Sometimes, We Can Be What We Want to Feel: Lessons

Today has been a good day — exhausting some, new challenges presented, but good.

I had the opportunity to live some more of the truths I write about. For instance, I talk about choosing how I want to feel for the day, and I have been doing that for awhile now. I realize that I am responsible for the way I act and react and the emotions consequent to my actions. The further implication of that means my emotions cannot be bound to or dependent on anyone else’s life or behaviors.

So what? Well, this morning as I thought specifically about love and abundance, it struck me that often I wait for things to happen that I would then respond to with my chosen emotions. In other words, things will flow to me to cause those rather than me being the cause of them. The scenario would be like, “I choose love and abundance today. Now, what will happen so I can feel those?” My Heart told me this, not directly in those words. As I’ve often said, Hearts know things.

And while I knew I should not count on anyone else “making” me feel a certain way, I saw the magic of Spirit using others to give me opportunity to grow and to live my truth. I should mention this isn’t exactly new, but it was like a re-emphasis, an extra depth in my journey of awakening.

How did it happen? My son who was off work today, as we were, called and asked if he, my daughter-in-law, and baby granddaughter could come over. Now, it would have been easy to say no. The furnace/AC installers were here for the third day, left over from last week, which meant things are still in disarray. Saying Yes would be saying yes to experiencing love first hand. I chose it, I was given the opportunity, and I created it.

What about abundance? Well, I had been thinking about plunking down many thousands of dollars for the furnace work. My Heart let me have it, as it were, opening my mind and soul to the reality of what I was doing. Never in my life could I have paid cash for something as big as this. I had the opportunity to express abundance by paying for that this evening. I was the abundance.

Big deal, right? I know it’s not earth-shaking, but so many times we “know” things but don’t really understand them as fully as we could. I thought further this morning of Mahatma Gandhi’s famous words: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” I wished to see love, and Spirit presented me with the opportunity to love by saying yes to see my granddaughter on a much less than ideal day. Then, the very thing troubling me, making the day not so ideal, was another opportunity to live my other chosen emotion, abundance.

I had to give love and abundance to feel love and abundance, to be love and abundance. I didn’t need to expect anything from some indistinct somewhere or someone, just know that the opportunities were right in front of me. I didn’t wait for the emotions to wash over me; I created them by my actions.

And on this special day, Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, I thought of his words, too. If we wait for someone else to change things, to make us feel a certain way, to make life the way we want it, then we can expect nothing. Dr. King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Proactive love!

Do we want our country and society to be different? We need to listen to Heart, and it doesn’t hurt to listen to those who walk in the light and love of their Heart. If we want to know love in our society, choose it and do it. Don’t wait for others to stop hating.

Many, though, don’t believe Heart-considerations or love have much place in government, politics, or policy. Listen again to Dr. King, who knew his Heart: “I have decided to stick with love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.” If governments and politicians and their policies create hate, then we certainly should be considering proactive love.

​Yes, choose the good feelings and choose the actions to create those feelings. We can’t expect other people or circumstances to produce them. We can be them. Yeah, I definitely want to be change that expresses love in this life. I’ve got no time for anything else.