Searching for Love

Hopefully this post won't come across as a sermon you would hear in a church. Often times I have epiphanies while in deep conversations with another person and one of these conversations occurred on Wednesday night. 

I am going to talk about the (11th) biblical commandment, "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34). Back in 2011, I asked one of my sisters the following question: "How can I love others as God loves me if my perception of love is distorted?" She had replied something in the line of, "Perhaps the commandment should read: "The Greatest Sin is Not Loving Ourselves as God Loves Us," which sparked an entirely new journey for me. How many of us can actually say we know what the true essence of God's love is? GOD's love vs. HUMAN love?

Thus, I set out to find out what this essence of love was... as well as what I'd been missing. In my initial research, I found that we make conclusions/decisions about who we are as early as three years of age. We live our entire lives based on this conclusion. Indeed, I had concluded that I was not lovable and therefor did not deserve the best that life had to offer. I tried extra hard to prove that I was, which continuously backfired.

I absolutely LOVE Facebook... especially the times that messages I most needed to hear showed up on my feed. One day, a message came with a video on YouTube: The Miracle Of Human Creation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCbS2ybYvUc

I watched this video over and over again... asking the question... how could I have ever believed that I was not a miracle? How do any of us ever begin to believe we are not miracles? How could I have ever believed that I was not loved into existence?

With this new seed planted in my mind, a garden began to grow around me. I had gardens grow around me before, but with much smaller flowers. This time, each flower that bloomed was bigger and brighter as I walked on a new road to uncover yet another layer of who I really was. As my flowers grew taller and my love grew stronger (from within), many amazing people began to show up in my life to reflect the person I was growing to be. I saw many walls (ones I had built around my soul to protect myself from unknown threats) come tumbling down. 

Love is such an amazing thing when you begin to feel it to its fullest for the first time. I relate it to finally getting a hearing aid after a life time of being partially deaf... in which I can hear sounds I've never been able to hear before for the first time. All the Bible lessons, books I read, and spiritual teachers who told me how much God loved me, didn't do any good when I had no clue what this love felt like.

In the meantime, I was also learning about Law of Attraction... how you will attract what you focus on. Back to the conversation I had on Wednesday night. The morning after I told this person that what shifted in my life was learning how to focus differently, I realized it was much more than that. What shifted was my perception of love. As I began to feel a tremendous expansion of love from within my being, I seemed to begin attracting everything that is good and wonderful in my life.

The second missing link in my life was TRUST. While I do not declare myself as a Christian, many of the teachings of Jesus ring true to my soul... such as, "whatever you desire, when you pray, BELIEVE that you will receive them, and you shall have them". (Mark 11:24). I searched for most of my life in every religion and in every religious / spiritual book searching for the answers to questions I had. How many of you have done the same thing? What were you really searching for? Do you even know? It seemed that I had to find the essence of unconditional love before I could get to the point of believing... that is, believing that I deserved to have what I desired.

What did you start to believe when you were three years old? I just read another blog post written by a beautiful woman whose mother doesn't even remember the day she told her daughter that she had an ugly nose. Just one careless comment can scar you for life... unless in your seeking, you stumble upon the thing you were told, realize it wasn't true, and burst into love. For me, it happened that fast... the sensation of bursting from inside.

Within this essence of love, I find myself loving many people as if they are family, partners, and even my own children. It is a very different way of living. Perhaps before, I was merely existing. I wonder what life has in store for me now!

Reflections

Life is a journey, not a destination. My personal journey has been about self-discovery and I titled my first memoir, "Appearances: A Journey of Self-Discovery". I titled the sequel, "Love, Life, & God: Getting Past the Pain".

For the last year, I've been listening to a number of personal development seminars, book marketing seminars, and relationship seminars. The common denominator seems to be the necessity of developing self-confidence and self-esteem, areas I've struggled with for most of my life. In the area of relationships, I really wanted to identify the core blocks I knew were still lingering in my subconscious... and the only way to do this was to face them.

Many of my past relationships were abusive ones, and according to Law of Attraction, we attract to us a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. While I have been making strides in self-confidence with exercising, friendships, writing, and music, I became aware that I still was doing some self-loathing for allowing situations with some of the men I've been with to happen, which included rape and molestation. I knew self-loathing had to go, but how?

In listening to about half a dozen dating coaches talk about the issues many women face (and men, too), I kept asking myself, why did I allow those things to happen? 

I contemplated whether energetically, if I disliked myself that much, perhaps the men were doing what they felt they were supposed to do, which was treat me like crap because I believed I was crap. And I couldn't help wonder if I would have been treated the same way had I loved and accepted myself, physical challenges and all. 

I had agreed to doing things I didn't want to do out of the fear of being rejected. I let the resulting injuries linger for way too many years... and emotional baggage gets stored in your muscles. I swallowed a lot of pills to cope with pain in my muscles that I didn't realize were non-physical energetic emotional memories. 

Several years ago, I discovered EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). I did a 20 minute tapping sequence with Carol Tuttle to work through the symtoms of fibromyalgia relating to the car accident I was in when I was 21. A boy I was in love with had just broken up with me and I was devastated. When I was driving home, the fatique of the event along with CFS (after a bout of mono) resulted in my dozing at the wheel and I woke up just in time to see the car I was about to crash into.

In the EFT exercise, I tapped through all the emotions I was experiencing at the time of the car accident which released some of the emotional memory from my muscles. I definitely felt the difference. 

However, I couldn't find any EFT sequences for the other traumatic experiences... and so they lingered... until recently, when one of my sisters told me about Robert Smith's work with people who had been traumatized using a method called Faster EFT (Emotionally Focused Transformations). There are a number of YouTube videos demonstrating how Robert works with people on a variety of topics, including PTSD and rape. I copied the following paragraph from the FasterEFT website:

"FasterEFT is a methodology developed by Robert G. Smith after many years of studying and working with thousands of people. It is a collection of new cutting-edge techniques and processes that integrates the most effective elements of EFT, BSFF, NLP, spiritual understanding, science and the mind’s great ability to transform itself. One of the greatest aspects in FasterEFT is that it is fast, direct and to the point. It has a healthy and logical belief system that is easily accepted. With this great mix of understandings, FasterEFT can quickly transform how you represent your past, shift your emotional disruptions and restore your physical health."

In the meantime, I've been writing Fairy Tales. The most recent one is titled, "Twin Flame". I often experience the magic of spirit (God) talking to me through my fingers while they type on the keyboard. In this tale, an elder tells a soul who is in "heaven", that humans have to live certain life cycles to become mature souls, and we make contracts with other souls before we are born to work out relationship issues. 

And so I wondered... perhaps I had made contracts with the men who had hurt me and they were only doing what I had previously agreed to do. It's definitely time for me to let the pain of the past go and move on to new experiences.

The Book Marketing Challenge

My self-publishing journey began back in 2011. After I tediously learned each step in formatting the stories I wanted to tell (real-life ones) and self-publishing the completed projects, I thought I might put together a program that would teach others how to do what I had learned how to do. I believe it was in 2012 that I googled “self-publishing for practically nothing” to see what else was available on the subject and found Shelley Hicks’ website http://www.self-publishing-coach.com. She had already done everything I was thinking of doing and then some. I subscribed to her newsletter and downloaded the free reports she offered. On April 25 (2 months ago), I received one of those newsletters announcing that Shelley was going to be one of the 40 contributing experts in the upcoming Book Marketing Challenge.

If you’ve known me for a long time, you know that I have been living on a fixed disability income since 1998. I would not have been able to take this course had there been a charge for it or if I had to drive any kind of distance to take it. While there were Gold and Diamond upgrade levels for a fee, I was able to enroll in the Silver level for FREE. The course was broken up into 30 individual well-organized daily segments which included articles, interviews, and exciting assignments (including the steps on how to complete them).

My favorite part of the course was related to blogging which spilled over into Facebook Fanpage Parties and Virtual Book Tours. I was excited to find out that I wouldn’t have to physically travel all over the world to do a book tour (although I wouldn’t mind). I had already self-published five books through CreateSpace, four of them through KDP, and had started this blog back in 2011. I also had created an Amazon Author Central Page, a Facebook Fan Page, and a Linkedin profile. I quickly absorbed the lessons about developing an author platform, identifying a target audience, and how to sync all the pages I had created together. I tweaked my blog heading to reflect the overall purpose for my books and began to rewrite the back cover contents to sum up what I had learned from the entire transformational process. At least all the books were print-on-demand so I am only throwing away about a dozen proof copies! I kept telling myself that I hadn’t sold very many books because something was going to shift – and this course was IT! (Sorry, Shelley – if I had been able to purchase your courses, I’m sure you would have described a similar process – and congratulations on being selected as part of the Book Marketing Challenge!)

My most recent memoir is “Love, Life, & God: Getting Past the Pain,” a journey that began when I could no longer work back in 1998 and ended about 15 years ago when I discovered ways to shift my thinking and managed to create a meaningful life (after moving 43 times). I included stories about people, places, pets, and experiences (some of which were super-natural). My ideal readers, which I realized by taking this course, are people who have endured multiple life challenges and are looking for someone to relate to as well as be inspired by. My books can be viewed at www.amazon.com/author/reneealter or by clicking on any one of the book cover photos that are on this blog.

I am really excited about tomorrow’s Blog Hop!

P.S. To leave a comment, click on the (number) comments button below. And THANK YOU for visiting my blog!

You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone!

You may be familiar with this line of Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi". For me, first, I thought the baby boy I gave birth to would be close to me forever ... like I was with my mother. But, alas, he was a boy and a very independent one! And he was my only child. I missed him terribly after he was up and gone. I just had to wait and see if this would change after he had his first child... which it has... a little bit... thanks to the message feature of facebook and phones that can text.

On the opposite note, I didn't really know how depressed I was or how much my body hurt every day or how much it affected my life until it was GONE. I realized yesterday that the 'high' I experienced back in July 2010 has been continuous for the last three months or so (with the exception of the insomnia I no longer have). Rather than writing six books simultaneously like I was doing that July, I keep 3-6 windows open on my laptop computer while I jump back and forth between multiple tasks. I have an upright file with folders for tasks in progress such as adding affiliate links to my blog, as well as additional writing & music information. (I like being organized). There are six separate piles on my dining room table of tasks I want or need to complete a.s.a.p. Among them are: a notebook and folder for the 30 Day Book Marketing Challenge I found for free, Hay House World Summit (I paid $7 for the Premium Registration which will include 100 videos instead of 30 (will I actually have time to see them all?), I had enrolled in Reverbnation's Press Kit package 30 day free trial (I have to remember to cancel after 30 days and see which parts of it I can do in the meantime), a pile with travel info (I need to make reservations to go to Washington-either in July or September), and notes to keep current for the non-profit organizations I volunteer for. Then there are the three piles on the bookshelf next to the table which includes music information, career information, and writing information (along with articles on marketing it all). And there is a pile on my coffee table filled with information on EFT, NLP, Reiki, and Positive Psychology. I rarely turn on my TV. In the back of my mind I have intentions of listening to meditation CD's and MP3's I've been accumulating.

I tried to think of other 'symptoms' of my feeling good so I could understand what has transpired and do my best to maintain this state of mind. I 'feel' like I am contributing to meaningful causes. I 'feel' confident in what I am doing. I 'feel' stimulated by learning new things. I 'feel' the happiness of being surrounded by friendly, supportive people (neighbors, friends, and business associates). I 'feel' the bliss of being in the midst of actively creating new things (like meeting someone who has a recording studio and a band who expressed interest in working with me to create awesomeness for my songs). I 'feel' financially stable with the means to travel to see family vs feeling sorry for myself that I cannot go. I 'feel' important as I meet more people, and network to connect people to other people and organizations/businesses. I 'feel' like I have real wisdom to offer other people now that I have overcome all those awful life challenges (although I still deal with a bit of envy that so many others did not have to go through all that). I 'feel' like I am back in college which I had always enjoyed doing. Perhaps I will be able to print my own diploma for Book Marketing, Music Production, and Writing. I 'feel' healthier and stronger. I 'feel' content. I 'feel' supported by GOD and the Universe as I continuously receive the next video, email, or person, that gives me what I need to take the next step of my incredible journey usually with impeccable timing. One of the latest examples is immediately after I experienced a complete let-down by severe critiques of one of my songs (Reverbnation Crowd Review), I saw a new email from Rhys Thomas with a 10-minute video with the results of a free personality profile test I did on his website describing me to a T -- as 'Emotional Intelligence' with an opposite as 'Poor Me'. His presentation put a huge smile on my face. Then I received the long awaited phone call that Paul (and his band) were finally available to work with me in the recording studio!!! With this experience, I noticed once again, that when you are on the right 'feeling' level, you attract incredibly amazing things and situations.

Note all the 'feel' words. In 'Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy', and in 'Law of Attraction' this is the magic word. Please share one of your experiences relating to this topic below.