Sometimes, I need to follow up with the offender about my feelings.  Sometimes I realize that the problem is my own, I process my emotions, realize that I have been irrational, and I apologize.  Sometimes I hide away in denial until I can speak my mind.

Just a note, folks, that this is not a responsible way to solve your issues.

This is a form of denial, and it won’t get you far if you want to address issues like a grown up.

A better option:

It’s not a bad thing to want to think about what you want to say before you say it.  It worked for Mister Rogers, and it can work for you. If you have an issue with your significant other, a friend or a family member, and words have been exchanged, then it’s OK for you to tell the other party that you need some time to process what has gone on.

Rather than hiding in a corner and withholding your love, just TELL them that you need some time.  Here are some options:

“I know we have just had a conversation that included a lot of heated emotions.  I need to process this information, so please give me some time alone to do so.  My distancing myself from you is just me thinking about things, so please allow me some time alone to do that.”

“We talked about a lot tonight.  It might take me some time to process this information, so if I’m distant for a day or two, understand that I still love you and that I just need some time.”

This way, you have indicated to your loved ones that you love them, that you need some time to process your feelings, and that it’s important to you to process the information rather than just react.

Remember:  Once Said, Never Unsaid.

Even if you don’t see your own holes, they are apparent to other people.  They show themselves when you interact with them and one of the subjects of your holes is broached.  You react.  It shows.  It either helps you grow, or it holds you back.  You can ask friends to help you with your holes, by gently reminding you when you have revealed an area that may need some further learning.  Do you need to live with the same judgment that you yourself have dealt?  Can you sympathize with someone whose housing situation is currently not as bountiful as yours?  Can you project yourself into another’s eyes and see from their perspective?

If so, then your holes will fill in naturally, with experience and understanding that you were just missing some of the information.  And you will be all that closer to whole.

Guilt Free Eating

You can eat without guilt.  If you listen to your body, and feed it the cleanest foods possible, there is no need to deprive yourself of anything.  In fact, the better the quality of the food you eat, the less you’ll crave those foods that do not provide your body with nutrients.  There’s no need for me to define which foods are healthiest–just keep it as close as possible to natural, unprocessed foods and eat until you feel satisfied but not full.  Take your time, and chew with purpose.  You will find yourself eating less naturally.

As a reminder, you can print out this card and post it on your refrigerator as a gentle reminder that you can eat guilt free.

You can download it here.

I like to buy things; shiny, intricate things, primitive art, and eclectic welded oddities painted bright colors. I stock up on books, and audiotapes, and sometimes shoes.

But aphorisms abound about how we should detach ourselves from the material, and realize that real joy comes from the heart, not the diamond heart necklace you just picked up on eBay. I feel that both can be true at the same time, and that in order to live a guilt free life you must come to terms with the fact that it’s OK to love both the material and the ethereal stuff at the same time. For the acquisition of certain stuff can mark a milestone in one’s life that lasts as a pleasant reminder of a great experience. And you can carry that stuff from one location to another as you progress along your life path, and it serves as portable roots, in a way.

And if you lose your stuff, or it’s stolen, or it breaks, you may feel a sort of mourning much as if a person had departed from your life. Is it bad to miss something that has been a faithful companion for many years? I don’t think that mourning a lost item is reason for feeling guilt. With that said, healing must occur eventually, or you may need some help letting go.

If you work, and you pay your bills, and you donate as much as you possibly can to recipients that you care deeply about, you save for emergencies and prepare for income for your later years, then why not buy some stuff? Why not create some memorable roots that accompany you through the best and the worst days of your life?

Here’s to stuff.

Yet other obligations get in the way, and usually there’s not enough time to complete a full analysis of our decision before making one. So when it goes wrong, our minds come back to our lack of research and preparation for the decision.

So how do you react to your bad decision? There are two paths you can take: responsibility for the decision, or self blame for its outcome. It’s your choice, and I’m sure that you have taken both roads at one time or another.

Blaming yourself for not preparing properly incites that crippling, hand-wringing guilt that serves no one. Most likely you will replay the situation over in your mind, glaring at yourself for your stupidity every time you catch yourself in a mirror.

On the other hand, taking responsibility for your decision–no matter its outcome–does serve you. It reminds you that you are human, that you made the best decision that you could make in the time frame you were given. It allows you to cache the experience in your memory for next time, and sets precedent for future decisions. This is the healthier path every time.

Think of this: when you make a good decision, do you take responsibility for that? Many may say that it was luck, or providence, or coincidence. But in truth, it was just you, and you can give yourself a mental pat on the back. You don’t replay it in your mind over and over as you do after a decision with a negative outcome (if there really are any negative outcomes, since all actions can be viewed as lessons). You revel in it; you may even smile.

Let’s try taking responsibility, rather than self blame, for each decision and its consequences, no matter whether the outcome is perceived as good or bad. This is the way to a guilt free life.

Ha !  You thought I was going to say that they didn’t mean much, that material things shouldn’t matter.  Well, I don’t believe that one single bit.  Of course they matter.  And here’s why:

They matter because most of us have worked hard to earn them.

Yet for many of us, the belief that we have something means that someone else doesn’t has been sewn into many of our everyday perceptions by family or other authority since childhood.  Did your elders ever say things like this:

Don’t take it all, honey, leave some for someone else.
Don’t be greedy, you don’t need to have it all.

Now a kid looking at the last biscuit on the tray sees only one biscuit, and his grandmother’s chiding remark was meant to teach him manners by leaving the biscuit for the guest to eat.  If we really wanted more biscuits, we could make some, or buy some.  They are not really all gone.  But this stuff sticks in our minds; and our egos apply these principles where perhaps they do not really apply.

For now you’re grown up, and when you see that last biscuit, you remember the shortage, and you feel guilty because you really want it– but Grandma, she’s still there with you.  Now your rational adult self knows that there are more biscuits out there; there could be thousands of them if you had the time or money or perseverance to acquire them.

It’s the same way with wealth.  It’s there, for anyone who chooses it.   Anyone with the time, the money, or the perseverance to pursue it.  I say that everyone has these options, yet some are living in conditions that do not currently support their implementation as easily as others.

And here’s the part Grandma neglected to tell you, because maybe she didn’t get the connection at the time:  if you give that last biscuit away, then the means to make even more biscuits presents itself to you and to the recipient.   That’s the value of Guilt Free Prosperity.

Earn it.

Love it.

Spend it.

Save  it.

But please, give as much of it away as you can.

You may not see the value in one single biscuit,  but with the gift comes the ability to create more from what’s left.  Sure there’s more out there, but perhaps, like a biscuit baking in the oven, it’s your gesture that makes it easier for the prosperity grow.

The assessment took about 3 minutes, and returned a result smack in the middle of the spectrum…in other words, MEDIOCRE!
This is not what I wanted to see, but when I really reflect on it, I guess it is actually pretty accurate. After all, I am a pretty worldly person (I like my electronic gadgets and sparkly stones), but I do have a sense of the divine and understand the basics of why we’re here.

This assessment, of course, allows me the room to grow, and to focus my efforts on improving the areas in which I scored pretty low (like tapping into the Akashic field, whatever that is). I got a new Kindle, so what better opportunity to take my learning to the Akashic field by way of modern technology…the best of both worlds!

If you would like to take the Enlightened Wellbeing Self Assessment, you can take it here

Namaste

Not in the sense that I would like to see harm come to her, but in the sense that she is and does most of what I’d like to be and do myself.  Now since I believe in living a guilt free life, this doesn’t bode too well for the higher self.  The ego loves it, mind you, because it keeps me in my place and curbs my desire to stretch outside my comfort zone.

This person is a the most successful person I know.  She is young, beautiful, rich, a great family person, active in her church, and never seems to run out of time.  Her spouse–also beautiful of course– is a loving, complete person of his own.  They have gorgeous children that are courteous and gentle.  They drive nice cars.  They donate.  They build houses in Mexico. They work out regularly.  They have no bad habits.  They have college degrees and tons of friends and they have great parties.

They are what pretty much everyone wants to be.  It’s disgusting.

I know you are thinking that I am being resentful, envious, and jealous.  And yes, those emotions do cross my mind.  But I recognize them and send them on their way because they only cause guilt and fuel the fire of my ego.  What I focus on is a perfect example of an overachiever, who is at the far end of the bell curve (skewing it for the rest of us) but also giving us the opportunity to strive to be better in our own ways.

And then I look further inward, at some of the things that makes me different from her.  I look for my own positive qualities, ones that she may be lacking.  And I look without judgment, because surely there are things that I have learned about life that she hasn’t, and vice versa.

I recall that when she is frustrated, she comes to me to vent.  She feels like she can relate to me, even if I don’t always feel the same about her.  She confides in me, knowing that the feelings and opinions she expresses to me will go no farther.  She trusts me.  I have value to her, and she can demonstrate her own perceived weaknesses without fear of my judgment.

And despite being my arch enemy, she is my gentle reminder that not everyone can hold the same candle, nor should they.

Gurus like Larry Winget and Gary Vaynerchuk inspire us to break free of the corporate mold, and start making changes in order to live the lives that we want.  After reading nearly a hundred of these self-help books, I am left with the nagging feeling that these people believe that there are no employers that can provide you with a satisfying job.  In their eyes, you must work for yourself in order to find happiness in what you do.

Although I believe entrepreneurship provides benefits that many traditional jobs do not, such as freedom to make all of the decisions and self-appointed vacations, it can also increase stress levels, tear apart families and create health problems that affect our level of happiness.  I am an entrepreneur myself, and along with the day job, I see both sides of this issue.

Please excuse my oversimplification of the benefits of entrepreneurship vs employee life.  The arguments for both sides are valid yet lengthy, and I am sure that there are plenty of sources that will assist you in choosing what’s best for you.  My subject here is accepting, no matter which path you choose, where you are right now.

Many of us, including myself in the recent past,  spend a lot of time bitching about where we are.  We hate getting up early and leaving our family at 6am. We miss our childrens’ functions due to late meetings, we are too tired to cook dinner after a long day’s work.  After my pity party was over, I decided to make the best of where I was at any particular time and view my world from the perspective of my being exactly where I was supposed to be.

This means doing what you can do, when.  And not feeling guilty about what you didn’t do, unless what you chose to do instead of what you should have done was stupid.

What’s stupid?  Five straight hours of South Park.  Drinking an entire bottle of wine by yourself, leaving a stream of clothes on the floor and dragging yourself to bed.  Hanging out on Facebook and refreshing until you see a comment made on one of your posts.  Those things are stupid, and those places are not where you should be.

This is time wasted, and as we get older, time is exactly the thing we value the most.  So why waste this time?  Even needing to unwind can be productive, if you just want to doodle on a pad and let your mind wander.  That, to me, while perhaps not overtly productive, gives your mind time to stew, to make sense of your crazy life, and, hopefully, turn it into something that will satisfy your temporary need to be–elsewhere.

Sometimes those doodles on the pad are just stick people, and sometimes they turn into ideas that can be useful whether you work inside the home or out–for yourself or for someone else.  And you can see that where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be.

There’s one man, that at 4:50 PM every day, is walking down the sidewalk on the south side of the street.  Sometimes he walks east, and sometimes west.  And the one thing that strikes me about him is that he is always filthy.

Homeless?  Not sure.  Maybe he is a blue collar worker whose job includes drywall, paint or cement.  He wears an array of clothes, all filthy.  His shoulder-length hair is as close to a mullet as it can be without actually being one, and he has a Sonny Bono moustache that seems out of place in this day and age.  He is tall and thin and his shirt is always tucked in, and he walks with a swagger that says, “I know who I am.”

Well I am glad that he does, because he seems an enigma to me.  One doesn’t see too many people with those attributes–neat, trim, confident and filthy–and it makes me want to stop and ask him what his life is all about.  But, of course, I don’t, because it’s not my place to do so.

And every time I see him, it impresses me that he is OK with being dirty.  He is OK with showing his true self in public without concern about what others think of his looks.  He knows who he is and he’s OK with it.

Thanks for the example, mystery man.