Born and raised in the Lone Star State, coping with life used to be so easy. After all, it’s the friendliest state in the USA, but as I sit here today typing away, I’m blind as a bat and having a hot flash with no immunity to anything. Beyond all that, flu season has arrived with the most threatening kind, so life is no longer so easy, to say the lest. In fact, I can honestly say that life isn’t always fair and square with equal justice for all, even within the friendliest state of the USA. Still, it wasn’t until I was branded with, "The Big C," that I began to realize that there’s no disease that cares how unfair life can be, and believe me, being a cancer survivor is not all it’s cracked up to be. The truth is that no matter where you come from, remission doesn’t mean you’re cured of anything.
Needless to say, health care needs will be a life long issue for me to cope with, but I’d like to move beyond simply surviving a treatable and incurable disease. That’s why I chose to vote for hope in 2008, even though I was born and raised in the Lone Star State among a bunch of republican loved ones who voted for McCain. It’s strange how such stuff can change your frame of mind, but it’s safe to assume that all my conservative loved ones think I’ve lost my mind. The fact remains that fear based hate can create strife among even the most kind and friendly souls, so the first tip I’ll give to cope with life is to never let go of hope.
Experience taught me that hope and faith always wins in the end, and the fact that I’ve dared to go out on a limb now and then is the proof I need to believe in things I can’t see or prove to be true, so if you can trust me enough, I’d love to share some tips on coping with life that I’ve found to be universally true and wise too. Besides, sometimes I just need someone to listen to me, and we all need someone to step into our shoes to see the other side of any issue that just comes up in life with no rhyme or reason, other than to provide the wise insight it takes to find peace of mind so that "YES WE CAN," move beyond simply surviving hard times.
*The keys to peace of mind: How to move beyond simply surviving life*
* See the difference between a human and a being.
It’s wise to be aware there's a difference between the human and the being of people like you and me. The human side holds our ego, but the being holds our soul, and although the soul is the only thing we own, the ego has a mind with eyes to create what we think we worthy to achieve in life. Thoughts become things, and depending on our feeling of worthiness, we can be abundantly blessed or a mess of stress, depending upon our thoughts. Even so, only the soul within your being knows the truth about you, so you’ll need to know your own soul. The soul knows because it looks through the eyes of a higher being who looks through an insightful view with the light of truth. This being makes up for the fact of what our mind and eye sight lacks, but only when we are aware it's there. Some people live entire lives without ever knowing they hold a soul within the being deep inside, which could be why I lost my eye sight.
Apparently, the soul within your being will do whatever it takes to be able to see clearly, just so you can look through an insightful view. Otherwise, we’d never find the truth, so when the two sides of you are combined, the human being becomes who God intends you to be. You’re complete. That’s when you find the insight to see the reality that God exists. The being proves it, so we know deep within our souls that He is the source of the force which created, "everything," including you and me. Still, the best part of looking through the eyes of your soul is the fact that the being knows that we are created in God's image, so we have the power to create things too. In fact, we can change our destiny if we improve the view we look through. The power is there. It’s everywhere.
* Heaven, earth and the universe was created to work for our behalf.
God's universal laws were made to work for us, not against us, but they are unbiased. After all, if you slip and step off a cliff, you'll crash to the ground no matter how nice and sweet you may be, due to the law of gravity. It’s just God’s way to put us in our place, but then again, you can pick yourself up again and God gave you that ability too deal with gravity issues. In fact, you can attract a positive force, of course, due to the law of attraction. Even so, just to ask creates a universal command to attract that back to you, negative thoughts will lead you to a negative fate, no matter how well meaning your intentions may be. We all come from one root, so what you choose to think, say and do has a huge impact on me. That’s why life is never fair and square for each and every human being, but it’s only due to the fact that God gave you and me a will that's free to choose. Still, we are not victimized. We just get confused when we refuse to look through both sides of any issue with the insight of truth.
The energy we produce moves through heaven, earth and the universe too. That’s why it's wise to think positively before you say or do anything. With insight from the being, we find the faith it takes to hold onto hope as we think, speak and behave in Christ-like ways, based on nothing but blind faith.
* Fear based hate creates our demise, but hope combined with faith leads to amazing grace.
Fear is our worst enemy. It creates the hate that makes otherwise kind people fight. In fact, it’s fear based hate that leads to a hopeless and bitter old soul. Even so, do you know that you’ve actually stored hope in your soul? You have more than enough hope to last a life time, and then some to motivate me to hold onto hope too, when times get rough. That's why hope always arrives, right in the nick of time, like it did for me in 2008. Hope tends to motivate the faith it takes to believe that yes we can achieve an endless list of possibilities. It’s how Martin Luther King achieved the impossible dreams that changed mankind within my life time.
Your hope will motivate your human mind and eyes to find the faith it takes to ask for your otherwise impossible dream, but the key to actually achieving what you ask to receive will be the degree of faith you find, along with the hope you motivate in those you’ll need to find faith in your dream too. Otherwise, all your achieve is wishful thinking, so you’ll need to know your dream is so real that it’s worthy to achieve. If helps if the dream benefits someone else other than yourself. That's why hope and faith needs to be combined, and when it is, you’ll see miracles arrive right before your eyes. In fact, that’s why I remain cancer free, in spite of an incurable disease.
* Forgiveness is the key to serenity.
I had no clue, but it's true. Anger and resentment brews into a toxic stew, and no matter how justified your bitterness may seem, it only poisons you. It leads to a bitter old soul that hides behind lies your ego convinces your mind to believe. Life becomes hopeless, it seems. With no hope, life will be an exhausting thing, and the best that you can expect is to simply survive the strife you create while you blame the monsters in your mind that keep biting your behind. That's why we need to forgive and be forgiven. Forgiveness really does lead to peace and it can even release the, "dis-ease," that creates a toxic disease. Forgiveness can set you so free that you'll feel as if you can fly. It creates the faith that makes the blind see. Soon, you'll embrace what and whom you used to hate. You'll courageously face what used to make you afraid, and when you do, you'll find an attitude of gratitude.
Only then is when every hard time suddenly becomes a blessing in disguise. You'll be aware that life is never fair, but you won't care, because you know you hold more than enough hope. With every big mistake you make, you'll know who to blame and when something great comes along, like a miracle, you'll know who to thank. You'll then begin to depend on the source of the force , which is God, of course. You'll see the difference between your ego and your soul, so you'll know how to let go of things you can't control with peace of mind. That's when you'll be free to be who you were meant to be, victim free for life.
* Remember this: What you resist will persist.
Sometimes the ego goes out of control and thinks it owns the power to control God’s universal force. Still, no ego has that right, so have you noticed that when we fight against things, those things seem to snowball into a huge battle to fight. What we resist through the negative force of fear or hate creates the resistance that leads to wars no one wins. That’s why, when we fight battles against drugs and crime all the time, we find even more drugs and crime to fight. I used to think I had to fight battles with cancer too until I began to see that it’s that sense of, "dis-ease," that creates a disease, so forgiveness is the key to peace. With peace of mind, we can at least tolerate what we hate so that we can see the reality that what we hate is always based on what makes us afraid.
I’ve learned that cancer is not a battle to fight, but an opportunity to change my life through a new insight. That’s why I no longer waste time fighting battles in life. Resisting forgiveness and the patience it takes to tolerate what makes us afraid, only leads to more reasons we need to forgive, so don’t resist forgiveness. Sometimes forgiveness means you’ll need to go out on a limb now and then to do something different, but if you face what makes you afraid, you’ll find peace of mind on the other side of bitterness and strife.
* Look for the gift left behind every hard time.
Because I chose to vote for hope on election day of 2008, that fact gave me the faith I’d need in 2009. it was as if God whispered in my ear, "Look for the gift in this, my dear." Now I see very clearly that hope is a choice we make that attracts the faith it takes to believe in a dream, which I believe God honors so much that he can take any mistake we make and turn it into good. If that’s true, and I believe it is, what if that means that everything in life is good? Can you imagine that as a fact? If you can, you’ll make that fact come true, which means you’ll only need to survive the good times to get to the great. That’s what I mean by amazing grace, but it takes a, "Yes we can attitude," to achieve amazing things.
Believing that everything in life is good will rearrange a hard time into a blessing in disguise that benefits our lives. We'll maintain our faith because we'll know that everything we think, say and do will come back to us eventually. It's true, even when you choose to look through a view of doom and gloom. Still, when it comes to life, it's all good when anything and everything that happens to you in life is seen through a faithful view. Besides, I find that God leaves a blessing and a gift behind every hard time.
* Believe and be aware the gift is already there.
God answers prayers, but you have ask and faithfully believe you’ll receive before you’ll ever be aware that God answers prayers. The key will be to look for the gift and believe it's arrived ahead of time. With this insight, we won't have to wait until we die to find peace of mind. We can find the treasures God has in store for us while we live on earth, and for what they are worth, we'll find the serenity it takes to be happy, no matter what Then again, if I'd always practiced what I preach, I'd not be feeling low just because my dreams have yet to be achieved, but just like President Obama, I know that hope is the key and the motivating factor to achieving my dreams.
In fact, if I can remember these tips on coping with life, I’ll become so serene that it will be my dignity and grace within these hard times that just might change my rebublican loved ones minds. More amazing things have happened to me, personally, and besides I’ve made up my mind to never let go of hope. After all, it was the hope of 2008 that maintains my faith today. It was a choice I made so in the scheme of things, I’m more than able to cope with life beyond 2009 and no one can tell me otherwise. In fact, that’s what amazing grace means and what it brings to faithfully complete human beings.