ARTICLE >>> 'I love you' came too late

This is a good story I received from MP a few days ago. I thought it was a classic story of humans ... we are too quick to judge, too slow to appreciate, too late to love back.

The question is why do we think about receiving rather than giving love? Perhaps by the time the heart is willing to give, it's too late ...

One fine day, an old couple around the age of 70, walks into a lawyer's office.

Apparently, they are there to file a divorce.

Lawyer was very puzzled, after having a chat with them, he got their story....

This couple had been quarreling all their 40 over yrs of marriage … nothing ever seems to go right.

They hang on coz of their children, afraid that it might affect their up-bringing. Now, all their children have already grown up, have their own family, there's nothing else the old couple have to worry about, all they wanted is to lead their own life free from all these yrs of unhappiness from their marriage, so both agree on a divorce....

Lawyer was having a hard time trying to get the papers done; coz he felt that after 40 yrs of marriage at the age of 70, he couldn’t understand why the old couple would still wants a divorce...

While they were signing the papers, the wife told the husband...

"I really love u, but I really can’t carry on anymore, I’m sorry...”

"Its o.k., I understand...” said the husband. Looking at this, the lawyer suggested a dinner together, just 3 of them, wife thought, why not, since they are still going to be friends...

At the dining table, there was a silence of awkwardness.

The first dish was roasted chicken, immediately; the old man took the drumstick for the old lady... "Take this, its your favorite...”

Looking at this, the lawyer tot maybe there’s still a chance, but the wife was frowning when she answer.."this is always the problem, u always think so highly of yourself, never tot about how I feel, dun u know tat i hate drumsticks?"

Little did she know tat, over the yrs, the husband have been trying all ways to please her, little did she know tat drumsticks was the husband's favorite. Little did he know tat she never tot he understand her at all, little did he know tat she hates drumsticks even thou all he wants is the best for her.

That night, both of them couldn’t sleep, toss and turn, toss and turn...after hours, the old man couldn’t take it anymore, he knows that he still loves her, and he cant carry on life without her, he wants her back, he wants to tell her, he is sorry, he wanted to tell her "I love u"...

He picks up the phone, starting dialing her number....ringing never stops. He never stop dialing....

On the other side, she was sad, she couldn’t understand how come after all these yrs, he still doesn’t understand her at all, she loves him a lot, but she just cant take it anymore....phone' s ringing, she refuses to answer knowing tat its him..."what's the point of talking now tat its over...I have ask for it and now I want to keep it this way, if not i will lose face.." she thought...still ringing...she have decided to pull out the cord...

Little did she remember, he has heart problems …

The next day, she received news that he had passed away...she rushed down to his apartment, saw his body, lying on the couch still holding on to the phone...he had a heart attack when he was still trying to get thru her phone line....

As sad as she could be...she will have to clear his belongings.. .when she was looking thru the drawers, she saw this insurance policy, dated from the day they got married, beneficiary of coz its her...together in tat file there’s this note...

"to my dearest wife, by the time u r reading this, I’m sure I’m no longer around, I bought this policy for u, thou the amount is only $100k, I hope it will be able to help me cont my promise tat I have made when we got married, I might not be around anymore, I want this amount of money to cont taking care of u, just like the way I will if I could have live longer. I wan u to know I will always be around, by your side...I love u"

Tears flowed like river......

"When you love someone, let them know... u never know what will happen the next minute ... learn to build a life together... Learn to love each other. For whom they are inside ... .Not what they are..."

BRICKS >>> Trust, commitment & change

A change agent’s work is reflected upon the change in people and for that to be effective, the key is always the human relationships. It does not matter if it was family, friends, work or just any other type of relation … but the most important is how much we handle them.

This article comes up because over my past days in Penang … I managed to explore the importance of these facets in relationships.

People have asked me many times over the past month … and the main questions are:

• How do you ensure that relationships stay alive after a long time?

• How sure are you that your family / friend / partner will remain loyal?

Unless we understand these questions, their implications … it’s hard to remove inertia from people in building meaningful relationships …

Keeping a bigger picture

Just a thought though … that this is universal to age, race, gender & religion … that trust, commitment & ability to handle change are focal to keeping relationships healthy. I’ve often heard people sharing with me that they find others hard to trust due to all the stories of promiscuity … but I think it’s overrated because:

· What you hear are extreme cases, so what about the good ones that people don’t talk about? Can we say good things don’t happen to people?

· I’ve heard a lot sexist examples about men being the bad apples, but what about women doing the same? Just because most guys remain silent about their problems does not mean women do not contribute their share of the problem. Try think of the other side of the coin (not just in gender debate, but in general)

· I believe a relationship is 2-way … and it’s always easy to blame the latter, but most people who claim trial should hold their share of the blame for the breakdown.

· Or rather, even from the start … as in they enter relationships of convenience, so of course the expectations are already wrong from day one

Trust

The opposing force of trust is insecurity cause most people fear that relationships will fritter away as time goes by and people may just seek the easy way out by being disloyal … finding refuge in others.

I agree with people on these fears. Mainly because I’ve walked through the same questions when I thought about opening my heart to others … back sometime ago.

When I talked to EC about trust last Saturday, I concurred with her that trust is not something to be taken lightly. It has to be earned, it has to be valued & lastly be accepted with responsibility & care for the person trusting you.

The truth is … trust (as I shared with HSY) is that people take trust too lightly these days. Perhaps also people give trust too easily too.

But once you are hurt, then trust is not liberally dished out as before.

To be effective, a change agent needs to build compelling reasons for people to trust them. You cannot change people unless they can trust you with their fears, hopes & heart.

We can care for people, we can give lots of ideas and we can give our full commitment. But it will all burn to ashes … amounting to nothing unless we are granted trust … worth its weight in gold.

That, a change agent must earn.

Change

I think the first part is to acknowledge that CHANGE is INEVITABLE … it can happen. And rather than fear the negativities that it brings along, we if chose instead to embrace change … we can turn the tide.

To be in a relationship with anyone, be it family, friend or partner … and thinking that the person will not change is RIDICULOUS. But this is often the case … and while the person changes, and when we fail to recognize it … just going on with life … we WILL one day wake up & DISCOVER that this is no longer the same person we knew.

The GOOD NEWS? Some things have less change in people and it’s a person’s principles. Character does change, but solid principles stay true with minimum change throughout life.

We’ve read all about celebrity marriages, we’ve seen our own relatives go through turbulent matrimony … but I remain true to my belief that we should not choose a person for his or her characteristics … mental or physical.

The handsome looking hunk can one day be a fat couch potato. The pretty lady can be old & wrinkled all over by 40. So, they are no different from the average Joe or plain Jane of today. God is equal in this regard.

But the heart does not change, especially deep down in the principles. So, if you choose someone who’s ruled by the dollar, then you should expect that if the day comes where he or she has to choose between you or money, the answer is direct.

And if you choose someone who’s loyal by principle, he would not sell you for even the last dollar on earth.

People can change. The ugly duckling today, may be the swan of tomorrow. The geeky Bill Gates & Spielberg of 30 years ago are now the revered tech evangelist and Hollywood’s movie guru who reshaped the world. But what does not change is the REAL person within them that drove them to be themselves & to remain true to their dreams.

A change agent needs to be clear about this & communicate this to others … in as many customized & creative ways as possible to be effective

Commitment

Anyone who is in a relationship and expects a happily-ever-after-life are the most guilty of failed relationships. It’s a wrong expectation.

They fail to understand that as humans, we can get tired, frustrated, angry & other forms of negative feelings. Therefore, it means that it can happen to me or you or the other person in the relationship.

The 1^st part is acceptance … for you & for the other person … that these can all happen. Once you have that, commitment is easier to apply in relationships. Why?

Commitment is the ability to stay loyal & true regardless of change in circumstances, environment, time & place. It’s not as simple as giving or accepting it from people … but it requires maturity to understand the implications once we commit ourselves to something or someone.

It’s an unwritten contract that we bind ourselves to others & others binding them to you. It’s a 2-way thing. We don’t just commit ourselves to something shaky or that we don’t believe in. Nor do we accept the same when we do not believe the commitment pledged to us.

It’s a matter of perspective really. If someone commits to you and the reasons for the commitment is selfish, that’s not commitment; it’s a business deal, win-win situation.

Accept a commitment when you trust that this person will do all & above when the hour of need is crucial.

Give a commitment when you are prepared to give your all with no conditions.

ACTION >>> Self forgiveness

Steps to develop self-forgiveness



Step 1 – Increasing your ability


You can increase your ability to forgive yourself by asking some pertinent questions …


1. How would you define "self forgiveness''?

2. Do you have any experience with forgiving yourself?

3. Have you ever brought up something from the past to remind you how you hurt yourself or others? How did that make you feel?

4. Do you think self forgiveness has a role in your growth? How can you improve?

5. How has the absence of forgiving yourself affected your current emotional stability?

6. Has the absence of self forgiveness affected your relationships below?

□ family,

□ significant other / spouse

□ children,

□ parents,

□ relatives,

□ friends,

□ coworkers

7. Do you experience a wall or barrier behind which you hide your past real or perceived failures, mistakes, errors, or misdeeds? With whom do you experience it with?

8. Are there any beliefs that block your ability to forgive yourself? Why do they exist?

9. Do you think you need to develop new behaviours to increase your ability to forgive yourself?

10. Can spirituality play a role in helping you forgive yourself? If yes, how?

11. What are the things do you need to forgive yourself?


Step 2 – Facing the issue


Once you have developed a better picture of what is involved in self forgiveness, it’s the foundation for you to work on more specific past failures, mistakes, errors, or misdeeds.


List a failure, mistake, error, misdeed, or event for which you are unable to forgive yourself.


Whenever you recall this past hurt:

□ How would you describe your role in this past event?

□ What feelings come to mind? Why do you feel strongly over what happened? How you treated yourself or others?

□ How much energy, creativity, problem solving capability, and focus on growth is sapped from you?

□ How did this affect your self-esteem and self worth?




Now, think carefully:

□ Who was responsible for your reaction to the incident?

□ Who was responsible for your feelings about the incident?

□ Who was responsible for your inability to forgive yourself?




And lastly:

□ How can you forgive yourself?

□ How can you put this incident behind you?

□ How can you avoid being so hurt when something like this happens again?



Self forgiveness mirror


This is an innovative approach to self forgiveness. To let go of your self anger, self blaming, self hatred, self disgust, and self-pity, this script should be used … say these things to yourself repeatedly …



□ I am a human being subject to making mistakes and errors.

□ I do not need to be perfect in order for me to love myself.

□ This (past event) is just an example of the challenges which I have been given on earth by God.

□ I will meet the challenge and grow by handling the pain and hurt from this problem

□ I don't need to be so burdened by the pain and hurt you feel because God has a plan

□ I deserve to come out from behind the wall that I’ve have built around myself as a result of this (past event).

□ I have within myself to grow in self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, and self deservedness.

□ There is nothing I have ever done that can't be forgiven by my-self.

□ I’ve done the best I could at that moment of time.

□ I am working to change my compulsive and impulsive habits

□ It is ok to have slip ups, but as long as I get back on the wagon of recovery and keep on trying that's most important

□ I don’t need to further condemn myself for this past event

□ I forgive myself, I love myself & I am happy to be myself in this life

□ I shall gain strength by giving my past hurt, pain, guilt, self anger, and self hatred over to God

□ Let me hold my head up high

□ I am more free once I let go of my burden. No one needs to hold onto such a burden for so long

□ If I’ve given myself a hard time, I deserve a better life

□ I am a loveable, capable, special person

□ letting go of hurt and pain will enable my inner healing and self growth



Repeat this to address separate issues that hurt you

ARTICLE >>> Self-Acceptance

from How to Succeed at Being Yourself
by Joyce Meyer

I’ve read this piece by Joyce & it holds a lot of messages for us all … enjoy my thoughts combine with her ideas …

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he…
PROVERBS 23:7

Do you like yourself? Joyce notes that most people don't like themselves. In her experience with people, trying to help them be whole (complete) in emotional, mental, spiritual and social, she made a major breakthrough when she discovered that most people really don't like themselves. Some of them know it, while others don't even have a clue that is the root of many other problems in their life.

Self-rejection and even self-hatred are the root causes of many relationship problems. If you believe in God; he wants us to have great relationships. The Bible & Quran are books about relationships; God, with other people and with ourselves.

Did it occur to you that you even had a relationship with yourself? Your spend more time with yourself than with anyone else, and it is vital that you get along well with YOU

You are one person you never get away from.

It is agonizing it is to work day after day with someone we don't get along with, but at least we don't have to take that person home with us at night. But we are with us all the time, day and night. We never have one minute away from ourselves, not even one second - therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we have peace with ourselves.

WE CANNOT GIVE AWAY WHAT WE DON'T HAVE

In theory, when a person receives God’s love (or attains spiritual peace), they will in turn love themselves, love God in return (for free-thinkers, find love in their life) and ultimately, love other people.

But we each have out personal history, which gives us difficulties in relationships. Joyce mentioned that she could not find the people that she liked & enjoyed, who had reciprocal feelings towards her.

She quotes:

“We frequently try to deal with the bad fruit in our lives and never get to the root cause of it. If the root remains, the fruit will keep coming back. No matter how many times we cut it off, eventually it will come back. This cycle is very frustrating. We are trying the best we know how, and yet it seems we never find a permanent solution to our miseries.

I was desperately attempting to display loving behavior, but I had failed to receive God's love; therefore, I could not give love away I did not have any to give.”

Whether you believe in God or not, it is crucial to understand that the nature of our true problems and the answer to those problems that are found in spiritual pursuit. Unless we make a connection between a spiritual source & our problems, we fight the same cycle each day.

So, once we hook up the right problem with the right revelation - the devil is on his way out, and freedom is on its way in.

YOU >>> Self Forgiveness

What is self-forgiveness?

Self-forgiving is:

□ Accepting your-self as a human who has faults and makes mistakes.

□ Letting go of self anger for your past failures, errors, and mistakes.

□ Self love after admitting your failures, mistakes, or misdeeds.

□ Spiritual self healing of your heart through calming self rejection, quieting the sense of failure, and lightening the burden of guilt.

□ Accept the need to work so hard to make up for your past offences.

□ Discard sadness, and regret over a grievous, self-inflicted, personal offences.

Absence of self-forgiveness & the destructive consequences

In the absence of self forgiveness, there’s risk of:

□ Defensive and distant behaviour with others.

□ Pessimism, negativity, and non-growth oriented behaviour.

□ Fear over making new mistakes or of having the old mistakes revealed.

□ Self-destructive behaviours causing unresolved hurt, pain, and suffering

□ Self-inflicted offences causing more unresolved guilt and remorse for.

□ Chronically seeking revenge and paybacks toward your-self.

□ Unresolved self anger, self hatred and self blaming.

□ Lingering wound that disrupts the revitalization of self healing.

□ Overwhelmed by fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of non approval, low self-esteem, and low self worth.

Effects from Lack of self forgiveness:

□ A loss of love for yourself.

□ Indifference toward yourself and your needs.

□ An emotional vacuum in which little or no emotions are shown or shared.

□ Suspicions about others' motives, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs when they are accepting of you.

□ Chronic attacks or angry outbursts against self.

□ Disrespectful treatment of self.

□ Self-destructive behaviors.

□ Self-pitying.

□ Chronic recalling and reminding of past failures, mistakes, errors, and offenses.

□ Chronic depression.

□ Chronic hostility, sarcasm, and cynicism.

□ Self name calling, belittling, and self demeaning behaviors.

□ Unwillingness to change and/or unwillingness to seek the help necessary to change.

□ Resistance to doing what is necessary to heal within and recover from low self-esteem.

Irrational thinking preventing self-forgiveness

Examples of thoughts that challenge change in people I’ve met & worked with …

Denial

□ No one deserved the treatment I dished out, and I do not believe that forgiveness is deserved in this situation.

□ I hurt myself so much; how can I ever expect to be forgiven for that?

□ I am sick over what I did; how can I ever forgive myself?

□ I resent myself for hurting myself or others. It is better for me to be hidden behind my wall so I don't hurt anybody again.

□ If I could treat myself or others that way, then I am undeserving of being forgiven, loved, or cared for.

□ I do not deserve any self kindness, self compassion, or self forgiveness for what I have done to myself or others; I'll see to it that I am never able to forget it!

Self hate

□ I am evil, and I am despicable. No forgiveness will ever change that.

□ I am vicious and cruel, and I always need to be on guard because of that; so why try to forgive what I have done?

Ego

□ It is a sign of weakness or softness to forgive myself. I must always keep my guard up so as never to repeat my wrongdoings.

With God

□ Only God can forgive me, though at times I don't believe He can for what I have done.

□ What has happened in my life is God's seeking revenge for all the evil I have done in the past.

Delusion

□ I am just seeking my forgiveness so that I can come back and hurt myself again.

□ All people who do wrong deserve the worst that life has to dish out.

What you can do to forgive yourself

Changing mindset

□ Belief & trust in your goodness.

□ Letting go of fears for the future.

□ Allowing your-self to be vulnerable to growth.

□ Taking a risk.

□ Developing openness to the belief that you can change.

□ Developing trust in yourself.

With God

□ Developing a personal spirituality.

□ Trust in the goodness and mercy of God to take over the burden for you.

□ Letting go and letting your God lead you during a hurtful time.

□ Believing in the infinite justice and wisdom of God.

Facing challenges, past & pain

□ Letting go of past hurt and pain.

□ Letting go of self hostility, resentment and self-destructive behaviours.

□ Working out your self anger constructively

□ Overlook/accept slight relapses or steps backward and getting back on the wagon of recovery as soon as possible

□ Open, honest, and assertive communication with yourself concerning hurts, pains, and offences experienced.

□ Identifying and replacing the irrational beliefs that block your ability to forgive yourself.

OTHERS >>> 2. Accepting others

Patience

Open to ideas

Open to change

3 keywords in acceptance

Most people accept others when they are in the same wavelength, which means there’ll be rejection.

To accept others does not mean you agree with them. It is more or recognizing the ways they are different and that they are different for their own reasons. It also does not mean that their reason makes sense to you. You just respect them for the way they are.

Most fighting in the world happens just because people make choices not to accept others as who they are. It may be for many excuses like religion, race or politics, but the questions are …

What if you let others be who they are or what they choose to do?

Would it harm you if you let them be whom they decide to be?

Is there anything wrong for others to choose to be different then you?

In a way, acceptance is to put aside bias & recognize others in their right to be different. Change agents do not fight difference, but fuse difference as a starting point towards achieving greater things.

Adolf Hitler was an example of person who detested Jews & in his hatred for them, it drew him to conduct the Holocaust

One of the great drivers of acceptance & diplomacy was Gandhi, who accepted the way the British ruled India. He did not fight it with what his fellow countrymen thought, through bloodshed, but instead, fought it with gentleman diplomacy & protests.