You Don’t Have To Be A Hostage To Your Mistakes

Confession time: I’ve made mistakes.
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Lots of them.
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I’ve made little boo boo’s.  Social faux paus that caused awkwardness for me and others.

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I’ve made choices based on greed, and scarcity, and fear of loss.

I’ve hurt people based on my own hurt, and wanting revenge.

I’ve wanted them to feel as badly as I felt.  I’ve wanted them to roll in the mud with me.

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I’ve put people down in order to make myself seem bigger by comparison.

I’ve hurt strangers, acquaintances, friends, and people who I love dearly and intimately.

I’ve done wrong many times in my life.

And of all these mistakes, the biggest one I’ve made is allowing them to dictate how I saw myself and what I did in the future.

And I am thrilled to say…that is a mistake I have learned to avoid repeating.

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Let’s start with one important thing, my friend.  Making mistakes is part of the human condition.

It’s our birthright.  It’s our Divine gift.

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We’ve been given freedom of choice.  We are more than our hard-wired neural programming.

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We’ve been given the power of observation and reason, so we get to learn from experience.

We’ve been given the gift of humor. We get to reframe our screw up’s from tragic to funny. We get to laugh.

We’ve been given the power of forgiveness. We can carve out a space of love and compassion for anyone who has done anything.

There is nothing more uplifting than reflecting love back at someone who has done you wrong.
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Uplifting for them; uplifting for you.
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I’m telling you what we all already know. We keep forgetting.
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We live in a culture of “gotcha” media, where the mistakes of celebrities become the background music for our own thoughts, feelings and behavior.
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We become afraid of risk. We internalize failure.

And it needs to be said….there is no one here who hasn’t made mistakes. We’re supposed to.

It’s one of the only two ways we learn.  We learn from failure, and we learn from success.

We do what feel right and we learn not to do that which has consequences, internal and external.

So why the heck shouldn’t we continue to put ourselves out there?

Why shouldn’t we celebrate our mistakes as part of our humanity, with a commitment to do better in the future?

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Because someone is going to continue to hold our mistakes over our head?  A teacher? A parent? A wronged spouse or lover?

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Is it possible that emotion of continued anger is their mistake, directed at you?

And of course the truth: no one is harder on us than ourselves.

We beat the crap out of ourselves for our errors, what we did, what we failed to do.

And often, we have the voice of someone in our head – that parent, that boss, that lover – who continues to kick us, sometimes from the grave.

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Well here’s a news flash, my brothers and sisters…

There is no one here who hasn’t made mistakes.

It’s who we are.  It’s how we grow.

Whatever you did, or didn’t do, you made choices based on the consciousness and the awareness you had then.

You were hurt at the time, or scared, or angry, or greedy.

You’re stronger now.

And whatever you did, you gave someone else an opportunity to grow.  And learn. And find compassion.

And right now…in this red hot moment, you can learn to make a daily habit of love, and laughter, and celebrating life.

And you are perfectly positioned to let go of anger, disappointment and fear.

And you are perfectly positioned to replace them with grace, and confidence, and laughter, and ease.

And you are perfectly positioned to choose your path.

You don’t have to be a hostage to your mistakes.
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You can be their student, and they your teacher.

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And when you’ve learned the lesson, you can do what all good students do…

Graduate.

And move onto the next school.

Live.

Love.

Laugh.

Feel good.  We all deserve it.

Yes, you too.

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HOW TO RECEIVE starts on May 1.
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Everyone who has already signed up has lived a life of trial and error.
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And they decided they’re ready to let go of hurt.
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And receive.
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Good stuff.
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Lots of it.
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Come join us.
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Exchange that energy.
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Live with an open heart and an open hand.
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Let the Universe fill it with blessings.
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Love.
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Money.
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Health.
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Peace.
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CLICK HERE to play.
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Your Pal,
Larry

April 15, 2011 · Filed Under Uncategorized

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First Post: Let The Wild Things Be Wild

4:00 pm on a gorgeous Thursday afternoon. About 70 degrees out. Perfect time to mow the lawn. I’ve been getting grief from Jill, my 16 year old about the length of it, and our usual lawn mowing kid hasn’t started the season yet.

So I gas up, check the oil, and get into it.

The front lawn looked like a beautiful, lush meadow. The grass was ten days tall and wildflowers were everywhere. The center island had its flowering bushes in full bloom and the dogwood tree was incredible.

But of course conditioning kicked in. No one wants to have the only house in the neighborhood with the overgrown lawn. So I started in on the front yard.

There were two patches that had the most beautiful purple wildflowers. They come around every year about this time. They last three or four weeks, then die off.

That is, they last unless they get mowed over along with the rest of the grass.

Each year I watch the bees come by and pollenate these wildflowers. Sure, there are plenty of other flowers for the bees. Lilacs are also in full bloom right now, not to mention thousands of other varieties.

But these are my flowers. They’re on my lawn.

It was an easy choice. As carefully as I could, I mowed around the patches of wildflowers. I even cut into them slightly where there was an opening. I tilted the lawnmower up in certain places to get to patches of grass in the middle the flowers.

I treated them with the TLC that something wild and beautiful deserves.

And I looked back at my work when I was finished. A very nice, neat, “proper” front yard. Fits in nicely with the rest of the neighborhood. There’s something to be said for order; compliance to the standards of those around you…when you aren’t compromising your own principles.

And I looked at the brilliant bursts of purple. No doubt some of the neighbors won’t be in love with the “weeds” I left in the yard. No one else in the neighborhood seems to have those blooms on their lawn.

But the processes of nature, the way we allow the natural world to flourish around us…for me it was more important than falling in line.

I’ll take the annoyance of a few folks. To see something express its beauty and its purpose, and to play a role in allowing it to unfold…it’s magic.

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We have people in our lives who are those purple flowers. They don’t do things the way the rest of us do. They don’t stay in line. They upset what we think is the proper balance of things.

But they bloom so beautifully.

And they feed a process we may not see, but is more important than any simple conformity.

Yeah, you can cut them out of your yard. You can wall yourself off from their wild, uninhibited nature.

Or you can delight in the God force they have to express.

And you can get swept up in it and become a “wild thing” yourself.

I know what my choice is.

Naturally Yours,
Larry

May 11, 2010 · Filed Under Uncategorized

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