The Decision

     We go through life in one of three roles, as a victim, a victimizer or we can take responsibility for all of our actions, choices and decisions in life. I know I have lived in each of these roles. I have been a victim, a victimizer and I have stepped into taking responsibility.

     Our choice to live as a victim or victimizer brings conflict, anxiety, frustration, hatred, bitterness and a wave of other similar emotions and feelings. If our goal is to obtain peace, love and joy in our lives it will never come from living as a victim or victimizer. When we are caught up being the victim or victimizer we can never have, be or feel the true comfort, peace, love and joy that is the greatness within us.

     After my “Light of Love” experience, which drove me to seek my inner greatness, many opposing forces appeared in my life. They came in forms that were obvious conflicts but also forms that appeared to be loving gestures. At least that is what it looks like on the surface, underneath these conflicts and loving gestures resides something we call fear. It is the fear that makes us react when something in our lives change, or we feel we may lose something.

     Life for me was grand, I was happier than I have even been, no one would have ever thought just a week or a month ago, I was ever so desolate, depressed and without any hope at all. Growing up Catholic – as I mentioned earlier gave me a great foundation, it was the reason I even started seeking God. However, as I shared my new life with family and friends I came upon a lot of opposition. Even to this day I have relationships that have not healed that I long to see happen.

     I had some tell me that they want nothing to do with me because of the pain and trouble I cause by leaving the Catholic Church. I really did not look at it as leaving any Church, I just found a group of loving people who helped me to understand the Bible, who saw no difference in people, treated everyone the same. What could be wrong with that? Some thought I was in a cult! I was also told, I would be going to hell for what I did. There were times I felt like I was being dissected, every area of my life was being questions, what do you think of this, or what do you think of that and anyway I answered some kind of judgment was made, on both of our parts. My words were being twisted and the things I said were being misinterpret. I would have been better to imitate Christ and kept silent, however it did not seem possible to do that either. All I could do was leave in silence for I was committed and driven to continue on my path no matter what anyone thought or said.

     I know people were judging me no matter what I said, some of them already had their minds made up even before they confronted me, but what I now realize even worse is that I was in deep judgment of everyone who did not understand what I was experiencing, why I was making the decisions I made. My judgments led me to playing the victim roll. This conflict rose up and I allow it to steal my peace and joy. I allowed the things that were happening outside of me to dictate what I felt like on the inside. My “Light of Love” experience now seemed so far away. It had only been a few months that passed, but it was as if the chaos and judgments that entered were tearing me apart. Where is the peace, the joy the love?  Everyday I opened up the Bible to search for answers, I sought advice from others who were rooted in the Bible and prayed for God to help me through this time.

     Playing the role of the victim haunted me. I could not be connected to the “Light of Love” and be a victim. My feelings of love for the people in my life who seemingly turned on me were too overwhelming for me to handle alone. I was not depressed, but I was longing for each of them to be able to experience real, hope, love, joy from within, and it was causing me to lack within. I was frustrated, angry and did not understand why anyone would question me being happy. I judge them all as unhappy, judgmental, unopen and way off the mark. Thinking at that time I had arrived. I found it, and they needed it.

     It took me sometime to be at peace again. It came back into my life when I stopped focusing on being a victim and began to live my life to love others. I finally took responsibility for choosing the path I choose.  As my gratitude grew for the wonderful things in my life, all the things that were not so great seemed to matter less and less. As time moved on I learned how to and practiced forgiveness, I did not have a full understanding of its benefits, but as I look back I see it does not matter if I understood how forgiveness works, it still works. It makes room in our lives to be at peace and to experience miracles.

     “Miracle Moments” happen, and we do not have to understand how or even why they do. In my next post I will go more into one of these moments in my life and how it still continues to inspire me today.

New Life

    I was brought up by loving wonderful parents and grandparents, whom developed my foundation grounded with a belief in God. I was raised as a Christian, taught morals by the examples of unconditional love they had for family, friends and even strangers. They gave their time, money and lives to others time and time again.
     As a teenager and into young adulthood these wonderful attributes were hidden within me underneath many of my selfish pursuits that led me to hating life.
     When I hit “Rock Bottom” it put me in a state of mind that open me up to the possibilities of change; finding that greatness within me. This brought the “Light of Love” into my life, and that light gave me a new hope in living. I no longer felt the need to be done with life. My mind became open to a new way of thinking…. a transformation was possible because I literally had no where else to go. Today I continue to be open and seek for new possibilities. My transformation through this light sent me on a life long quest to be connected with this inner peace, love and joy all the time….
     I wanted to know God, so I went and bought several spiritual books including the Bible. I started reading the King James Version and read through the first few books, this just confused me even more. I was not finding that feeling I achieved within the “Light of Love” I was seeking. I still had no idea what direction to take in my life, what was I to do to help others.
     I continued to pray for insight as to what God wanted me to do… My mind continued to fill with new and exciting ways I could live my life to help others… I probably could of chose any of these ideas and made an impact in the lives of countless people; however I still lived with fear inside of me that would only allow me to play in life in a way as not to lose. What if I fail, what if am not good enough, what if I make a mistake, what if, what if, what if…. That is the kind of thinking which holds me back from stepping into the greatness within. It was this thinking; these beliefs I had within me, which I did not realize at the time, had to change.
     My prayers shifted from asking God for insight to asking God to put someone in my life to help me. That was when I met a man named John Lusk. I was a supervisor at Bally’s Health Club, overseeing the operations of the seven clubs in the St. Louis area. One of my responsibilities was to manage the “Juice Bar” within the clubs. This particular day that I met John, one of my managers had an employee call in and said he was going to be late for work, my manager had to pick up his son from school so he had to leave. He called me and I drove over to the club to cover the time in-between. So there I am at the Juice Bar and in walks John. He was a really nice guy. We had a great conversation and made a good connection between us. John made me feel at ease. I could sense that he was a real genuine person. John ended our conversation with an invitation to church. Wow that’s strange I have never had anyone ever invite me to go to church with them ever. I decide I would go and thought perhaps he was the answer to my prayer.
     That following Sunday I went to the Holiday Inn in Clayton, Missouri. “What a strange place for a church to meet”, I thought. As I walked in and looked around I saw several people walk into one of the meeting rooms and just followed them in. When I walked into the room I was taken back, felt really uneasy. I saw people of all different races, ages’ men and women everyone hugging each other. I saw guys hugging other guys and literally turned around and walked out the door. Just as I was out the door someone saw me leave and came out and asked “Hey are you Greg?” he said. I turned around and looked at him and said “yes” wondering how he knew my name. “Well John asked me to watch for you, he has a seat saved up front for you.” I said ok and walked back in with him. He escorted me to the front and introduced me to several people. John was the minister and in a meeting before church started, that is why he asked someone to look out for me.
     Now, growing up I went to church in a catholic parish. So I was not used to seeing everyone talking and laughing and having a good time. My view of attending church service was a time of reverence, a time to focus on God, not other people. I thought to myself, I’ll sit through this service, but I am not going to come back. The people were all nice and friendly, however my view of church did not look like what I was experiencing. I saw John come in; he came over and said hello only for a moment, then service started pretty much right away. When John got up and began speaking his words spoke out to me. Everything he described in his sermon described my life. How was John able to do that? How could he of known, the pain and anguish I recently went through. It was as if he had a crystal ball and knew everything about me.
     Later, I realized it was not John, but it was the scriptures he chose and expanded on in his sermon that spoke to my heart. From this point on I would have to say that the Bible unmistakenly has been one of the major influences in changing my life, the way I think and what I believe.
     I left church that day excited and happy. My new friends helped me; guided me and show me how to open up my life and let the scriptures mold and change me. They introduce me to the New International Version of the Bible – which was written in Modern English, as oppose to the King James written in Old English. I started reading this time in the New Testament and within a matter of weeks changed my habits, I quit smoking, drugs, I stopped getting drunk, cleaned up my language and started living what at the time I thought was a full life; however God had many other things in store for me. My quest to return to the “Light of Love” would not let me stop here I thirsted to go deeper and deeper within my very soul, to find my true essence, my connection, my oneness with the Light.

      Experiencing the Light of Love and discovering how the Bible could transform my life were the beginning of this process. Seeking and finding the greatness within comes with many costs and decisions that are not easy to make, but must be made. Conflict can and well arise as I will share in my next post...

“Light Of Love”

     I spoke of a Light of Love in my last post.  I feel compelled to expand on my thoughts and experiences on the “Light of Love” so I had to create this post.

     Please read my previous post (Rock Bottom) if you have not, so that what I write here will make sense.

     After I experienced the Light of Love I looked back on it, however I could not recall how long the experience was… I had no recollection of time. I remember thinking what just happened, how long did I experience this thing that just happened…. Was it a minute, 10 minutes, I had no idea. All I knew was it was the most beautiful feeling I have ever experienced. It was as if I was in heaven – no perhaps I should say that heaven was a part of me. It was in me, it was me! As I sit here thinking of how to explain this in words I can not find any that could adequately explain what happen. The experience went beyond all spoken words, time and space. There were absolutely no thoughts, no words just a kind of knowing. Time itself did not exist in this state, I felt as if I had absolutely no boundaries to contain me.

     I remember the first time I read in the Bible Luke 17:20-21 “Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you" I can not help but wonder if this is what heaven is like, do we each carry it inside of us, Is it Christ, the Holy Spirit, God Himself that was in this light? 

     While I was meditating more recently I had two more experiences. First, I was practicing forgiveness which is now something I practice often. I had my eyes closed and was meditating on a person in my life that I was never able to see eye to eye with. I really did not enjoy being around this person, he made me feel as if I did not matter, unimportant and as you know from previous posts that is one of the beliefs about myself that holds me back. I picked this person to envision because I am not only seeking to rid my life of these negative feelings but also live a life that holds no grievance against anyone. First I imagined his face and then began seeing him as a whole person next something really unexpected happened. All of a sudden he turned into a glowing warm light and I began to feel joyful and at peace, then this light shot into my body and I saw myself change into the same light, we became one - one being. Connect by the love, peace and happiness that existed in the light. We were the same, nothing could separate us, and it was as if this were our natural state. This another one of my “Miracle Moments.” Now whenever I think about or see this person I think of him as my brother no different than me and my negative feelings about him are no more.

     A few days later during another time of meditation the image of the earth came into my mind. As I focused on the earth I could see people roaming on the planet. Then I saw a person begin to glow and then another and another. They were all from different parts of the world. These lights then moved into others that were near them, and the glow began to expand at first slowly and as the earth began to glow brighter and bright the feeling of peace within me began to overtake my mind it was pouring out of my heart, I began to smile, nothing could wipe it from my face, I was in a total state of joy. Then as the light within all those people grew and grew I saw the earth very rapidly disappeared into a huge glowing light. Everyone on the planted connected with one another, all enjoying the same peace, love and joy as I was experiencing. The entire world had been completely over taken by this light with no one left out. Even now as I write about this experience it is bringing back a great sense of peace and joy within me.

     So many of us seek our whole lives and look outside of ourselves to find peace, joy, love and heaven; we search for it in relationships, family, careers, money, wealth, status etc… We even look up into the stars and beyond as if that is where heaven is located. Many of us are looking in the wrong place to find heaven. Is heaven separate from us.... somewhere out there? Have we all been deceived that happiness, peace and love are gained through something or someone external from ourselves?

     Ever since this first experience I had with the light, it has led me down a path of seeking to obtain it all the time, it drove me, and continues to drive me in all the decision I make.

     I believe heaven is inside of me as it is inside of all of us. If that is true then what is it that prevents us from seeing and experiencing this indescribable ecstasy of love, peace and joy. How can we re-connect with the light within?

     What is it that blocks or hides the light within us? Our judgments, hatred, prejudices, biases, jealousy, pride things we call “sin” are obstacles that keep us focused on everything outside of ourselves. These errors in our thinking cause us to chase after the wrong things in life to try to find what is missing and make us feel special or better or worse than the next person. We look at everyone in a hierarchy way of thinking as if I am better, she is prettier, he is more muscular, homeless, wealthy, Wal-Mart greeter, accountant, blogger, we cheer for our favorite teams, mines better, you lost, we won separating ourselves from each other.

     When in reality we are all amazing, all have the same greatness within us. None of us is better or worse than the next. We are all connected to the same light which brings us together as one.

Rock Bottom!

     As I fit the pieces of my life together, I realize that every experience was preparing me for the next chapter in my life. My beliefs will lead me to either step into the greatness that is within me or it will allow me to wallow as victim. I have played both rolls in my life and boy it is so much better to step into the greatness than to live as a victim.

     I am not stupid, I do matter and I can play to win and not only can I win but all of us can win together. I realize no one has to lose in order for me to win and the more I help others win I win myself.

     I experience a huge shift that was essential to my personal growth. In previous posts I indicated that at times in my life I did not like myself in fact I would go as far as saying I hated being me. One of the things that gave me comfort when I was a boy and I became upset or angry, I would simply go away, take a walk, go to the wood, go to my room, out back or down to our basement. Amazingly many of these times something wonderful would happen to me. I call my “Miracle Moments.” A sense of peace would come over me, I felt like even though I was physically alone something or someone else was with me. I held conversations within myself, express my feeling and anger and eventually what ever was bothering me just did not matter anymore.

     I really began to enjoy being alone or by myself, but as I grew older I started to experiment with alcohol and drugs. During this time in my life I became very popular and my times of solitude seemed to disappear from my life. It was not until sometime later I was able to rediscover that part of me. This temporary fix of being popular lasted till my later twenties. In this stage of my life I was engaged to be married but called it off which was probably a good thing for her – I was in no way ready to be married giving to someone else, the alcohol and drugs and my own ego really had me so self focused, there was no way I would have been able to meet her needs. I partied all the time, dropped out of school, worked fulltime at Bally’s Health Club in St. Louis. I literally burned the candle at both ends as my parents would say. I moved into my own apartment so I would not have to face my parents night after night in my drugged and drunken state.

     By the time I reached the age of twenty-nine I was done I mean really done with life! I began to see what a mess my life really was. I hit Rock Bottom! People who I thought were my friends over the years began to show their true colors. I will skip all the details here or else I may go back into a victim state… I much rather step into forgiveness and think of them as some of the special people in my life who helped me grow into who I am today.

     In my depressed state of mind I realized that everything in my life seemed to be meaningless. I was tired of living my life in altered states of consciousness; I had no real friends. I was almost thirty and had nothing to show for my life. This just confirmed my old beliefs that I am stupid, I don’t matter and I am a big loser. I literally wept night after night, week after week for a month or longer in discus of who I became. After sometime of being in this state of depression, I began to reflect back and remembered the times in my life when I found peace. I started praying and calling out to God. I was looking for something that was greater than me, something that could bring me hope. However the only thing I really hoped for at this time in my life was that God would take me away. I was finished with life in my physical state and could only think of being in Heaven. Night after night I began asking God to take me, until finally I became so emotionally distraught I stared yelling at God as to why he did not want me either. After a week or so of praying this way another “Miracle Moment” happened. This particular night I could not stop crying, and begged God to answer me, why, why, why he did not want me, then within my body a light began to fill my soul, my very being. Love, peace and joy were the only feeling I could feel, but just moments before I was filled with so much anguish and hatred for myself. As the light filled me I knew without any words being spoken, but understood without a doubt I am here to help people! God wants me to help others. 

     Now a new quest came upon me. I knew without a doubt I was here to help people, but how was I to do that. For the next several weeks I thought of all kinds of ways I could do just that, but I was not sure which one’s God had outlined for me in my life. I continued praying and speaking to God, just like I did when I was a boy. However, no real answer came to me as what God wanted me to do, so I prayed that God would put someone in my life to help me and he did just that. I will talk about that in my next post.

     By the way, I never have returned to that state of depression again. That “Miracle Moment” changed the rest of my life forever! That happened over 20 years ago. Many things have happened along this journey and God is still working on me. When I look back, I feel like Moses in the Desert who waited years and years before God called upon him. Many times have come and I thought to myself this is what God must of meant when I understood I was here to help people and it is still happening today in small ways, big ways and ways I may never understand for a long, long time….

My early years....

     Well after my last post, I thought I tell you about some of the things that happened in my life that led me to believe that I was not a very good person…. or at least why at one point in my life I did not think very highly of myself and why I hated being me….. Don’t feel too sorry for me though I no longer support these old beliefs of mine although they still pop up their condemning heads from time to time and try to convince me otherwise.

     As a young boy, as I mentioned in the last post, I usually was always last to be picked on a team weather it was playing ball in the streets, tag or whatever… just did not seem to matter, my coordination was far from being perfected and the kids in the neighborhood wanted to be on a winning team. Even in school I had a very hard time, I was held back in first grade, attended remedial reading, went to speech therapy and could not get grades above a C in pretty much any kind of academic study. I remember my parents getting frustrated with me going over my spelling words…. I wrote them out, we sang out the spelling, repetition, repetition, repletion… yet 5 minutes later I would have no idea how to spell the words. I labeled myself as “Stupid.”  My younger brother Tim ended up in the same class as me, since I was held back; and when we would have a test he could study for 20 -30 minutes and get an A, sometimes he did not study at all – what a great memory he had, however I would study for hours and hours and still receive a D or C.

     I also remember the kids in the neighborhood giving me the nick name “Elmo” they were comparing me to Elmer Fudd from the Warner Bros. Cartoon. I must of really sounded funny – guess that is why I went to speech therapy. One time there must have been 10 or 15 kids from the neighborhood, including my three brothers all standing around in a circle with me in the middle calling me Elmo – I literally was throwing a fit, thus helping to formulate my belief of who I was at such a young age. (Our emotions and experiences are the cornerstones of our beliefs)

     I decided that I did not matter, no one wanted me on their team, I was stupid, definitely nothing smart in this brain and I decided to play life not to lose, because every time I attempted to succeed at something and I failed, I told myself I was right I am a loser. It would be better for me not to try something than to confirm what a failure I was.

     As I moved on through the years from elementary school to high school, some things did start to change. Actually things started changing in my middle school years. I discovered alcohol and drugs. At first, some other kids and I started experimenting with alcohol and all of a sudden I was laughing and having fun, I became a different person, people were laughing with me instead of at me. Wow, could this be possible….. So I continued to explore and tied all kinds of different drugs, probably could not even name them all. However this new found person did not appear to be too bad, I was building lots of new friendships, and people were calling me to hang out with and do things. I was being accepted by other people and they liked me. I really started to become more popular in my high school years, lots of friends; however I still graduated from my high school ranked in the bottom 10. Failure still haunted me, and I knew (at that time) I would never amount to much going the academic route – or at least I thought.

     I learned to adapt, I became a chameleon, and I learn to put on an act to hide who I really was. I did not want any of my friends to know the real me – the loser me. When I went through my training with Klemmer and Associates (www.klemmer.com) I discovered that I would put on the face of what is called the Promoter – fun, outgoing, energetic, life of the party type people in order to cover up who I really was at my core. Now people who are promoters for real are a blast; however that was just an act I was putting on… By the way my wife Mary has a promoter personality and I love that part of her…

     Now gaining an understanding of these thoughts/beliefs about me was really important for me to move forward in my life…. You see these were hiding in my memory, subconscious thoughts and beliefs that guided all the decisions I have ever made in my life. I unknowingly lived my life through the belief that I would never amount to much, that I did not matter and did everything with a not to lose attitude, once I discovered these things about me, I was able to step into my own “greatness" so to speak, develop new opinions about myself and could now play to win in life.

     I am really not much different than anyone else. I have my baggage, we all do, but we can let our baggage run our lives or we can find out how to use our baggage to propel us forward on our journey….

My Authentic Self....

    First off I am an authentic and abundant man! I could not say that about myself a few years ago. You see back in 2005 my wife and I made a commitment to ourselves to enhance our personal growth in all areas of our lives. We started reading books like “Think and Grow Rich”, “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, “If How To‘s Were Enough We All Be Skinny, Rich and Happy” and our list goes on and on. We committed to turning off our Television, listening to Audio books when driving, and we attended seminars on self-improvement. I would guess we spend well over $30,000 on ourselves. We did change our mindset and our beliefs. You see what we think about ourselves is at the root of our success and as well as the root of our failures. Everything we want, relationship, finance, status, success did not provide any satisfaction we were always wanting more, never being satisfied.  We changed our belief yet it was not enough. I had to learn to stop thinking from my head and start living from my heart. Once I did that, our lives changed and will do so forever.
    
     I got involved in a brand new startup company in 2006 climbed up the ladder of success – won the “Top Gun” Award - #1 in sales for the year and did it in 8 months. I became a Presidential Founder in the company in just a little over year. Doubled and tripled my income as a school teacher within my first year. Success happen because I changed my beliefs.  What I believed about myself, what I believed about money, and what I believed about success.

     Growing up I was not very coordinated and therefore I was usually the last one picked to be on anyone’s team. I even remember the neighborhood kids arguing over why I needed to be on the other team. At a very young age I adopted a belief that let me play my life with a “Not to lose attitude.” This affected me in all areas of my life. It kept me from going after my dreams and goals. You see if I was not sure I would win or achieved my desires I would simply not try that way I could not lose, because I never pursued those desires. Now I play life to “Win” and this shift in my belief allowed me to step into a new me, however it was still not enough.

     Life has filled my life with many new twists and turns since the company I described above... they closed their doors, we lost all of our income, got foreclosed on, we had our car repossess etc....however I continuing with an attitude of Win/Win and believed that everything that happens weather good or bad is a learning situation. I can choose to either step into seeing the opportunities these trials had to offer or craw away or cower into my hole; I choose to step into looking for the opportunities, looking for another way. By taking something that most people find as horrible circumstance just to be “what is” and move on right away....

     This is the first post of my Shifts in Life’s Journey. As you read along feel free to comment, share with me your feeling and what is on your heart. I look forward to hearing from you.