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Strategies for Supporting Friends and Loved Ones from the Godself
Perspective
This activity has been extracted from
p. 91
of You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge,
Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.
Many people have
trouble letting go of the idea that they cannot control the actions of loved
ones and, generally speaking, the actions of other people. By letting go,
you gift your brother or sister with the opportunity to let them experience
their journey in the best way they know how. I know that for some people
this is a difficult concept to put into practice, so I offer you the
following five steps to help you put into practice the idea of letting go:
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If asked, offer
advice but be not attached to an outcome.
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Respect how a
person chooses to live his or her life.
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Never judge
yourself or others for the choices you or they make.
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If you so wish,
pray or meditate for clarity.
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Trust that God has
the perfect scenario in place, so that the individual can learn his or
her lesson in the most fruitful
way possible.
First, if you are asked
for advice, by all means offer it, but do not attach yourself to any
specific outcome or to your brother or sister following your advice. My
friend, you will save yourself and others years of stress, anger,
disappointment and resentment if you allow your brothers and sisters to
follow their own hearts. If your brothers and sisters know that they can
come to you for advice without criticism and judgment attached to it, you
will forever be their sounding board, and they in turn will forever respect
and most importantly, listen to what you have to say. If you are attached to
your brother or sister following your advice, you will end up judging and
criticizing their efforts and decisions, and they in turn will put up walls
every time you question or try to advise them.
Second, respect an individual's choice and respect how a person chooses to
live his or her life. I believe that people, regardless of what they are or
aren't doing, are where they need to be at that point in time. We all have
lessons to learn in life, and no one other than God knows for sure what
those lessons are. Most of the time, we are not consciously aware of what
lessons we are in the process of remembering until after the fact. So if we
don't know what we are learning at that moment in time, how could any other
human know what we are to learn and go through? If we have no clue what a
person is in the process of learning, then we should try not to make
judgments on how they personally choose to proceed. You will have great
difficulty achieving peace of mind and joy unless you respect how others
choose to live their lives. That means respecting everyone's choices: the
drug dealer on the street, the Pope, a homeless person, the president of the
United States. To respect how someone lives his or her life is to be able to
look at people without judgment. For example, you can choose to respect a
stripper for the human being that he or she is and, at the same, decide not
to support his or her activity financially. To be at a place where you are
able to not judge someone's life requires understanding. You need to
understand that you don't really know how a person's actions are going to
affect him or her or everyone and everything around him or her. You can't
judge him or her, because you really don't know for sure what lessons that
person needs to learn at that point in time. Thus, because we truly don't
understand absolutely everything about the situation, we should not attempt
to judge the situation.
The third step toward letting go is to never judge yourself or others for
the choices you or they make. You know when you have made the right choice,
because you feel peace in your heart. If you make a decision and do not have
peace about it, you probably did not make the best choice. Choosing with
love brings about a peaceful state; a lack of peace is brought about by
choosing without love. But again, something very important must be added
here: because you have chosen without love does not mean that God judges you
for choosing that way because He knows that, in the end, you will choose
with love. Choosing without love simply allows you an opportunity to know
how it feels, and offers you the understanding that your choice brought you
a lack of peace. You will therefore put yourself in a similar situation
again in order to learn to choose with love. A similar situation will occur
and you will have another opportunity to choose with love and receive peace.
If you again choose without love, you will experience a little more pain.
But this greater pain simply helps you better understand that these are not
the kind of choices that are natural to you. The same kind of situation will
occur over and over until you learn to choose with love.
The fourth step encourages prayer or meditation in order to receive clarity
with regard to your situation. My friend, if you knew how ready the universe
is to support you, you would never again question whether your situation is
too petty to bring up. You don't ask God for too much, you ask Him for too
little. Clarity is eternally available, and your intent to receive it is all
that is needed. If your teachers have told you that no question is too
stupid to ask, wouldn't you think that the universe is at least as wise? My
brother and sister, no question is too petty or small for you to bring up.
Trust me when I tell you that the universe literally smiles when, through
your question, you align with it.
The fifth step is to trust that God has the perfect scenario in place, so
that anyone can learn his or her lesson in the most fruitful way possible.
How many times have you planned something, but it didn't happen and you
became upset? In its place, something else happened, and you enjoyed it more
or learned more from it than you would have probably learned from your first
choice. Someone once said. "If you want to make God laugh, then tell Him the
plan you have for your life." God has the perfect plan for your life, yet
something very important must be added here: God's greatest gift to humans
is free will. Free will means that you must make your own choices. My
friend, if God offers your brother and sister free will, don't you think
aligning yourself with God makes sense? God, being all-knowing, already
knows how your life is going to turn out, and the lessons that you will
learn. Yet you still make the choice of how and when you will learn your
lessons. So you, along with your spiritual guides, set up opportunities and
situations that will give you the best chance to learn the lessons you need
to learn. God, and only God, knows already what you are going to choose, but
it is still your choice to make. Even your spiritual guides don't know what
you will choose to do; their job is simply to guide you toward making the
most loving choice.
Read the entire section
of the book that this activity comes from:
Allow Others to
Fulfill Their Dreams.
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'You Have Chosen to
Remember'
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Mind, and more.
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