Ah. The upcoming months/years are sure to throw the kitchen sink at us, as does life in general. Apart from a fierce adherence to openness, love, and compassion, here are a few other things to consider:
Taken from Neil Haddon's It's Up to You, Now
"Facing these challenges requires considerable courage, and naturally evokes the spectre which stalks most being humans on this planet: fear. We should recall Chapter Five and our exploration of the nature of fear. Another drain on our courage is lack of self-esteem - a serious psychological problem especially in the developed world. Under-estimation of ourselves has become a sort of genetic disease. In his inaugural speech, Nelson Mandela quoted Marianne Williamson’s book, ‘A Return to Love’:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?"
Michael Masser and Linda Creed wrote, and Whitney Houston sang, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all” and this is something which most of us too easily overlook in our haste to be of service to others. We all have dark secrets, private failings which we hide from even our nearest and dearest; we even try to hide them from ourselves sometimes. Yet what are we afraid of? Old fashioned, old testament religious upbringing, that’s what. The idea of ‘sin’, and punishment for ‘sin’. Well, folks, there ain’t no sin, and there certainly ain’t gonna be no punishment for ‘sin’. No hell fire, no damnation; not even any purgatory.
There really is no right or wrong: there is only experience. You cannot make mistakes, for every experience supports your knowledge and growth. ‘Better to have tried and failed, than to have failed to try,’ goes the old adage, and how true it is. So stop being ashamed of yourself; bring those dark secrets to mind, face them, think about them for a moment. Find the love in that episode, what did you learn? See how it enriched you. Be grateful for the experience. Then let it go. Hiding from these self-judgments, scourging yourself day after day, month after month, year after year, merely brings them with you, keeping them alive."
Good stuff here. And supports Seth's contention that you form your world through your beliefs. I think that the best way to prepare yourself for the upcoming challenges is the best way to conduct your life in general. Mindfulness. I know I can relate to the fears Marianne Williamson writes of. Have we been brought up to prize humility above all else? To squash our apparent pride and self love before we become obnoxiously stuck up? How many of us were taken down a peg as children and then learned to undermine ourselves, continuing the "lesson"? Be aware of the quiet talk--what you tell yourself within is very potent.
Balance. There needs to be a balance. Self love and love of all else teeters here. You cannot properly attend to others if you do not love yourself. Since we are all of the same stuff --a part of All That Is--self denigration is importantly injurious.
You need a healthy happy strong you on your team. Can you imagine our collective strength as a result?
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