Voice of the Spirit

We have added a new video on Finding Forgiveness. As a spiritual principle, forgiveness is esssential for our emotional well-being and to help us along our spiritual journey. Discover the tools to unleash this powerful spiritual force in your life!

Here’s the video:

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The holidays can be emotionally tough on all of us. They can be even harder to cope with if you are alone.

There is a good article on PsychCentral.com, 10 Things to Do If You’re Alone for the Holidays. The sidebar also has some helpful guides for coping not only with Thanksgiving, but with relatives, stress, alcohol and overeating.

-Meremystic

I’m reading 7 Ancient Keys to Happiness – A 90 Day, Lesson-a-Day Guide to Achieving Inner-Bliss on my Kindle.

There is a new video on Psychic Jim1537’s YouTube channel. This video is about using gratitude as a powerful tool for transformation. Using the law of attraction and the power of affirmations, this video explains how gratitude can help you manifest the spiritual, emotional and financial blessings that you deserve!

Here’s the video:

Like what you just saw? Be sure to subscribe to Psychic Jim1537’s You Tube channel so you will automatically be notified of any new videos!

And if you are interested in your own private session with Jim1537, click here to begin or visit Jim1537.com for more information.

Many of our readers have expressed an interest in knowing more about the author of this blog, Jim1537. Here’s a brief video introduction to Jim and his abilities:

There are more videos to come on a variety of spiritual topics, so be sure to subscribe to PsychicJim1537’s YouTube channel to get the lastest updates!

If you are interested in booking your own reading with Jim1537, click here or visit Jim1537.com for more info.

It’s easy to fall back on the old cliché in our lives that history always repeats itself because as human beings, we often do just that. However, it doesn’t always have to be a matter of continuing the “same old song and dance” in our journey as we indeed can change things for the better where we forge new patterns, pathways, and outcomes.

Yet, putting in the effort to transform our journey is not only about psychologically breaking old habits that we’ve manifested in this lifetime, but also entails understanding from a spiritual/metaphysical perspective the tremendous amount of karma (both good and bad) that we’ve brought into this incarnation from our past lives. We can either repeat history, or ultimately, move our journey into a different direction where wondrous, new chapters can be written by us.

Our “History” and Karma

Most of us understand that the events which happened in our past lives have a tremendous impact on what is going on right now in our current incarnation. Regarding former incarnations, we carry over the karmic consequences (both good and bad) of our actions into subsequent lifetimes, including the one we’re living in currently. What is referred to as being “lesson driven” means that our lives can change once we’ve learned a particular lesson. If we’ve spiritually agreed to go through something, we will have to experience it, and the way we handle it determines if our lives move in a better direction or not.

If something is karmic, lesson driven and you’ve spiritually agreed to go through it, you won’t be able to stop repeating “history” until and unless you complete the agreement. Think of it like school: If you didn’t pass mathematics in grade 11, “history” would keep repeating itself (meaning you’d have to take this academic course again until you passed it). Then, you would be able to manifest a new path by moving toward getting your diploma and graduating.

Furthermore, if one doesn’t complete the spiritual lessons/agreements/karma they’ve agreed to, it is likely that they would create even more karma, and therefore, have a deeper, harder and more complex set of lessons to deal with in the future within this lifetime or subsequent incarnations.

In his most recent prior physical lifetime, Dominic was a man who was selfish and inconsiderate where his wife Sharon and their two children were completely victimized by his lack of caring for them. In that lifetime, when Sharon got sick, he abandoned her and walked out on his kids because he didn’t want “the hassle” of having to take care of his wife. After Dominic left, Sharon became gravely ill, died, and his kids were devastated. So through Dominic’s actions, he created a tremendous amount of negative karma that irrevocably damaged his family in that prior incarnation.

In his current incarnation, Dominic, his former wife Sharon and their two kids all reincarnated together in the exact same type of family unit as before: Dominic as the father, Sharon as his wife, their daughter and son as the children. This is because all four souls spiritually agreed to resolve this negative karma. Dominic came into this lifetime with the same selfish tendencies as before, yet with the spiritual intention of getting past his old behaviors and not repeating “history”; he was still resistant to paying off his karmic debt to his wife and kids because of egotistical attachment to his past selfish behavior.

Yet, Dominic still wanted to manifest his dreams of being rich and successful, except his karmic agreement stated that he wouldn’t be able to realize his dreams until and unless he paid his karmic debt to his wife and children. Then, and only then, would the door open for him to manifest the success and wealth Dominic wanted and he could write a new chapter of his spiritual/karmic history.

Even though he struggled with changing his old ways, Dominic ultimately did resolve his karmic debt with his wife and children through loving and supporting them emotionally, financially and in daily life. This ultimately allowed Dominic to once and for all stop repeating history and change not only his, but everyone’s journey for the better.

The history of past life patterns

We often hold onto patterns and personal attachments for more than one lifetime. If we look at how stubborn some people are that we know in our current lifetime, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we not only carry behavioral qualities and beliefs throughout our current physical life, but with us on the other side and subsequently into future incarnations.

Cheryl had been a Christian religious zealot in her last two incarnations. This prevented her from being able to write new chapters in her journey as she couldn’t accept others for who they were as she was steeped in judgment and condemnation of others. This created illness in Cheryl’s body, as her rigidity in outlook, attitude and words made her stiff with chronic, debilitating, crippling arthritis. 

In her current incarnation, she carried the same attachment and beliefs as she did before. It was familiar, felt comfortable, and with that connection, she was convinced that the wrath and judgment of a vengeful God was her motto to live by. So whenever she perceived others as being wrong or committing a sin, she fell back on the familiar pattern of condemning them. So in the same sense that we speak of people hitting their heads against the wall, that’s exactly what Cheryl was doing again. And she started manifesting the same health problems as she did in her two prior incarnations where her joints and entire body once again became debilitating stiff.

This lifetime, however, was different because her higher self was looking to transcend and rise above this pattern as she was looking to grow and turn over a new leaf. Yet, the key was in letting go of the old attachments and beliefs that had been so familiar and comfortable to her from deep within. That would be what she’d have to do in this lifetime to not keep repeating the same old negative history.

Through being receptive to her higher self, she started growing one step at a time by becoming less judgmental of others. Over the years, she reached a point where she no longer felt compelled to be the judge and the jury regarding other people’s behaviors and started accepting everyone for who they are. This relieved the crippling health problems that had been created within her through condemnation and judgment of others. Cheryl’s acceptance of others literally opened her energy within to receive the new blessings of a healthy flexible body.

As with Cheryl or any of us, there is no rule of thumb as to when one would let go of an attachment, and therefore, move toward changing our personal history. We all have the free will to hold onto something as long as we wish. No two souls grow and evolve at the same rate, so there’s no mathematical number that indicates how long anyone will stay at the same level of consciousness.  Some people hold onto something for a year, while others may stay attached to something for countless lifetimes. As with Cheryl’s case, it took about two and a half lifetimes to bring about the transformation needed so that she could forge a new direction. It was well worth her effort, as she freed herself and healed her physical body in the process.

Programmed for history to repeat itself

Sometimes there are patterns and dynamics within a family which program us to repeat history. This can be done by the reinforcement of what our family teaches us, and/or by the beliefs we adopt based on what we’ve observed and experienced.

Hugh’s father Hank died from a heart attack at the age of 56, out of the blue and without warning. This happened when Hugh was just 15 years old. This experience had such an impact on Hugh that he started to believe the old mainstay: like father, like son, and would frequently tell people that he, too, was going to die of a heart attack at the age of 56 just like his father did.

As the years went on, his belief never wavered, and the programming along with the power of Hugh’s spoken word caused history to simply repeat itself: At the age of 56, Hugh dropped dead of a heart attack one day in his back yard, just as his father had, also out of the blue and without warning. Yet what Hugh went through was not unusual as many of us “pick up” our programming through our families and just carry it out.

Violet grew up in the years of the great depression, where her family was deeply impoverished. This experience programmed her to hold onto the belief of poverty, and even though Violet became financially well-to-do through marriage at the age of 30, she continued to always “cry broke.” Even though she now had money through her husband, Violet would frequently speak of going to the poor house and she lived with the constant terror that someday, her future would be an impoverished one.

Because of Violet perpetuating this programming through her belief and words, she did eventually lose all of her money. Widowed at the age of 65, Violet died with barely a penny to her name at the age of 81.

With both Hugh and Violet, history repeated itself through the programming that first started in their childhoods, and was continued through their belief that this was just the way life is. It was as matter of fact to them as the sun rising in the morning.

Old programming, (even when it’s not positive), is comfortable like an old shoe. It can be hard to let go of something, even when it’s not good for us that makes us feel complacent. 

The familiarity and comfort of old patterns in this incarnation

Experts such as psychologists and psychiatrists believe that within our current lives, we adopt beliefs, patterns, and emotional attachments. This can start as early as our toddler years, and continue through our moment of death. However, it’s usually thought of that we “pick up” these things from early childhood. 

When children get too much of an unhealthy type of TLC (tender loving care) and attention from getting sick, it creates an emotional feeling that being ill means receiving nurturing, comfort, and pampering.

When a child carries that emotional pattern into adulthood, illness becomes a misguided way of still attempting to seek comfort, TLC and nurturing. There are certain adults who “enjoy” being sick as they’re caught in the old formula of “sickness = comfort.” Over and over again, they recreate the same scenario of getting sick like a repetitive tape loop as this type of person starts to manifest illness when they’re stressed, or when they want comfort. Often, the actual health issues become worse as the same behavior mechanisms that tie into staying home from school when you’re 7 and having mom‘s chicken soup with sniffles also apply to manifesting a deadly cancer at age 49.

Tammy was 23 when she went through her first serious relationship break up, and the way she consoled herself was by overeating as a form of comfort through replacing the love she had just lost with food. At that time, she was thin, but gained twenty-five pounds from about six months of overeating.

Then, as her life progressed, she never really noticed that any time her love life was in turmoil, or that she was stressed in general, Tammy would turn to food as a source of comfort. This pattern kept her weight going up and down over the next twenty years until she became seriously obese at the age of 43. Tammy reached a point in her journey where she felt that she had hit rock bottom, yet had no idea what to do. It was like she woke up with the house on fire, but had no way to put it out. She finally realized that she kept repeating what had become a dreadfully hellish history, but didn’t know what to do about it or how to fix it.

The crisis point of wanting to stop repeating history

Most of us go along with the choices and patterns that we feel comfortable with (regardless of whether they’re good or bad for us and others) till we experience a crisis point in our lives as Tammy did.

The term “crisis” can have a terrifying implication in our daily mundane lives such as when a loved one is in the hospital, seriously ill and potentially near death.  However, in spiritual terns, “crisis” indicates that a life altering crossroad is occurring in someone’s journey which can lead to ending an old, negative pattern and bring about a positive, fantastic change. With that motivation we receive from a spiritual crisis point, we seek to stop repeating history and transform our lives in the right way.

For Tammy, she used her weight crisis as the motivation to turn things around. She looked back at when she first started overeating, and immediately recognized the reason of why, when and how it all started. This gave her the clarity to see that she had been using food as a crutch and source of comfort for twenty years. With that in mind, she made the commitment to stop perpetuating the same old awful song and dance by breaking the old pattern of overeating for comfort. It’s wonderful to know that Tammy did lose the weight she needed to and permanently redirected her relationship to food.

Yet, unlike in Tammy’s case, we often see how many of us struggle with being able to bring about the meaningful change we desperately claim that we want even when we’ve reached a crisis point in our lives. We are passionate about wanting to write a whole new chapter in our history, but we can’t seem to do so at all, not matter how hard we try.  

The survival conflict within and our defense mechanisms

If something isn’t karmic, lesson driven, or spiritually agreed to, then we can indeed stop repeating history by changing ourselves — yet that isn’t always as easy as it sounds on the surface. It’s usually that our own ego, defense mechanisms, and emotions are in the way of the blessings we seek. In reality, we are often quite conflicted as to the change we’re trying to make, where one part of us wants to stop repeating the same old negative historical patterns (usually our higher spiritual self), while conversely, another part of us (usually our lower self and negative emotions), fights tooth and nail to keep the old, dark, familiar patterns alive. That is because we’re receiving an internal payoff from our own negativity and have attachments to it.

I’ve seen countless people go into therapy, meditate, say affirmations for years and even decades, yet to no avail. Why is that?

The key to changing our history for the better is that our thoughts must be simple, unified and possess oneness of intention regarding what we’re trying to manifest. You must understand that you have to become one within yourself and in a complete state of harmony with what it is that you’re trying to attract – all the way down to the subconscious mind. “Getting it” mentally does little if anything to change history for the better at all. It’s like the cliché of talking the talk, but not walking the walk. You have to “get it’ emotionally, which is much harder to do. Think of this process like a freight train: the engine is the conscious mind and up front; all the cars after that are like the various emotional bodies and defenses within; and last but not least is the caboose, which is the subconscious mind.

Sandra was a woman who had innocently fallen in love with David, her high school sweetheart, when they were both 17. Everything appeared idyllic: they married when they both turned 21, he was studying to become a lawyer, and they planned to have a child once he passed the bar exam.

Yet, through the years, David’s personality shifted, and who he became wasn’t positive: after passing the bar, he started making a lot of money as a corporate attorney, his ego swelled, and he started becoming abusive: first emotionally, then physically. This all started to occur when Sandra became pregnant after they were married for three years. After she gave birth to their daughter Sasha, it was typical for David to tell Sandra that she was undesirable, ugly and at times when he was stressed, he would often hit her.

So after fifteen years of marriage, Sandra and David divorced. Sandra, now 36, proclaimed that she was ready to meet the love of her life. “Out with the old and in with the new!” was the triumphant motto Sandra often said. She sounded determined, positive, and up about what she wanted.

Except there were some serious problems: Yes, in her conscious mind, she wanted to be loved. However, emotionally and subconsciously, the last thing she desired was to be in a loving relationship. There were three core issues preventing this: First, she was terrified of commitment. From a survival level, commitment meant being cheated on, abused, and treated horribly. This makes sense, because it was all Sandra experienced. Since it’s all she knew, this fear was branded deeply into her subconscious, which worked to keep all viable candidates who could love Sandra away. This was clearly designed to protect her from getting hurt again. Additionally, Sandra’s self esteem was so battered in her marriage that emotionally and subconsciously, she came to believe that she deserved to be abused. Lastly, because David stopped making love to her long before they were divorced, she wanted passionate, wild sexual excitement because it had been missing in her life for so long.

With that, Sandra attracted the type of men she truly wanted emotionally and subconsciously: unattainable, abusive, and sexually passionate. In a perverse way, she was getting exactly what she wanted, except that it all came from her lower self and dark emotions.

She made the same mistakes that I’ve seen countless people do: It is falsely presumed that if you want to manifest something in life, you just have to affirm it, visualize it, and want it. “Go for it!” people proclaim. “Move forward with your life!” are the types of slogans many declare.

It is just not that simple. Often, we are in complete conflict internally with what we claim we want. That must be addressed or history will most certainly repeat itself like a broken record playing over and over again. It is like a house: if the foundation is crooked, it doesn’t matter how you decorate the penthouse.

So what did Sandra do? Instead of truly coming to terms with her situation which is what she would have needed in order for her to transform her journey in the right way, she decided to just be one of the many people who talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk. Sandra refused to look at the underlying issues that kept bringing in the same type of man into her life. Stubbornly denying the real problems and issues within, she kept affirming and pushing for the lover that never came, because she wasn’t really willing to do what it would take to turn things around for the better.

A new chapter of history can be written

As we see with Sandra, we all need to make sure to not get caught in our own traps, but sincerely work on “getting it” emotionally and subconsciously. That takes absolute sincerity, a deep emotional commitment and working to understand the conflicts within and coming to terms with them. Don’t merely look at what you’re saying; that doesn’t take hardly any effort at all as most people can easily talk the talk.

Look at what you’re feeling, as most people operate from the emotional level (regardless of whether their feelings are healthy and loving, self-delusional, or dark and harmful to themselves and others). Be self-honest about what it is that you feel – acknowledge all parts of your emotional bodies, not just the parts that are self-flattering and only validate what you want.

See it all: The good, the bad and the ugly! Look at your lower self, ego and defense mechanisms. As everything we go through affects who we are, stop and ask yourself how did your past hurts change you? You may not want your ex-lover (just as Sandra didn’t want her ex-husband David back either), but it isn’t that simple. Sandra’s marriage and divorce caused her to shut down and lose parts of herself. In your own situation, what has caused you to short circuit your blessings? We must become an open channel to receive what we’re asking for by removing what is in the way of the good we seek. It’s about understanding that whatever dualities are within you must be resolved. We must become like a crystal clear pure glass of refreshing water.

 Here are some simple tips and guidelines:

1-Decide in clear terms what your goal and intention is. It must be based on your higher spiritual self, as your dreams need to align with the path of you highest good, which will enrich not only your life, but others’ as well.

2-Acknowledge how you feel, including all of the conflicting emotions about your issue. Be self-honest.

3-Look at what blocks and barriers are within you that stand in the way of what you’re seeking. Work toward letting them go.

4-Move toward your dreams by never building on any emotions and choices that take you away from your goal, but build on everything that moves you toward what you want. If the goal is to quit drinking, don’t go to bars or be in situations where alcohol is being consumed. If you want a romantic commitment, don’t waste any time with those who don’t share the same dream.

5-As they say that Rome wasn’t built in a day, stay the course and realize that it takes time to “get it” emotionally and subconsciously, and then, when that happens, change will occur for the better.

6-Do this with utter sincerity, gratitude, and inspiration.

Here are some simple don’ts:

1-DO NOT feel that you’re running out of time and in a hurry because that delays manifestation even more.

2-DO NOT be defiant and angry as that will prevent you from manifesting anything good.

3-DO NOT feel like you’re a victim because it blocks you from connecting with your blessings.

4-DO NOT have a defensive attitude toward your growth and resentment about your situation as that will short circuit your goals and dreams.

5-DO NOT feel that life has been unfair to you because that belief will absolutely keep the same old negativity continuing.

As we look at our lives from a higher perspective, we see that as human beings, we often get caught up in the belief that history always repeats itself. In reality, it doesn’t have to, yet it takes more than merely a capricious, half-hearted effort to bring about the wondrous changes we seek.

It isn’t just about saying, “I want what I want and it better happen right now!”

Once you’ve identified the problems and construct the right plan, you must stay the course – don’t deviate from it as that is a sure-fire way to trip yourself up. Make every day a moment in time that moves you closer to your dreams and not further away from them.

With the simple resolve to heal the issues within and remove what’s in our own way, we can truly become open, and with that, ultimately manifest our heart’s true divine desire. Then, we don’t have to keep repeating history anymore – as a brand new wondrous chapter not only begins to be written, but becomes the foundation of a fruitful future.

This is done through feeling and building on the inspirational fire within; it is the belief that a better day is truly ours to come — and we need to be continually grateful that it is an established fact in divine mind. Remember that at this moment, it already IS written in the heavens as a new chapter of your history; therefore, it can manifest in the physical world where all magical things are possible. Welcome it with open arms and make all parts of you: your conscious mind, words, thoughts, emotions, choices, and ultimately your subconscious mind unify into a complete state of clarity, belief, purpose, and oneness of intention. Then, it is yours.

I now let go of the old negative behaviors that are not for my highest good and change my history for the better through making positive choices that are built on loving attitudes!

Need affirmations or personal, one-on-one guidance to help you on your journey? I can help. Click here to begin your own private reading with me.

In the interactions and relationships we all find ourselves in, things are done by others to us that not only hurt, but really damage our lives. And we take it personally…. After all, shouldn’t we, as it was specifically done to us?

 Whether it’s with family, friends, coworkers, a boss, neighbors, lovers, a spouse, or even people we randomly seem to encounter in this world, we have all had harmful things directed at us: verbally, circumstantially, and even physically.

 Since what we’ve been through in these instances is often quite intense, and sometimes changes our lives for the worse, we internalize and personalize it. And why wouldn’t we? We are the victim; it wasn’t done to someone else. No matter how together or strong we perceive ourselves to be, personal attacks on us do hurt – and even debilitate our lives, as the pain we experience often changes the course of our lives irrevocably, and sometimes, permanently.

Yet, as intense as all of our pain and suffering feels when people hurt us, what would you think if I said something completely surprising to you, which is that it shouldn’t be looked at as being personal? This doesn’t mean that our feelings don’t count, and how we feel should just be disregarded and trivialized; rather, that we begin the healing process by beginning to depersonalize what has happened to us.

 We start doing this by first looking at these dynamics from a spiritual and metaphysical perspective, where what we’ve perceived as being done to us with deliberate, malicious intent isn’t really what it seems to be and is far different than we’ve always believed. We need to now look at the real spiritual reasons why people do the things they do and learn what that says not only about them, but also, about us, and ultimately, how we can now heal our lives.

It’s not personal – They’re just being who they are

Everyone always and only behaves at their own level of consciousness and spiritual level of understanding.

Others don’t act according to the way we want them to; they’re just being who they are. From a spiritual perspective, that’s all a person is capable of being. When you’re violated by someone else, though, it certainly feels quite personal as it was indeed done to you, yet in many instances, it has very little to actually do with you.

Think of when a mob hit-man carries out gruesome, cold-hearted murders against specific individuals. When he speaks of these egregious crimes, you’ll hear him dispassionately state, “Hey it ain’t personal. It’s just a job I’m doing, okay?” This same principle often applies to the various levels of abuse that people do to others.

With Gerald, it was never personal, either, even though he has caused a lot of people a great deal of pain throughout his career. Gerald’s a forty five-year-old man with a huge, selfish, narcissistic ego, and enjoys stepping on people to get ahead, especially in the workplace, which he has done most of his adult life. It’s all a game of sport for him, and he does it on purpose to feel superior and win. What I’ve just described here is Gerald’s actual level of spiritual understanding; therefore, it’s exactly how he will behave.

When he took a new job in a large company in 2002, he looked at his various coworkers and assessed who was in his way of advancement. “How do I get ahead here?” he coldly asked himself. He soon set his sights on his female coworker Brenda.

He pretended to befriend Brenda as a sincere gesture of affection, which allowed Gerald to get closer to Brenda, but it was only done in order to perceive her professional weaknesses. He then exploited them by stating negative things about Brenda’s workplace performance. Since he ingratiated himself into Brenda’s life and could see both her strengths and weaknesses, some of the flaws he pointed out about her were true; however, he exaggerated them and tried to use them against her. Slowly but surely, it worked. Eventually, the overall opinions of Brenda went downhill in the workplace, and consequently, she was demoted. Gerald was then given her position.

In this instance, it would be clear to most of us that it wasn’t personal on Gerald’s part against Brenda, as he just coldly and calculatingly wanted to get her out of the way so he could advance. Brenda could have been anyone in the office; she just happened to be the person who had the position Gerald wanted.

And of course, Brenda took it personally as we all would have: “That rotten liar cost me my job and all the while, he played me like a deck of cards. He never liked me at all – he just set me up to sucker-punch me. I hate Gerald’s guts and hope he gets what’s coming to him!” Brenda fumed. Certainly anyone would feel great empathy for what Brenda went through as it was devastating to her. Yet, in reality, it still wasn’t personal. Gerald was just being who he is.

That doesn’t mean that it all just stops there in a cut and dry fashion. Gerald created a tremendous amount of negative karma by what he did to Brenda – and he will have to deal with that whenever the repercussions of his actions come back to him – and of course, they will. Through Gerald’s actions, the course of Brenda’s career and even her life, for that matter, where altered in a damaging way. In this instance it wasn’t a karmic situation, or something that was Brenda’s fault; Gerald just went after her without valid cause. 

Thankfully, in time, Brenda recovered and eventually moved forward into a new career that was good for her, yet the episode with Gerald took her years to come to peace with. She did that by coming to realize through time that it wasn’t personal, which helped her to separate herself from Gerald’s actions, and realize that it was all about who he is.

Brenda was attacked because she was in the way; however, others are victimized for a different reason. These people are attacked simply for who they inherently are.

We are a mirror to others

Often, we hold up a mirror to people by simply being who we are, and reflect to others how they already feel inside.

We unknowingly trigger other peoples’ issues, prejudices, fears, emotional attitudes, preexisting viewpoints, and even in extreme instances, hatred. When we are attacked in these ways, it is because we are the mirror to others – and they don’t like the reflection they’re seeing.

Ahmed is a twenty-two year-old Muslim man who happened to move onto a block of a New Jersey neighborhood in late 2007 that lost several people in 9/11. Because of that terrorist attack, a strong Anti-Muslin sentiment had developed on the block in recent years. When Ahmed moved in, the threats were immediately launched against him by his neighbors with these types of taunts: “Go home terrorist! Are you gonna blow me up too? Terrorists not welcome here! We can kill, too!” These are the type of horrific things Ahmed heard on a regular basis.

However, Ahmed was simply studying to be a doctor, and was not even remotely a terrorist. In fact, he felt terrible for the victims of 9/11 and did not identify with the attackers in any way, shape, or form. Because of all of the fear his new neighbors carried inside based on what they had been through from 9/11, Ahmed mirrored and triggered what they already felt, which of course, wasn’t Ahmed’s fault. Even though they victimized him in what seemed to be an utterly personal way, it had nothing to do with who Ahmed really is. They didn’t know this young Muslim man or try to understand him; once their fears were engaged, they lost their ability to be objective.

Predictably, Ahmed took it personally at first, was angry, terrified, and felt that he had to move for his own safety, which he did after about six months. As with Gerald and Brenda, the situation between Ahmed and his neighbors was not karmic. It was also not based on the law of attraction (where Ahmed would have attracted this treatment back to him because of how he felt about himself from within), but was a matter of Ahmed unknowingly serving as a spiritual mirror to the people in his environment. From a spiritual point of view, the neighbors were supposed to use this experience to rise above their fears and learn to accept Ahmed; however, they didn’t deal with it from a higher spiritual perspective, as they drew upon the fears, prejudices and the buttons of the lower self.

Ahmed learned to not take this personally, and was able to let it all go, which took tremendous spiritual courage on his part. It paid off, as he relocated to another state and successfully continued his studies in medical school.

So if this wasn’t a case of who Ahmed is as a person, then who is it about? Is it just the way things are in life, or is there a real spiritual reason that explains such a disparaging level of injustice that so many of us have experienced, where we’re treated badly for nothing more than who we are?

It’s not about you – It’s about them

It’s spiritually about the persons doing the attacking and not about those who are being victimized.

When people get attacked for who they inherently are, it’s usually due to race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. It can also be about more insidious societal things such as height, weight, financial status, social upbringing, whether we’re perceived as attractive or not, etc.

The abusive actions of people reflect on who THEY are, their level of spiritual understanding, and the values they hold, even if it’s hidden from public view. (Often, people don’t openly and flagrantly flaunt their prejudice and hatred of others). Yet, when someone comes along who reflects and triggers those issues in others, what happens is a reflexive, knee-jerk reaction. And the victims of such abuse often take it quite personally and ask: “Why me? What did I do? I didn’t do anything to deserve this!”

Then, there are also those times when the attacks we receive are not by strangers at all, but by someone who is at the opposite end of the spectrum, such as those who are deeply connected to us in our daily lives. Shockingly, this form of abuse can come from a family member, friend, or even the person we’re in love with.

Because of our intimate connection with them, we invest deeply into the situation where we’re compelled to hang in there and make it right, even when we’re being treated badly over a long period of time. We convince ourselves that if we just love that person a little bit more, things will most assuredly work out in the end.

Your love won’t change them or the way they treat you

No matter how much you love a six room house, it won’t ever turn into a mansion.

When we love someone, especially in a romantic way, we are hardly dispassionate about our decisions and how we view the relationship. This is why such an ancient cliché as Love is Blind has been relevant throughout the ages, because we close our eyes to the spiritual truth when we’re in love.

When we’re treated badly and even abusively by someone we love, we take it quite personally; yet we hope for things to get better as a way of healing the situation. And when the negative treatment we receive continues and even escalates, we often make it our crusade to not only heal the relationship, but to fix the other person. Our entire identity and self esteem becomes personally wrapped up into getting the other person to change and love us in return. After all, we didn’t come this far to fail and lose in the end.

However, it doesn’t matter how much we love that person and how much we’re willing to fight for the relationship; it doesn’t change their level of consciousness and spiritual understanding. That is who they are, which clearly reveals how they’ll behave toward us.

Pete’s level of spiritual understanding is that all women are rotten; therefore, he has always treated them badly. It can certainly be explained: his mother was a self absorbed, mentally unstable egotist who squandered money on alcohol, and often left Pete without food. His mother’s actions don’t justify how Pete (as a grown man) treats women; they merely reveal where it all originated from.

On the other hand, Elaine is a woman who has always felt bad about herself, and has carried terrible self esteem within her, largely because she was mentally abused by her father growing up. This all revealed itself through the many abusive romantic relationships Elaine had been in throughout her entire adult life, where she always believed that she could help to heal the other person with the hope that they would then love her in return.

So when Pete met Elaine in early 2004, there was instant chemistry between them. This was a relationship that was based on the law of attraction: Pete wanted a woman to treat badly, while Elaine felt that she deserved to be abused, where she believed that she would be able to heal the  the other person as a way of validating herself as a women.

Within a few months, Pete started becoming emotionally abusive by telling her she was fat while they were having sex. Elaine didn’t fight back, but thought to herself that Pete had a terrible mother, which explained why he was making “fat” comments, and she convinced herself that if she just kept loving him, things would change for the better.

Then, Pete told Elaine that he was sexually bored with her, and had to see other women to satisfy himself as a man. Elaine thought that he just had to go through this, based on how bad  his mother treated him, so Elaine tried to do more kinky things in the bedroom, to keep Pete “satisfied,” and even tried to show Pete more and more how much she cared for him. She told herself that her love was stronger than his issues, and that good would triumph over evil if she just kept believing.

Of course Elaine took all of this personally and it made her self esteem even worse. She felt utterly inadequate as a woman, because she was unable to “satisfy her man,” yet her solution was not to leave Pete, but to keep reinforcing to herself that she could change him for the better.

And to most of you reading this, I’m sure that your advice to Elaine would be, “Get rid of that loser and move on!”

However, Elaine was emotionally hooked on Pete, and in fitting with the time-tested cliché, Elaine was blinded by her love. Since she refused to cut her ties with Pete, he became worse and by early 2005, started hitting Elaine on a weekly basis whenever he was in a foul mood. At this point, it wasn’t just that Elaine took the abuse personally as most of us would; her entire self image was based on fixing Pete, and that he would then love her.

At this point, we’d all be pleading with Elaine to dump him, go into therapy and heal her life: “Wake up and smell the coffee Elaine. You’re in denial. Get rid of him!” would be our strong assertions. Once again, Elaine hung in there, except now, she was digging her heels in even deeper. She stayed with Pete for six long, hard years, where he cheated, while emotionally and physically abusing her. Through all of this, Elaine kept trying to rescue him, while excusing his behavior because of what Pete’s mother had did to him as a boy.

When it all stopped, it wasn’t because Elaine had woken up either; Pete beat her so badly in late 2009 that the police intervened and arrested him. After a month in the hospital, Elaine recovered physically, yet she took it all so personally when the relationship crashed and burned.

Even though Elaine felt that she failed as a woman because her love was unable to change Pete and the relationship for the better, again, the abuse really wasn’t personal at all on Pete’s part. It was based on the law of attraction where the slave driver (Pete) needs the slave (Elaine). This doesn’t mean that Elaine should be judged; it’s just that how she felt about herself inside is what drew her to Pete and helped bring him into her life in the first place. Unfortunately, Elaine wasn’t willing to work on herself to heal these issues, but instead, she deluded herself into believing that she was on a sacred crusade beyond just her emotions – in her mind, it was a spiritual mission of sorts. In Elaine’s mind, it was her divine destiny to save Pete, and ultimately, rescue him.

It’s “Playing God” to try and fix them

The pathway to hell is always paved with good intentions

It’s not spiritually correct, or helpful to anyone concerned for us to take on someone else’s baggage and make it our own, all as a way of “Playing God.”  Not only is it spiritually impossible, it brings us down.

What Elaine had been trying to do in her relationship with Pete was nothing short of playing God by attempting to pull off the spiritually unattainable: be strong enough to hang in there, shoulder the abuse and take it, make her love so powerful that it would heal Pete and save him. Finally, as if the gates of heavens had opened, Pete would ultimately love her in return.

And as sad as what she went through is, it’s egotistical for Elaine (or any of us for that matter) to think that we can, should, and will be able to “fix” other people. Regardless of how much we’re in love with someone and how noble we perceive our motives to be, the other person has their own karma, dharma, life path, individuality, baggage, ego, and freedom of choice. Those things are not like a broken car that can be pieced back together through our willingness, tenacity, and belief in them. Everyone’s spiritual make up is unique, irrevocable, sovereign, and must be respected. Not only should it not be interfered with by another (even someone who’s deeply in love) – it can’t be.

It’s like a good intentioned soul who walks up to a wild, stray dog, looks up to the heavens and declares: “I love this dog as it is created by God. It is an expression of pure, divine love and I see it as perfect in all ways!” As the person bends over to pet and feed it, the dog simply bites them, because that’s what those type of dogs do – and once again, it isn’t personal.

It doesn’t matter what the good intentioned soul believes; the dog bit them because that’s the spiritual level of consciousness it is at and how God truly created them — and nothing we do will change that fact.

It’s the same thing with human beings, albeit that people are more complicated. They still behave to their level of understanding and not to the level which someone else wants them to, regardless of how God-like our motives seem to be.

We personalize the situation where we let our ego take control, because playing God is a way of dramatically attempting to boost our own self-esteem and show how powerful we can be. In our own minds, if we pull off the impossible and fix the other person, we in turn also become instantly healed. Both people’s issues and baggage are instantly redeemed – and everything magically becomes okay.

Yet, even though our feelings are sincere, we set ourselves up to fail every single time, as what we romanticize in our minds won’t happen. It’s our egos leading the way when we try and play God by saving others, and not our true spiritual nature that’s in control. And when the situation falls apart, it can devastate us, as we thought we were strong enough to make it all work out in the end.

Besides letting go of the need to be the rescuer, we need to realize that it is not our fault that we couldn’t “fix” them – none of us can. No matter how hard we try, it’s like the old analogy of hitting our head against the wall: the harder and longer we do it, the wall still won’t come down – it’s only our head that gets damaged.

That still doesn’t often help to give us the clarity we need to heal our lives, because we’re caught up in our emotional hurt, what’s been done to us, and the terrible feelings of inadequacy we experience when things don’t work out as we planned. It wears us all down, where we throw our hands up in the air and shout: “Life just isn’t fair!”

Is life fair, then?

When we look at the pain and suffering we’ve all incurred, it’s easy to give up hope and resign ourselves to the belief that life isn’t fair. When we hear about a woman being raped, or someone in their prime taken out of this world in an instant by a car accident, as well as those who always seem to play by the rules who never get rewarded, it would be understandable for any of us to think that life just isn’t fair 

However, that is from a human perspective and not cosmically true. No matter what happens here on earth, in time, and through the immutable laws of the universe, everything, without exception, always ends up being fair – and that may take years, decades, even lifetimes. We may not see justice with our own two eyes, but yes, it ultimately happens, without exception.  

Sometimes the situations we experience are karmic, and may seem unfair on the surface; yet that’s because we’re not aware at the time of the past life implications and spiritual agreements. If it was karmically agreed to that a child was to die at the age of fifteen, it will happen, no matter what is done to prevent it. And yes, it can be looked at as tragic. Yet, as hard as it is to hear, if it is karmic, it was supposed to happen.

There are also those who spiritually come into this world and agree to hold up a mirror to others, and that is not an easy calling. However, if it was spiritually agreed to by them before they incarnated into this physical lifetime, it is fair. Think of a soul who agreed to come into this world as a woman a hundred-and-fifty years ago to crusade for women’s rights, such as equal treatment under the law and the right to vote.

That woman would be here to hold up a mirror to society, and certainly she would experience the difficult repercussions of such a calling, and yes, she would humanly take it personally and have to learn to deal with that reality. However, if she chose that calling, it is fair.

With all the possibilities of why and how we take things personally, we begin the healing process by first trying to not personalize what has been done to us. When someone who chooses of their own free will to do negative things to us, it creates bad karma for them. Yet, we need to try and release the personal pain, forgive them, wish them well and simply be through with that energy and the fallout of the experience.

When we’re a mirror, we can’t always help how people will react to us, as it is not our fault, but we must still love ourselves, regardless of how others see us.

Trying to save others is always a no-win situation, where we plummet into the pavement when the situation blows up in our face. We are not God and shouldn’t let our egos delude ourselves into thinking we can play that role.

Whenever we attract someone abusive because of how we feel about ourselves, it’s important to not take it personally when they hurt us, but use the power of divine love to heal who we are – and that means we won’t keep bringing in that type of person into our lives.

When it’s karmic, that is moist assuredly complex, yet we can keep making the journey of depersonalizing what has happened in the best way possible.

There are so many reasons why people do what they do to us, how we internalize it all, our desires to rescue, save, even “Play God, and the decisions we make as to how we’re going to deal with ourselves and other people we will continue to encounter in our journey. And there is one thing that always remains that we must act upon: no matter what, work on healing your life! That is the cornerstone of our spiritual growth and unfoldment.

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