Well, maybe not millions! But do we ever consciously think about how just many choices we do make? We are constantly choosing in the moment whether to trust, love, judge, commit, criticise, help, care, stay silent, enjoy the moment, appreciate, take action, speak, cause harm, abuse power, tell the truth, respond to peer pressure – or not! Or whether to be: involved, responsible, compassionate, strong, honest, a friend, discerning, still, comfortable, courageous, fearful, confident, happy, prejudiced, tactful, masterful, positive – or not!! We choose whether to be in a particular place or not, to be with certain people or not, to create harmony or discord, to have fun or be serious, to proceed with humility or ego, to act with grace, to handle life in a calm or stressful way, whether to love or to block it out, to see life as a sacred gift, be balanced or spaced out, and whether to follow our inner guidance or the dictates of our mind/ego. And that is without the stacks of other choices such as whether to wash up, decorate, sit down, have that extra drink, what to eat, try for a new job, become a parent, mow the lawn, learn a new skill, clean the car – now, later or never!

But perhaps the greatest choice is in the way we see ourselves and our relationship to the world. Do we see ourselves as creators or victims? Are we powerful or powerless?

We keep hearing how we create all the experiences in our life. It is particularly easy to agree with this idea when everything is swimming along nicely for us. But do we hold onto this higher understanding when circumstances become tough or unpleasant? Or do we say to ourselves ‘I wouldn’t be so stupid as to create something so painful’. As we sit in our trauma and pain, do we throw our spiritual understanding out the window? Do we lash out and find someone else to blame? Do we decide we are powerless victims in the game of life with no control over what happens to us?

What does it take to hold onto the idea that we create our life events? When do we change from a thought that maybe we created it, to knowing that is exactly what we did, and then acting accordingly? The answer is probably when we are ready. Maybe something happens, perhaps a combination of events help us catch a glimpse of our true relationship to the world. We suddenly see how perfectly the pieces of the Divine plan fit together to present us with all we need to learn. We gain a new determination and discipline that helps push us beyond our human ego/mind response of wanting to be right, of needing sympathy, or wanting others to suffer for what they’ve done to us.

Let us find the truth.

We choose how we view the events in our lives. We can see life as a mass of random events we are powerless to control. Or we can see ourselves as creators, manifesting whatever we need on our journey to greater enlightenment. One is a position of no responsibility, the other a place of total responsibility. Are we victims or creators? One minute we agree we are doing it all. The next minute, that doesn’t seem possible as we find ourselves sitting in the most horrible chaos and feeling overwhelmed!

Let us see if blaming others works. Think of a situation you feel you weren’t responsible for and have been blaming on someone else. Has it worked? Has it resolved satisfactorily or is your attention still caught up in it? (Remember, if you buried it deep in your mind, it can seem to be resolved!) Be really honest with yourself. Do you feel balanced, comfortable, loving and non-judgmental toward all parties concerned? That would be the ideal spiritual outcome.

Let’s try the ‘I am personally responsible’ view. Take a situation you’ve been saying has nothing to do with you! By the way, you have to let go of any desire to make others wrong – or it won’t work. Now, say to yourself, ‘I did it. I am totally 100% responsible for this creation." Keep saying it until you mean it!! It is no good just pretending, while at the same time being determined to make someone know how much they hurt you.

Can you feel a difference?

What happens here is the energy surrounding this experience starts to free up. Your original failure to accept it as your creation created a lie. Lies cause stuck energy and a perpetuation of solidity and mass. Only truth allows energy to dissipate. When we view something exactly as it is, it forms a perfect duplication of itself and disappears. Events with altered truth remain with us, through many lifetimes if necessary, until we are able to see them as they really are. The fact we store these isn’t some silly mistake in the grand order of things. It helps us on our path to enlightenment.

So many times we’ve heard life is a mirror and we attract what we need to learn. But, do we just believe this or do we know it? When we know something, it’s a far higher level of understanding than believing. Believing things makes it easy to toss them in the bin when it doesn’t suit us. So let us go for knowing. Why not have a go at accepting responsibility for every part of your life. Say, "I created this" and watch life become smoother and more fun.

How spiritual growth works.

We are all working at becoming wiser and more loving. To achieve this, we have to discover any patterns that might stop us. So, we use the mirror to reflect back to us any thoughts and emotions that are not in alignment with our goal.

It’s a good idea to realise there’s a difference between life mirroring our unwanted reactions or when life is showing us that something isn’t right for us. For example, we may not want to learn about computers because they don’t interest us. This is the universe showing us that computer knowledge is not necessary on our particular path. But it is something quite different when we feel slightly uncomfortable about the idea of learning computers. This is a reaction. There is some fear around this idea.

Now we have a choice. Do we handle it or ignore it? Several options are possible.

1. We can observe our reaction and work on releasing it.

2. We can say, ‘So what, it’s only a slight discomfort. No big deal, it doesn’t seem worth worrying about.’

3. We can not bother to notice we have any discomfort, and instead leap off into some reason why we don’t want to have anything to do with computers.

So, what happens if we ignore our feelings and don’t look at what we are being shown? Life’s mirror has to move to the next stage. Now, it seems every friend you visit owns a computer and they’re happily telling you the advantages of having one and wanting to know when you’re finally going to get on email. Your feeling of discomfort increases a little, maybe even a little guilt appears.

The boss of the sales company you work for tells you they are going to computerise the sales orders. Starting tomorrow, all sales staff are to be trained to operate the new computer system. Now your slight feeling of discomfort has changed to something decidedly awful. You feel sick. OK, are you listening yet? The universe is clearly showing you have some reactions you need to let go off. Why is it doing that? Does it want you to know you have a backoff about learning computers? No, that’s not it. It is showing you something much deeper and more profound. You have buried something that needs addressing.

1. This could be something that happened in your life, but you never handled it.

2. It could also be something that happened this lifetime, but you don’t realise it is there.

3. Or it may be something from a previous life that has stayed with you, waiting to be brought to the surface to be released.

Let’s look at a possible type of past life incident that could cause this sort of reaction. This example may seem a bit fanciful, but we encounter many unusual things through our various incarnations. Let’s say, a few lifetimes ago you were working for some regime in a foreign country and there was a coup that resulted in a bloodbath. All the officials were brutally murdered, you included. Aside from the unpleasant death you suffered, you felt particularly guilty as you failed to pass on a warning message given to you earlier that day, as you thought it was invalid. Present in the room at the time of the massacre was a large security machine meant to detect intruders. It obviously didn’t do its job (which can add to your distrust of computers.) This machine had a similar physical appearance to computers. Now when you see a similar looking machine, your mind triggers this past incident to the surface. You begin to feel the emotions, pain and thoughts you had at that time.

We bury these painful events in our subconscious. That part of our mind operates differently than the analytical part. The subconscious equates then with now and does not distinguish differences in detail. In fact, we often have many past traumas being shown to us. This can be the real reason for many pains and emotional upsets.

Moving on to another life.

Normally when we end a lifetime, we look over everything that happened during that life. But with traumatic deaths (ours or others), especially those containing guilt, betrayal or loss of soul mates, we often find them too painful to view, so we bury the whole thing. Then we move on to our next incarnation and leave the painful trauma buried deep in our subconscious. Perhaps now you feel the time has come to handle this. So you set about attracting situations to trigger this event to the surface.

How do you achieve this? You use the mirror! You attract something to help you notice you have emotions you wish to release. That’s all. You don’t have to re-live the incident that caused it. You don’t even need to know the details. You certainly don’t need to feel the amount of pain that was present when it originally happened. You only need to notice you feel slightly uncomfortable around computers. Then you handle it by visualising white light flooding through you as you hold that feeling. White light is a positive energy vibration that changes dense energy to light. When we handle these things in their early stages, it is easy. The only difficulty comes if we go on ignoring it. Then we’ve got to make it stronger because we aren’t paying attention. From a spiritual level, you are sending out signals to people around you (friends and strangers), asking them to help provide you with the sort of experiences that will trigger these specific thoughts and emotions. In the example given, it is no accident you work for a firm that suddenly changes to computer ordering. If you didn’t have anything to gain from that experience, you would be working elsewhere.

There is always a reason, but we don’t always need to know it.

Every part of our life has a reason. If it didn’t have a point, it wouldn’t be happening. The why is sometimes obscure. Whatever the reason we are either; helping someone; others are helping us; we’re learning; teaching; balancing karma, etc. So, next time someone is mean to you, remember they’re responding to your creation.

Everyone is helping everyone else.

Yes, it would be great if we could see the whole picture. Maybe it would be easier if we could grasp the perfection of this life experience we all share. But, maybe we achieve more by not seeing the higher reason for life’s happenings. Maybe true wisdom comes from trusting ourselves and the Divine process. Maybe real courage is accepting ourselves as creators and not victims.

If we take time to examine life from the view that we are all co-creating what is needed for our growth on a personal, national, international and planetary level, and that we all help each other in that quest, suddenly the whole thing makes sense.

© Sandy Stevenson