Soul Mates and Suffering

So I haven’t watched Super Soul Sunday in seemingly forever and just happened to catch Part 2 of Elizabeth Gilbert. I’ve read Eat, Pray, Love (LOVE it!) and I remember this part in the book, but it really struck me in a new way this time around. When it comes to soul mates, in the book, Elizabeth says, “People think a soul mate is a perfect fit and that’s what everyone wants, but a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life, a true soul mate is the most important person that you’ll ever meet, because they’ll tear down your walls and smack you awake.”

Oprah read that quote from Eat, Pray, Love and then Elizabeth added, “But you might not want to marry them! That quote is actually from my friend Richard, from Texas, because he’d told me about someone I’d lost who I thought was my soul mate. Richard said, he probably was, but you don’t understand what a soul mate is. You think it’s all roses and happiness. A soul mate is someone who changes you. And then sometimes they have to leave, because the intensity of the relationship is so much that you can’t actually have a stable…like your partner is something else. A spouse, a husband, a partner, that’s your friend. Like my husband is my best friend, and he’s not the mirror that holds up my flaws, he’s the guy that’s like, ‘I think you’re terrific.’ And I’m like, I think you’re terrific, how can we be nice to each other today? It’s not a high tension, high vibration, it’s just a simple showing up for each other, I like having a cup of coffee in the morning with you, thank you for being my champion, love.”

I love this definition. It gives a new understanding, and clarifying importance to those relationships that came before. They were soul mates. They were very important people who came into my life for a reason, and they helped shape who I am today.  And there was pain in the process, in the evolution and dissolution of these past relationships. And there was suffering. But I used it to grow. I am still growing from them. And that’s really the point.

Elizabeth says of pain and suffering, if it’s not used to grow, it’s just wasted suffering. Pain and suffering don’t make you wise. There are plenty of people out there suffering that are just as stupid as ever. Using your power, your wisdom, your mind, your force, to turn suffering into Grace, is what makes you wise. If you don’t transform from your pain, then it was for nothing!

That’s a powerful thought.

If you don’t transform from your pain, then you suffered for nothing.

Two things to ask yourself when you’re feeling pain or suffering. 1) What is this here to teach me, how can I grow from this? and 2) What was my part in creating this? Because there was one. And until you own your part in what you’ve drawn into your life, you can’t change it.

I don’t think it means a partnership has no passion–Elizabeth is just saying that life with a true partner is not loaded with drama. I believe in fire, in fierce passion, and in deep friendship too. You can have both. You should have both.

 

I live for fire! I live for that intense internal YES, for that powerful flood of LOVE that comes from recognizing and really going for something that’s driving me from my core, for that supercharged magnetic pull, because when I’m on fire, I’m co-creating with God, with Source, with the universe. There is nothing more delicious. I feel such an overwhelming feeling of love and appreciation for all when I’m there. And for everything. I can see the brilliance, the oneness of everything. I swear that sometimes even light and colors seem more vivid. It’s like God is giving me a taste how He sees the world. Seeing the world through the eyes of Source. This is my goal every day. To live my life on fire and full of love. To love and be kind to everyone. To demonstrate love in all that I do. And to wholeheartedly be filled with gratitude for the opportunity to create any kind of life I want, and to breathe, to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch, and most of all, to FEEL my way towards constructing my dreams in this reality. 

There are so many beautiful souls who have come into my life, many who have gone, and many I haven’t even met yet. I am eternally grateful for this amazing life I’ve been given and I am focused on joyfully giving and using it to the fullest! And I wish that for everyone!

 

My Horses Are Finally Home!

This past September, my fellow horse-crazy friend, Nikki, and I met up for the first time in four years. Back in 2009 we became fast friends as we both spent the summer at the Parelli International Study Center in the Becoming a Horseman course. So when she offered me a free ticket to the annual Parelli Performance Summit, I knew I had to go. I’d passed up several opportunities over the years to see my good friend and now the desire to reunite, at the very place our friendship first formed no less, was so strong, I knew I had to find a way to make it happen! This post is the story of how following/pursuing your heart’s desires, one desire, can lead to a chain reaction of miracles and the birth of more and more desires. This is what living is all about!

If you’ve followed my blog at all, you know I wrote about this before as I used my understanding of the Law of Attraction to focus my energy on finding a last minute plane ticket for $113. It was a miracle, and miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong. What has gone wrong is your thinking. Your thoughts created negative energy that drew a negative experience. It is very easy to then continue with negative thoughts by observing your negative experience. But in every moment you have a choice. You can look at what is with disgust or anguish…or you can look at what is and launch a powerful rocket of desire for what you really want. Then you can choose to rise up in your thoughts and build positive momentum towards the manifestation of what you really want.

I don’t beat myself up when I get angry or negative. But I have developed a powerful awareness of my state of mind, so when I go down that road, away from what I truly want, I know it from the first few thoughts. And I know I have all the power in the world to turn around and move back in the direction of my dreams. It’s usually not very long before I’m reaching for a paraliminal, a meditation soundtrack, or a piece of music to listen to and transform my state of being. Not just my state of mind, my state of BEING.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I had the most amazing and wonderful experience with my friend at the Parelli Performance Summit in September. I savored every mountain view of Pagosa Springs and every morsel of Natural Horsemanship knowledge at the summit. I cherished all the hours of horse-related conversation with my friend, I basked in the view of the San Juan River from the restaurant by our hotel, and I DREAMED with greater fervor than I’d dreamed all summer of bringing my horses home. My burning desire to bring my horses home developed into an all-consuming wall of flames within my soul. I knew I HAD to bring them home, but I didn’t know how.

I’d been trying to figure this out for months. Two years ago, when I moved to Lincoln, Nebraska with my man, I moved my horses to his parent’s farm 6+ hours away from Lincoln. For two years they’ve been very well cared for there with great thanks to my future father-in-law. But the time had come to move them. Only having the trailer and no truck , I didn’t know how I would move them, or where I would move them. I visited tons of stables and just could not envision my horses in box stalls with no pasture turn out whatsoever. The whole summer had gone by with no solutions presenting themselves. Sitting in our hotel room one morning in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the weekend of the Parelli Performance Summit, I confessed all these things to Nikki. Her response was, “Well why don’t you post a wanted ad on Craigslist for a pasture for rent?”

I hadn’t thought of that! As I was sitting there, I got on Craigslist and posted a wanted ad. Within a week or so of returning home, I got a call from a very nice woman looking to rent her pasture. And this pasture is only 12 miles away from my house. Miracles keep abounding!

Then what? Well, there was a lot to do in preparation for bringing the horses home. The fence had to be repaired, good quality hay had to be found and purchased, and there was still the matter of finding a truck to pull my trailer.

After months of asking everyone I knew if they had or knew of a truck I could rent with a fifth wheel hitch to pull my trailer, I struck out time and time again. No truck rental service offers trucks with a fifth wheel hitch. As Thanksgiving drew closer and closer, I decided to turn to Craigslist again and placed an ad for a truck to rent. Just in time I found one, a truck that had been used as a plow truck at a church only a few miles from my house. I rented it, insured it, and off we went.

There were numerous and almost overwhelming issues with the truck right off the bat. First of all, being diesel, it didn’t want to start, because I hadn’t thought to plug it in the night before we left. It was also not a truck made for highway driving and was quite jarring on certain highways. There were so many things that didn’t go as planned and at times, it was very stressful, as I was dragging my non-horse-loving boyfriend reluctantly on this adventure that began with a very rough start and a lot of doubt as to whether this old truck would make it.

But once we got through the rough start, we had a very pleasant, uneventful trip all the way there and back. The horses loaded right up with no issues and unloaded equally pleasantly at their new pasture here in Nebraska. And I couldn’t have asked for a better trip home! The horses road very well all the way home, they were safe, we were safe, the truck ran very well, and not only did we make good time, but somehow we got ridiculously better gas mileage on the way back, even with the trailer and horses in tow. Amazing.

All the way home I recited in my head, “Thank you for our safe journey home.” I don’t think there’s a more powerful mantra for something you greatly desire. It’s combining gratitude with the state of achieving what you desire and it’s my go-to thought process for pursuing anything I have a deep desire for. The energy of my deep desire coupled with gratitude and affirmation of the manifestation of what I desire…nothing more powerful than that!

I’m sharing all of this, because I want you to know, when you develop a burning desire for something and you follow that, miracle after miracle will be born into your life. More desires will develop, and you’ll pursue those. Your life will fill with meaning and purpose. And though there will be trying times and times where you feel knocked to your knees, your vision of what you have a burning desire to achieve will pull you up and forward.

There’s nothing sweeter than the feeling of overcoming fears, of lifting yourself time and time again into alignment with Source from wherever you have previously fallen! There is NO HIGHER HIGH than that! And each time you lose it and regain it again, as you move forward towards all that you desire, the realignment is higher and more delicious than before. Because you will know your authentic power, you will know that when you are in alignment with Source, you hold the creative power of Source in your own life! And once you achieve one seemingly impossible feat, you will look back knowing that’s nothing compared to where you’re going next. There is no one and nothing holding you back! So do you have a dream? Well why don’t you GO!? Live it, pursue it, move towards it, and doors will open for you where there were only walls…if you allow them with an open heart and mind.

Moving my horses seemed like a huge undertaking to me at the time and it seemed like an eternity to bring the move into manifestation here and now. But I realize looking back, I just started understanding my authentic power this past spring when I drove home from where my horses were in tears and began listening to Abraham-Hicks YouTube videos. I wasn’t really sure how to pursue moving my horses. But once I started moving towards what I truly desire (meeting up with Nikki for the Parelli Performance Summit) everything I wanted and needed flew into high gear. Just shy of two months later, my horses are home.

So what’s the new dream now? Starting my two un-started horses under saddle, developing one for all around ranch work and one for jumping and dressage. I am so ready! So ready to sleep, eat, and breathe natural horsemanship. It’s going to be my life, the center of my art, and my JOY! I’m ready to live my passion and my dream and I can’t wait to see what glorious chain reaction of wonderful things pour into my life as a result of no longer resisting all this fire within me!

Happy Dream Pursuing ALL!

Namaste