Change Your Past

If you don't like your past change it. There is no rule or law within the universe that you can't change your past. This is your life, and you can do whatever you want with it. You can make your past anything you want it to be. Do you have trauma in your past? Change it. Trauma is caused by feeling a lack of control over a situation. It doesn't necessarily have to be a life-threatening situation. What's traumatic to one person is just a walk in the park for another person. Don't compare your trauma to anyone else's, we all experience life in our own way from our own perspective. Don't let anyone tell you that your trauma isn't real just because they can't see it or because someone else experienced "worse" trauma. Some of us may only have one traumatic event in our past, others may have a lot, while others may have none. This isn't about anyone else's trauma but your own, this is about you and your life and the quality of your life.

When we experience a traumatic event in our life, it is due to a lack of feeling in control in a situation. We are left feeling afraid, depressed, anxious, and all sorts of other things. We then replay that event over and over and over in our minds constantly reminding us how we didn't have control. We force ourselves to relive that trauma every time we replay it in our minds. When we replay the traumatic event in our minds, we replay it the way we remember it, which is with us not being in control. We then become afraid of it happening again the same way. If we didn't have control then, we won't have control in the future. It opens up all sorts of anxiety because of it. So why don't we try changing the traumatic event? Why don't we try changing how we think about it? 

If we simply allow ourselves to think about the traumatic event in a different way, we can take back our control that we didn't have at the time it happened. Instead of replaying the traumatic event in our mind as it played out, we can replay the event with the mindset of what we would do now if it were to happen now. The person you are now can go back to that memory and change it. The person you are now can give the person within that memory the control and power that they needed and change it from a traumatic memory to just another memory that has no power over you. The present you has the ability to go back to the past version of yourself within your memory and give yourself whatever it is that you needed at the time.

To do this, the first thing you do is get into a safe and comfortable environment. Cuddle up with some pillows and blankets, light a candle, and just do whatever makes you comfortable. You can do this alone or with someone with whom you feel safe and comfortable with. Secondly you tell yourself that you are safe and that you cannot be harmed from a memory. The traumatic event already happened and is in the past and therefor had no ability to do harm to you now. You then allow yourself to go back into the memory, except this time you don't replay the memory as it happened, you go into the memory and allow yourself to listen to what your past self wants, and you give yourself whatever it is that your past self wants. By allowing yourself you go back to that memory and giving yourself whatever it is that you want or need, you are taking back control of that memory. By taking back control the memory loses its power over you, you now have the power. The traumatic memory is turned into just another memory in which you had control. 

I will share one of my traumatic memories with you in which I did this technique. I want to show you that I am speaking from a place of experience and what this technique was able to do for me. I want you to see how by doing this technique it transformed my life and how it can do the same for you. You are not alone, and it will be ok. I will not go into specific details of my trauma as I am aware that could be a trigger for some. I will simply talk about what I did when I went into my memory of it. 

I was sexually molested repeatedly around the age of 9. I would have flashbacks of the molestation. I tried to suppress those memories, which appeared to work for a while on the surface but underneath I was an emotional wreck. I learned of this technique in my mid-thirties, and it changed my life. I allowed myself to go back to just one specific memory of the abuse in my mind, I picked the most vivid memory and imagined myself as an adult stumbling upon my 9-year-old self in a specific scenario which I won't mention. I honestly thought that when I got into the memory that I would just beat the shit out of my molester but what actually happened shocked me and I would've never expected the outcome I had.  

When I went into my memory, I looked at my younger self in that moment, I knew exactly what he needed. He just wanted to be held, so I just held my younger self. I held him so tight I thought I might hurt my younger self, but he was safe. The present me saved my younger self. The molester disappeared in the memory and all that was left was my 9-year-old self being held, protected, and Loved. I'm not sure how long I stayed within that memory, once I was holding my past self, I just didn't want to let go, I just wanted to hold him forever so that's what I did. We didn't speak to each other, we didn't need to, he just wanted to be held and I gave that to him. I took back control, I took the power those memories held over me, and I only had to face one of the memories, the rest just vanished.

After I did this technique, I was able to realize that the trauma was never even about the molestation for me. It was about the fact that no one ever cared that it happened. No one ever once held me or told me it would be ok. No one protected me. No one cared. It was the fact that my abuser was the one who received all the sympathy after they were caught, and I was viewed as someone who did something wrong by my family. That 9-year-old child is still in me and even today as I'm writing this out for you, I have tears running down my cheeks. It is still a sad memory, there is still pain but it is no longer traumatic because I know that I can go back into my memory and hold myself and Love myself and protect myself since I had no one else to do it for me. I took the power back that was stolen from me.

I spent my life thinking that this was my only trauma, since it was these memories that were always coming back to me. After I allowed myself to do this technique and change my past, other traumas slowly started introducing themselves to me. Turns out I had a lot of suppressed traumas in my life. Turns out there were plenty of other traumatic events that happened in my life that I wasn't even willing to look at or think about because it was just too hard. I focused all of my conscious attention on the molestation as a means of avoiding having to be reminded of all the other horrible shit that happened to me. Here's the thing though, I know that no trauma has power over me anymore. I used this technique and it worked. Yes, it unlocked more trauma but as more trauma is unlocked, I use this technique on the new memories that appear. I know that I can get through any trauma that comes around as long as I have this weapon in my arsenal. 

This technique also works with roleplay. Find someone you trust and feel safe with, and you can act it out. Art therapy helps with uncovering suppressed traumas and memories. Journaling and talking it out with others helps. Therapy can help, if you are able to find a therapist you connect with well. There are plenty of techniques that are available to help you through your traumatic memories. Find what works for you and run with it. You don't deserve to suffer, and you deserve to be happy. There is a way out, if I can do it then so can you. I believe in you even if no one else does. I Love you so much and it'll all be ok. Love and Peace!

Karma: A Simplified Explanation

Karma is cause and effect plain and simple. Karma has been made out to be this entity that rewards you or punishes you based on whether or not you're a good person. That's not what karma is at all. We believe that when someone is a bad person, they will get the karma that is coming to them and when they don't appear to get any karma, we then say that we don't believe in karma since they didn't get what was coming to them. At the same time, we believe that we are a good person who deserves good karma and get frustrated when our good karma doesn't come around. It's very frustrating waiting for bad people to get their bad karma while us good people don't get our good karma. Karma is not an entity that doles out punishment and rewards based on how good or bad someone is.

Every action that we do is a cause which results in an effect. Cause and effect are simultaneous even though we may not see the effect until a later time within time as we know it. We tend to see the cause and the effect as two separate events, of which are not related, when in fact they are not two separate events but one, they are only separated by time and time is an illusion. Karma is the combination of the two events which only appear to be separated by time. As soon as an action is committed, the effect is cemented in place and cannot be changed. That is karma, karma is the effect to your actions. There isn't a single action that we do that doesn't have an effect. There can be no cause without effect, just as there can be no effect with no cause. When something happens to us, it is simply because we caused it to happen, with our own actions. We are not being rewarded or punished based on our actions.   

Since karma is one event which only appears to be separated by time, we have the ability and power to change our karma right now in the present if we so choose. What other time is there but now? We've probably heard people talk about clearing our karma which in turn makes us think that it is something we will never be able to escape or be free from. We will be forced to spend eternity making up for our past karma. That's all bullshit, all we have to do is change our behavior now, change our actions now, change our thoughts now, accept everything as it comes now, and allow all future effects from past causes to come as they will without fighting them. It really is that simple. We all face our own karma; we all face the effects of our own actions. Karma is not some entity that goes around making sure everyone gets what is coming to them at all times.  

We all have to take responsibility for ourselves and our own actions. No one else can clear our karma, no one else can suffer the consequences of our actions for us, and no one else can take the effects from our causes. It's so much easier to blame others for what goes "wrong" in our lives instead of looking at ourselves and figuring out what we are doing (cause) to create the situation within our lives (effect). We create our own karma in every moment, with every decision we make, and every thought that we think. When we don't take the responsibility for ourselves and blame others and turn karma into some kind of entity, we will never be free from karma. If we want to be from karma, all we need to do is accept responsibility for every single thing that happens to us and within our own lives. Stop blaming others and accept the fact that we choose what happens to us.  

The universe operates under the law of cause and effect and is always looking to return to a neutral state of balance. When we do anything, the universe requires there be an effect in order to balance itself out. Love and Peace!

Practice What You Preach

Do you find yourself being critical of other people's actions? Do you find yourself wishing people were different? Do you find yourself wishing the world was different? Maybe you think people should be nicer to each other. Maybe you think people should worry less about others and focus on themselves. Maybe you think people should be nicer to each other. Have you tried doing the things that you think other people should be doing or do you just find it easier to judge others rather than change your own behavior? We can't change anyone but ourselves so when we see things that we would like to change about others, we can only change that within ourselves.

Maybe you hate to see people litter and you hate seeing trash all around you all time. It's easy to sit around and complain about people who litter and it's easy to not litter ourselves. Have we tried going out and picking up some trash ourselves? You might be thinking... but if people wouldn't litter, we wouldn't have to pick up their trash, it shouldn't be our responsibility to pick up their trash, they should just stop littering. You are correct but also wrong. In a perfect world no one would litter, and no one would ever have to pick trash up that someone else threw on the ground. The issue is, we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a world where people litter, a world where people only think about themselves and don't care about anyone around them. We cannot change other people's behavior no matter how much we complain about them or judge them. We are forced to live in the world that we were born into. 

Pick up some trash, it doesn't even have to take up a lot of your time and it doesn't have to be a lot of effort. If you are outside walking somewhere and you see a piece of trash, simply bend over and pick it up and throw it in the very next garbage bin you come upon. It takes minimal effort to make the world a nicer place, to make the world cleaner, and to live in less garbage. Next time you are outside in a public space, look around you for trash and try to see if anyone is picking it up. When is the last time you picked up a piece of trash yourself? If we all would just pick up a piece of trash here and there instead of just complaining about the people that are littering, there wouldn't be any trash around.

Do you think that people are mean and rude and inconsiderate of others? Have you tried being nice and polite and considerate to other people? That doesn't just mean the people that are nice to you but everyone with whom you encounter. It's so easy to complain about other people being mean and not making any effort to be nice yourself. If we just complain and don't make the effort to be nice to people, we are in fact one of them. By simply being nice to other people we are able to brighten people's days and in turn make them nicer people. It doesn't take much effort, a smile to those who look in your direction, giving someone a hand who needs it, and simply asking someone how their day is, can all go a long way. Kindness can be spread but if all we are doing is complaining that no one is nice we are part of the problem. 

Are you part of a religion that preaches Love, kindness, and acceptance? Do you yourself practice those virtues or are you too busy just making sure other people are virtuous? Are you the type of person who is always worried about the sins of other people, all the while ignoring every sin that you commit? Do you complain about the corporation and billionaires hoarding all the wealth and yet you won't even give a nickel to a beggar on the street. Most of us aren't even willing to look a beggar in the eye and acknowledge their existence within the human race. We complain about those in power being greedy and money hungry while we ourselves desperately cling to every penny we have, always wanting more and never being satisfied with what we have. 

Hypocrisy is abundant in our world. So many of us are more worried about the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of other people all the while ignoring that we are doing the same things that we are complaining about. We accuse people of being selfish while ignoring our very own narcissist traits. We accuse people of being evil while refusing to look at the suffering we cause other people. We accuse people of being "no good criminals who are a drain on society" while speeding, running red lights, and drinking or smoking weed while driving. It seems to be ok when we break laws, but not when those "no-good criminals" do. We accuse people of being "lazy" and "not wanting to work" while not wanting them to earn a living wage or have access to any form of assistance. 

We say we Love our veterans and yet we don't care that roughly one third of the homeless are in fact veterans. We claim to be patriotic and Love America while yelling at anyone who doesn't speak English to "go back where they came from" when anyone in America who isn't Native American is in fact from somewhere else. All of our ancestors came to America from another country. Anytime anyone who isn't Native American tells someone to "go back to where they came from" they are literally saying that to their very own ancestors which in turn means they are saying it to themselves. 

We have become a society who is focused on shaming other people while refusing to look at our own actions. As soon as an altercation with another person takes place, we pull out our phones and record to blast all over social media to get everyone to side with us and prove that we were right. Meanwhile nothing gets accomplished, and no one ever learns conflict resolution. We are a society that has lost the ability of conflict resolution. We just blame, shame, and ignore instead of taking the time to hear the other persons perspective. We have no reason to ever listen to anyone when we are always right and are never wrong. The other person is always the one who is wrong and therefore we never have to look at ourselves. Never realizing that the other person feels exactly the same way, in their eyes they are in the right and you are in the wrong and you will never be able to convince them otherwise. 

Conflict resolution is the ability of both sides of a disagreement to listen to each other, make an attempt to understand the other persons perspective, and work together to form an outcome that works for both parties. If no comprise can be made, you simply agree to disagree and part ways with no hard feelings on either side, since you both put forth an effort. Next time someone offends you, you could try talking to them instead of pulling out your phone to shame them. If we would all practice what we preach a little more and worried a little less about what other people were doing, we would all be a little more content with life and be all the happier for it. We are all humans, and we are all in this together, we accomplish absolutely nothing by fighting with each other, we need to learn how to work together to create a more peaceful society. We all need to do our part and that can only start with you. Love and Peace! 

A True Artist Puts Their Words into Action!

Trust The Universe

If you are here reading this, you have been taken care of by the universe. You may not agree with how the universe has taken care of you, and you may not like how the universe has taken care of you. Nonetheless, you have been taken care of by the universe. You are here, you are alive, and you didn't have to do anything to have that happen. The universe has always taken care of you, and it always will. You have never had to do anything, and you never will. In fact, there is nothing you could do to change the universes plans for you. 

Can you go back in time and not be born? Can you change what family you were born into? Can you change what part of the world you were born in? Can you change what religion you were born into? Can you change what body you were born into? Can you change how people treat you or what they do to you? What exactly can you change?

You are here for a reason; you have a purpose within this universe. You don't need to know what that reason is, in order to acknowledge it and accept it. You wouldn't be here unless you were meant to be, plain and simple. No one exists who wasn't meant to. You are here because the universe wants you to be here. Since the universe wants you here and you can't do anything about it, there is also nothing that you need to do. 

⁷When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.” (ACIM, T-18.VII.5:7)

There is nothing that you need to do and there is nothing that you can do. It is only the false belief that you can if fact do anything that creates all of your misery and suffering. 

When nothing is done, Nothing is left undone - Tao Te Ching Chapter 48

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? - Matthew 6:30 Holy Bible

Whether you believe in God or not makes no difference. If you believe in God, then give your trust to him and let go. If you don't believe in God, then give your trust to the universe and let go. Love and Peace!

Answers

We all seek answers. There are some pretty basic universal questions that we all ask. Why are we here? What is the purpose of it all? What is my individual purpose? Is there a God? If there is a God, who or what is God? Where did we come from? Where will we end up? What happens when we die? Who am I? Why do I exist? Why does anything exist? How did we get here?

We also have more individualized and personalized questions that we seek answers to. Will I ever be rich? Will I ever be happy? Will I get what I want? Will anyone ever Love me? Will I always be alone? How do I get what I want? How do I get free from suffering? How do I attain enlightenment? How do I get rid of past karma? How do I get my sins resolved?

We seek out those with whom we believe have the answers to the questions we have. We look for our answers in religion, spirituality, the occult, science, philosophy, gurus, guides, experts, teachers, profits, leaders, and anything and everything that we believe might give us all the answers we seek. We all hope and believe that there must be something or someone out there with all the answers and if we are lucky enough, we might just be the one to find them. 

We will find whatever it is that we seek. Seek and ye shall find. When we find what we are seeking, we become content and stop seeking. When we stop seeking, we close ourselves off to everything else that surrounds us. We only find the answers to the questions we ask, never stopping to wonder about the answers to the questions that we never even thought of asking. If we believe that there are answers to the questions we seek, we must also belief that there are answers to questions we haven't yet asked, or questions that we refuse to ask.

We believe there must be some kind of universal truth within the universe that explains everything. A theory of everything. An answer that answers all of our questions. The flaw with that theory is the fact that we aren't considering all the questions we haven't asked. We only have the questions that we have asked, we only have our limited information. If there is a universal truth or a universal answer that applies to everything, we would only be able to know it by knowing the unknown along with the known. How do we know that in which we don't know, is the question we should be asking ourselves. We already know what we know. We already know what questions we have. We already know which of those questions have been answered. What we don't know is what we haven't even thought of asking. We have to know the unknown along with the known.

How do we know the unknown along with the known? We stop seeking, we stop asking questions. We stop trying to find answers. We simply observe. We acknowledge that the universe is a mysterious place. We acknowledge there are things which are known and there are things which are unknown. We acknowledge everything as it is and not as we want it to be in order to give us an answer. In simplest terms, we let go and we trust the universe. Love and Peace!