20170819 MMW: Making Peace With This Life

[Bobby 20,608]

MMW - August 19, 2017 - Making Peace With This Life

 

Hello to each of you. We are here, now. We can begin.

 

We have been asked to speak on the concept of "making peace with your life."

 

First, we might offer a translation of this to be said as "how to like your life."

 

Many of our students have great capacity for loving life, and loving their own life, but fall short in their capacity to actually LIKE their lives.

 

They can be in awe of life and experience the wonder and joy of it, and then go back to work and find it quite unlikable.

 

When one does not like something about life, one can do one of three things:

 

A - ignore it.

 

B - learn to like it.

 

C - learn to love it.

 

To ignore what you do not like is to carry the weight of it. It can even amplify the weight of it because you will forget that you are carrying it, yet it will remain and it will tend to make other challenges in your life seem even more problematic because you will tend to think that the pressures come from those sources instead of from what you are ignoring.

 

Ignoring can be a short-term solution, but does not work for the long-term.

 

To learn to like something means to be willing to understand it.

 

It means enduring the challenges of blows and distractions of what you do not like, but remaining present and making an effort to understand.

 

This is something similar to an "acquired taste." In simplistic terms, an acquired taste can come after the initial rejection and distrust and dislike once one has actually opened to the experience.

 

To understand something that you do not like means to look beyond that which you do not like. For example, you may not like going to work every day, but you do like the stability, security, freedom, and material well-being that it may give you. You may not like visiting your elderly parents or grandparents, but you know how much joy it brings them. You do not like cooking and/or considering inconvenient dietary changes, but you know how much it can improve your health.

 

This effort to like that which you do not like is not appropriate for all things.

 

When you do not like something because of inconvenience, lack of understanding, or challenge to your expectations, then it is worth considering the effort to learn to like it.

 

When you do not like someone or something that is legitimately harming you or harming others or seeking to do such harm, it is unnecessary to learn to like this.

 

This is true in terms of the self, as well, e.g. you do not have to learn to like your addiction.

 

That is how you differentiate between what may simply require more conscious effort and what does not. Because in either case you are bringing understanding.

 

For those things in life that you do not like and have determined unnecessary to like, then you can move on to learning to love it.

 

This may sound counterintuitive, but it is not.

 

Loving someone or something that harms you does not mean you like the harm, but that you acknowledge the greater existence from which that source of harm arises.

 

For example, you may not like your addiction, and you do not have to like that addiction, but you can bring love to the dynamic because it will help you tremendously to love yourself. Love can hold the contradiction without confusion.

 

You may love your abuser and not like the abuse. You may love the world and not like its wars.

 

When you can bring love to the greater existence of a thing or person, it helps you to honor the validity of your dislike while honoring the greater truth of your understanding.

 

Love helps you to bypass the necessity for rationality as your basis for understanding and turns to perception as your basis.

 

Perception does not rely on rationality or logic, but is something deep within you that is ancient and already knows the truth.

 

It does not need to be explained or delineated. It just is. You just Love.

 

This is why you can love your life and still not like it. This is why you can love people and still find you dislike them. This is why you can love yourself, and still struggle every day to like yourself. The ancient part of you already knows how to love and knows the truth of your existence and knows that it is okay not to like that which is harmful.

 

Learning to love what you do not like can also come when you have little or no control over what you do not like.

 

This is why we see so many students call out for love when faced with catastrophic and disturbing world events. Even if they do not understand why they are calling out, it is because that is the only thing they may have control over in that moment: to Love.

 

For many it is not a complacent distraction, but a very real acceptance of the truth that one cannot immediately control world events, and that a reminder to Love is that expression of understanding that which they do not and cannot like.

 

Bringing Peace to your life, or liking your life, tends to be a practice that is up against that which you cannot change and that is why there are only those three options: Ignore it, Learn to Like It, or Learn to Love It.

 

Beyond that is the option to CHANGE IT. But if you can change it, you need not be concerned with making peace or liking your life because when you CAN change what you do not like AND you make the effort to change what you do not like, you are already acting from a state of wholeness that is a statement of peace, like, and love for yourself and life.

 

***WORKSHOP***

 

First we will pose to each of you the question: do you recognize this dance within yourself and your own life in terms of how you have been navigating likes, dislikes, and loving?

 

Bobby: Yes. It seems "weird" to love something but not like it but I understand that better now.

ClaireC: Yes, past and present.

PeterK: Yes, I recognize this dance within myself. What especially resonates is differentiating what I can change from what I cannot as well as dealing with my addictions.

DianeHB: Yes

Maureen: I recognize this and I'm OK with it. It's just the way life works. Maybe being a Realist helps to see it that way.

MichaelE: Yes. I started by first loving, then moved to liking, and recently started understanding change.

 

When you are doing the work of sustaining peace in your life, it can often be undermined by your lack of understanding. So our next question is: Do you sense a relief, and kind of permission to peace, when you look at your life and see that you have been doing the work of loving and liking all along?

 

DianeHB: I think so

ClaireC: It seems to be a series of waves that come, I try to understand and then accept what is, being mindful of not resigning but accepting.

PeterK: I don't feel like I've been doing a very good job of loving and liking. There are times, however, when I've reached a sense of peace about where my life is right now and to be open to enjoying what I actually have instead of what I think I wanted.

Bobby: Same, I think I have

Maureen: Yes, I do.

Maureen: (sounds like wedding vows)

MichaelE: Yes, though the process is not always easy.

 

It is true. It is not easy.

 

NEXT QUESTION: After understanding how to differentiate between what is valid to try to like vs what is unnecessary to like, is there anything in your life that you think you should like, but cannot?

 

DianeHB: Cleaning and doing chores. LOL

MichaelE: I can agree with that one.

Maureen: Trump

ClaireC: Exercise

PeterK: What I have been discovering over the last six years is that almost everything in my life that I don't like has some room for me to change and improve. The problem is with me: I have to put in the effort if I want to make changes.

Bobby: I would have to say issues around Acceptance or the lack thereof.

 

We will begin our responses to each of these:

 

Cleaning, doing chores, and exercise are practices in loving mundanity.

 

You cannot change the sheer force of mundanity.

 

Mundanity is rooted in routines. If it were not, then mundanity would be very difficult to sustain shared realities of any nature. There has to be a wide base of familiar patterns and ones that can be most easily processed by the common brain.

 

You may never like Mundanity, but you can learn to love it.

 

However, there are countless parts of Mundanity that you can learn to like.

 

You probably do not even realize that you like that the ground does not disappear beneath your feet when you walk outside, or that a chair does not disappear as you sit down, or that you can go back home to the same address as it was when you left. Whether you realize it, or not, you like this and you learned to like it.

 

The same is true of the routines that benefit you in other ways in your life, but that are not upheld by forces beyond you. We are designed in ways that allow us to co-participate in the beautiful forces of Mundanity.

 

We may not have to actively consider how to keep our home address from changing while we are out, or maneuver our bodies in ways that are just right so that a chair does not disappear, but while we are incarnating within this Mundanity, we get to be the force that keeps our bodies as healthy as they can be and we get to be the force that dances with entropy so that it reflects our psychic hygiene.

 

We speak in terms that include ourselves because we remember.

 

So when you learn to like the routines that benefit you, it is an act of alignment with a force that is far more creative than it may appear to be.

 

However, when you learn to like a routine, it does not have to be on terms that are already set by others.

 

DianeHB: That helps to think of it that way.

 

They learned to like routines in ways that they could like them.

 

You may have other ways.

 

For example, rather than the dread of house cleaning after building up, it can be made into a game that is part of every other day, even a playfully competitive game if done with others involved. It can be a task that you set up with rewards that honor your efforts. Or it can simply be made more fun by adding music or dance and a recognition that it is a practice in self-care.

 

Exercise does not have to be routine in terms of place and time and practice, but a decision to simply get out and do more and to do it more often, such as a walk three times a week, or a private dance party twice a week. Or change your mindset from dread to one of meditation and/or treat it as a gift of kindness that you may not understand, but that your body deeply loves.

 

Our point being that even amid the Mundanity and routine, there is creation. There is creativity. They are not mutually exclusive states.

 

As for the fragment known as "Trump," there is nothing to like if you are not within close proximity and significance to this fragment, and even then there are challenges. But this does not matter to Love. It is okay to love this fragment without ever liking him or liking what he does. Keep in mind that to Love this fragment may never include loving or liking the man.

 

There are those who have opted into the positions to Love this man without condition. Everyone has these fragments in life or we could not exist or incarnate for long.

 

So you can give yourself permission to Love this fragment because the truth of his existence as Essence is already known and understood and it will not do you any favors to deny that truth. But you can also give yourself permission to never like this man.

 

In the same way that a screwdriver to the eye is fairly universally unlikable, so are some individuals.

 

Maureen: LOL!

 

As for recognizing the reflection of oneself in what one does not like, this is invaluable. It is Good Work. It is a deeper process of differentiation that helps one to see what is unlikable, what is likable, and what one can actually change.

 

As for the process of acceptance, whether accepting or being accepted, this brings with it an obstacle course like no other.

 

There will be many valid things to dislike and many valid things to learn to like, but you can help the process by learning to like that you are doing it at all. Because when you learn to like AND learn to love at the same time, you are in Agape.

 

You do not have to like everything, and you do not have to love everything, but you can love and like that you are taking on this challenge in life at all.

 

This simple differentiation can help you to keep your wits, your strength, your heart, and your sanity because you know the truth on all levels that this is evolution. This is truer than any other challenge in life: the messy practice in accepting others and the self.

 

Love that you are trying. Like that you are trying. That is where the peace is.

 

Each of you can change every day toward peace when you understand how much you are already doing, and gently remember that it is worth it. It matters. You knew that from your first breath.

 

We will conclude here for today. And for the record, we like you. We love you. And it is easy.

 

[Uma 13,325]

7 hours ago, Bobby said:

In the same way that a screwdriver to the eye is fairly universally unlikable, so are some individuals.

 

7 hours ago, Bobby said:

you can help the process by learning to like that you are doing it at all. Because when you learn to like AND learn to love at the same time, you are in Agape.

 

7 hours ago, Bobby said:

You do not have to like everything, and you do not have to love everything, but you can love and like that you are taking on this challenge in life at all.

 

What a great session! So many gems here to contemplate. Thanks for asking about fuckface, @Maureen. He seems to be the biggest focus and the most difficult to like or love. This gives us a way to understand this.

Edited August 20, 2017 by Uma

[PPLD 12,137]

Why are you saddened by this session @KurtisM?

[Crystal 3,084]

5 hours ago, Bobby said:

This is why we see so many students call out for love when faced with catastrophic and disturbing world events.

 

In my area, adoptable animals are flying out of the shelters. Kittens, adult dogs, and adult cats alike (we don't get many puppies here). I really think that's people calling out for love. I know how much love my own cats give me!

5 hours ago, Bobby said:

You probably do not even realize that you like that the ground does not disappear beneath your feet when you walk outside, or that a chair does not disappear as you sit down, or that you can go back home to the same address as it was when you left.

LOL - unless you live in the Harry Potter-verse! Put that way it does make one appreciate mundanity. I for one would be sleeping in the park an awful lot if my house changed address on me every time I left!

[KurtisM 15,958]

5 hours ago, PPLD said:

Why are you saddened by this session @KurtisM?

Oh I'm not saddened, that smiley was meant to be about happy tears.

Like "aw this is good helpful info, i'm glad to have it as i navigate the truth of things".

Also I always like things so I wanted to use a diff emoji for once. XD

[KurtisM 15,958]

Omg XD @Stickyflames

[KurtisM 15,958]

Bumping this! Good explanation of liking vs loving, and how doing both is the ultimate point of life and agape.

Edited August 28, 2019 by KurtisM