Category: Relationships

Conquering Loneliness

8/13/2015

Finding a significant other has become big business. Maybe you've noticed the commercials on TV that offer people, old and young alike, the opportunity to find that perfect soul mate. Finding someone "special" gives vent to the belief that states, "when I find my true partner, my loneliness will be over. My life will be full and fulfilled." But, if you are lonely, it's not caused by just being alone. The problem often lies in your inability to make a connection with something within you, rather than in bonding with someone in the world.

So, loneliness is not the result of not finding the right person "out there." Loneliness is a state of being that is caused by an inability to make a loving connection with part of yourself. In other words, this inner separation creates the vibration that spawns the experience of outer separation.

The companion you seek is not really a new person to be met, but a new depth within you to be discovered. The greater the degree of your awareness of this, the more power you will have to attract the perfect helpmate or draw supportive love from present relationships.

So if you are lonely, the place to start is not being on the lookout for that special person. The place to start is looking within for a new connection with yourself.

Over the years, I have observed a number of people, who after doing everything they could to find that special person, found them when they stopped looking. Why? Because, whether by accident or on purpose, they turned within and made peace with a long-ignored part of themselves. They found peace, and peace is just another name for God. Once they were in that state of being, the perfect person was drawn to them.

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The Grudge – No, Not The Movie!

6/10/2015

Letting go of a grudge you have against someone can be a knuckle-chewing challenge. It can block your peace of mind until you think you're actually being haunted. I finally decided that I had to let it go before I drove myself crazy with it. Deciding to let it go was a heck of a lot easier than actually letting it go, I have to admit. But, I found a method that worked for me, and I'd like to share it with you.

My first step was to convince myself that everyone is doing the best they can – at least based on the understanding they have at that moment. If your grudge is against your parents, this is especially meaningful! What I'm saying is that I had to give the person I had a grudge against the benefit of the doubt. I had to say: "What they did made perfect sense to them, even though it seems deliberately hurtful to me."

Think this first step might be a little too hard for you? Then try this. Reverse positions with the person or persons you have a grudge against. Think of something that you did in the past that made someone angry at you. Did your behavior make perfect sense to you at the time? Of course it did! Do you wish you had done something different? Probably, if you had time to think about it.

Can you see that what you were doing represented the right thing for you to do at that time? After all, you were giving expression to the level of understanding you possessed then. Maybe today you are a better, wiser, and more wonderful person. You might not respond the same way. Let's hope not. Let's hope you learned something from that experience.

The question you need to answer now is: Can you give the same kind of tolerance to the person or persons you hold a grudge against that you have just given to yourself?

Work with this question until even though you remember what happened, you cannot generate any feelings associated with the experience. When this happens, you are on your way to completely letting go of the grudge.

Recognizing My Unique Path

4/5/2015

What I overlooked for so long was that I always had the key that opened the door to the sweet spot, but It was like my nose—so close that I looked right past it. I kept listening to how other people found theirs. Selling their experiences may have made them rich, but it only led to disappointment for me. The way they thought and felt was unique and special to them. All the training and education in the world could not create their sweet spot in me! You are different than I am. You have unique mental and physical processes that are unique to you. Each of us is different, and so the method that is designed to make you or me successful requires our own uniqueness to make it work. We have to go through our own process, our own discipline, to find our sweet spot. Perhaps the greatest pipe dream is thinking we can use someone else’s mental and emotional work to show us the path to success. It sounds great until we try to put it into practice.

It almost sounds like I’m saying that listening to what others say about spiritual growth is a waste of time, but I’m not. I am simply saying that attempts at self-improvement must be filtered through your own thoughts and feelings in order to establish the harmony that reaches for your highest good.

Finding the sweet spot within yourself is the key to better relationships and experiences in your life. Whatever your relationship with yourself, it is the cloth from which the pattern of your life is cut. Your life will mirror back to you the relationship you have with yourself. If you believe yourself to be inferior, you will draw to you people and experiences to support this. This is true for every attitude you have toward yourself. So, if you want to experience Life’s Sweet Spot, that place that gives you joy each and every day as you wake and go about your business, start by finding that sweet spot, that place of harmony, within yourself.

Creating Balance Within

4/1/2015

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So why is it so hard to create this balance within ourselves, this sweet spot? For one thing, we fail to recognize the consequences of mimicking others and embracing their attitudes as our own. We fail to see the buffers that come into being because we don’t want to see how absolutely ridiculous some of our beliefs about ourselves and the world are. We fail to see that we have turned over the control of our experiences to all those “false personalities” within us that we’ve created for dealing with different situations in our lives so that we feel more comfortable.

Until we accept that the experiences we have—the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly—are all there for a purpose, we will never be able to hold onto this sweet spot within ourselves. Being born onto this earth is not about having a place to live. Earth is a giant classroom. The teachers are not flesh and blood. The teachers are experiences.

We can tell how well we are learning the lessons by the discomfort we feel and how often we return to the same experiences time after time. I never liked the idea that anything less than success was my own fault and that it was a waste of time to blame life, other people or my past experiences. However, accepting the responsibility for your own experiences is a condition you have to face if you are interested in personal change. It takes an extremely brave soul to say, ”I am responsible for the conditions in which I live.” It’s much easier to play the “blame game.”

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Let's Define "Sweet Spot"

3/25/2015

Before we go any further, let's define this “sweet spot” I keep mentioning. To me, this sweet spot within myself is when my thoughts and my feelings are in complete harmony and partnering for my highest good. This is a gift from God – the ability to come into this sweet spot and create that which is my highest good.

We lose this sweet spot because we don’t have the awareness when we’re small to say no to the influences of those around us. Consequently, we condition ourselves to look for answers in the world. Of course, the answer to finding that sweet spot, that harmony between our thoughts and feelings that makes us feel whole, can’t be found in the world. This starts a vicious cycle for most people. They hustle to find the “right” relationship or the “right” job, and for a little while, they think they’ve found it. But the world can never bring your mind and heart together. So they drop that relationship or that job and hustle to find another.

It is a glorious moment when a person recognizes that they need to look within if they are going to find the right relationship or job because it’s only when we create harmony within our thoughts and feelings that we will succeed in finding those things we seek in the outer. In other words, we have to take responsibility for the change necessary to feel happy.

A Scary Idea

3/22/2015

Here is a scary idea. The drive to find the right relationship or the right experience is the hidden desire to find the sweet spot within yourself, which I mentioned in an earlier post. So don’t waste your time looking “out there.” It is a feeling that does not spill from any experience or any relationship out in the world. Here is something that might be hard for you to get their mind around. The only purpose outer relationships or experiences serve is to act like teasers to keep you refining the creative power you have within yourself. This relationship you forge within yourself is the most important relationship because it is like having a partner who can bring you anything you desire and I do mean ANYTHING!

Troubled Relationships

3/18/2015

When I see people in a troubled relationship, they seldom see that this problem is a gift for them. Actually, it is more accurate to say that the trouble they are having is designed to be an emotional shock so that they wake up to the relationship they have with themselves. Pain is usually the only way to wake us up to the wisdom that lies hidden within.

How many people are willing to take problems as the shock they need to wake up? It is more likely for them to see such difficulties as bad luck or as an excuse to whine or blame the experience on being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The result is that the same experience or something like it enters their lives over and over.

Each person is an attracting machine. All experiences, both good and bad, are waiting for someone to choose them. So, calling earth the planet of lesson is not such a bad idea. We came here to take responsibility for what we choose. Life on this planet of lesson is like lifting weights. Being able to stand up under the weight of your bad experiences is the way you grow into the emotional strength you need to access better life experiences.

Your bad experiences are the signals that some thoughts or behaviors need to be changed. Bad experiences come from either your conditioning (your trained machine) or your inability to see them as a signal that you need to make a change of some kind. Either way you are faced with a choice. Choose to see what you need to do to effect change or keep whining.

I think that it is important to keep in mind that we live on the planet of lesson. The lessons are about recognizing how to use our pain to change so that we can attract better experiences in all areas of our lives, particularly in our choice of partners.

Staying On Track

3/15/2015

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You are walking around in a creative energy that does not care if it helps or hurts you.

It is an intelligent energy that offers you pain to let you know how far off the creative track you are.

This is the only way this potential can get your attention and put you back on track. So give up the idea that you are a victim or are being punished. The quality of your relationships will mirror back to you how off track you are.

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Surfing The Rift

Learning to heal rifts or disagreements that pepper relationships of all kinds, including the one with yourself, that can make it difficult to move forward.

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John Dean Williamsen teaches about psychological balance and how to use your life experiences to achieve balance.

Surfing The Rift Blog by John Dean Williamsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Conquering Loneliness

The Grudge – No, Not The Movie!

Recognizing My Unique Path

Creating Balance Within

Let's Define "Sweet Spot"

A Scary Idea

Troubled Relationships

Staying On Track

Surfing The Rift

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