You are the source of your own desires
So often we can be seeking fulfillment through external things. People, things, titles and such. But all things external to us are temporary, such as seasons in our lives, for instance. Many times we can hang our happiness on those external relationships. But in order to have a place of lasting fulfillment we need only to look within ourselves.
So often we can find ourselves living in our minds, having an ongoing conversation with ourselves, from a place of the ego. This mind of ours wants a sense of security and trust in the process of life. It can want a place to call home. For so many of us, we put this place in the care of another, especially in personal relationships with our spouses or our lovers. Often I will ask engaged couples how they feel about getting married. And a typical response is, “they make me so happy.” This makes me want to pound my head on the wall.
Why? Because happiness is an “inside” job, just like all of our feelings. It is something that happens inside of us. And nobody can have control over that … even if we wanted them to. It is within us that feelings are born. When we hold somebody else responsible for how we feel, we are sentencing them to a futile role. Just like where our own thoughts are born, what happens within ourselves is out of reach of another. To expect someone else to “create” the appropriate feeling within us is insanity and is, indeed, a very harsh role to play.
You are not responsible for anyone else’s feelings. You are off the hook … permanently.
If you want to feel a particular way, learn about yourself. Understand yourself. Take the time to figure out who you are and what you prefer.
And there is another aspect to your feelings. We have been talking about the ego. The mind. The thought center of your being. But there are also the feelings of your own heart. Your heart. So often our lives can feel empty. Bland. Mundane. These feelings can come from a sense of futility. Futility in not feeling fulfilled. If we are living in our ego, we tend to not fulfill the desires of our own heart. Our heart can feel a whole range of feelings. These include feeling numb … to feeling fulfilled. Our heart can feel joy and love too. But our heart has to actually participate in our lives in order to experience the best feelings. A heart that feels satisfied is a wonder-full heart. When we honor the desires of our own heart, we are creating the best feelings from within our own self.
Take the time to get to know your own heart. Have discussions with it often. Let your mind understand your heart more and more every day. A great way to start this process is to have compassion and forgiveness for yourself. If you were to practice compassion and forgiveness of yourself, your whole life would open up. For as you forgive yourself, the byproduct of that is forgiveness of others too. This is the doorway to unconditional Love. The place of Heaven within each one of us.
Got Heaven?
Love You,
Les
