The Lessons of Love by Melody Beattie

Just finished reading this book.  Wanted to share a part of it with you all. It is a bit long and I hope that you find some wisdom or inspiration in her words.

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Every experience I have had in my life has been about the dame thing.

Each lesson has ultimately and absolutely been about one thing, the only thing that is.

Love.

I had heard it said before. Now I understood.

The struggles to learn I had a soul. Mu struggles to learn about my strengths. Even my grief. I had been talking to a woman seated near me at dinner one night, wailing about my pain, my anguish over losing my son, about how close the three of us had been, about the hole in my heart.  The woman had turned to her husband. Have you ever loved that deeply? she asked. I don't thinks so, he had said. Even these, my blackest and darkest moments, had been a form of love, one of its lessons. A harder one, but still a lesson of love.

I laughed out loud, alone in my room. What did I think love would look like? Feel like? Be? A romantic vision of being carried off to Camelot? And then what?

Forgiveness Compassion. Service. Self-love. Loving myself when I was certain nobody else loved me or ever would. Then opening up,m learning to let others in.

Faith.

Acceptance. Acceptance of myself, my life, others, their lives.

Friendship. Courage. Perseverance.

Hope.

Joy. Learning to deliberately choose joy. The simple sweet process of learning to be present each moment and find and choose joy, a joy not dependent on outer circumstances, but one that comes from the heart.

How did I think I would learn all these lessons, all these subcategories of love?

Trust. Trusting myself. learning to trust others, life, God.

Learning to play and laugh. Learning to walk away, sometimes learning to stay put. Honoring my own needs, even when they differed from what others thought my needs should be. Honoring me, even when I was different from what others thought I should be. Trusting my vision for my life, creating another vision it that one didn't work. Chasing my dreams, catching them, then finding more. Learning about this connection, this absolute and divine connection to all that is, and maybe ever was, in the universe.

And finally, facing and accepting death.

Had I thought all those lessons would be learned easily?

I guess I had.

I saw now that even the struggles, the hard times when I cursed and moaned and whined, had not been punishment. God hadn't been peering down from the heavens saying, Good, let her crawl over broken glass for a bit. That will teach her.

God was saying, Look, she's learning to love.

The struggle of climbing to the top of the mountain was as much my purpose as getting to the top of it.

I felt a lightness that I hadn't felt in years, maybe ever. For a moment I imagined I heard the angels sing, a celestial chorus of joy. I wondered how long, how long really, I had struggled to get this lesson right.

I didn't have to scramble up and down the ladder from despair to euphoria anymore, trying to convince myself that life was either painful and terrible or joyous and wonerful.

The simple truth was that life was both.

I hadn't come here to live happily ever after, although I now sensed I could. I had come here to learn love. That's what the lessons had been about.

Even those events I had written off as coincidence were an expression of divine love. Universal love. Love was an active, living force. I had always been there for me. All I needed to do was open my eyese and see and choos it.

It's not, I realized, that the lessons are about love. The lessons themselves are love.  They are the journey to the heart.

I got up. And I let go of my balloon, watching it rail far up into the sky.

Understanding love didn't make the pain go away. Understanding love freed my heart.

It didn't mean I'd never feel pain again. An open heart feels pain and loss as well as love and joy.  An open heart feels all it needs to feel. Otherwise, it closes again.

Thank you for my life, I whispered into the air.

I was surprised. At last I meant it.

Fear

I posted this as a note on the Facebook page back in October . . .

Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. (Wikipedia)

"The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure." ~ Sven Goran Erickson

I've been thinking a lot about fear lately.  I'm not talking the fear that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up; I'm talking about the fear inside you that keeps you from doing the things you want to do.  The things that fit your purpose. Those things that your gut tells you to go through with.  The fear that holds you back.  That is the fear I want to be free from.

The fear that gets your adrenaline going; that activates the fight or flight response can sometimes be easier to overcome than the fear that we hold within our hearts.

False Expectations Appearing Real
False Experiences Appearing Real
Finding Excuses and Reasons
False Emotions Appearing Real
Failure Expected And Received
False Expectations About Reality
False Evidence Appearing Real

What fear is holding you back? Keeping you from remembering that For Everything A Reason, to Face Everything And Recover and Forgetting Everything is All Right?  So what one thing are you going to do today to set your heart free from Fear?

I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference

So far this week for me has been a challenge. As much as we would probably like to be, we are not always in a good mood. Sometimes it is tough to maintain a positive attitude. I don't know what it is, but some days we just wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  Some days are just like that; some weeks are just like that. I'd like to hear from you. What do you do on those days to lift your spirit? What do you do to bring a bit more positivity into your thoughts and words?

Quotes
"Stop settling for what’s good enough and start creating art that matters. Stop asking what’s in it for you and start giving gifts that change people. Then, and only then, will you have achieved your potential." ~ Seth Godin

"We are blessed, and in the sharing of our blessings we are again blessed. May our hearts be open. May we ever be grateful for the gift of life." ~ From Open Mind - Women's Daily Inspiration for Becoming Mindful by Diane Mariechild

"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song." ~ Chinese Proverb

Other Blog Posts:
From Seth Godin's Blog ~ Is there a fear shortage?
From Altitude Branding ~ The Equestrian's Guide to Reaching your Goals.
From Daily Om  ~ Hand in Hand with Nature
From Serene Journey ~ Dream Big and Put It Out There

Posts from our Fans:

"Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver." - Barbara De Angelis

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

I hope that the rest of your week is filled with love, joy and positive thoughts.
P.S. Check out our note on Be Positively Inspired  ~ The Road not Taken.

Positivity in the New Year

I've been an avid reader for years. I read to relax and I read to learn new things. While in my teens I started to collect quotes from the books I read . . . Many of the early ones I collected have been lost. I began posting quotes on twitter (I've got 2 profiles . . . neither have been active recently; but I will soon use one for this blog).

I was posting quotes that I found inspiring, motivational and inspiring. Things to remind me, that even though the people around me may have a negative attitude or outlook on life, that I can choose to have a positive one.

The Be Positively Inspired page on Facebook is meant to remind me and others to maintain a positive attitude. I love finding new quotes, videos and blog posts to add to the pages. I find a lot of things I'd like to share, this blog is a way to share more of those things and to share them with a wider audience.

I hope that you enjoy. Thank you for reading