I have always been a “glass is half full” type of person, but sometimes I wonder if a “glass is half empty” personality leads one to more peacefulness?

I know people who make no effort to find blessings in all of life. I have always looked for the treasure in every experience, even if I had to dig through mountains of excrement; I’ve always possessed some certainty that there was some raw diamond to be found in the experience.

Despite my perpetual positive attitude I’m not sure that I actually spend any greater time dwelling in peace than those I know who do not share these tendencies.

I have a friend who repeatedly states that she hates her work, yet leaving the job is never even considered as a possibility. She spends her Sundays in mourning, depressed about the upcoming Monday morning. This same person refuses to hope because she has a powerful fear of disappointment.

Where I see opportunity this lovely soul focuses on risks. In a situation where I can see a possible beautiful outcome, she sees only possible discomfort.

When I hope, she refuses. She prefers not expecting; therefore giving herself the possibility of a pleasant surprise if something good happens, instead of risking the disappointment of hoping and having that desire unfulfilled.

I offer this background because it is possible that this individual’s balance, durability and tendency to stay on an even keel through life’s up and downs may be greater than mine.

She is seldom flustered by disappointment, since she refuses to hope. I, on the other hand, can have dramatic mood swings when things do not go the way I had hoped they would. There is some wisdom to be found in not giving desire any power, whatsoever.

To me, life has always seemed a little flat without my investment in hopes and dreams. I am not saying that my friend has no desires; she simply does not allow herself to anticipate any outcomes, thereby shielding herself the unhappiness inherent in disappointment.

It’s possible that I will never change. I am sixty and I still love the mystery of a surprise. I always have. As a kid, I loved Christmas Eve. We did not open presents until Christmas morning and that night, lying in bed trying to sleep, was the most magical of the whole year. To some degree, I embrace that love of mystery in my everyday existence. I find the pain associated with disappointment to be less risky than the thought of losing this enthusiasm for life.

While I can never really be inside the head of my friend, she, unknowingly, teaches me. She certainly rolls with the flow of life with less turbulence than I do. She is not tossed and turned, with the ups and downs of life’s movement.

I would never want to give up my love of anticipation, but there is some wisdom, to be found, in not giving unfulfilled hopes any power. It is a lesson that I am still learning. I am very grateful to have such a wise friend helping me find what is apparently the more peaceful, middle ground.

Today just nearly got away with me, before I remembered I had not posted to Secrets to Peace.

I have been doing energy healing and spiritual counseling since 1997 when I took my first Reiki class. One of the things I think I do, really well, is to listen. I Listen without input on what needs to be done, that is. Sometimes when someone is really caught up in their story, I may see their energy field depleting as they are telling it. At these times I utter a quiet prayer.

I hold this in prayer in my mind when my own thoughts sway toward judgment or I find myself wanting to fix the other person. This is the prayer, I remember, when a client begins reciting past hurts, which are well committed to their memory. Even though I am open-hearted and open-minded, (most of the time) habitual regurgitation of one’s destructive story causes me to struggle to simply dwell in love

Here is my little prayer:                                                          

You smile

     obviously suppressing pain

Yet you can’t wait

     to share your grief.

I have learned more about you

     in five minutes

Than I know about others

     after many hours.

I must avoid

     placing you in a box,

Failing to listen

     in my egoic knowing.

May I be fully present

    loving the truth of who you are

Corralling my tendency

      to judge, to qualify.

Even though I do not, while listening, start thinking of ways to help my client, I do remind them, once they are done telling their stories, that they are not the stories which they tell. They are the witness to the stories. They are the thought power which decides the aspects of the stories to be included in the retelling and which parts to leave out.

It always amazes me how much people rely on the past for a present identity.

There are several writers I would like to quote here, but since I have only twenty minutes to get this out and still make it before midnight and since my cat is fighting me for the keyboard I am going to close with the reminder to all of you. WE are not our stories. We are so very much more.

Be Peace and use this prayer when a friend is locked up in her story and you are having to work to remain non-judgmental.

Much Love to all of you.

Every time I introduce myself, be it on a group for Facebook, on Twitter, or any of the other Social Sites, I always introduce myself as being a student of Love striving to become the greatest expression of Love of which I am capable.

My experience has taught me that there are only two hindrances to being the free-flowing expression of Love, which I hope to become. Number one is that I am afraid. Either I am afraid that I will be rejected in one way or another or I am frightened by the possibility of giving love that is not returned, which is really just another way of stating the same fear of rejection.

Number two is that my ego tells me that the person before me is not worthy of my love. Perhaps he/she has done something I disagree with, and somewhere in my mind I decide to withhold my love, with this behavior or action as my justification. This second choice is actually easier to change because it is simply a matter of immediate forgiveness.

Since our wants, likes and dislikes are so deeply ingrained in our personality, it never seems to work if I merely attempt “not” to judge an individual whose behavior is troubling me. I have found that it is far easier, for me, to notice the irritating action and immediately forgive it. The simple question, “Is this really worth sacrificing my peace of mind over?” is usually enough to remind me to forgive my brother or sister, for my own sake.

The first reason for not loving is a far more complex problem. Fear hides itself, within our learned behaviors. We make up all kinds of stories about why we don’t love, because we are not interested or we are too intimidated to honestly recognize that at the core of the withheld love is fear. This fear of vulnerability is something we discussed in the July 6^th Secret to Peace entitled To Live is to be Vulnerable . Today I want to examine this a bit further.

Consider these words from Gangaji:

Most everything we do is to avoid vulnerability. We dress up in grown-up clothes, and play at doing grown-up work, in an attempt to escape the defenseless innocence associated with child. But innocence is not limited to children. It is possible for you as an adult to be consciously vulnerable and innocent. You can consciously hurt. You can consciously suffer. When you suffer consciously, suffering is revealed not to be what you thought. In conscious suffering, you are no longer fighting the suffering. You are consciously present in it. Then suffering itself reveals the Buddha, Christ’s heart, God revealing Itself to you on the mountain. If suffering is met as it appears, then suffering is discovered not to be suffering. But the intention is not to meet suffering to get rid of it. The innocent intention is to meet suffering as it is, even if it means feeling hurt.

Most people are more afraid of having their feelings hurt

than they are having their bodies hurt. But the willingness to be hurt is crucial. Without the willingness to be hurt, there is no willingness to love, no willingness to die, no willingness to live, no willingness to be.

It is easy to see from your own life experience that no matter how much you try to run away from hurt, you still experience it. To stop the running, to turn and experience what is chasing you, open and unprotected, you have to be willing to be free. Are you willing to be free?

You can examine your life and see for yourself what you are running from, what you are trying to escape. It may be very subtle. But just in the seeing of it, there is the possibility of a deeper opening. Gangaji. The Diamond in Your Pocket: Discovering Your True Radiance. Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2005. Pp. 204-05. Print.

To Love requires the ability to be totally truthful with oneself. This is why I stated that the fear of vulnerability, the fear of rejection, the fear of being hurt is so much harder to overcome than is learning to immediate forgive indiscretions which are simply not that important. These fears are deeply ingrained within us, and after having children, I am not totally convinced that we do not come on the planet with some of these embedded in our psyches.

If one truly hopes to become the greatest expression of Love they are capable of becoming, he or she must learn to be quiet enough to question every truth they hold sacred.

Many, many of our truths are totally unexamined. We cannot love fully without discarding all so-called truths which block our ability to be fearless, when it comes to loving.

I posted a quote, this week, on my Intuitive Endeavors Facebook page, in which Rollo May said: “The inner sense of worth that comes with being in love does not seem to depend essentially on whether the love is returned or not.” — May, Rollo. Love and Will; Rollo May. New York: Norton, 1969. Print.

By this quote and from my life experience it is obvious, to me, that the choice to love pays dividends which far exceed any of the pain involved in moving through my fears. By forgiving, immediately, acts which the old Elliott would have taken personally and found offensive, I reclaim my right to choose freedom. I choose to love; to not be owned by mental thought patterns that were created before I was awake.

Freedom is a choice.
Loving is a choice.

Loving sets us free.
All other options
Keep us imprisoned,
Behind walls we
Never knew were there.

I choose Love.
I choose to Love you.
Even if you may hurt me.
Even if you already have.
And So It is.