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Both
authors have personal experience with the subject matter of
this book. They are also both college instructors and have
daily interaction with dozen's of young men and women going
through life's relationship highs and lows.
Read
more about each of the authors:
Felena
Hanson
Chris
Williams
Felena's
Random Thoughts
Intention, Regret
& Worry
I was
sitting with two of my best girlfriends today, listening to
their relationship perils, when one girlfriend said, “I
think my problem is I don’t know what I want.”
I immediately jumped in with my new age INTENTION speech,
“Well you’ll never manifest what you want if you
don’t have intention.” And again she repeated,
“But I don’t know what kind of guy I’m looking
for. I’m all over the map.” She proceeded, “Maybe
I just need to date a ton of guys and figure it out”.
I retorted, “Perhaps a better idea is to figure out
who YOU REALLY ARE before approaching any more relationships”.
And then
I thought about myself… I’m so great at dishing
good advice but am challenged to heed it. I THINK I know who
I am and what I want, to the point that I have my 1, 5, and
20 year goals, along with my Mr. Right list, but do I really?
I went from a 10 year relationship to another long-term relationship
with 4 whole weeks between!
In my
defense I do believe I’ve finally grown into the person
I’ve aspired to be and am secure in who I am and what
I want. Thus I’m justified, right?
But aren’t
we constantly changing? Well yes and no. Of course we evolve
into, hopefully, more enlightened beings as we age, but does
this change the fundamentals of what we’re looking for?
Again, yes and no. I think it’s only now that I have
a much better glimpse of what I really want out of a relationship,
mate, and eventually (hopefully) a life partner. And it was
only into my early 30’s that I really began to figure
this out. Is this due to my age or the fact that I’ve
had the luxury of marriage and divorce?
I call
it a luxury because I got away relatively unscathed. And in
the end, in hindsight, it was an incredible learning experience.
I wouldn’t change it for the world, which is fortunate
because even if I wanted to I can’t!
That’s
the funny thing about life... we are constantly trying to
control things WE HAVE NO CONTROL OVER!
First
off... you have REGRET --- I too fall prey to this ridiculous
concept much more than I would like to admit. What is the
point of regret? You can’t change what’s done.
So why dwell on it? Why live in the past? The point is to
learn and move on from the mistakes we made, right?
But let
me take it one step further. We are the ones, perhaps based
on societal standards, that LABEL things a MISTAKE.
What if
there were no mistakes? What if there only actions. What if
we followed the wisdom of Chopra and so many others and took
a PAUSE between ACTION and REACTION. What if we didn’t
pull our reaction from our behavioral paradigm? What if we
didn’t label things as good and bad? What if we just
watched or observed and let things pass without judgment?
Seems almost impossible, but there has got to be a way!
Another
amusing one is WORRY or STRESS. One of my favorite age old
adages is, “Don’t worry about the things you DON’T
control… because you don’t control them. And don’t
worry about the things you DO control… because you control
them.” Again, I recognize that a little stress moves
us to action when in a situation of danger, but 99.9% of the
stress or worry the average person feels on a daily basis
is totally UNNESSARY!
Cataract
So back
to the paradigm issue... I liken our view of the world to
a cataract. I found out recently that I actually had a cataract
in my left eye. It grew due to surgery I had to repair a torn
retina, which in turn was due to damage done in a car accident
10 years prior. The cataract was basically scar tissue; it
was my eye’s natural reaction to the previous surgery.
I liken
my paradigm to a cataract. My life lens is fraught with scar
tissue… my parent’s divorce, personal failures,
my divorce, etc. The cataract gets thicker and thicker with
every event and subsequently everything that happens in my
life is seen through that faulty lens.
I recently
had my cataract removed (only a couple months after my 87
year-old grandmother) and I began to really think… why
don’t we all just get laser surgery? Why don’t
we all just get a new lens when the old one gets too scarred?
Are we afraid that the world will be too bright and clear?
Why can’t it be that easy?
Being
Human
being, not human doing. I have a problem with this. I’m
always doing. I’ve always prided myself with being busy.
I’m constantly on the go, like a busy little bee. But
for what? What am I really accomplishing? It’s like
I think if I keep my body busy I won’t have to really
think, feel, know, BE. Never a moment of silence… from
the moment I step out of bed in the morning I turn on the
noise… music, the news, email, cell phone… the
list goes on and on.
I’ve
tried just sitting still, quietly, alone for a period of time,
but my minds races… sometimes to the past but mostly
to the future.
I’m
always planning. I live by MS Outlook… oh God, thank
you for Bill Gates. And what would I do if I couldn’t
link my Outlook with my Treo? Oh God, thank you for Palm.
But I
know these things are ridiculous. They are simply ways for
me to keep myself BUSY so I don’t have to really FEEL
or BE.
Ready
to Receive
Why did
it take me 30 years to open my mind to the likes of Deepak
Chorpra and Wayne Dryer? Perhaps because I wouldn’t
have been able to receive it before…. really receive
it. There is so much wisdom in what they have to share. BEING
--- being the watcher, intention, passion, purpose…
I love it all! But so much to do, know, understand…
and they want me to start by doing NOTHING!!! I don’t
get it! Well I do get it but that seems like the impossible!!!!
Sit in a room and do nothing, think nothing, be nothing.
I love
the concept of ditching my ego… to get to the place
where I totally and utterly ignore the opinions of others.
I do feel I’ve always been on the edge of this. I have
my father to thank for this. He relentlessly acted like a
9 year old child or even worse, a mentally handicap person
around me in public places without a care in the world. In
hindsight it could have been viewed as in politically correct,
but at the time I didn’t know what that meant, nor did
I care. It made me laugh and I loved him for it. I still love
him for it. It made me drop my embarrassment factor like a
hotcake when my dad would waive his arms around, walk like
a walrus and balk like a 2 year-old in the middle of Magic
Mountain. I carried this uncaring attitude into my teen years
and would often intentionally embrace my friends in high school
and college by pulling tricks like taking my temporary front
tooth out when chatting with the carnies at the fair in the
summer. I never did get a rise out of those carnies as we
were like twins separated at birth. ;-)
With every challenge in
life I am more and more ready to receive and hopefully, someday,
totally check my ego at the door.
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