Just be yourself. You can't get it wrong

We spend a lot of time worrying if we are doing things right. We listen to the teachings of our churches and families. We know what our culture expects of us. We try to be good. We try to be loving. We try to be all sorts of things because we are taught that we should. In short, we perform.

Listening to outside influences
We listen to the teachings that we are taught. We try to fit within their framework. We put all sorts of restrictions on ourselves. We add pressure to perform in the right way and stress when we don't get it right. If when we go to our church and we don't follow all of their doctrines we are judged to be wanting. What ever way we look at it, we can never be good enough, loving enough, humble enough. We are never enough. You can't please everyone and sometimes, it seems, you can't please anyone. The information you receive from these outside sources is often times conflicting and results in us feeling confused and frustrated. Despite how well meaning they all are.

Listening to yourself
We posses an internal guidance system, it's called your feelings. Trust yourself, you will never steer yourself wrong. Listen to you. Pay attention to how you are feeling in any given moment. That is what will tell you if you are closer to source (God or whatever term you feel comfortable using) or further away. The better you feel the closer you are to your truth.

You are connected to everyone and everything
The universe runs through you and you through it. You are apart of everything there is. Source is not something that is separate from you, it is apart of who you are. I don't mean figuratively I mean literally. Jesus taught us this as well. You can not separate yourself from source. You can move further away but you can not be completely separated, any more than you can separate yourself from breathing.

Just be yourself
Trust yourself enough to be true to who you are. Honor yourself. I know that there is a lot of talk about the importance of positive thinking and removing negativity. And yes I am the first to teach these principles. But remember that we all think negative thoughts and feel negative feelings and behave in negative ways at times. This happens even though we try our very best not to. Which in itself can lead to feelings of fear and frustration. Don't be so hard on yourself. Recognize that this is normal. Remind yourself that you are human and everything is always alright. You can set the intention to think positively and be in an upbeat mood and with practice this will happen more and more often until it becomes your norm. As it becomes your norm you will see more and more evidence that you are achieving this by the people and things around you changing to be more representative of the way you want your world to be. Trust yourself because you can't get it wrong. It doesn't matter what happens, it is always alright. Everything is always unfolding the way it is supposed to. What ever you decide to do. However you decide to act. However you feel. What ever you want. It is always OK. Even if it is deemed to be negative or even wrong in some circles.  There are some that like being negative and that also is alright. No matter what it is, YOU CAN'T GET IT WRONG.

Unconditional Self Love

The following is a conversation that I had yesterday with a friend.

Jack - Hey, I have a question for you.

Carrie - Here we go!

Jack - No seriously

Carrie - OK, go ahead.

Jack - You know how you have been going on about this self love stuff?

Carrie - Yes

Jack - Are you saying we should brag about ourselves to everyone we meet. You know, tell everyone how awesome we really are?

Carrie - But, that wouldn't be self love would it?

Jack - How so? You have been telling me I should fall in love with myself. Isn't that part of it.

Carrie - Not at all. When you brag to someone, what you are doing is looking to them for their approval. You are asking them to judge you. In essence you are trying to gauge your own self worth by the values of someone else.

Jack - Isn't it important that they know how great I really am? I mean, look at all of this awesomeness.

Carrie - I am sure your ego thinks that's important.

Jack - Be nice.

Carrie - I was being nice. lol No seriously, looking to someone else for their approval would tell me that you think there is something lacking in you. There is nothing lacking in you or me or any of us. We are all magnificent beings of energy comprised of pure love. Yes I said pure love.

Jack - OK to the obvious question then...If we are all made of pure love then how come there is so much evil in the world? Answer me that one.

Carrie - That is because when people don't realize just how perfect they are, they sometimes act out. And unfortunately they act out in some really bad ways. They are in so much pain themselves. If they truly understood their own worth. If they truly understood that they were beings comprised of pure love then there is no way they could do anything to harm anyone or anything. EVER.

Jack - So you are saying then, that we should probably try and have compassion for the criminal instead of condemnation?

Carrie - Exactly. If they felt the self love that I am talking about then there would no longer be a need for the prisons. Wouldn't that be something?

Jack - Yes, it would. I think this world has a long way to go before it reaches that point though.

Carrie - I do too. But I think we are moving in the right direct though. This is why I think it so important to learn about self love. The only reason we judge others is because we sit in judgement on ourselves. Sitting in judgement is not love.

Jack - Do you really think that this is all that simple, though?

Carrie - Yes, Jack. I really do.

Breathing Through Meditation

Meditation, it seems, is viewed as something that we have to learn or be taught.  We assume that being a spiritual person requires a great deal of study, dedication and sacrifice. You have to do all of those funny things. Things like being a vegetarian or worse a vegan. (oh, come on. That was funny) You have to live your life in a certain way and give up all of the really fun stuff. Psst, you are a spirit. You are a spirit with a body, not a body with a spirit. You've got this.

Breath through it
All you have to do to meditate is breath through it. Find a comfortable chair or a comfortable place on the floor or where ever you want. Wear comfortable clothing or don't. Put some music on or don't. Light some candles or don't. You can do it on your own or with a buddy. I would suggest that you remove the distractions if you can't tune things out. And then just breath. Take deep breaths in and out, slowly. Thoughts will come, that's OK. Just let them drift. Feelings might come with the thoughts. That is also OK. Try not to hang onto to them either. Just let them drift as well. There is no wrong way to do it. It isn't some complicated process you have to be taught. So no more thinking, to THOSE people meditation is an easy thing but I think for me, it is all too complicated to learn. You can't get it wrong.

When should I meditate
When ever you want to. I would suggest that you start once a day. Maybe before you go to sleep. But make a commitment to practice it everyday. Just for five minutes or so. You can build on the time, but don't be worried about the length of time. This is not an exact science. Just stop when you want to stop. After a week or so you may want to add another session into your morning routine.

It really is as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. Just do what feels right to you. You will be amazed at how much meditating just a few minutes a day will impact your life.

A Different Take on Forgiveness

I know we all think we should be forgiving others for the wrongs that we believe they had done to us. We have been taught that in order to move on or passed what ever it was, we need to forgive. After all it is the noble thing to do.

Looking at forgiveness in a new way
One of the major principles that we are taught in LOA is that we are all personally responsible for everything that happens to us or around us. If this is true and I believe it is, then there is no need to ever feel you ever need to forgive anybody else for anything. The only person you need to forgive for what ever it is, is yourself.

Swallowing Personal Responsibility
This is a tough one to understand. A lot of the morals we have been taught will fight against this concept. How is it possible for the victim to be responsible for what horror they endured? Simply put, there are no victims. If it stands that we create our own existence, then we create our own existence. Good or bad. It can't be that we create the good and the not so good things but the truly bad things, no we don't do that.  I know this is tough, especially if you start to think about the truly evil things that happen in this world. But try at least reaching for an understanding of the personal responsibility concept while you read this post. It might just save all that bitterness from growing inside you in the first place and provide you some relief.

Forgiving Yourself
If you really are in control of your existence and you are, then you are the only one that needs to make adjustments and accept forgiveness. You need to reach a place where you understand that everything you experience adds to who you are. It adds to your growth, the growth of those around you and the growth of the universe. So therefore nothing that happens to us is wasted. Everything that happens adds to all that is.

Adjustments and Accepting Forgiveness
The exiting thing about this point is that if you are the only one in your world that needs to make adjustments or accept forgiveness (sometimes accepting forgiveness is harder than giving it) then you are the one in control and you are the one who can actually make it happen. Don't you feel powerful now.

Moving from Learning to Doing

Understanding the teachings is only half of the equation. You have to live them.

Daily Routine
Implementing these teachings into your daily life is simple but it takes dedication. Forming a routine, say at bed time helps with this. Here are some examples of how you might do this.

Bedtime Routine
Meditating prior to going to bed helps with winding down from the day, along with clearing your mind for sleep. Your body is like a computer, you need to log off. Meditating helps to center you. You only need to meditate to five minutes or so for it to be effective.  Add meditating, say after you brush your teeth. Adding this to your bedtime routine is easy, you just have to make it a priority.

Thoughts to Sleep on
The things that you think about whilst you are going to sleep marinate in your subconscious for the next 8 hours.  As you are dropping off to sleep don't spend that time going over your problems or things that irritated you. Instead use this time to concentrating on the wishes you made. The things that you want to experience. It is much better to marinating in positive, loving thoughts that make you happy for 8 hours. It takes discipline and yes you will gravitate back to the old thought patterns but gently remind your self that "you're doing it again" and replace them with positive thoughts.

Set Intentions as you are approaching the task
You may have heard of this as segment intending. As you are getting into your car to drive to work. Take 30 seconds to say I AM going to drive to work safely. The traffic is going to flow easy and everyone is going to be polite to each other. I AM going to arrive at work relaxed and refreshed. You should follow this for every situation as you come to it. If you are going into a meeting with someone that you know is just going to irritate you no end, act out the whole meeting going well with everyone being polite and respectful to each other. It does take practice and yes you have to keep it in mind as you go about your day. But keep doing it and it will become a habit very quickly. This will also help you prove to yourself that this stuff really does work. hahaha

Take it one step at a time
Add these changes into your life one step at a time. Don't set yourself up for failure but trying to make all these changes at once. Decide on what is the most important change to make and concentrate on that one. Then once you are comfortable with that one, add in the next one. You will be surprised just how quickly everything will fall into place.

Manifesting your wildest dreams is a very simple process. Then why isn't it working?

That's easy silly. Because there is something that you either don't understand or there is something that you have got going on in your vibration that you need to adjust. That was easy for me to say, huh?

Three step process

Thought - Feeling - Achievement

These three little steps seem easy enough. I think I am doing that. Well, except for the last one that is. If it's so easy, then how come I am getting it wrong?

Thought
You have to decide what it is you want. It can be anything. Let's use travel as an example. This is one that I hear a lot. I have done a lot of traveling in my life. I often hear people saying, it must have been easy for you because you had the money. Well, actually I didn't. I just made a decision that I wanted to travel. I got specific about it, made it a priority, dreamed a little and then the universe took care of the rest.

Decision
When you are choosing what it is you want, you also have to ask the following question. Does this feel right to me? If you are 5'5" tall and a slight build would it feel right to you to be a line backer for the Eagles? I'm not saying you can't do it, I am asking if it feels right to you. Deep down inside. If it does then go for it. If it doesn't then make a different choice.

Defining that decision 
Ask yourself why? Why do I want this? What is it about this that I find so intriguing? Let's go back to the travel example. If the decision feels right to you then the why's come naturally but it might help the process if you spent some time examining the why. There were a lot of reasons I wanted to travel. I wanted to see and experience everything I could. I wanted to give my children the same gift that I was given by my parents, travel is an excellent tool for broadening your horizons. This was an invaluable lesson for me and I wanted my children to experience that too. I love people and getting to know different people, what better way than in their environment. I wanted to experience all the different sights and sounds and smells and tastes and and and and....You get my point. Defining why you want what you want helps with the feeling part. It provides inspiration and determination.

Getting specific
So you have made your choice, you know why you chose it, now you have to get specific. For me, I decided on where I was going to start. What was my first destination? Manchester, England seemed like a good place to start. I have loads of family there and England is close to all Europe has to offer. This excited me. From there my plans (wishes) just seemed to flow. One thought brought the next and then the next and before long I knew exactly what I wanted.

Feeling
This happens naturally during the decision process. As you figure out what and why and how the feelings just happen. The more time you spend thinking about your choice the more the feelings grow. Use your imagination to see yourself doing and experiencing everything that you had decided upon. Do this until you get to the point of feeling like you have already done it. Once you have created this level of feeling then you have it. Your mind doesn't know the difference between having actually experienced it and you are thinking about a memory or it is something that you have imagined. Once you are here at this point. you can let go and let God. (Source or what ever term you personally use)

Achievement
I think a lot of us make the mistake that once we get to this point all we have to do is sit back and wait for it to happen to us. WRONG. Once you reach this point you have to be on the look out for the opportunities. You have to watch for the things that the universe is laying at your feet for you to pick up. You have to take action.

Action
This is a very important part of the process. If you don't action then you are never going to achieve anything on your list. Let's go back to the travel example. There were quite a few things that I had to do in order to actual travel. The universe gave me the things I needed to do in the order that was needed. I had to take the universe up on all of the offers it made to me about my dream. It didn't always look like I was achieving anything but each step I completed lead me closer and closer to the realization of it. Within a few months everything was in place and the reality was there. It was awesome. Just awesome. I remember walking down a street near my sisters house in Cumbria with my girls and a feeling of sheer joy passed through me. I felt the satisfaction of having really achieved a dream. This was an incredible feeling. I can't tell you how much gratitude I felt at that moment.


If I can do it, you can do it. Have fun, be easy about it and let it all come together naturally. 

Leading with Love

What a different world this would be if we all lead with love instead of fear.

Can you imagine what would happen if when someone challenged us we reached to try and understand why that person did what they did. Why they acted the way they did.  I have a story to share about this. This happened to my mother a few years ago.

Short tale
My mother was living in England at the time of this event. She was working in a little wine shop in Manchester.
My mother and her co-worker, Lynne were the only two working in the store that day. It was fairly slow and they were chatting behind the counter when a customer walked in. This lady Appeared to be almost lost, in a daze. Lynne asked her how she could help her. She had to ask her a few times before the customer responded at all. The lady had come in to buy cigarettes. The customer had to be coached through each step but eventually the transaction was completed and the lady left the store. From all accounts this person was, at the very least impaired. Once the customer left the store, Lynne made fun of the lady. She thought it was funny that someone of her obvious mental capacity should be allowed to be on their own. My mother was rather uncomfortable but said no more about it.
The next day my mother was working on her own and that same customer from the previous day came in. But this time she was pulled together. A completely different person to who she presented as the day before.  She bought another pack of cigarettes, apologized and went on to explain that the day before she had just found out that her brother had been brutally murdered prior to going into the store. She said she doesn't even remember how she got home. Maybe if Lynne had of tried to reach for an understanding then she might have been able to offer some assistance to this poor lady. Maybe called someone to come and pick her up instead of allowing her to drive in that state.

Love and Fear
There are only two emotions. Love and Fear. Everything we experience comes from one or the other. Think of it like a scale, the more love we feel the more connected we are to source. The more fear we feel the more disconnected we are. The more love you feel the closer you are to manifesting your every desire. The more fear you feel the further away you are. You can never be truly separated from source completely, but the more fear you feel the further you are away.

Fear
Every negative thought or emotion you feel comes from a place of fear. When someone is coming from a place of fear they are inviting negativity into their existence. The sole reason people experience lack or low self esteem or seek to harm someone or something else is because they are working from a fear base. If they were leading with love it would never occur to them to think or act in a negative manner.

Love
Every positive thought or emotion you feel comes from a place of love. When you feel love you are in alignment with your desires and when you are in alignment with your desires then the universe brings them to you.

State of Grace
We exists in a state of grace. If we choose to believe it or not we are living in the flow of pure unconditional love. This loving energy moves through us constantly. Regardless of what we are feeling or thinking. Regardless if we are working from love or from fear.

Leading with Love
Learning to lead with love first is like any other habit you establish. You have to keep it focused in your conscious mind until your subconscious mind is imprinted upon and makes it habitual.

Move in Increments
We can only move in increments along the scale. We can't go from say being a on a scale of 1 to 10, (1 being the most positive you can be and 10 the most negative) from say a 7 all the way to a 2. You have to move up the scale incrementally. It is possible to make that jump but only in an extreme circumstance. You can make that jump either up or down the scale.

I will leave you with this quote from Mother Teresa,

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

What does the term Vibration mean?

What is vibration?
We frequently hear this term when we are doing any kind of research on manifesting.
What frequency are you vibrating at?
Are you in alignment with your desire?
You have to vibrate at the same frequency.

OK I get it. But what does it mean?

Vibration = Feeling

Oh now that makes it really clear. NOT. It works like this. You make a decision that you want to say, go for a hot air balloon ride with your sweetheart. (OK so it's random but I had to pick something) When you first start thinking about it, you like the idea. It sounds like it would be fun. Well, it's on my bucket list. The emotion that you feel surrounding the thought is almost non existent. It's there, the idea appeals to you but it's just a spark right now. You have to fan the fire, increase the amount of feeling you experience when you think about going on a hot air balloon ride. This is where your imagination (the I AM part of you) comes into it. Start to imagine the whole experience. Make it so real in your imagination that for a moment you believe you are actually experiencing it. Notice how it feels. Remember those feelings. When you revisit the thought, remember how it made you feel and feel that again. Every time you revisit the same thought and feel the same feelings you are VIBRATING in the same frequency. Your mind doesn't know the difference between you imagining and you actually experiencing the balloon ride. You don't have to keep this feeling 24/7. You just have to feel the feelings when you think about the thought. Got it? Got it!

Opportunity, it's right there in front of you. Why can't you see it?

After all of the information that we get exposed to now, we are very familiar with identifying what it is that we want. What we are not so good at is, identifying the opportunities that get presented to us that would fulfill the original request. There are many opportunities that are presented to us that we just don't see. This is why it is so important to be present in the moment. Live in the now.

Be present in the moment
I don't know about you, but for me personally, I have missed opportunities that were right there in front of me . Mostly because I wasn't living in that moment. I was worrying (usually) about this or that. Lamenting the fact that my life was just not how I had imagined it to be. There are a few things I can actually look back on and point at and say, it was right there in front of me and I just didn't see it. Or worse, it was right there in front of me and I didn't trust myself. I didn't take the chance. I am sure there were plenty of times were opportunity showed itself and it didn't even register with me.

Recognizing the opportunities
So how do we recognize opportunity when it comes knocking? The universe works in very mysterious ways. Sometimes the things that are being presented to you bare very little resemblance, if any to what your goal is. It is only later down the track that you see how things were connected. One thing leads to another and the next and then the next and there is your goal. Achieved. Trust that things, all sorts of things, are constantly being offered to you. This is not random but it is in response to something that you have been thinking about. Or it might just be something that you needed to know in order for the response to that thing that you were thinking about to be given. Have a little self confidence in your abilities. You may not see the big picture but right now this is all you need to proceed.

Humoring the Universe
I can see this playing out in my head. And yes I am a little out there, just like one of my friends pointed out so eloquently this morning. The universe hears your request, It keeps giving it to you, literally laying it at your feet, but you are walking around in your little dream world completely oblivious to everything that you have ever wanted. AND then you have the audacity to complain that you aren't getting it. It must be like a comedy of errors to the universe.

Is your happiness resting on the achievement of your goals?

"There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way"
Mother Teresa

What a wise women she was. Happiness is something that comes from inside yourself and not a journey we undertake. A state of being rather than a state of doing. It shouldn't depend on the lottery, Mr. or Mrs. Right or that last ten pounds. Happiness is a choice, a clear decision. Yeah right. Forgive me if I take a step back, but REALLY. What does that mean in real terms?

It's a choice
I have heard this more times that I care to count. Many times the answer I got was just decide to be happy. Like that was an easy thing to do. Like most things there is a little more to it but not a lot. You do have to make a decision to be happy. You have to really want it.

Not being happy is a habit
We react to the world around us from an emotional base or so we thought. But it is more than an emotional response. Our reaction is an automatic response. Our mood is also a habit. This is how you feel when this happens or you are thinking about this (what ever this is). Our brain trains itself to respond to the same set of triggers just the same way it develops any other habit. This is also why you keep going back to the same set of thoughts. With the same set of feelings. You can retrain yourself to be happy.  But you have to pay attention.

Pay attention to what you are thinking.
Paying attention to what you are thinking and then how you are feeling about those thoughts are the first steps in retraining yourself to live in a happy state. Once you have observed what you are thinking then you need only catch yourself when your mind wonders off into the negative abyss it likes to wallow in and redirect it to a more positive place. This will take time and practice but it will get easier and easier. Don't rush it and don't be hard on yourself. It took years to get to this lovely place you call misery.

So you want to find Mr. or Mrs. Right?

In order to get this right we are going to have to go through a little process here. Do you know what attributes this magical, perfect person for you posses? You might imagine them to have an humanitarian nature. They are actively involved in their community. They have a life of there own. Their sense of humor just has you laughing all the time. Their interests are similar to yours. They care about the environment. And the all important question to me anyway is, do they like dogs or cats? This one question, alone, can make or break it for me. hahaha.  I think you get my point. Get specific, right down to are they left or right handed? Write it out. OK now this is done and you are really clear about what it is you want in your perfect partner for you, here is the real question....

Here comes Mr or Mrs. Right. You are introduced to them and you are just blown away. But would they look twice at you? What is it you are bringing to the table? Are you someones Mr or Mrs. Right? Do you live up to the image you created for your perfect lover? No? Then it looks like you have some work to do. I don't mean that you should change who you are but I am saying that maybe it is time to get in alignment with who you are and start living the life you actually want to live. In doing so you are attracting to you Mr. or Mrs. Right.  You see you are highly unlikely to come across Mr. Outdoor Nature Loving Greek God sitting on the couch munching potato chips. What happens when you start to build a picture of the perfect mate you also build a picture of the perfect lifestyle. Start living the lifestyle.

Being clear about the request is important. Using your imagination increases the emotion surrounding Mr. or Mrs. Wonderful is essential. But at some stage you have to bring action into the equation. Inspired action. You will find that as you become clear about your intention and you start putting it into action that all manner of things start falling into place.

Pay attention to how you feel.

We have all, or most of us, heard an awful lot about the power of intention over recent years. We have heard that all of us have the ability to manifest our dreams and wishes. We have also heard about how many of the great minds and inventors in our history knew how to use the power of intention to create the world that they wanted. There seems to be a never ending plethora of information available on the subject. There doesn't, however, seem to be a lot of information out there on how to actually implement this into our daily lives. For me, I can see the validity of the information. I can feel it resonate within me. I have spent many years studying everything from the Bible, Tao Te Ching, Henry David Thorea, Albert Einstein, Neville up to and including Dr. Wayne Dyer to name but a few. The following represents a small part of what I have learned.

Generally speaking it goes like this, we identify what we think would make us happy. Be that, winning the lottery, finding Mr. or Mrs. Right, or simply losing that ten pounds. What ever it is. We ask the universe for it and then promptly sit back and wait for its arrival. After a period of time we get a little discourage because these things are not showing up. We sit there saying, but I followed all of the steps. I asked for what I wanted, I expected it but then nothing happened. There is a little more to it than that. Firstly you have to pay attention to how you feel when you think about what it is that you want. If there is very little feeling going on when you think about your wish then it is not a very strong wish yet. Increasing the feeling increases the strength or the alignment. I used to get very frustrated with that term. I would hear, you have to be in alignment with what ever it is that you want to manifest, over and over again. I would think but how, how do I do that. I think positive thoughts all the time about my wish and still nothing. I knew that there was something I didn't understand. A piece missing from the equation. Actually there was more than one piece missing from the equation.

The first thing we have to do, as I was saying, is increase the feeling part. Ok, you say, I heard you the first time. How. Your imagination is how. You imagine how it feels to actually experience having or being or doing what ever your wish was. And be specific. Detailed. So if it is winning the lottery, imagine driving to the store, buying the ticket. Putting it in your pocket or your purse. Then imagine how it feels when you realize you have the winning numbers. Figure out your game plan about how you are going to deal with the reality. Are you going to take the lump sum or do you want to take it in cash? Are you going to get some legal advice prior to picking up the winnings? How is that part going to play out?

Once you have all the details worked out, it is time to move it into action. You will actually have to go and do what you imagined you would do. Here's the next catch. When you go and buy that lottery ticket, in reality, you probably walk into the store with the attitude of someone who is not going to win. Your thoughts are probably rather defeatist at this point. You are talking yourself down. The thoughts and feelings you experience at the time of the action you are taking are incredibly important. This sets the intention stronger than the initial imagining. The universe will read everything as you go along and adjust accordingly. Buy the ticket feeling like you are actually buying the winning ticket. How do you think you would feel if you new you were, in reality, buying the winning ticket. Then don't let anything come between you and that feeling.

I used a pretty general example here. I hope it conveyed the basic steps involved in turning anything you want into your reality. Pay attention to how you feel in every moment. It is much more important than you realize. Action is equally important. Inspired, determined action. I'll continue with the other two examples in a later post. I really want to give them a greater focus. There is so much information to share, I thought it would be best to do it in bites rather than overwhelm people.

I will leave you with a quote from Henry David Thoreau, "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

What would happen if we decided for ourselves?

Websters definition of Meme: An idea, behavior, style or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.

A meme is a belief that we are taught, either on purpose (say in school) or by osmosis (cultural, things we just seem to understand). We are exposed to all manner of ideas (memes) every day through various media, the internet or even an overheard conversation. A meme is more than say an old wives tale that is passed down from generation to generation, they are also complex concepts about certain attitudes or behaviors. 

Our attitudes about all subjects are influenced by memes. This is how a whole culture can hold a completely ridiculous prejudice against another one. For example, (leaving anything recent alone) the dislike for the German people in general after WW2 was palpable. I still remember having conversations with a few family friends who lived through that era. The generalizations they made about them were filled with venom. An entire nation was blamed for the actions of a few. We see this happening over and over again. Eventually, time moves on and the hatred lessons. Old concepts are exchanged for new ones. 

Most of the time we believe these memes without stopping to consider if we even agree with the concept or belief. Have you ever had a belief you have held for many years and then one day realized that it makes no sense at all. I have. I often, never even thought to question the belief until I spoke it out loud and then it occurred to me how ridiculous it actually was.  

How many of our current non accepting views are just old memes that we never stopped to think about before? 

Is it possible that we can change the world by simply and honestly asking ourselves if we agree or not?

Possibly. 

What is Acceptance?

The need to be accepted is something that all humans have in common. This human need crosses all boundaries. If we don't feel we are accepted, we experience feelings of rejection, loneliness and even abandonment. Which can be devastating to the human psyche and result in all manner of inappropriate actions. Discrimination, riots, murders and war are some examples of people acting out because someone else has a different point of view. We even go as far as feeling justified in punishing someone simply because they do something that we don't agree with.  

So, what do we do to be accepted?  

We may act certain ways that are acceptable within our own culture. How to behave is a lesson, often times, hard won in childhood. We go through quite an extensive training program to learn how to behave. It is something that starts at birth, with our parents directing us, teaching us right from wrong, then the pass picks up a bit when we start school (the lessons there are learnt a little harsher than before) and continues through out our whole lives. (well, until we get old enough not to care anymore) 

We may achieve certain milestones that our environment seems to demand from us, such as getting an education or a college degree. In fact the whole sequence of events of how our life plays out is dictated by our individual culture. You start school at 5, you complete all 13 years of school, then you go to college, establish your career, get married, have children and eventually retire. This sequence of events (although they seem logical) are all dictated by our cultures. We comply, mostly, without giving it much thought because this is just what is expected of us. We do all of this to be accepted within our little part of the world. We all have seen, maybe some have experienced, what happens to those that don't "fit" in. That girl over there, well, she got pregnant at 16 and she didn't know who the father was and, and, and......

How are we accepting of others?

We pass judgement on others all the time. Over the years we develop our own set of standards. A set of morals that we choose to live by. Some of these standards are driven by our culture, some come from the religion we were raised in and some are taught by our families.  These are the standards that we use to judge every one else by. Upon observing the other person for even just a few seconds in some cases, we come to a swift decision about them. Sometimes it's good and they fit right in but sometimes it's bad and they are excluded. Or at the very least treated as if they are not good enough. We feel justified in our treatment of the other because we deem them as different and therefore wrong. And if our personal beliefs are challenged in anyway we take it as a personal attack and often times lash out irrationally. 

Real acceptance

The world is slowly realizing that a lot of the beliefs we inherited are not how the world should be and are taking the time to figure out not only how we want to see the world but what, we, personally can do about it.  We are starting to fight the habitual thought patterns that happen when we see someone who is different and are even starting to engage in conversations, with genuine interest, with out feeling the need to to convert them to our own way of thinking. 

The old ways of non acceptance are falling away and it is time to create the new. We are entering into an era of greater spirituality. Of greater personal awareness.  Meditation, yoga, taking care of the body etc are no longer seen as out there but are becoming apart of the normal persons reality.