How was Christmas? One of the best things about Christmas is permission to have fun, to play, laugh and let our hair down. Did you get to do that this year?
Christmas isn’t always about having fun, sometimes it’s about grief and sadness. For some, it’s a continuation of the abuse or homelessness that is there every day.
I once heard a story about a man who everyone called “the happiest man alive.” He lived in abject poverty, no home, no job, no money, and yet, he was always full of joy. He walked the streets, everyone knew him in the neighbourhood, and he made it his business to look for something helpful to do every day. He was often found picking up litter and putting it in the rubbish bin, after all, his lifestyle meant he had an intimate relationship with the contents of bins.
In the park, people who looked sad would soon find a big smile from him. Many went to him with their problems, which is strange because he didn’t specialise in problems, he only beamed out love.
He had no family or friends, although everyone knew his name and many stopped to talk. Once in a while, someone would offer him an old woolly sweater or a hot meal which he accepted graciously. His name was Carl.
As for you and me, and Carl’s neighbours, we don’t know how to live the secret that Carl instinctively embodied.
All our feelings, thoughts, words and actions are not responses to what goes on around us but to what is going on inside.
If we feel sad, then something inside us is resonating with sadness, maybe it’s the grief of losing a loved one. Sometimes, the person we’ve lost and are grieving the lack of is ourselves.
When we are resonating love and peace inside, then we’re like Carl. It doesn’t matter what or who we lost, it doesn’t matter how unfair life seems, it doesn’t matter what others do or say, we continue to experience joy, happiness, blessings and peace because it’s always there inside.
The secret to life is to understand this truth and come to live it. We are here, right now, worrying about the Earth and the state of the world. We are embodying and expressing sadness, fear, worry, lack, not being enough, not having the answer, hopelessness, frustration, anger. The list goes on. How can we embody love and peace when we engage with everything going on outside and around us with these other emotions?
Now, imagine if everyone in the world put their energy into finding and expressing inner peace and love. Do you realise that would remove all the perceived problems in the world because everyone would be thinking and acting from peace and love? That’s the reason we are here.
Wake up, beautiful soul, stop putting yourself through so much pain, this is simple. All you need do is see it and choose it. You have the answer, we all do.
(Image: “Ignite Love and Peace, They Are Waiting Inside” by Amenet Drago
amenet drago 