Move Beyond Blame

Yesterday afternoon while sitting on the couch drinking lemon honey tea, I was flipping through a book that I haven't looked at in years.  It's a book that I bought because of the beautiful images but not one I had actually sat down and read.  For some reason it called to me yesterday and so I flipped it open and started from the beginning.

The book is called Art of Attention by Elena Brower.  It's like a yoga workbook for teachers and practitioners with writings woven in about reducing tension, finding stillness and embracing your highest possibilities.

In the second chapter, blame is explored.  Here, guest writer Gabrielle Bernstein offers her thoughts.   She says:

It's easy to stay stuck in the past, wishing we could have done things differently, wishing we could be different.

These words stung a bit. 

They were a little too true for me.

How long have I been wishing I would have done things differently throughout all the chapters of my life?  YEARS

How long have I been wishing that my parents would have done things differently when I was growing up?  YEARS

How long have I been wishing I was different - my body, my relationship with money, my fear?  YEARS 

YEARS

So many years that I feel like my present and my past blur together so that I can't tell which is which.  I rewind and relive old stories over and over again. I repeat years-old thoughts and beliefs.  I complain about the same woes and heartaches.  And I want all the same things I've always wanted. 

I am more confident, braver and clearer about who I am than I was 20 years ago BUT I still haven't been able to shake my past enough to fully live in my present.

I feel like I miss so much of my life because of this...because I keep reliving the old and am not centered in the present.

Gabrielle says lingering in the past or on blame is the ego's way to trick us into staying in a space of fear. 

I believe it.  Fear is a really good motivator to stay right where you are and not change, forgive or let go.  

But I don't want to linger in the past anymore and I don't imagine you do either.  So what do we do?

Gabrielle says "we must accept that the past no longer exists and that the present is an opportunity for spiritual growth and healing."

We can't change the past.  We can't go back and do it over.  The only thing we can do is learn from it and let it go. 

It's in the present, the RIGHT NOW, where we have an opportunity to make a fierce commitment to self-love, stretch beyond our limiting beliefs and look at our fear through loving lenses.

Take a moment.

Take a deep breath in and let it out.

What does it mean to you to commit to self love?  To stretch beyond your limiting beliefs?  To look at your fear through loving lenses?

What answers come to you?

This week, what if you focused on releasing blame and judgement so you can create space to forgive yourself (and others)? 

What if this week you focused on awakening your loving truth?

What would that look like?

Happy Monday and Happy Thanksgiving!