“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.” ~Unknown

Forgiveness is something I have to work on every day. It’s very hard to forgive. It’s almost as if I think that if I truly forgive, I am somehow saying whatever injustice I have been dealt was okay.

But forgiveness is not the same as acceptance. And forgiveness has a lot less to do with the person you are forgiving than it does to you. As a matter of fact, forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves. When we forgive, we free ourselves from our own emotional prisons. It allows us to move on in our lives and no longer be victims. Forgiveness gives us back our power.

The anger and hatred that we carry around really doesn’t hurt the person we are angry at or feel hatred towards. Even if they felt regret or sorrow for whatever happened, they are going on with their lives independent of you. It’s you who is suffering from your inner turmoil. And, in the end, we are doing the one thing that we probably least want to do…we are giving our abuser power over us. They are controlling our moods, our attitudes, our actions, our blood pressure…they may even be controlling our habits and our ability to create and foster healthy, happy relationships with others! How can we allow that?

I want so much to be in control of myself. I want to know who I am and not have my opinions or attitudes controlled by someone else. I am trying hard to forgive. I’m trying hard to forgive others, and I am trying hard to forgive myself as well.

I’ve had some rather horrific things happen to me in my life. It was easiest for me to suppress my feelings and to push back my anger and my hatred. But avoidance is not the same as forgiveness. I became aware of how much I had been affected by my non-forgiveness when I began having difficulties in my marriage. The fact that I had internalized the things that had happened to me caused overwhelmingly large trust issues that I didn’t know how to overcome.

I began hypnotherapy to help me understand hurt and trauma from my childhood. (I want to note that any pain and suffering I endured as a child was not caused by my parents, who are loving and supportive.) We did an exercise where my present self saw and could talk to my former self…the part of me that was still inside and still holding on to anger and pain. It was really a remarkable exercise, because it was at that moment that I understood how much I had suppressed and the affect it had had on my life.

Seeing situations from the outside and in a state of hypnosis allowed me to find compassion for my abusers. Although never asked to relive any painful experiences, I was able to look at them as an impartial observer. It allowed me to step away from the emotion and just see things for what they are or were. I was able to understand that, some times, people are just so damaged themselves that they are acting in the only way they think they can; that a person might be so ill that they really believe that their intentions are just and right. And it allowed me to learn forgiveness.

Learn to forgive. First, forgive yourself for the things you dislike and look deep for the real reasons. Once you can understand the reasons for your own actions and negative attitudes, you can work to understand and have compassion for others. Give yourself this gift. Forgiveness frees you from the past, no matter how much hurt was there. It allows you to move on and find peace.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

Blessings.

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“If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled.” ~Lao Tzu

There are four aspects of a fulfilling relationship - intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual. It is said that, in order to have a truly fulfilling relationship, your partner needs to be able to meet your needs in these four areas. That’s always made a lot of sense to me. I think we have all been in relationships before where our partners did a great job in one, two, or even three of these areas, but we still didn’t really feel satisfied.

I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships lately; not only relationships with other people, but my own relationship with myself. It’s my belief that you can’t love anyone else more than you love yourself. Therefore, it would be fair to say that you also cannot accept another person if you aren’t accepting of yourself.

The other day, while shopping in one of my favorite local department stores, a realization just came up and popped me in the head. Human beings are a lot like department stores. Our potential relationships - both friendships and romantic relationships - are our shoppers.

One of the things I like about my local Target store is that I can get most of the things that I need there. Better yet, I can’t get EVERYTHING I need there. There are a lot of options available, but not so many that the store is crowded and messy, leaving me searching and never finding what I want. Personally, I want to be this kind of a store. I want to have a nice offering available in my intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual “departments”. I don’t want to have so much going on in any one of those departments that people can’t even make it through to find out that I have more to offer.

I think that it’s particularly important that we work first to develop a healthy balance in ourselves. We need to find fulfillment without having to look towards others. I believe that God gave us the tools we need to be proficient in all the areas of our lives. Yet so many of us find one aspect of our personality is just more comfortable and put that one area out there for all to see, often while ignoring the other areas completely. That’s like being a department store that only advertises, stocks and updates one department.

It’s normal to be initially attracted to another person based on one thing. Maybe you find them attractive, funny, or intelligent. But whatever it is that attracted you to that person, they need to have more to offer than just that one area if you want to have a fulfilling relationship with them.

I have a close friend who has just recently ended a long term relationship. She was young when she started this relationship. Over the course of years, she was never really encouraged to develop any areas of herself. Because of this, she sees herself as a purely physical being. She is good at giving emotional support to others, but allows people to walk all over her and treat her badly. Although intellectually she knows that she deserves to be treated well and that she is a person of value, she’s having a hard time knowing how to cultivate those traits. Because she lacks a sense of personal value, she has become reliant on other people’s views of her to make her feel fulfilled and worthwhile.

She has made bad choices in people to be around. She is comfortable attracting people with the physical. But since she has lacked the self-confidence she needs to show other aspects of herself, she has manifested people into her life that are only able to relate to her on a physical level. She is like the department store that has only worked on one department, letting the others fall into waste.

The thing is that she actually has great potential in all of her personality “departments”. She is now beginning to see that those things have as much value to the outside world as they do to her. As she continues to grow within herself, taking the time to develop those other areas purely for her own benefit and fulfillment, she is starting to attract people who she can more likely have a fulfilling relationship with.

Bottom line? It’s all well and good to aspire to be this or that. But keep your motivation personal. Don’t make changes for the benefit and fulfillment of others. Make changes for yourself. Once you can find fulfillment within YOU, you’ll be in a better position to know what you want from a relationship and also to contribute to a fulfilling relationship. You don’t have to be all things to all people. Find a good balance for yourself and you’ll attract the right people to you.

Peace.

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“Want is a growing giant whom the coat of have was never large enough to cover…” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recently, I have been thinking and talking a lot about gratitude.

It seems that so many of us want more than what we have. It’s not that we aren’t happy with what we already have in our lives, we just want more. We want a better relationship, we want more money, we want a bigger house, we want, we want, we want.

But what about being thankful for what we already have?

A few months ago, I received a Gratitude Journal as a gift from The Secret. The journal is encased in a beautiful heavy leather, tri-fold binder. I really liked it because it had a private, secret feel to it. Like what I wrote would be just between me and God. The journal itself is divided into two sections; ‘Gratitude Now’ and “Gratitude Intentions’. Each page of the journal has quotes that relate to gratitude.

Receiving the Gratitude Journal seemed like God offering me the “next step” on my journey. But I found it really hard to get started. It wasn’t that I wasn’t thankful…it was just finding a way to state the gratitude. And the idea of being thankful in advance for things that I wanted but didn’t have was almost not conceivable to me. So the journal sat on my shelf.

About a month ago, the journal called to me. So I took it off the shelf and opened it up, staring at the blank pages. It was hard, so I just started with the obvious. ‘Thank you, God, for giving me loving and interesting children. Thank you for the beautiful children that I work with and the joy they give me each day.’ Then, I thanked God for putting people in my life that made me want to be a better person. And that was it. I couldn’t make it past that.

I read and meditated on what I had written every day. I said the words of gratitude in the quietness of my mind and aloud. I remembered that, if God were indeed everything, then I was also a part of God, however miniscule. I reminded myself that my thoughts could become things.

And just about a week later, things started to happen. My life began to change. I began to find people in my life who were suddenly making me really look closely at myself; to question the strength of my own beliefs; to evaluate my purpose/ to find my true relationship with God, the Universal Mind.

I found that the gratitude started flowing so much more easily. When I was sad or frustrated, I found things to be thankful for instead. It wasn’t easy, but I saw it manifesting huge changes in my life. Just a little gratitude for what I already had.

I have this friend who is fabulous in many ways. He’s young, he has a great job, he’s handsome, and he owns his own home. He has what I believe to be a good relationship with God and seems to try to be very faithful. Looking in from the outside, he seems to have a pretty perfect life. But what he doesn’t have that he really wants more than anything is a wife and a family. In the relatively short time I’ve known him, it’s been an ongoing conversation. He is so concerned with what he doesn’t have, what he wants, and the reasons that he doesn’t have it, that he overlooks how wonderful his life already is, even without that.

Last week, I told him a story from a parent’s point of view. As a mom, I give my children everything that they need and a lot of things that they want. They don’t usually have to ask me for things…I sort of just supply them. On occasion, though, they want something else. When they are so focused on that one thing that they forget what a great life they actually already have, I don’t give them what they want. After all, they don’t even recognize how blessed they already are! On the other hand, if I know that there is something that they want, but they not just focused on getting it, but instead are enjoying all they have in their lives, then I give it to them, if I can. I think that God, as a parent, must be much the same way. He just wants us to appreciate all that he’s already given us without always wanting something else.

I, for one, am extremely blessed. I have great friends who are always there for me; an awesome family; my children are bright, intelligent and interesting. I have a home, I have a car, and I have food on my table. I have talents. I am blessed. Yet still, I too find myself wanting more. But what could I possibly need that God hasn’t already given me?

Want is indeed a growing giant. When we get what we want, we just want more. So many times, we forget to stop and just be thankful for what we already have. Gratitude is such an amazingly powerful gift. Use your gratitude as often as you can and you’ll soon find that you are given more than you could even ask for.

Peace.

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About a year ago, I realized that I had lost myself somewhere along the course of my life. This was a very disturbing realization, as I had always looked at myself as a rather “together” sort of person. But I woke up one morning and realized that my trouble marriage wasn’t really getting any better in spite of therapy, I was in more than one codependent relationship, I had no spiritual focus, friends who I thought were my best friends really weren’t my friends at all, and I didn’t even know what I wanted from life any more. Not a good place.

This realization made me see that I had been focusing on fixing the wrong things. I was trying to fix my relationship with my husband; I was trying to fix the problems in my friendships; I was trying to fix my life. But I wasn’t trying to fix myself. It was time for me to take the focus off the things that had gone bad in my life and start working on the things that had gone bad in me.

“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” Luke 6:42

Having been raised in a very strong Christian family, I had always felt strongly about spirituality. I have never been a strong supporter of religion, though, even as a child. I found myself questioning throughout my life. I attended different denominations, finding comfort in what my family called a “non-church” Unitarian Church. I’ve always wanted to talk about God, but not have someone else tell me how to believe. With no Unitarian Church around me and nowhere else I felt comfortable and welcomed in the truest sense, I sort of let my own spiritual upkeep go.

Flash forward to a confused and lost goddess who no longer remembers that she is a part of God. She wants to find her way again.

My search began at the local bookstore. At one point in my life, I had found meditation to be a really powerful force for me. So I started in the music section looking for guided meditations that I thought might be good for me. I found “The Secret Universal Mind Meditation”.  This has been a life-changing meditation for me. I referred to the meditation as “positive brain washing”. Yes, brain washing can be a bad thing, but it doesn’t have to be. I wash my body every day. Why not take a little time to wash all the crud out of my mind too?

I watched “The Secret”. And then, as the continual student that I am, I started reading books and listening to CDs, hearing lectures, and going to discussions. I started reading the bible and devotionals. I started seeking out friends who were willing to spend time discussing their ideas and ideals with me without passing judgment. I even ended a few friendships that had taken a bad course and were counter productive to my personal growth. That was the hardest thing for me to do.

The thing is that I began to really see the power of manifestation, of the Law of Attraction, of prayer. I had some very negative friendships that were making me feel bad on any number of levels. There was a friend who was so verbally abusive to her children that I felt nauseous after seeing her. There was a friend who was so verbally abusive to me when upset that I began doubting my own value and self-worth. I realized that as long as I allowed myself to be used, disrespected, or just continued to hang around people that didn’t have the same values as I did, I would not be able to put my life and my own mind in order. Back to the “first take the log out of your own eye” thing…how could I help anyone become a better person, find fulfillment in their life, or discover their own self-worth if it was all a struggle for me?

This is where this series begins. With an eternal being, a part of God, a person created from energy and pure thought…who had forgotten who she was and who thought she was only a limited human. Me. This series is my journey — however crooked, curved, bumpy or beautiful and divine the path might be. Take this journey with me. You don’t have to agree with what I say or think. Just remember, you are also an eternal being, a part of God, a person created from energy and pure thought. And remember to work on yourself before you try to work on others. That includes me.

Peace.

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Hello! My name is Mari Peckham aka The Goddess Mari in the world of belly dance. I’m a professional belly dance performer and instructor in the Chicago area. I also have been a creative movement teacher for young children since 2001. I feel fortunate that I love my work, so “job” isn’t really a bad word for me.

I have an extremely diverse work background. I went to college for nursing with a minor in psychology. I also studied accounting very briefly before finding myself in cosmetology school. I went on to become a national trainer for a salon product company, and left to take a position as a Sales Training Coordination executive for an International high-end cosmetic company. I even worked as an assistant for a magician!

With all that said, it might be a bit obvious that I believe in following your heart and your dreams.

I am also a mom of two sons, currently 15 and 8. They are both unique, loving, bright, and respectful children. They march to the beat of their own drummers, which I find a bit frustrating at times, but is also one of the things I love most about them.

I’ve always been a writer and, in fact, have written copy for websites all over the Internet. After leaving my executive position 8 years ago, I began to do contracted business writing for people online. As my sons became older and their schedules grew more hectic, I found that I didn’t enjoy business writing enough to try to continue, so took a couple years off from it. When I came back this year, I discovered that I still wanted to write, but that I wanted to do it in a lot more personal manner.

I wrote some personal growth and spirituality articles that I published elsewhere online. But finding that I had stuff that I wanted to say and share, I was encouraged by a friend to start blogging it. So…here it is! My first few articles that were posted elsewhere are here on the site as well. I am putting them here as a feed because I had some wonderful comments on them that I don’t want to lose. Might sound a little selfish, but quite frankly, I am writing from the heart and it makes me feel a bit naked and vulnerable. The feedback means a lot to me. Keep that in mind, please, because I would LOVE to hear your feedback, as well. Remember, there is no need to “agree” with me on everything that I say. You are welcome and encouraged to state your mind, but I would appreciate your lack of judgment on me as a person.

You’ll also find some articles on other stuff here, as well. I believe in holistic healing, so you might find some nice remedies for you to try at home. I enjoy cooking, so maybe some recipes here and there. I work with children, so I might have some advice or ideas to share. And, of course, there’s my passion…belly dance. Not sure exactly how the blog will go down, but I do hope that you enjoy it and come back often!

Take care and have a blessed day!
Mari

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