Heaven and hell are both right within us, at all times. They are not necessarily some places we will experience only in the after life.
Heaven can be interpreted as the soul - the higher self - the part of us most connected to, and reflecting the divine - the part that rejoices and flourishes in oneness, love, acceptance, gratitude.
When we are at peace within ourselves and our lives exactly as everything is, we can experience heaven in every moment.
Hell can be interpreted as our lower self - the part of us that has forgotten that we are connected to the divine, the part that feeds on fear, worry, hate, anger, guilt, regret. When we choose to hold onto these heavy emotions, we literally go through hell. The challenge is to expand our vision and look beyond the 'hell' and see the 'heaven' that is always there for us to experience.
It's a choice that we must make, and this choice requires us to be aware and stay on our toes, rather than becoming entrenched in our comfort zones.
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What are you choosing to experience in your day to day life?
Many people believe that if we become satisfied with where we are, there is no room left for growth.
They use this feeling of never being satisfied to propel them to being better, doing more, achieving more.
That is one way of looking at it and it does work for many people too. However, I have noticed that this modus operandi leaves us in a constant and ongoing state of dissatisfaction
and unhappiness with ourselves and our lives, and creates alot of stress and anxiety about always having to do more and get more. This way we are never really satisfied with anything at all.
I personally do not see satisfaction as a road block, I don't agree that it makes us complacent or stops us from doing more. I feel that only when we are satisfied with something, can we really enjoy and celebrate it, and feel good about having achieved it. I feel that like any job done well, if we are satisfied with it, then we can move on and do more, with more confidence, peace and positivity.
It's a small shift in perspective, but can make us alot more successful and joyful if we adopt it.
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Just for a change, let's try something different. Once we achieve something, let's be grateful for it, be proud of ourselves for making it so far, and use these positive feelings to motivate us to do more. Because intentions shape the outcomes: if you start something because you are dissatisfied with what currently is, then that is what will keep perpetrating in the future as well, you will never be satisfied with anything, no matter how much you do or get. If you start something feeling confident and satisfied with where you are currently, with the objective of being even better by exploring more of your potential, then you will experience more success and more rewards during the journey.
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A relationship - whether its marriage, friendship, family, love, even with work colleagues - is like a child that you and the other person have created together. When we have children, they give us a bigger purpose, they compel us to be more responsible about our actions so that we don't end up hurting them, they make us want to be good role models so that they can grow up to be good and balanced people. And above all, what a child needs most is love and encouragement, unconditionally.
If you start seeing the relationship as a living being that is created by you and another person, you will be able to nurture it by being at your best behavior in front of it; being a good role model; being kind, loving and respectful; by not caring about who's right or wrong; but caring only about what will help the relationship grow and flourish. This brings about an approach that is more gentle, more kind, more cooperative, giving us a sense of unity.
Try looking at your relationships from this new perspective, and you will automatically be guided by what you can do to nurture them and be proud of them.
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Faith (not love, as commonly believed) is the opposite of fear. The more faith we have, the less fear we cultivate.
Have you noticed that usually when we are going through trying and testing times, we are caught up in fear - but when the event has passed and we look back, we usually say that 'everything happened for the best', or at least 'that;s how it was meant to be'. So if that's the case, then why don't we, during the tough times, have a little more Faith that everything is happening as it is meant to be, allow our selves to look for learning/growing opportunities in it, because as the term suggests, they are 'testing times' attracted by us because they give us the opportunity to test ourselves and our ability to rise above the fear, the blame, the anxiety, and find Faith, knowing that if we find our strengths during these times, things will actually have happened for the best.
Fear is required to propel us to Faith. But as we understand this, we need not dwell in fear - we have the opportunity to transform it to Faith in advance rather than in retrospect.
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The age-old debate of destiny versus free-will continues.
Many people say that if everything is written by fate anyway, why is there the concept of being judged for our actions?
Others say that we write our own fate, so we are completely responsible for all that happens in our universe.
While the former belief can make us feel absolved from all judgement, it can at times, especially challenging times, make us feel like we are victims and punished for some unknown reason.
The latter helps to empower us, but can at times make us feel overwhelmed with trying to figure out why we manifested
certain things in our reality, and we keep trying to understand and heal that part of us that is attracting 'bad' things.
I feel that a balance of the two would be the healthiest way to live our lives. I think life is a combination of destiny and free will.
Firstly, all events, good or bad, are destined, because it it wasn't 'meant to be', it wouldn't have happened.
All events, good or bad, bring with them the opportunity for us to learn, evolve and grow - to find a part of the divine within us that we had forgotten we carry.
The free-will comes into play when we understand that we have a choice in how we perceive the events and how we choose to feel about ourselves and others during and after the event. And there is ALWAYS a choice.
So rather than worrying about whether an event was pre-destined by a higher power, or created by us - it would be better to be aware of our perception of it, how we define it, and how we let it define us and life.
We can either allow the event to bring out our strengths or our weaknesses. The choice is ours.
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Disappointment: dis in Latin means none, so 'no appointment' - which really just means that its not the right time yet for what you were hoping for.
Possibly because the conditions are not perfect yet and the situation is being improved for you.
Possibly because there are still things you need to pick up from the current situation which will help you immensely in the next.
Possibly because there is another better appointment waiting to be noticed but you were so caught up with waiting for the first one that you didn't see it.
Whatever the reason may be, it helps to remember that there are no coincidences, we are loved by the universe, and all we really need to do is have faith that everything is happening perfectly for our best, at exactly the right time. So being dis-appointed does not mean that we need to be dis-heartened or dis-satisfied.