What Price Happiness?

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Hello, dear friends,

I am back home again, having left a part of me in New York with the tiny baby I fell in love with. There will be more flying back and forth for me now because my life is here, in California - and I love my life here! Yet it was so hard to leave.

It was wonderful to have our Tuesday night class again. I missed everyone, missed our weekly experience, missed my "student-teachers".
I borrowed this term from my beloved teacher Tamara Diaghilev, the only human being I have met so far who I experienced as being unconditionally loving.
Tamara used to call her students "my student-teachers." That's what we all are to each other, and she knew that. Partly retired now, she is my dearest friend, as radiant and beautiful as when I first met her over 20 years ago.

EVENT INFO

The School of Hope and Inspiration

Tuesday, July 21

Gathering: 6:30PM -7PM - Class: 7PM - 9:30PM

We will meet at the same location in Southern Marin.
RSVP for address and directions.
Auriela@AurielaMcCarthy.com

I appreciate if everyone RSVPs, so I know how many seats we need.
Please, be on time, we will start promptly at 7pm

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Here is this week's food for thought

Last time I suggested you take a look at some pretty tough questions and answer them (to yourself) honestly.

The essence of the questions was:

Why am I still holding on to the past and what am I getting out of keeping it alive?

Here is what one woman has discovered and allowed me to share it with you:

Divorced for 10 years, she was still blaming her ex for what he "did to her" during their marriage. 10 years have passed, yet she was still using the past to keep herself from being happy again.

Why on earth would she be doing that???
A million dollar question.

How about because being happy meant "taking her ex off the hook?" Which meant not being able to continue to blame him for all her present relationship problems?

She has also discovered that she had been using her failed marriage as an excuse not to trust love again, thus sabotaging every new opportunity for happiness...

A scary thing to learn about yourself - on the one hand. On another hand - what freedom may come once you see that it is you - not anyone else - that is keeping you stuck!

Blaming can be oh, so juicy. While love is always fraught with risk.
You can be hurt again...(yes, you can.) Love doesn't come with a guarantee that it will work.
Nor does life. And if you are older than 10 you have noticed that by now.

You can hide behind blame and enjoy a quick, cheap shot of power, and you can live this way for the rest of your life rather than risk being hurt again...As long as you are clear on the price you are paying.

Somebody very wise once said that there are no free lunches.
There is always - the price. Sometimes the price is your happiness. Other times - the price is your freedom. Or - the price can be "getting another chance..."
The price is the price. The question is: is it beneficial or detrimental for you?
The question is also - are you willing to pay it?

You can blame and stay in the place of victim, refuse to take your power back from your past - and the price you will be paying is happiness, joy, feeling good about yourself...

Or you can risk being hurt again and - take the plunge! Go for it, give love another chance...
With one caveat. Look at what hadn't worked in the past, understand, own your part in it and resolve to change.

At the risk of making a lot of you very angry, I will say that divorce or any bad break up is always 50/50 % responsibility of both people. Even in the case where it seems to be screaming "NOT SO."
( I won't go into this now, because this is too important and deserves it's own post. And if you have read The Power of the Possible, you know that I too have divorce in my past, and that it came with a lot of pain, and that I too was at one time absolutely certain that "it was all his fault.")

"There are always risks in freedom. The only risk in bondage is - getting free."
This quote is among my favorite ones by Lazaris.

So who has the key to your prison? You do! How wonderful. To return to the example I gave above, if the key belonged to the woman's ex husband she would really be in trouble, wouldn't she? And until she was able to see that, she might as well have handed him the key and invited him to lock her up.

And it looked as if he was the one with all the power while she had none.

Why?
So that she could blame, blame, blame...so that she could continue to feel sorry for herself...
Was the pay-off worth it? Was the price too high? You tell me.
But before she could make any changes, she needed to be honest with herself about her hidden agenda.

And here is the tricky part.
What do you do next?

"But Auriela, isn't it obvious? I will change, I will start acting differently..."

Not so fast, dear friend, not so fast.
Because what often happens after the exhilarating moment of self-discovery is this:
Suddenly you hear the voice on your head saying something like:
"How could you have been so stupid?! You never "get" anything! What makes you think you deserve to be happy after all you've done..."

Or it will be:
"What? Take the bastard off the hook? After all he had done to me??? Am I just supposed to forget it??? And he never even apologized to me once??? No way..."

The voice of your ego.
Recognize it for what it is, and refuse to listen.
It was this voice that had kept you stuck all these years. Why not try something different this time?

So here is the formula for change - in short:
1. See your part.

2. Feel what comes up, no matter how uncomfortable and painful.

(easier said than done, I know, but totally doable as long as you stay with the sadness and the remorse without making yourself "bad and wrong." You are simply human, you don't always have the answers. No one does.)

3. Forgive yourself. No change will happen without this step. You may want to do it, but you won't be able to. And you will stay stuck, repeating the same old pattern again and again.

4. Change.



"But what if I can't forgive?"

This is a very legitimate question.
One of the best and most elegant ways to experience forgiveness in through a meditative process of a guided visualization.

On my website's Home page, on the right hand side, towards the center of the page, there is a link to the meditations to forgive. These are guided visualizations that will take you through the process in the most amazing, magical way.
I once received these meditations as a gift. Now I am simply passing it on. My gift to you.

Just click and download them, and they are yours forever.

Only forgiveness sets you free. Change then becomes its by-product.

Both are mysteries never to be understood fully.
We do our part - and enjoy their gifts.

So how about it?

Give it a try! See what happens!

( and if the voice in your head says: "too much work," you know whose voice it is.)

Say "thanks, but no, thanks" and be on your way!



All for now.

See some of you on Tuesday!
Much love to you, always,

Auriela.


P.S. Follow your intuition and if it feels right,
forward this to your friends or your family members.

P.P.S. If you don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area, stay with us through these emails and keep sending me your questions.
I am planning to do this work via Internet at some point.
I will of course let you know when it happens