1) Welcome Letter by Sibyl McLendon
2) Spirit part 2: Life Scripts, by Sibyl McLendon
3) Toxic Friendships by Sibyl McLendon
4) Criticism: Conduit or Curse by Staci Backauskas
5) The Power Of Music
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Welcome Letter
by Sibyl McLendon
Ya'ah'teh' and welcome. Happy Spring!
Wow, I hear a lot of grumbling out there! Easter is right around the corner, so it must be springtime, no matter what the weather is like! It is the time of renewal. Rebirth. Not just for the plants, but for us as well.
Bobby and I always look upon Easter as a good time to think about renewing ourselves. What do we want to accomplish this year, who do we want to grow into being? Why not take a few minutes this Easter, away from the colored eggs and candy, to reflect on some renewal plans for yourself? It is never too late to start those projects, be they learning some new ability, taking more time for the Spiritual. losing a few pounds, looking for a new job... whatever. You can do it, and
now is the time!
As I have mentioned here before, Bobby gets a lot of calls from people who need more help than he can ever give them in a short reading. He has been sending people all over the internet to sites we have found that provide help of one kind or another, or teach things about Spirituality, Karma, personal power or whatever they made need. It is time consuming to give them all the addresses, and it is confusing to people sometimes. So we have made the decision to make one site that has all the information in one place, with links to all the sites that we have been sending people to. What I would like from you is to send me the addresses of any good spiritual or self help sites that you know of. It could even be a poetry site, or uplifting quotes, just any site that you think would fit into this category. Thanks in advance.
A word about the Power Of Music selection this week. I chose a song by Michael Jackson. I just want all of you to know that I think very little of the man. I feel that he is a lost and very troubled soul who needs a lot of help. However, the song that I picked this week is a powerful one, and well worth the read. I hope that you will look past the author and really see the message.
That's it for me this week. Hope that yours is a wonderful one, filled with blessings.
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There is no single optimal path for the soul. There are many optimal paths.
--Gary Zukav
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Life Scripts
by Sibyl McLendon
For the second in my series on Spirit, I am going to write about Life Scripts. These are very different than Fate. I don't really believe in the concept of "fate". Too many people use fate to avoid taking their personal power and taking responsibility for themselves and their actions. How many times I have heard people say, "Oh, when it is my time to go, I will, and nothing can stop it" and use this as an excuse for stupid behavior! Life Scripts are completely different than Fate, for they always take into account our free will, and the personal power that we are all given by the Creator to make decisions for ourselves.
Before we make the decision to reincarnate from Spirit to this earth plane, we draw up what I call a Life Script. The most important aspect of this script is that we choose our own parents for the lessons that we need to start this life out in a particular way. We might choose happy, loving parents for ourselves, but we might just as easily choose to be born to abusers, molesters, drunks, people with emotional problems... it all depends on what we need to accomplish in this life and what sort of start we want to have. If you consider that you chose your parents, how does that alter your view of your childhood? Your Higher Self, your Spirit Consciousness, chose these people for the lessons that they would teach you! Think about it; how have you leaned the lesson? Did a bad childhood make you a stronger, more determined person? Or did it leave you weak and full of pain? Where you are now cannot be blamed on your childhood, it is a direct result of the decisions that you made about that childhood!
After each of us reaches the age where we can make reasonable decisions for ourselves, we are then in control of our lives and what path we are on. Every moment of every day we are making decisions about every thing that happens to us. Whether we are making good, conscious decisions, or making subconscious emotional decisions is also up to us! If you feel as if you are powerless, living at the whims of others, or are being constantly blown about by the winds of "fate", then you are simply not making informed, conscious decisions.
We are constantly meeting crossroads in our lives. Most are minor ones: do I turn left or turn right, do I eat this or eat that, do I read a book or watch TV, do I eat a carrot or a candy bar? Some are major: do I accept this job or that one, do I get into a relationship with this person or not, do I drink alcohol, take drugs, sleep with this person, allow this person to tell me what to do? Try to look at your life as a road, with every major decision that you ever made as a fork in that road. You chose which way to go. Each fork led you to exactly where you are today. You may feel as if you did not have a choice at the time, but you always did. It is your free will that led you to where you are today, for good or for bad. If you are not happy with where your path has led you, then look upon where you are now as a fork in the path, make a new decision based on all the information that you have, and change!
You exist where you are right now, as who you are right now, based on the decisions you have made in your life. You cannot blame it on your parents or your childhood. You cannot blame it on your partner. You have made your path, based on your Life Script, which foresaw all the potential decisions you might or might not make. If you find this confusing, let me give you an example. My husband Bobby chose to be born to a couple that were most likely not going to stay married. He knew this going in. He knew the potential for his mother to divorce, and then remarry. When she did remarry, she chose a homosexual pedophile. This man then began molesting Bobby. After some years, Bobby made the decision to get away from this man. First major fork in the road. After getting away, Bobby had a lot of emotional pain to deal with. Next major fork: how to deal with this pain? Bobby chose drugs and alcohol. Now he is on a new path. In his Life Script, this was always a potential possibility. Now the question became how long he would stick to this path. As his life progressed, he continued to make major decisions, admittedly under the influence of the drugs and alcohol, but he made them nonetheless. Eventually, his path met my path. I was making some poor choices then myself. But still, we managed to make one good decision: to make our paths run parallel to each other's. This too was a known potential in both of our life scripts.
As we made decisions based on the fact that we were now together, some were good and some were bad. Bobby continued to use drugs and alcohol. We came to a major fork: he would quit and stay with me, or he wouldn't, and then our paths would separate. He made the decision to quit. Unfortunately, his decision came too late to avoid certain consequences from his drug and alcohol abuse. One of these was contracting diabetes. Now, his higher being knew that this was a potential when the Life Script was drawn up. But he was NOT fated to get diabetes. It was just one of the possible outcomes. If he had made different decisions anywhere along the path, he most likely would not have gotten diabetes. Now he has it. Major fork: is he going to take care of himself, or is he not? If he takes care of himself, most likely he will still have a long and symptom-free life. If he does not, he will most likely die at a younger age than he would otherwise. Every day he makes decisions about this. Happily, he makes good decisions. But he could have just as easily made decisions that shortened his life. So, when he ultimately does pass, how can anyone say, "Oh it was just his time to go."? It could have been his time many other times!
Some people choose very difficult Life Scripts for themselves before they come back. They chose to be developmentally disabled, have terrible birth defects, or to develop a devastating illness later on. This is to allow themselves the chance to transmute tremendous amounts of Karma in one lifetime, thus making great strides. Some only chose to come back for a short while, choosing to return to Spirit quickly. This will account for crib deaths, or the death of children. Hard for those of us left behind, but there was a reason for it, even if we don't know the reason until we, too, return to Spirit. Then all becomes clear.
Your loved one in Spirit chose their own paths. They made their own decisions. Hopefully they made good decisions while they were here, and learned the lessons they came here to learn. But if they didn't, if they got lost on their path, the good news is that they will get another chance. We all get another chance to do it right. We get as many chances as we need. That is one of the true beauties of the Universe. Everyone gets a second chance.
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Your soul is much more than your personality. It is the essence of who you are. It existed before you were born, and it will exist after you die. We are beginning to understand that all that we choose, create, and experience is part of a learning process. That process serves the evolution of our souls. This is the heart of the new perception that is transforming the human experience. This is multisensory perception, the ability to see and experience far beyond the limitations of the five senses.
~ Gary Zukov
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Toxic Friendships
by Sibyl McLendon
I mentioned last week that I was going to write about toxic friendships. Actually, this is as much about life lessons as it is about that. I learned an interesting truth about myself recently, and I want to share it with you all.
As I have said already, we are all here to learn lessons, and we will keep being presented with the opportunity to learn them until we get it right. One of the lessons I have to learn this time around is about the people I choose to let into my life. I used to be the kind of person who would let anyone into my life if they seemed to like me. I was emotionally needy. As I progressed, I thought that I was starting to get more discerning about this. I thought that I was learning to avoid people who were going to be negative influences and weigh me down. Some years ago, I had a friend who was a very toxic person. She was emotionally out of control, making very poor decisions and bringing a lot of negativity into my life. I made the decision to end the friendship. At the time, I attempted to do this gently, but she was very offended, and wrote me an 18-page letter, rambling and quite scary. It clearly illustrated to me that I had made a very poor decision by letting her into my life to begin with, and that I had done the right thing in cutting her loose. To be honest, I was rather pleased with myself for making the right decision. I had learned a valuable lesson! I was never going to get into that situation again! After practically wrenching my arm by patting myself on the back, on I went with my life.
About 7 years ago, I met a lady who would become my "best friend". I gave her the keys to my kingdom, so to speak. I shared everything with her, and she with me, or so I thought. As time went on, I could clearly see that she had her own emotional baggage, but don't we all? I certainly went through some tough times during our friendship, some of which I have shared with you in past issues. There were times that I was an emotional wreck. However, I did learn from these bad times. I grew, and moved on. I genuinely learned that I would be just as happy as I decide to be in this life. I choose to be happy here.
My friend, however, was stuck in a loop of depression, money problems and relationship unhappiness. I started to notice that she was always unhappy! Never did I talk to her and ask how she was that I got a positive response. "Never" is a strong word that I do not use lightly here. I started to check out my observations with my husband, just to see if I was being judgmental. No, he assured me that what I saw was indeed the way it was.
Even at this point, I was not considering ending the friendship. I did spend a lot of time considering the possible ways to handle this problem. I literally spent months pondering the problem, and what might be the best way to eliminate the negativity without hurting my friend. Eventually I made the decision to just point out what I was hearing from her, as gently as possible, in an attempt to allow her to step back and take a look at what she was manifesting in her life.
Bad idea! It literally blew up in my face. What I got back was an acidic personal attack on my life, my personality, my financial status… it was very insulting. At first, I was shocked. Next, I was hurt. And then, I stopped and took a long hard look at the entire situation. When I did, I just had to laugh! I had done it again! I had allowed a person into my life that was toxic to me, knowingly, willingly and with my eyes wide open. So much for all that back-patting I had done all those years before. I had sprained my arm for nothing.
Lessons have a way of coming back to bite us in the butt when we only think we have learned them. The tricky part is that they don't always come back in the same way. They disguise themselves. If we have really, truly learned the lesson we recognize them. If we only think we have learned the lesson, we will fall right into the trap again. I like to think now that I will be a lot more cautious the next time I am thinking of allowing someone into my energy as a friend. In reality, I can only hope. I do know that toxic people can come in many guises. They will suck up your energy, depress you, upset you and make your life harder. They can be family members, friends or co-workers. However, they can only do this if we let them.
An excellent book on this very subject is 'People Of The Lie' by M. Scott Peck. I highly recommend it.
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Criticism: Conduit or Curse
by Staci Backauskas
It’s a real challenge sometimes to hear criticism and determine what has validity and what needs to be filed under "Extraneous Information." Because many of us fear that challenge, we end up impeding our own growth.
I used to have fear about asking people why they unsubscribed from my e-zine. I still cringe a little when I ask for feedback from someone who’s left. What if they say something awful? What if they criticize my writing? What if they tell me I’m full of crap? The defensive answer would be "So what?" The more spiritual answer, which I’m striving for, is "What can I learn?" Colored with a bit of "So what?"
This morning I got a response from a woman who hadn’t actually unsubscribed, wanting to know how she could get back on the mailing list. I chuckled to myself. How many times have I allowed fear of the response to prevent me from asking the question?
Sometimes constructive criticism can be a positive step in our evolution. I received an e-mail from a magazine in response to an article I submitted about leaving my job to finish my novel. They loved the article, but offered some other feedback. They felt that by publishing my own book, I kept myself tied to a sales career I said I wanted to leave. Talk about a cosmic two by four upside the head!
Once I got over the sting, their feedback/criticism allowed me to really look at some things in my life and enabled me to get to the next level. I’ve re-focused my efforts and am now doing more of what I said I wanted to do when I left my job – be a writer.
Don’t allow the fear of what someone will say prevent you from asking the question. Affirm that your spirit will know what resonates with it and what doesn’t. Trust yourself that you will be in tune with what you need to hear. And that you’ll also instinctively recognize what needs to be tossed out.
Spiritual writer, speaker and teacher Staci Backauskas offers spiritual guidance from a Goddess Within perspective. From facing fears to relationships to making tough decisions, The Goddess Within will guide your spirit, open your mind and help you uncover all of your human potential.
Strengthen your spiritual practice and nurture your soul at http://www.fifthgoddess.com
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We find comfort among those who agree with us-growth among those who don't.
~ Frank A. Clark ~
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The Power Of Music
Man In The Mirror
by Michael Jackson
