Rules

Rules, rules, rules. Should we count them all one by one or a thousand to one? Rules everywhere, rules for everyone, and rules for no one. Rules rule our day, rules rule our night, and rules rule our life. Rules are made to be broken; rules should be honored. Rules for some and rules for all. Rules for you and rules for me. More rules for them, since we don't like them and less rules for us since there's nothing wrong with us. Ruled by a ruler with a wicked ruler, who is ruled by a higher ruler while ruling the lower ruled. Enough rules to go around with plenty to spare. 

We have rules for when and what to eat, rules for meat, and rules for wiping our feet. Rules for our hair, rules for our bodies, rules for our genders: what to like, how to dress, and what color is the best. Rules at home, rules at school, and rules at work. Rules for private and rules for public. Rules to say excuse me and bless you. Rules for how to act in social settings. Rules for swimming, rules for sports, and rules for court.

Rules for how to drive, rules for how to bike, and rules for how to walk. Rules for how to behave, rules for caves, and rules for what to do with graves. Rules for dates, rules for mates, and rules for those who masturbates. Rules for pets, rules for cigarettes, and rules for statuettes. Rules for what to think, what to say, and what words not to say. Rules for charity, rules for labor, and rules for pleasure.

Rules from religion, rules from holy texts, and rules from God. Rules from the priest, rules from the bishop, and rules from the rabbi. Rules for holidays, rules for birth, and rules for death. Rules for emotions, rules for spontaneity, and rules for calendars. Rules for space, rules for time, and rules for science. Rules for cults, rules for clubs, and rules for groups. Rules for homes, rules by the H.O.A., and rules from the police. Rules from the government, rules on political parties, and rules on freedoms. Rules on jury duty, rules on tickets, and rules on parking meters.

Rules on homeless, rules on those with homes, rules on those with homes helping those without homes. Rules on giving food to people, rules on homeless shelters, and rules on living in cars. Rules on loitering, rules on sleeping in public, and rules on sleeping in tents. Rules on trains, rules on planes, and rules on busses. Rules on how to wipe an ass, rules on public display of affection, and rules on nudity. Rules on sex, rules on dating, and rules on marriage. Rules we know and rules we don't know. Rules that are fair and rules that are unfair. Rules that are spoken, and rules that are unspoken.

Rules from parents, rules from teachers, and rules from leaders. Rules from siblings, rules from grandparents, and rules from aunt and uncles. Rules from cousins, rules from friends, and rules from roommates. Rules for ourselves and rules for others. Rules for who we need to be, rules for who others need to be, and rules for what society needs to be.  

Rules for concert halls, sports arenas, and museums. Rules for libraries, for movie theaters, and casinos. Rules for arcades, the mall, and restaurants. Rules for movies, rules for books, and rules for art. Rules for music, rules for play, and rules for sports. Rules for math, rules for science, and rules for langue. Rules for words, letters, and symbols. Rules for land, rules for sea, and rules for the air we breathe. Rules for the water we drink and the food we eat.

With so many rules, we can go on for days and days. So many rules, so little time. Rules to rule the ruled who believe they are living with freedom through their free will, even though freedom and free will have rules. Free will is ruled by nature, free will is ruled by nurture, and free will is ruled by experience and perspective. How many rules can we find in this world if we try? Thousands, millions, or maybe even billions. With so many rules, how do we ever have time to do anything aside from making sure we are following all of the fucking rules?

How are liberation and freedom possible with so many rules? How is anyone able to be free in a world ruled by rules? Will we ever be free? Follow the rules, play by the rules, and everything will work out according to plan. Says who and what will work out according to who's plan? Does anyone know anything or are we all just too busy giving each other rules? Who is the master rule maker and who made them the master rule maker? What do we do when the master rule maker breaks their own rules? Are we still supposed to follow the rules even when the master rule maker doesn't? How do we know? What are the rules about which rules to follow and who has to follow them and for how long?

So many rules. Is anyone exhausted from constantly trying to follow all these rules? Is anyone else exhausted trying to figure out where all these rules even came from or why we're still following them? I say no more rules! We don't need them, and we will never ever be able to follow them all. Most of the rules contradict each other anyways so we're always running around in circles making sure not to break them even though we can break some by not breaking others. 

You know what heaven is not? It is not a place with any fucking rules. You know what hell is? A place with infinite fucking rules. We are so terrified of breaking all the rules and being punished that we never stopped to consider that we are in punishment right now by living with all these rules. Let go of all the rules and the punishment goes away. Even if there is punishment in the end for abandoning the rules at least we get to live in peace and quiet without any rules until that day comes. Love and Peace!

Hate

In a world where Love is feared, the illusion of hate appears. In a world where Love is feared, hate is embraced. In a world where Love is feared, hated is worshipped. In a world where hate appears to take over, it seems to be hard to Love. Love is feared therefor we embrace its apparent opposite which we believe to be hate. It's so easy to hate in this world. As we look around the world, we believe that we can see hate all around us. Wars, cages, slavery, oppression, and bigotry. At the center of hate is fear. If we were to be told that Love is all there is, we wouldn't believe it. We believe that we can see hate, we believe that hate is all around us, and we believe that we are capable of hate. We believe that if we are capable of hate then so are others. There is no hate, hate comes from fear and fear isn't real. There is only Love and fear and the latter is an illusion. 

Love is all there is. The belief in fear is what makes an appearance in our world in the form of hate. People appear to act from a place of hate, when in reality they are acting from a place of fear, the fear of Love. Not our concepts and ideas of Love, but of true Love. True Love has no rules or laws, true Love has no exceptions, true Love has no conditions, true Love is eternal. We all have conditions on who we give our Love to and we all have rules for our Love. We all put conditions on our Love. We only Love our spouses or partners if they are faithful to us and treat us well. We only Love our parents if they were good to us and always there for us. We only Love our friends if they treat us right.

Many of us find it so much easier to Love our pets or objects than to Love other people. We Love our pets unconditionally but if a person is mean to us, we take our Love back from them. Have you ever Loved a person without any conditions or exemptions? Or is there always an exception? Is there always a condition to your Love? We have limits to our Love, we believe that Love has an edge and therefore we can reach the edge of Love so we put an edge on our Love. Love is edgeless, Love is boundless, Love has no beginning and no end. Love is eternal and timeless. It is the fact that you don't believe that Love is eternal and unconditional that causes you to limit your own Love. Since you believe that Love is limited to you, it is only fair that you also limit your very own Love as a way in feeling in control and having power over Love.

When you free your Love from within and stop being afraid of Love, it releases the illusion that Love has an end. When that illusion is released, all other illusions fall away. All fears come from the fear of Love. Most of us believe that humanities greatest fear is death. The fear of death comes from the fear of being punished. We hope that we will not be punished when we die but we fear that we will be. Why else would we fear death? We only fear death because we fear what punishment may await us after. We fear punishment because we fear Love, we fear Love can and will end and when it does, we will surely be punished for all of our mistakes and atrocities. This creates massive stress and tension which is released on the surface level of hate. 

We are waiting for the day that Love runs out on us and leaves us all alone. We are always looking for proof that Love is going to abandon us. We are always looking for proof that Love never cared. We are always looking for proof that Love doesn't exist. We believe that death is the final proof that Love isn't holding us and protecting us. We look for disease and heartache as proof that Love doesn't care. We refuse to look in the heartache and disease because deep down we know that Love shines from within that pain and heartache. Love is always here, Love never fades, Love is eternal, and Love is unconditional. We cover our Love with our fear, we hide our Love with our fear, we ignore our Love with our fear, and we deny Loves existence with our fear. Our fear of being punished by having Love taken from us. We are pure Love, if we lose Love, we lose ourselves. We fear losing ourselves, so we fear death which we view as the loss of ourselves, the loss of Love. 

We give into fear and that fear presents itself as hate. We use the "evidence" of all that we and others do as proof that hate is real and therefor Love is not. How can there be Love where there is hate? Those of us who don't believe in God simply don't want to believe that God could or would exist that would allow hate and evil in the world. If there is a God that allows hate and evil, non-believers would rather be punished than to worship a God who allows hate and evil. Those of us who do believe in God only believe in God in the hopes that God will save believers from punishment. We fear punishment therefore we need God to save us from that punishment. Every religion is a release from punishment. Get rid of the fear of punishment and the need for religion goes along with it.  Get rid of the belief that Love is conditional and that you can ever do anything to lose Love and the fear of punishment vanishes. The fear of death vanishes. All fears vanish until all that is left is Love in its purest form stripped of all our misconceptions of it.

There is nothing to fear. Love cannot end, Love will never end. If Love appears to end, it is only an illusion of fear and not Love. We limit or Love due to the fear of Love being taken from us. When we limit our Love we believe that it is being limited to us. If we want to experience the full embrace of Love we need to embrace Love completely within ourselves. We could Love without end, we could Love without conditions and exceptions. We could Love any and all. We could Love everything and everyone. We could Love infinitely. If there is anything or anyone that we determine is undeserving of Love, we are suppressing the Love from within and hiding from it, we are allowing our fear to be in control. Follow Love, allow Love to be, and flow in Love and Love will be shown to you. You will feel Love flowing out of your heart in a never-ending fountain. You will see Love flowing out of the hearts of all beings in a never-ending fountain. You will see everything flowing from Love. Everything flows from Love and Love flows from everything. Love and Peace! 

Violence

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate...Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

What has violence ever done for anyone? What good has ever come from violence? Has anything ever been solved through violence? Has any significant change resulted from violence? Violence never results in peace. Violence never results in harmony. Violence never resolves anything. Violence only leads to more violence.

Where does violence come from? Anger, hatred, wrath, unforgiveness, bitterness, judgement, condemnation, and a need to control others. Deep down violence comes from a place of pain. We humans want to hurt others when we are hurting ourselves. None of us want to feel alone. We are a social species. When we feel alone and feel pain within ourselves, we unconsciously want to inflict pain onto others so we can know that we are not alone in our own pain. That is one way we feel like we are part of the group is by experiencing emotions and experiences with others. We join support groups, so we know we aren't alone in our pain. We go to addiction meetings, so we know we aren't alone in our struggles. We go to our religions to know we aren't alone in our faith.

There are some of us who only know violence. There are some of us who choose violence. There are some of us who are always looking for a fight. There are some of us who can't go anywhere without having some sort of confrontation. There are some of us who don't think they want violence but always seem to find it. There are some of us who are in a lot of pain and just want the pain to stop in any way possible, even if it means hurting others to feel a little less alone. How do I know this? Because I used to be a violent person. I didn't believe that I was choosing violence, but violence always seemed to find me or so I thought. 

I grew up in a home where there was nothing but violence. Violence was all I knew. I was almost murdered multiple times by the time I was a teenager. I had cracked ribs, broken arms and legs, fractures, sprains, contusions, and a concussion all before I was even a teenager. I hated violence and I didn't think that I was out looking for it, but I also believed that was just how the world was. I do not tell you this to pity me or feel sorry for me, I'm ok, I made it out, I am safe now and I now live a life of non-violence. It has taken me many years to break that cycle and my old habits and learned behaviors, but I have learned through personal experience that violence is not the way to go and only results in more misery. 

I used to lash out at every one all the time, I was the person who would scream and curse at complete strangers just because they got in my way or looked at me wrong. I have been in physical altercations from time to time. Violence was all I knew; I had never known peace. Peace was something I had to learn for myself, peace wasn't something that was ever taught to me. I have been on the side of violence, and I have been on the side of peace, and I can say with all certainty that peace is far better. For those of us who haven't experienced peace or were never taught peace and have only ever known violence, we didn't choose the path of violence, it was forced upon us and taught to us. Deep down none of actually want violence, deep down we all want peace. Some of us just weren't lucky enough to ever be shown peace by anyone, or at least very little of it.

If we don't have any peace as a child and only know violence as child, we grow up into adults without peace. Once we are adults, everyone believes that we should just know better and if we are violent, it's due to our own selfishness and lack of empathy. As adults we lash out because it is all we have ever known and then everyone condemns our actions and we become outcasts which only increases the pain which in turn increases the violence. Anytime I yelled at a stranger, it wasn't actually the stranger I was mad at, I was simply in a shit ton of emotional pain and had no idea what to do about it, so I yelled. I was never taught how to process or handle my emotions by anyone. The truth is I just wanted someone to care, I just wanted someone to give a shit about me, I just didn't want to feel so fucking alone all the time. Obviously anytime I would yell at people, it would only cause them to yell back at me and insult me the same way I had insulted them.

I always felt like if someone had just asked me if I was ok while I was yelling and screaming and actually showed some compassion towards me, I would probably stop unleashing my rage onto them. Sadly, I never had stranger ask me if I was ok, so I never found out how I would react, but I did try this technique on someone else. I was out in public one day, and I had a woman come up to me and start screaming at me. Normally I would scream and yell right back but, on this day, so caught me completely off guard because I had no idea what I had done to make her so mad, she just appeared out of nowhere and started screaming at me. It was the fact that I was so confused about the confrontation that It was impossible for me to get mad. Then the strangest thing happened, out of nowhere as if coming from somewhere unexplainable I just said "are you ok?" but I said it sincerely, I didn't say it in a sarcastic or condescending way, just a genuine "are you ok?"

If it had not happened to me, I wouldn't have believed what happened next. This angry woman who was foaming at the mouth so to speak and was screaming at the top of her lungs just stopped dead in her tracks. She immediately stopped screaming and just stood there a moment as if trying to make sense of what just happened. After a couple minutes so very slowly and quietly said "no, I'm not ok". I didn't know what to do, I had no idea how to respond, I was not expecting this result. I said the only thing I could think of saying which was "would you like to talk about it?" She immediately broke down into tears. She then told me that she had just been diagnosed with cancer and she didn't know how she was going to tell her family. There was nothing I could say or do so I just listened. After she was done talking, I told her I was sorry to hear that, and we went our separate ways. 

This happened several years ago and to this day this memory is one of my most vivid memories and is seared into my mind. If I hadn't been caught off guard, I definitely would've yelled right back at her and probably called her a myriad of names which would have only resulted in causing her even more pain. By simply remaining calm and genuinely asking her how she was doing, she was able to calm down for a few moments and take a breath. I have no idea, what kind of impact I had on her if any. I have no idea what ever happened to her. I never saw her again. All I do know with all certainty is she was in pain, and I did not make it worse. Maybe I helped, maybe I didn't but I do know I did not contribute to her pain. 

Some of us have never known peace and have only know violence. Some of us are just having the worst day of our lives. Some of us are in severe pain. Some of us are all alone. Some of us don't even know what Love feels like. Some of us just want to be accepted. The next time you have an encounter with someone who is angry or violent make the decision to see them as someone who is in pain and have some empathy for them, ask them if they are ok. You would be amazed on how just three little words can change someone's day or even their life. Simply ask "Are you ok?"

For those of you who don't know peace and have possibly never known peace. You are not alone in your pain. For those of you who have only known violence. You don't deserve violence. You deserve peace. You deserve Love. I'm sorry that you have had to live your life never knowing peace. I'm sorry that you were shown violence and cruelty, you never deserved that from anyone. You deserve so much better. You are Loved. Feel free to reach out to me, just go to my contact page here and send me a message. You can use a fake name if you'd like, it's not important. If you just want someone to listen to you without feeling judged, I'm here. I won't even respond unless you ask me to, but I will read your message. I care, that's why I am here, I made this site for you to have a place where you can be safe even when you have nowhere else. This is a safe place. You are not alone. Love and Peace my friend!

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!