VernetteOutLoud

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

“The Paradoxical Commandments”

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.


– Kent M. Keith,
The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

March Madness?

March…thus far, in a word: HEAVY

I have been feeling depleted emotionally, physically, mentally and most worrying for me…spiritually. I’ve gone though “desert” experiences before; but these last couple weeks, I feel like I’ve been lost in the desert. I suppose…this has been a true “Lenten” experience.

I’m not sick nor am I pushing myself too hard, but folks I feel drained. When I’m in this place, all my unresolved issues and insecurities and fears are magnified a thousand million times…and yes there is also a little issue with exaggeration. I keep ruminating over the past and wishing there are things I could do differently. There are things that happened, things I’ve done, that to this day…they still make me cringe with shame.

Living with shame/guilt/a general inability to let the past go and forgive ourselves for mistakes is one of the quickest and surest ways to keep ourselves disconnected from God and, as a result, miserable. ~ Brian Johnson

How do I let my past mistakes go once and for all? How do I forgive myself and let go of the past? I want to have my own resurrection. I’ve learned the lessons…boy have I learned them…and now I just want to move past the hurt, shame, disappointment and unforgiveness.

The person who is to succeed will never let his mind dwell on past mistakes. He will forgive the past in his life and in the lives of other people. If he makes a mistake he will at once forgive it. ~ Ernest Holmes

I’ve been contemplating this “desert” experience and I realized that to get to this resurrection I so crave…I have to be willing to take up my cross and start on the journey.

When the cross is embraced it becomes a sign of love and of total self-giving. To carry it behind Christ means to be united with him in offering the greatest proof of love … the choice is between a full life and an empty existence, between truth and falsehood. ~ Pope John Paul II

So my big epiphany or rather the truth I’ve faced up to this week: Un-forgiveness is my cross.

How can I begin to “love others as I love myself” when I’m constantly being un-loving to myself for past mistakes? Forgiveness is an act of Love. Love simply cannot exist where there is no forgiveness. Jesus forgave the people who crucified him. Easter is in fact a celebration of forgiveness.

Take up your cross and follow Me ~ Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23

He is asking me to follow him, to model him and in doing so…I too, must forgive. It starts with forgiving myself for all the crap I’ve done, for all the unkind words, thoughts and actions I’ve inflicted on myself, for opportunities missed, love lost and unfulfilled and for all the hurt and pain, I’ve experienced as a result of the words or actions of others.

So am I willing to take up my cross every day and follow Christ to my own resurrection? Am I willing to model him and forgive myself and others? Am I willing to release the past with love so that it doesn’t have power over me anymore? And most importantly, am I willing to receive forgiveness so that my heart can remain open to the Light and Love within?

The answer is: YES.

Bless it and let it go and keep moving forward.

While you have many alternative futures, you also have many alternative pasts. Out of billions of experiences in your life, you have chosen to focus on only a small number of selected events as your “past.” You may think of events A, G, M, and W as your past; but you could also define your past as events B, D, R, and Z. If you focus on traumatic or self-defeating moments as your past, your future will replicate them. If you focus on empowering and self-honoring events, those are the ones you will repeat.Your life and experiences have only the meaning you give them. You can take any experience and reframe it in a way that honors and empowers you. ~ Alan Cohen

Day 23 – Making Amends

Today I give from my heart.

There is a scene in the movie Sex in the City, where Miranda hurt Carrie and then badgers her for forgiveness while she herself could not forgive her husband.

Miranda: ‘You have to forgive me.’
Carrie: ‘You badger me to forgive you in three days and you won’t even consider forgiving Steve for something he did six months ago.’
Miranda: ‘It’s not the same thing.’
Carrie: ‘Its forgiveness.’

Forgiveness is an act or decision or exercise in “letting go”. It is hard and very often takes time. It is a sacrifice and in loving relationships, we are called to forgive more times than we would like. It is never easy to admit wrong-doing and to ask for forgiveness and it is sometimes even harder to give it. It’s one thing to say “I’m sorry” but for me often times, saying, “I accept” is easier to than the “I forgive you” part.

I realised today that I have been holding on to a hurt for a while and when the person who did the hurting contacted me today, I had a moment of clarity. For months I have been avoiding this person. And it was because even though I had accepted the apology made months ago, I hadn’t done the forgiving part. While I didn’t bring up the hurt, it was there like an invisible force around me keeping this person out. And the thing about invisible force fields is that while they protect you from outside forces, you are also kept from the outside. My light was a little dimmer, because I was letting this hurt hold me back.

Today, my gift was truly accepting the apology made so many months ago and actually forgiving the hurt. It was time. We talked, not about the hurt, just talked and it was during that conversation I decided to forgive. And that was the end of it. Before you can truly accept an apology, especially when the hurt may have gone deep, you have to think the whole situation through, acknowledge that a mistake was made and then let it go. This whole process can take mere minutes to years sometimes, but the longer we take to do the forgiving the dimmer our light becomes.

There is freedom in forgiveness and life is way to short not to be free.

Day 13 – Permission to be flawed

Today’s affirmation:

Today I give with joy.

My affirmation today, felt like a lie because joy was the last thing I was feeling. My lessons in forgiveness, are far from over. Since Saturday, I have had something weighing on my mind. I managed til now to convince myself that it wasnt that big of a deal. Boy was I wrong.

Have you ever had a phone call to make, but the more time passes, the easier it gets not to make it? You rationalise why you don’t have to make it, yet you feel guilty because the time that elapses only makes the situation worse? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of business?

I had such a phone call to make. I had to call and apologize and ask for forgiveness. I was afraid to make the call and my inaction was frustrating me. If I am to live my truth and walk in light always, then I should be able to make this phone call. I should be able to feel the fear and do it anyway.

I truly felt ashamed that I wasnt able to deliver on a promise and I didn’t have the cojones to make amends. I was plagued by thoughts about what my friend must think of me now that I didn’t live up to expectations. How do I feel about myself? My integrity is now in question. What if my friend is so upset, she doesn’t even want to speak to me? And if she does hang-up on me, I deserved it didn’t I?

The more I tried not to think about it, the more I felt bad about it. I was beginning to feel like a fraud, here I am on this 29-Gift journey, trying to give of myself to others and I couldn’t even do this one thing. This thing that needed to be done. I finally picked up the phone tonight and dialed. No answer.

The coward in me rejoiced. Oh sweet relief! Now I can say, hey, I tried to call, but there was no answer. See, I made an effort, albeit a half-hearted one.

I managed to convince myself that this was ok…until I got home from work. As soon as I was alone with my thoughts, I decided I couldn’t come here and talk about light and love and there was this “love thing” I was avoiding doing. I simply had to Spartan-up and call again, whatever the consequences. Feeling bad about it and not doing anything, was not going to help me or my friend. So I called.

We spoke. Though she felt disappointed, she accepted my apology. I still feel terrible about the whole situation but I am very glad that I faced my ego and made the call. An apology is like a mirror. When it’s sincere, it is an admission to self that you are human, that you are flawed, you make mistakes, sometimes you disappoint people and yourself. Give yourself and the people in your life the permission to be human.