I spent 1-3 hours with a very negative person for seven months in the very near past. I hated about 60-70 percent of every conversation. My attitude was that there is an opportunity lurking there, and I’d find it. That attitude was encouraged by my teachers.

At the end of the seven months I noticed that my financial situation had started to go south when I started that relationship. I was now at a point when I was not going to be able to pay my rent…

In that moment of clarity I saw that in those seven months I had handed over the control over my thoughts and life to this person, and it was time to take it back.

I also noticed that it had been a pattern in my life. I could see that there was my desire to “lift up” other people, even if they weren’t particularly interested. I call that caretaking in another post of mine… (Studies show that when a higher vibration person tries to lift up the vibration of another person, instead of the desired outcome, the lowest common denominator wins. Other studies show that in sado-masochistic relationship the real control is in the hand of the masochist, not the sadist, like it seems on the surface.)

You notice that you are not energized by the relationship. You notice that your health, your energy level, your self-love, your connection with your purpose is getting weaker and harder to maintain.

In hindsight the same thing happened with my male cat. He wanted food, he wanted shelter (when he wanted it), but he didn’t want me. He didn’t choose me.

When I look at my relationships (male/female) I see the pattern: it begins with me relentlessly pursuing a stable and steady connection where I am the contributor/giver, thus I have the upper hand. They begrudgingly protecting their right to maintain independence. I increase the pressure. At some point we are best friends. I continue the domination with giving and giving and giving. At some point I catch myself, and break off the relationship.

That’s been the movie of my life. Quite disgusting, if you ask me. And makes for a lonely, unfulfilled life.

Luckily to me, this time I had my eyes open and my fingers pointing at myself. This time I have taken 100% responsibility for my part in this mess.

This fact, having taken responsibility for my role as a director/writer of this movie, I have given myself a chance to write and direct movies that are more fulfilling and satisfying than this repeated nightmarish ego-driven script.

Since the awakening and breakoff, my financial situation is looking up, I am more in touch with my soul’s desire and things unpredictable and delicious are starting to show up in my space.

The following is very unorthodox, so don’t read if you don’t like someone who doesn’t push the company cart…

A few years ago, around 2003 I read the book “The Science of Getting Rich”

I loved it. The part I loved most is that The Light is seeking fuller and fuller expression of itself, and you and your actions are part of that expression. Your curiosity, your exploration, your learning new things, you playing with new toys and tools are all adding to the richness of The Light’s self expression and fullness.

Why do I love it so much? Because it adds an important layer of incentive to strive for more. My capacity for self love is not very strong, and therefore my desire for things for myself is not very strong.

But if what I desire enriches The Light, I can expect to get all the support I need, because WE get the result, The Light and me.

I think I have mentioned in another blog post that I love to play the solitaire computer game, called Freecell.
I think that you can have a personal conversation with the light (maybe it is the Shechina… i.e. surrounding light) and get a lot of guidance that way.

Take, for example, playing Freecell. It is a total waste of time, unless. Unless you do it consciously allowing The Light to play through you.

Unless you derive your pleasure and satisfaction from providing The Light with an outlet, becoming a hand with an opposing thumb to The Light.

I have been experimenting with that for two days now. The Light hasn’t lost a game yet.

…and an additional juicy bit: nurturing my relationship with The Light this way has netted me money, friendship, health, peace of mind. I mean it. When you learn to become like a chess figure in The Light’s hand, you are taken to decisions and places you would not think of going yourself. And guess what? That is where what you wanted all along is… in those unexpected, unvisited places.

What a surprise.

As I said in my last blogpost, my 72-name is “Forget Thyself.”

In my “Your Soul’s Purpose” process it was worded this way “Bring The Divine to Everything.”

As I was reflecting on the last article I wrote, it occurred to me that one of my “unanswerable questions” is: “Am I smart enough?”

If a question is unanswerable, you want to know the answer all the more. So I have been asking this question since time immemorial, and I have been getting yeses and nos… never any clarity.

I have been asking the wrong question, and when you ask the wrong question, your attention is on the wrong thing. (I could ask the same question more generally, so that you can find yourself in it, if your question is not about your mental capabilities, like me. I could ask: Is what I am doing now make me look good? Is what I am doing now say that I am good/ worthy/ smart/ capable/ handsome/ creative/ informed/ educated/loser… etc. etc. )

Those questions are asked by the ego, that is only interested in its own survival. It is classic “desire for the self alone.” No effort necessary to worry about yourself. We are wired like that. We are also wired to have a hidden layer, underneath this seemingly innocent concern: and that is: do I look better than x, am I smarter than x, am I able to win in this competition that exists in my mind with x?

When you reveal that layer, you really see that in the moment you are in THAT inquiry, you just disconnected from the Light. Any concern for yourself disconnects you from the Light.

So when I perform a miracle, have a breakthrough, etc. (obviously with the help of the Light) and then I brag about what I did (i.e. how great I am) I am disconnecting from the Light and all the accomplishment comes crumbling down, because it wasn’t mine to begin with.

Bad news, don’t you think?

But as I was thinking that, I also had another thought, obviously from the Light, is that all you have to do is make the effort and then the Light will do the rest.

That though brought tears into my eyes. Tears of relief, and tears of gratitude.

I haven’t had a lot of experience getting help from anyone ever before. I wanted it, I craved it, I hoped for it, but never really experienced it. And the operative word is “experience” here, because obviously the help was always there, but in my 1% blindness could not see it, could not acknowledge it, could not revel in it, could not use it to the max…

My life has felt like the life of Sisyphus.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus (Greek: ??????? [sí.sy.phos] ['si.si.fos] (help·info), Latinized: Sisyphus,  was a king punished in Tartarus by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again, and to repeat this throughout eternity.

Today, Sisyphean can be used as an adjective meaning that an activity is unending and/or repetitive. It could also be used to refer to tasks that are pointless and unrewarding.

or in another paragraph, same page:

“Sisyphean task” or “Sisyphean challenge”

As a punishment from the gods for his trickery, Sisyphus was compelled to roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he could reach the top of the hill, the rock would always roll back down again, forcing him to begin again.

The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for Sisyphus due to his hubristic (overweening pride, self-confidence, superciliousness, or arrogance) belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus.

Sisyphus took the bold step of reporting one of Zeus’s sexual conquests, …but regardless of the impropriety of Zeus’s frequent conquests, Sisyphus overstepped his bounds by considering himself a peer of the gods who could rightfully report their indiscretions. As a result, Zeus displayed his own cleverness by binding Sisyphus to an eternity of frustration. Accordingly, pointless or interminable activities are often described as Sisyphean.

The story (myth) of Sisyphus describes my life. Thinking myself clever, I have considered myself equal to the gods (the Light) and was arrogant, and my life and my results did look like before the boulder reaches the top of the hill it rolls back again. Wow.

And this has been my tikkun (correction). And until today I had no idea what to do and how to do it, because I could not see what I was doing.

I think this is important: you can’t see your own shortcomings, or not really, and therefore the first job is to see it. Others can help, but ultimately you need to do the work.

Once you see your tikkun, you can ask for help from the Light to DO your tikkun.

And if your tikkun is “Forget Thyself”, just asking is already beginning the tikkun. Wow.

Yehuda Berg writes:

There are people in our lives who don’t want to receive what we have to give them. …

… we invest efforts into keeping some relationhships burning in our lives that we’d be better off letting burn out.

… life is all about circuitry. When we share our Light with people who don’t want to receive it, it’s like trying to fill a bottle when the cap is still on. Try as you might, with all of the love, intention, and desire to share, your energy simply cannot penetrate. And as with our favorite spiritual illustration, the lightbulb, if the negative pole is blocked, the circuit cannot be completed, and the energy cannot flow.

It’s not about judging people as worthy or unworthy. It’s about discerning who is ‘open’ to receive, and willing to use what we have to offer – wisdom, love, time, concern – no matter what flavor!

No doubt, if you go through your relationships, in your mind, one by one, you are going find several that fit the above description: Your desire to contribute to them is not received with an equal amount of desire to receive from you.

Some people, including my older self, make it our life’s purpose to give where it is not appreciated, or even not wanted. But everyone, at one time or another, decides where to give, by their own concepts, instead of looking where there is the most reception.

At the same time, one may fall into the opposite trap, the bottomless pit, or the bottle with the cap off, but cracked.

I used to have a client (or two, or three,… grrr) where we would have great conversations, I would be able to express all the light the Light wanted me to channel, but nothing would stick with the recipient.

This particular client, let’s call him Matt, was hungry for solutions, hungry for light, hungry… insatiable. What he wasn’t hungry for is making changes in his thinking or in his actions.

My style of coaching is to leave the client with a set of practices or action that they must complete in order for the session to make any real difference. Matt never did any of the actions, any of the practices. Instead, he came to every call as if the previous one had never happened.

He remembered them all right, but remembering is the booby prize… not much value there. His life didn’t notice he had that session.

I “fired him” from my practice.

I noticed that there was a certain co-dependency developing: it gave me a sense of accomplishment and an experience of being very bright to channel the Light. And he came to me like an alcoholic goes to the pub.

I needed to restrict my addictive tendencies and ask him to get his daily fix someplace else.

Result? I started to channel the Light into my writing, into my business, into my garden, and into my own well-being. All areas were parched… and all those areas are now starting to blossom.

The point? There is an abundance of Light available for you to channel. But channel it to someplace where it can make a difference, someplace where it will cause abundance. OK?