Homework: Stage Six | LastingPeace.org

Ah, Stage Six! Live And Let Live. Peace Has Arrived!

Oh, the joys of Stage Six. This is a peaceful and stable stage on the path to complete bliss. The days of anger and offense are largely over. As always, make sure you are checking in with your mentor with your questions and thoughts. They have been through all of this themselves and love to help!

Here is your homework…

Review your ideology / principles. What inconsistencies do you need to correct? Form a consistent set of principles to use as your ideology
Take responsibility (and authority!) for your life
Forgive yourself as human
Connect to your body – set specific, measurable and attainable goals with near term milestones
Connect to your heart – break the trance of unworthiness
See others as a reflection of some aspect of yourself
Forgive and accept others as human

Wow! That’s a lot! There is a lot of work here but it is well worth it. You are so close to a permanent peace… keep it up!

Here is exactly how to do that…

Connecting To Yourself – Taking Responsibility For Your Life

One of the most critical things you can do is to take responsibility for your life. The following exercise is challenging, but well worth it. Find a mirror. Look into it. Look in the mirror and see the person causing 99% of all your problems. It was YOU who chose to get into those bad relationships. It was YOU who spent money you did not have. It was YOU who chose to take that job or leave that job… you get the idea.

Sometimes, very rarely, our problems are caused by someone else. But even in these very rare circumstances, you are the one ultimately responsible for solving it. If you want to see change in your life, you will have to be the one to make it happen. Stop blaming your challenges on anyone else – they were not likely the cause and they are certainly not the solution. This starts with recognizing your own role and your own authority.

You are the decision maker in your life. Ultimately, your choices determine your fate. You might feel forced into a choice. But the reality is, even with a gun to your head, you have a choice. Are you blaming others for your choices? Are you blaming others for your circumstances? That is one way to ensure your situation will never change.

It is time to take full responsibility and authority over your life. Your failures are yours. Your successes are yours. Your bad decisions, good decisions, internal self talk, plans and task lists are yours. Your time and attention are yours. What will you do with that kind of authority? What will you change and what will you keep the same?

Consider each area of your life: health, finance, relationships, professional life, etc. Examine your situation. Decide how you want it to be. Ignore societal rules. Ignore what everyone else thinks. Ignore the media. What do YOU want? Once you stop blaming others for what is wrong with your life, you can take that authority for yourself and make your life whatever you want it to be. For now, it is enough to simply stop blaming others, see your own role in your problems, and see your own authority to change it. You can make a plan and make it happen. Start making changes TODAY.

Connecting To Your Body – Setting Goals And Making Progress

In previous stages you chose a form of movement that you enjoy and that you can do every day or just most days. Movement connects you to your body and the wonderful things it is capable of. Now it is time to connect more deeply with your body by setting some goals and making progress towards them.

This does not have to be high pressure. In fact, goals that require too much too fast are a recipe for disappointment and setbacks. Try the following…. consider your nutrition, your exercise or movement, and your overall physical wellbeing. Make one goal for each of these.

It does not matter what the goal is, or what change in your eating habits you decide to try or what type of exercise you like best. Taking consistent action towards these goals will give you physical peace.

Goals should be specific, measurable, and attainable with near term milestones. Break your goals down to something you can target each week and day. Here are some examples…

Nutrition

Drink less caffeine. Current – four cups of coffee per day. Goal – two cups of coffee per day. Plan – drop down to three cups immediately, and then two cups next week.
Eat more vegetables. Current – none. Goal – three servings per day. Plan – buy baby carrots and put them in my lunch immediately, add a salad to dinner by next week, and look up recipes for vegetable soups and breakfast ideas to try by the end of the month.

Exercise / Movement

Run faster. Current – one mile in 15 minutes. Goal – one mile in 8 minutes. Plan – beat my old time by at least a few seconds each time I run.
Walk more. Current – one mile per day. Goal – five miles per day. Plan – add a quarter mile per day until I reach five.

Overall Physical Wellbeing

Get more sleep. Current – 6 hours per night average. Goal – 8 hours per night average. Plan – start bedtime routines and get to sleep 30 minutes earlier this week, then 30 minutes earlier again next week…. until 8 hours per night is the average.

These are just examples. They demonstrate how goals can start out general, but have a specific, measurable end and an incremental plan for meeting it. Deep down, you know what changes you need to make, so trust your gut. If you decide to have a larger, long term goal, that is OK. Make sure it has weekly success metrics to keep you motivated all the same. Daily is even better. What can you do today?

Most importantly, and this goes for ANY goal, your definition of success must not require someone else to do something. Your definition of success must be something that YOU can control.

You will find that making progress towards your own personally defined goals is addictive in the most wonderful way. When you feel like adding another goal, do It! As long as your goals are specific, measurable and attainable, with weekly and daily checks for progress, you are sure to achieve it.

If you are new to setting your own goals for your body, start small. Exercising your authority over your body and your life strengthens your ability to do even more later, if you want to. It is the key to optimizing your life. If you need accountability, tell a friend about your goals and have them ask you regularly about your progress, or find a friend who has the same goals. Another creative solution for motivation is to bet money on yourself that, if you fail, will be sent to some cause that makes you cringe. Motivation is very individual. Experiment to find out what works best for you.

Lastly, celebrate your successes, no matter how small you might think they are. Celebrate meeting your daily goals with positive self talk. Celebrate meeting your weekly goals with a treat of some kind. And celebrate your big long term goals with an equally big reward.

Ready? Set? Go!

Connecting To Yourself – Forgiving And Accepting Yourself As Human

As you take responsibility for your life and authority for your future, you may find that you blame yourself too much. Taking responsibility for your circumstances is important. But continually beating yourself up over past regrets is entirely counterproductive. It is time to forgive yourself and accept yourself as human.

Think back to the experiences that you regret. Feel the regret. You may feel shame or disappointment as well. Let it come. Lean into these feelings. This too is human. This regret is leftover from a hard lesson. Hard lessons change you. Can you see yourself as a separate person from the one you are today? An earlier version of yourself? You are not the same. And you will not make that mistake again.

Can you see your humanity and why, at that time in that situation, you chose to take those actions? Can you imagine sitting with yourself, feeling compassion for that version of yourself and telling yourself that you understand and feel their pain? Can you let that version of yourself go? You are not that person anymore and have learned from your experiences.

You are human just like everyone – we all make mistakes and have regrets. It is easy to see others as perfect people who have not made any mistakes. But that is not true. Everyone has regrets from hard lessons learned. They just hide it. If you learned from it and made changes, then there is no need to feel badly. Move on in your new incarnation. Be thankful to your river or the divine for these lessons and move on.

To forgive your mistakes is not to condone your mistakes. To forgive is simply to see how the old you in your old reality would make such a mistake. Perhaps you were naive. Perhaps you were hungry for attention, or scared of the world, or vulnerable because of trauma or your life stage. Perhaps you were afraid of something, or seeking validation. You were certainly human. Call it out for the mistake it was. Recognize why you did it. Feel the regret, make changes to ensure better decisions and close that chapter.

Your suffering in repeated regret, visiting the past over and over, wishing it was different… is a waste of your time and energy. You cannot change the past. But you can design your future.

Lastly, accept yourself as human. You were human in the past and you made mistakes. You are human now. And you will be human in the future. You are, and will always be, capable of making mistakes. Understanding and accepting your humanity will actually make you a better decision maker. Knowing you are vulnerable to mistakes, you will make decisions carefully, with as much information as you can get. You will learn to trust your gut. And you will learn to analyze your motivations.

You are not perfect. You are perfectly human. You can learn to make better choices, learn to let go of the past, and design your future. Over time your decisions will get better and your mistakes fewer and farther between. And you will remain perfectly human. Can you leave the past behind and be present for the human you are today?

Connecting To Your Heart – Breaking The Trance Of Unworthiness

We all begin with a sense of unworthiness, somewhere around Stage Two. When you are an infant, your parents love you no matter how much you cry, or make a mess. But, as Tony Robbins points out, that stops around two years old. You can no longer cry all you want, make all the messes you want, and generally be annoying. From this point on, you parents’ love and positive attention has conditions on your behavior and your choices. This separation is painful. It seeds us with the idea that maybe we are not worthy of the truly unconditional love that we crave. This is called the trance of unworthiness. But it is a trance that you must break. That does not mean being egotistical or thinking you are higher than everyone else. It means seeing that we are all worthy, yourself included. Not only are we worthy, we all already carry the divine light of love and the divine itself inside of us. This divine light of love and compassion is an infinite source of the unconditional love you crave. And it is a part of you. It always has been. And it always will be.

So why do we not always feel it? We cover it up. We ignore it. We keep ourselves so busy trying to be what our parents want, what our friends want, or what society wants, all to get that love and attention we crave.

Think about it…

What do you think others want you to be?
What do others actually want you to be?
What do you pretend to be?
What are you really like?
Can you look honestly at your strengths and weaknesses?
Can you see that everyone has strengths and weaknesses?

Affirm this to yourself: You are not who they want you to be, you are not who you were in the past, you are not who you may pretend to be… you just are; a human in this existence, on this path, just like everyone else. And that is OK.

If the idea that you are worthy of love is hard to see, you may need to practice feeling love and compassion for yourself each day. You can include this as part of your meditation or prayer, or as a separate exercise. With practice, it will happen more automatically. But do not ever doubt that you are worthy of love just as you are, and you have the power to fill that need for yourself.

Try to feel the divine light physically inside your heart. See that you are worthy of your own love and of the infinite love inside you. You don’t have to be anything more or different than what you already are.

Imagine someone who you think is so very worthy of love. They may walk around feeling so unworthy of that love. That probably seems absurd to you. They are so wonderful. Sure, they have their flaws and imperfections. But they are so worthy of your love! If only they could see themselves the way you see them. Imagine that person is you. It is no different. Step back from your human self for a moment and see that you are so wonderful! Sure, you have your flaws and imperfections, but you are so worthy of the love inside you!

Become the parent figure for yourself that loves you unconditionally. As you take care of yourself and others, love yourself as you love others. Feel that love coming from the divine light inside your heart. Divine love for others…. divine love for you as part of humanity… all together as one humanity worthy of love… and there you are as a part of it all, worthy of that divine love just like everyone else.

Connecting To Others – Seeing Yourself In Others

Connecting to others can be challenging. Others are not always kind. When you think of others, whether they are kind or not, it helps to see them as an aspect of yourself. This is not about projecting yourself into them or faking a new persona for them. This is about seeing their reality and how they reflect some part of you from the past or present or even the future.

Try the following….

Consider family, friends, coworkers, and even strangers that you meet in passing. Start with people you like, work your way out to acquaintances, public figures and even people that you do not like at all, including lastly anyone who ever wronged you.

What are the defining characteristics of their personalities?
What aspect of you is that a reflection of?
See everyone as a reflection of some aspect of your current, past or future self.

For example, maybe they are nerdy and you are nerdy too. Maybe they are bad with money and you were once bad with money in the past. Maybe they are selfish and you remember a time when you were selfish too. Maybe they are placed into your reality to remind you of your past flaws and keep you from repeating them. Maybe they are here to hold a mirror up to you to see the best aspects of yourself.

Can you see them as a caricature of some part of your self; past, present or future? Can you imagine that they are here in your reality to show you some aspect of yourself? Can you imagine that you might be a reflection of some part of who they are or might be?

This is a powerful exercise that may leave you feeling surprised at how you now see others. As you go about your day, try to see this in everyone you meet… ask yourself, what aspect are they showing me? Something from my past? Present? Future? Be grateful to the divine for this gift that shows you about yourself everywhere you go.

You will find that, as you look into the eyes of others, seeking what is the same between you, you will naturally form deeper connections, forgive more easily, and have more compassion for yourself and others.

While you are holding them in your mind, seeking this sameness, connect to the divine light inside them. Even if they deny their light to the world through cruel actions, the light is there all the same. Maybe evident, maybe buried deep, maybe it busts out of them daily and maybe they push it down. But it’s there…

As you seek how they reflect you, consciously choose to connect to the divine light inside each person you meet. You will be amazed at the results.

Connecting To Others – Forgiving And Accepting Others As Human

Holding on to a grudge only hurts YOU. Forgiving and accepting others as human – even the people you don’t like – is they key to moving on from your past and avoiding new grudges in the future. This does not mean that you condone their actions. This means that you do not choose to make their choices your business. You choose to see them as human and therefore they make mistakes just like you. It also means recognizing that, although they may reflect certain aspects of you, the actions of others have nothing else to do with you. They do not imply anything about you. A person’s actions only implicate themselves. Let them go.

Try this… imagine someone who has wronged you. Do you want to give up your time and attention to this person? Or would you be better served by letting the past go? Yes, it was wrong what they did. Yes, it hurt you. Depending on the severity of the wrong, maybe they deserve to be punished. Never fear. Karma will have its way, and you do not have to help it. Allow yourself the grace of letting go.

Can you see how, given their past, their stage at the time, their circumstances, and their flaws, they might act that way? You are probably smarter now and would not let it happen again. Be thankful for this hard lesson. Recognize that this lesson changed you and helped you grow. Now let it go. Do not choose to waste your time on this anymore. You have so much more important work to do.

But what if there is a group of people who wishes you harm? Or an individual who threatens you? You should not be naive. People in Stage Three and Stage Five who may also have specific psychological issues, can be very dangerous. Take steps to protect yourself. But once you have adequate protection in place, let them go from your daily life. This too is human. There will always be those who wish others harm just as there are those who wish others peace and joy. No, there is nothing you can do to change their intent. Protect yourself and live your life in peace and joy. Focus on your purpose and tasks at hand.

Forgiving and accepting other individuals as human, or as a natural part of humanity, and letting their actions be their own business, is an important first step that frees your time and attention for better things. The next challenge is to forgive and accept the existence of aspects of society that you previously rejected (groups of people, norms/standards, societal rules, etc).

That does not necessarily mean agreeing with them. It means accepting that they exist and letting it go. It means recognizing that the existence of people, norms, and rules that you may choose to disagree with has no bearing on you – their existence does not imply anything about you. Their existence, and your subsequent disagreement with them does not mean you are wrong or they are right. The fact that groups of people, norms and societal rules exist that you choose to differ from is part of a natural balance in life. Like the concept of Yin and Yang, it takes all kinds to make a complete humanity. You can disagree, and choose to run your life differently, without demonizing others, or their rules and norms. They do not have to be wrong, for you to be right. Just let them be different.

If you find yourself feeling offended or lashing out at other people, groups of people, norms or societal rules, remind yourself that all anger is rooted in fear. Ask yourself… what are you afraid of? Be brutally honest. Shining a light on your fear will help it leave.

Who do you need to forgive or accept as part of humanity?