LIFE IN FOCUS - 2015

Today is the last day of 2015.

Aside of feeling so relieved because 2015 has not been very kind on me, I feel a lot of gratitude as well.  

As much as 2015 was a turmoil year for me, really it was a turmoil year for many folks around the world, it provided a fine self-check.  And in that sense, a feeling of gratitude.  It is like the world goes, "knock, knock, you think you have this huh?" Check again, you don't.

2015 was one of my most challenging years. Challenges in the things that was out of my control.  Challenges in giving up those control.  

You see, I entered the new year – 2015, with a heartbreak.  You know, the romantic kind.  Romance rarely ever happens to me, so the pain knocked me side ways.  It took me a while,  but I knew with repetition, strength, and time, the pain  would subside and that my 2015's plans will unfold beautifully. The plan is to have my company (my baby) take off.  I will include more recipients of the MUCHO's, my company, scholarship.  I will travel as I always do.  

Some of that happened, but not without fighting and gritting.

As we are raised, we tend to think that with enough hardwork, with enough desire, all our goals, plans, visions, dreams, intentions and all our New Year’s resolutions, will happen. But the truth of the matter is that things don’t always go as planned.  As Sandra Bullock's dad character says in In While You Are Sleeping, 

            ´´Life doesn´t always turn out the way you plan.´´

When things began to fall around  me, and when life kept insisting that I walk a different path than the one I was on, I fell into confusion. Thinking that something had gone terribly wrong, and that maybe I had made a mistake somewhere along the way, I tried my best to fix things. I thought I was lost, and so I kept going back, desperately trying to find my way, not knowing that the the direction I was going, was “The right way.”

With all the personal development books we are reading, the articles we find on the Internet, the online programs, home study courses and all these ideas about manifesting and creating the lives we want, it can be so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we have 100% control over our lives, and that we alone can construct our lives exactly the way we want to. And when things don’t go our way, when our plans don’t come to fruition and our dreams fall apart, we perceive what’s happening to us as a failure on our part. And so we try to “fix things,” doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results and failing to realize that just as Einstein said, this is the definition of insanity!

It’s true that we create our lives with our thoughts and that to a certain extent we can craft and manufacture our lives the way we want to, but it’s also true that life itself has no set plan. And that from time to time, it will “ask” us to go on a different path than the one we were on, wanting us to experience our lives in a new and different way. 

At first, there was a lot of resistance on my part, a lot of whining and complaining, mostly because all these experiences were so unfamiliar to me. But as time went by, because I felt tired and exhausted of constantly fighting and resisting, I decided to simply let go, to surrender. And the moment I’ve let my guard down, the moment I decided to stop going against the flow of life, that’s when all kinds of wonderful things started to happen to me. And that’s when life was able to do its magic on me.

There is so much power in letting go, so much wisdom and so much grace in emptying yourself of yourself. And even though a lot of people think that letting go is only about becoming happier and living a more peaceful and serene life, the truth of the matter is that there is more to it than that.

When we let go, we make room within ourselves, and within our lives, for our truth, for compassion, for more love and more light.

The more we let go of who we think we are, of what we know, what we believe to be true, and of everything thats holds us back in life, the emptier we become. And the emptier we become, the more room there is in our hearts for Love and for OUr Truth to enter us. 

“If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up.” - Lao Tzu

If you want to be given everything, you must give everything up – ideas, the past, beliefs, attachments, fears, excuses, and everything you think you know, and everything you think you possess, including your own self. And by doing so, a new world will be revealed to you, a world that has essence, value and real meaning.

We humans think we know so much, and because we are so full of ourselves – of what we know, who we think are, what we possess, where we belong, etc., life do not work like that. Life can’t shape us, it can’t mold us and it can’t reveal to us the wisdom, glory and power that lies within each and every one of us. And when it tries to do so, because we cling so tightly to everything we know and everything that feels familiar to us, instead of being beautifully polished and refined by life, we end up feeling more hurt and wounded than we were before.

This is the story of human life – many treasures hidden within each and every one of us, but only a few get to discover and enjoy these precious treasures. I hope you are one of them. 

Warmest Love,

- A