By Dr. Sandy Islands for Conch Color
We’ve made it through Thanksgiving and hopefully spent time reflecting on how we showed up with our families and friends. It doesn’t matter what happened, only how we responded to it. Did we show up as the love that we are? A great master and teacher said, “I’m a child of God and so are you.” This means that our spirits are pure love. Layered on top are attitudes and coping mechanisms that we've developed in our childhoods which may not be serving our highest good as adults. We were born awake into this life as pure spirits of love. We see this in the eyes of any newborn baby. We fall asleep as we're programmed into adulthood until we reach the point when we look at ourselves and realize that many of our thinking and behavioral patterns do not serve us. We begin the process of stripping away denial, addictions, and any self-destructive habits to return to the love that we are.
When we behave from this place of love, we begin to rise above our “problems.” We re-name them as challenges because no problem can be solved at the level it was created. Meeting our challenges head on means that we find their solutions at a level above our conflicting perceptions. When we stay eye-to-eye with our difficulties, we fight the problem rather than solve it. When we behave as the love that we are, we realize that the secret to success already exists in the nature of being who we are. The solution to our challenges, answers to our prayers and revelations of our true purpose already exist. It's our duty and challenge to make ourselves available to receive them.
All emotions stem from either love or fear and the two cannot operate in the same space. Love commands the universe. We resort to control when love is missing because control is fueled by fear. In a world obsessed with control, it’s sometimes difficult to find a moment’s rest. A feeling of great peace and restfulness is usually present when we are the love that we are. Control is a competition of dominance for winning and losing. As we respond with love, we notice that the timing of our lives correlates perfectly with our purpose and true nature. Being the love that we are propels us to do the next right thing. As we make doing the right thing the momentum in our process of living we are riding the freight train to happiness. This doesn’t refer to judgments of right versus wrong. There is rightness in anything we change for the better. When we do the next right thing, we are in harmony with life but do not confine ourselves to some limited formula of proper behavior set by others. The truest guideline for right action is when we practice heart principles. These include unity, love, life, respect, honesty, justice and kindness. We can also ask ourselves if what we’re doing brings out the best in us, the best in the situation, and the best in other people.