The lessons of others.

It's always a sad things when a relationship dies...it happens slowly, over time...deteriorating at a snails pace. Conflicts, fights, hurt feelings...they all slowly eat away at the foundation of what brought you together in the first place.

Why does that always get lost? Why do we focus only on the good in people at the beginning and then as we become comfortable in the daily interactions we start to focus on what we perceive to be the bad? Why do we work so hard at the beginning to be our best selves, to practice love and kindness...treating the other person as they are oh so special...but as those people really become important to us, after we have committed ourselves to them, after we marry them, after we take them completely into our lives...we start to mistreat them. We make them feel inferior. We stop supporting them. We withhold our love and start to judge their every move with anger and resentment. We ignore them. We don't make an effort to resolve our problems. We can't forgive.

We forget all of the wonderful qualities that made us love them in the beginning and we only see the bad. I think it should be the other way around. When we first are dating, we should not really care what the other person thinks. We should be our true authentic selves, let out all of our not so nice qualities. Let the other person try them on. Show them our anger, show them our bad attitudes, tell them upfront that we will ignore them and withhold our love if we do not like their behavior. Tell them that we are not capable of unconditional love. Inform them that we do not intend to support them and think of them in their best light once we get comfortable.

We would save so much time and heartache if we all could just have a crystal ball to see where each road will lead. May be a fantasy...but wouldn't it be nice to know all this upfront? To see that the person in front of you that adores and dotes on you...that tells you how they are constantly thinking of you and how happy you make them...and then once you fall for them - once you let yourself believe all they have been telling you..then they pull out the rug from underneath you. They do not love you. They do not believe in you. They do not adore everything about you. They no longer think about you constantly...and now the only time they do think about you - it's negative. They used to want to be with you ALL the time...now they can't get far enough away from you. They used to want to look at you, talk to you. Now they ignore you and treat you like you are invisible. They used to put your needs before their own, thinking of nice things to do and say to make you feel better...now the only focus they have is on themselves. What they don't get. What they want. How they feel.

I will find a way to make sure this does not ever happen to me again.

I want to love unconditionally. I want to have understanding and patience. I want to love the unlovable. I want to appreciate all the good as well as the bad. I want to live my life on a higher level.

I want to know that I am happy and at peace with myself and that no outside circumstances can anger or upset me, unless I choose to let them. What I see in other's that upsets me, is a reflection of what I am unhappy with inside myself. If we all take the time to work from the inside out, we will find a new appreciation for others. When you are filled with love inside of yourself...it seeps out. It overflows. There is enough for everyone. We can all give each other a break. What comes back to us from the outside world, is a reflection of ourselves. Pessimistic people get back bad, ugly, angry things. Optimists see sunshine and butterflies. You get what you give. It's not our place to find fault in what other people chose to do and those choices only affect us if we let them.

Everything we need we have inside of ourselves. We are made in the image of God. God is everything and everywhere....no beginning and no end. God is perfection. God is abundance. God is love. We are all of those things too...we may forget sometimes, but if we focus and believe that, our lives will be enriched beyond our wildest imaginations.

People in our lives are not meant to harm us or bring us pain and suffering. They are here to bring joy to our lives, to teach us lessons. To help us become better. Do not let your unhappiness be reflected on to other people. Start inside and work on you. You are the designer of your life. Your thoughts create your world. Focus on what you want deep inside of your soul. And only focus on the positives! Ask for those things. Believe you have them. Feel good about all the blessings you have and all of the good things that are coming your way. Let go of the past and do not think about what you fear or do not want. Your thoughts manifest your reality. Positive thoughts = positive reality.