I had a bit more hair! Time has moved on since those days, but the timeless message of learning to align with Continue Reading
Many years ago, when the holiday season arrived and certain relatives were due to make their annual appearance, I felt a sense of increasing dread. Far too many of us suffer from the pain of family get-togethers, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Somehow we allow the expectations and demands of our family members to be the source of so much unhappiness and stress, when what we really want is to be authentically ourselves and at peace with our relatives. The conflict seems too often to be a choice between being authentic, which means no peace with certain relatives, or having peace at the price of being inauthentic. Being peaceful and authentic can define your relationship with your relatives. First, though, you may have to assess your relationship with the closest relative of all—you.
In order to change the nature of family relationships, you’ll have to change your mind about them and consider that you are the source of the anguish in your relationships, rather than the individual whom you’ve pegged as the most outrageous, the most despicable, or the most infuriating. Over the years, all of these individuals have been treating you exactly as you’ve allowed them to with your reactions and behaviors. This can miraculously change when you choose to be at peace with everyone in your life—most particularly, your relatives.
If the focus of your inner dialogue about your family members is on what they’re doing that’s wrong, then that’s precisely how your relationship with them will be experienced. If your inner speech centers on what’s annoying about them, that’s what you’ll notice. But if you’re thinking, I am authentic and peaceful with this relative, then that’s what you’ll experience—even if that relative continues to be exactly the way he or she has always been. Continue Reading
If you ever feel like you are trying too hard, you probably are! Who said that effort and striving are the keys to success? I think the Beatles were on to something in their classic song when they advised that we simply “Let It Be.” Verse 47 of the Tao Te Ching suggests that effort and striving, along with the struggling, worrying, stressing, fretting and agonizing that we can’t seem to resist, are behaviors that actually keep us from experiencing the harmony and sense of completion that are part of our connection to the Divine Order. What if we learned to live by being rather than trying? “Without going out the door, know the world. Without looking out the window, you may see the ways of heaven,” says the Tao. For example, consider how the beating of your heart, the inhaling and exhaling of your breath, and a myriad of other life functions take place without effort from you, even as you are reading these words. You are a single beat in the one heart that is humanity. The Divine is at work within you, moving you toward your life purpose. Let yourself be guided and see what happens when you simply “let it be.”
Namaste,
Wayne