When other people make you feel like....

If you've spent time with me during the Elemental Cleanse or in yoga, you've heard me say that everything is a choice. The food you eat, the drink you drink, the people you surround yourself with and even how you feel. It is a choice to be sad, to be happy, to be flattered and to be criticized. I've said this so much, in fact, that I don't even put any effort, energy or thought into that teaching.

So the Universe decided I needed a refresher course.

I find myself in such an odd position lately. My ended engagement of last year lingers. In my own way of grief, I have distracted myself for the past six months by creating work. I've avoided. I've hid. I've been unresponsive. The lessons and pain of that parting so deep that my Soul simply needed to curl up for a rest. Coming up for air, I'm now having to deal with the messy reality of parting ways and that has, of course, opened my heart to the arrows of disappointment shot at another to ease suffering.

In the meantime, I've found myself at the beginning stage of romance. Words are soft, sweet and tender. It's a high of feel good energy.

These energies have merged. On the one hand, someone is telling you all your failings. On the other, someone is telling you your success. One minute you feel terrible about yourself. The next minute you feel like a goddess. Flipping in between these feelings that are so contrary, I had the most profound realization and it was...

I am.

A person's perception of me is based in their reality, but I am the same. There is nothing terrible about me nor do I have the magical powers of a goddess. It's simply another person's idea of me in their moment. I can choose what I feel. I can honor the pain of another without taking those words in. I can soak in the radiance of another and of course take that in. It's my choice to feel how I want to feel.

I am.

I think all of this is really a lesson in knowing yourself. Know who you are. When you begin your meditation practice, begin with the phrase, "Who am I?" Have some wonderful statements to say when you answer. I am......(smart, strong, powerful, joyful, light and love). Just let all those affirmations float out to the Universe and then go to your mantra...So Hum. So Hum means "I am."

Sat Nam (that means "truth is your identity") Pamela