Lessons to be learned

Anything that annoys you is teaching you patience.

Anyone who abandons you is teaching you how to stand up on your own two feet

Anything that angers you is teaching you forgiveness and compassion

Anything that has power over you is teaching you how to take your power back

Anything you hate is teaching you unconditional love

Anything you fear is teaching you courage to overcome your fear.

Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go

                                                                        Unknown

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there are, it seems,

lessons everywhere

the opportunities for our lives to be shaped

in ways deep

come moment by moment

from the very moment of waking

but each lesson provides two options

a negative event, thought or feeling

can push us into greater darkness

entombing us, eventually, in hate and fear, anger and violence

or that same event can be that which we grasp

and use to pull ourselves out of the hungering dark

into the light

what makes the difference?

for me it is knowing

that I carry within me Sacred Presence

(you may call it what you will)

I have love itself, dwelling in my soul

I am not empty, a mere shell, which will collapse

at the lightest blow

for I am stuffed with the divine

and I can take whatever comes my way

and transform it

it doesn’t meant there won’t be scary times

or that I won’t get hurt

it does not mean that  will not know failure

it simply means that I am not powerless

or alone

and

if I choose to go deeply into my soul

and rest there (at least from time to time)

I will be transformed the nature of what lives there

(love)

and live accordingly

and thus,  “in a gentle way, shake the world”  (Gandhi)