My Ruby Red Slippers
I've been obsessing over the past 30 years over a problem I couldn't seem to resolve. Actually, it's been several problems, but they are all related in one way or another. For the purpose of this post, it really doesn't matter what the problems are or were. This lesson would hold true for most problems or anyone.
Over the past year, I've been hashing out my problems with a close friend. He's given me a lot of help. He's not the only one. Many people have tried to help me over the years, but I never understood what they were trying to say. I couldn't wrap my head around it.
He gave me advice about having a sense of gratitude when I wake up each morning. He insisted it would change my view of my world and change the way I view my problems. He insisted that it would change the negativity of my life into positivity. He had a point, and I understood it. He gave me a lot of other advice too. He said I had a lot of power to change my own life, but I had to make changes in how I approach things. Mostly, my inner views had to change.
When he spoke to me of gratitude, it was my understanding that he was speaking merely in terms of feeling a sense of gratitude. I understood that just by allowing myself, or deliberately forcing myself, to feel a sense of gratitude, that my inner sense of positivity would kick in and that sense of positivity would affect how others treat me in return.
Things started changing very slowly, and way too slowly for me. OK. I'm a typical American. I want something and I want it ...... like yesterday!
About a month ago, my friend told me a story about three young ladies who had received gifts. They had never shown any gratitude toward the gift giver for what they had received, and as a result, the one giving them gifts eventually quit giving. The gift giver never stopped caring about the three young ladies, but was put off by not receiving any word of thanks.
Also, I've been experimenting with meditation and lucid dreaming, two things I had never tried before in my life. I started seeing images, pictures of things. Some of these things are symbols. I've also been having dreams. I talked to my friend about them. In my visions, I kept seeing sets of images, as if these things were all related somehow, and while I could identify some of the images and know what they were, even if I didn't understand what they symbolized, some of the images were fuzzy and unidentifiable. I couldn't understand why I was seeing the mere existence of an image without being able to see what the image was. I kept thinking "What am I missing?" "Why is this being withheld from me?"
Over the course of our discussions, it was understood that there is a spirit world involved in our lives. It really doesn't matter if you believe in God, angels, demons, fairies, elves or ghosts. My point is that regardless of which spirits you do or don't believe exist, something is out there directing things, and trying to make a difference.
So I kept wondering why the spirits would give me visions, and then obscure the images so I couldn't see them, or let me see images where I couldn't understand the symbolism.
It hit me this morning, like a ton of bricks. If I can't wrap my head around something, they can't give me the information. It would do no good. Also, at the same time, the very fact these images were obscured was an attempt to give me the message, "You're still missing something. There is something else you're forgetting."
I don't know what made me think of them, but I remembered the two conversations I had with my friend about gratitude. And I knew. I had been forgetting gratitude. Not just in terms of forgetting to allow myself to feel gratitude for what I have and gratitude for the positive things in my life, but also I had forgotten to express gratitude to those who had helped me; not just those people who had given me advice over all the years, but those spirits who had been directing the positive things in my life. No one wants to be treated like the magic genie in the bottle. No one wants to be taken for granted. And no one wants to be forgotten.
Part of making positive changes is accepting positive changes. Part of receiving gifts is being thankful for gifts. Part of having power over your life is realizing that you don't really stand alone. By putting up negative barriers against the help, whether it is from someone physical or from someone/something spiritual, you are effectively acting AS IF you are alone, and thereby in a way trying to stand alone, without help.
It is not any real wonder why I am still so alone?
Those barriers borne from not acknowledging help and thanking the helpers stand in the way of receiving what they attempt to give.
I feel a bit like Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz". She had those powerful shoes on her feet the whole time she was in the land of Oz. She had all the power she needed to protect her from evil ones wishing to do her harm and power to take herself home. All she needed was knowing that the shoes had the power and how to use them. I've had the ability to do what I needed to do, but I didn't know it, and didn't know how.
July 9, 2011
4:30 p.m. CST
