MOTIVATING THE DEMOTIVATED

NOT A RELIGIOUS TREATISE

IF LIFE is a GAME, THESE are the RULES
 

The following entry is not inspired by any religious teaching. It is just a simple presentation by Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott in a book with the above title first published for export in 1999 by Broadway Books, New York. I bought it from Times bookshop in Kuala Lumpur and happened to come across it as I roamed around the Toeti Juairiah Library looking for books on motivation which I can present to my readers who are currently bogged down with all sorts of issues which are demotivating.

This blog submission, however, is not a substitute, far from it, for reading the book itself.

 

I take this initiative to present selected extracts of the book in response to what the author had to say before her piece of acknowledgement to those who assisted and inspired her. The author wrote:

 

If you come across the Rules for Being Human sometime during the last twenty-five years (since 1974) and photocopied them and passed them on to others; if you used the Rules for a retreat, class curriculum, brochure or Web site;  if you framed the Rules and put them on your wall, or tucked them in your drawer, or put them on the refrigerator door; if you read the Rules and smiled with recognition, then I dedicate this book to you and all seekers who have treasured the Rules for Being Human for these last twenty-five years. This book is to support you and those you love in your journey through Life. Use it as a primer for higher consciousness.

Blessings to you on your path.

It is therefore in the spirit of the author's wishes that I quote extensively from her book.

 

The following praises were made on this book by prominent authors on motivation:

 

"How wonderful it would be if we were all given Cherie Carter-Scott's ten rules the day we were born. Cherie has been teaching these rules for over twenty years. In her seminars, these rules have resonated with thousands of people. IF LIFE IS A GAME, THESE ARE THE RULES are universal truths that all of us can learn to live happier lives that are full of self-acceptance, understanding, love, success, and the inner knowing that we're all in this game together, on the same team. The door to a satisfying life lies within each of us, and Cherie's eternal inspiring message provides the key." - Jack Canfield, coauthor of CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL.
 

"The Ten Rules for Being Human are entertaining and fun - but more than that, they're TRUE." - Marianne Williamson, author of THE HEALING OF AMERICA and  A RETURN TO LOVE.

 

"IF LIFE IS A GAME, THESE ARE THE RULES will free you to wake up to your no-limit life." - Mark Victor Hansen, coauthor of CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL.

HERE ARE THE RULES:



The Ten Rules For Being Human -

1. You will receive a body.

2. You will be presented with lessons.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.

4. Lessons are repeated until learned.

5. Learning does not end.

6. "There" is no better than "here".

7. Others are only mirrors of you.

8. What you make of your life is up to you.

9. All the answers lie inside you.

10. You will forget all of this at birth.

IF LIFE IS A GAME, WHAT ARE THE RULES

Dr. Cherie wrote:

We all know the feeling: In the game of life, why am I the only one who doesn't know how to play? But now, help is at hand, because this wonderful little book will teach you the rules so that you can conquer life's challenges and manage its unpredictable ups and downs.

 

(Bagi bangsakan yang menghadapi ancaman akan kehilangan kuasa politik dan kegagalan menemui sasaran dalam bidang ekonomi, dilanda pula dengan kekeciwaan dengan berbagai tindakan, yang sukar difahami, dan serangan bertubi-tubi dari segala sudut, samaada dari kalangan bangsa sendiri atau dari pihak lain dari dalam dan luar negeri, maka persembahan Dr. Cherie mungkin boleh sedikit membantu dalam melayari bahtera hidup dilautan yang bergelombang besar dan ganas masakini)

 

For one of her workshops several years ago, Cherie Carter-Scott, a corporate trainer and consultant, composed a list of basic truths about life, which she named 'The Ten Rules for Being Human." Rights away, the Rules resonated with her clients, who photocopied and passed the list to friends and relatives. Within months, Cheri's Rules were in thousands of homes all over the country, and eventually, they were published in CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL, and have also appeared in Ann Lander's column. Although there's no formula to help you win the game of life, Cheri's Rules convey a universal wisdom that, once understood and embraced, can contribute to meaningful relationships with ourselves and others, at work and in the home.

 

In IF LIFE IS A GAME, THESE ARE THE RULES, Cherie shares that there are no mistakes in life, only lessons that are repeated. In thoughtful inspirational essays illustrated with encouraging personal anecdotes, she includes the lessons that can be learned from each of the rules and offers insight on self-esteem, respect, acceptance, forgiveness, ethics, compassion, humility, gratitude and courage. Best of all, Cherie shows that wisdom lies inside each one of us and that by putting the Ten Rules for Being Human into action we can create a more fulfilling life.

 

(Dalam era di mana banyak betul belanja yang telah dikeluarkan untuk konsultan mungkin kita boleh menjadikan Cherie sebagai konsultan kita dengan satu perbezaan besar - ianya PERCUMA)

 

I am not going to copy down the contents of the whole book here as you can buy the book from Special Markets Department, Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036 or via other internet channels.
 

MOTIVATING THE DEMOTIVATED

 

My intention here is just to bring your interest to what Dr. Cherie have said that will trigger change in my readers who will then develop the message with other additional personalized colorations with the sole intention of motivating the demotivated.

 

Each of the 10 Rules extracted below have sub-headings with the accompanying relevant quotations. I will choose to make minimum summaries and conclusions, wherever necessary, based on the contents. 

 

After the 'Foreword' by Jack Canfield and the 'Preface' by Cherie Carter-Scott, PhD, just after the word 'Introduction' there appeared the following quotation from Helen Keller:

 

Life is a succession of lessons

which must be lived to be understood.  

 

Here goes the other extractions:

 

(The quotations after the rules are by Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott herself)

 

RULE ONE:

 

YOU WILL RECEIVE A BODY.

 

You may love it or hate it,

but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth

 

a. Acceptance

 

"I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works." - Louse Hay
 

Acceptance is the act of embracing what life presents to you with a good attitude. Our bodies are among the most willing and wise teachers of this lesson. Unless you spend a large percentage of your time engaged in our-of-body experiences, your body shows up wherever you are. It can be like an ever-present benevolent guide or a lifelong cross you bear. The decision is yours, based on how well you learn this lesson.
 

b. Self-Esteem

 

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Rooselvelt

Remind yourself often that self-esteem is ephemeral. You will have it, cultivate it, nurture it, and be forced to rebuild it over and over again. It is not something to be achieved and preserved, but rather a lifelong process to be explored and cultivated.

 

c. Respect

 

"Your body is your vehicle for life. As long as you are here, live in it. Love, honor, respect and cherish it, treat it well, and it will serve you in kind." - Suzy Prudden

When you respect your body, you are in partnership with it. You become grounded in your physical body and able to benefit from all it has to offer you. Respect carries reciprocal evergy. Your body will honor you when you honor it. Treat your body as a structure worthy of respect and it will respond in kind.

 

d. Pleasure

 

"It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive." - Bruce Springsteen

Your body can be one of the greatest sources of pleasure when you open your five senses fully and experience the physical wonder of being alive. Pleasure can come in the form of sight, like when you see a magnificent sunset, or taste, like when you eat a favorite food. It can come as a glorious musical sound or the soft touch of a lover. The only secret to learning the lesson of pleasure is  to make time and space for it in your life.

 

RULE TWO:

 

YOU WILL BE PRESENTED WITH LESSONS.

 

You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "life." Each day in this school you will have the opportunity

to learn lessons.

You may like the lessons or hate them,

but you have designed them as part of your curriculum.

 

a. Openness

 

"When experience is viewed in a certain way, it presents nothing but doorways into the domain of the soul." - Jon Kabat-Zinn

Openness means being receptive. Life will present you with innumerable lessons, none of which will be useful to you unless you recognize them and are open to their inherent value. These lessons will show up every day of your life, and as difficult as some of them may be you need to change your perception and come to see them as gifts, or guides along your path toward living as your authentic self.

 

b. Choice

 

"I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
 

Choice is the exploration of desire and then the selection of action. In every moment, you are choosing either to align yourself with your own true path or to veer away from it. There are no neutral actions. Even the smallest gesture has a direction to it, leading you closer to your path or farther away from it, whether you realize it or not. Pure actions - like spending time with a beloved friend - bring you into alignment, whereas false one - such as spending time with someone you really don't like but to whom you feel obligated - alienate you from your truth. Every choice carries weight.
 

c. Fairness

 

"I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet." - Unknown

Our sense of fairness is the expectation of equity - the assumption that all things are equal and that justice will always prevail. Life is not, in fact, fair, and you may indeed have a more difficult life path than others around you, deserved or not. Everyone's circumstances are unique, and everyone needs to handle his or her own circumstances differently. As you work toward aligning yourself with your own individual truth, you will be required to move out of the complaining phase of "it's not fair," if you want to move toward serenity. Focusing on the unfairness of circumstances keeps you comparing yourself with others rather than appreciating your own special uniqueness. You miss out on learning your individual lessons by distracting yourself with feelings of bitterness and resentment.

 

d. Grace

 

"You nourish your soul by fulfilling your destiny," - Harold Kushner
 

Grace is one of those intangible qualities that is difficult to describe but easy to recognize. Thos who possess grace seem to walk effortlessly through life. They give the illusion of glowing from within and that glow is apparent to everyone around them.

RULE THREE:

 

THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, ONLY LESSONS

 

Growth is a process of experimentation,

a series of trials, errors, and occasional victories.

The failed experiments are as much a part of the process

as the experiments that work.

 

a. Compassion

 

"The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter." - Norman Cousins
 

Compassion is the act of opening your heart. To live in a state of compassion means you approach the world with your emotional barriers lowered and your ability to connect with others intact. Compassion is the emotional glue that keeps you rooted in the universality of the human experience, as it connects you to your essence and to the essence of those around you.
 

b. Forgiveness

 

"To err is human, to forgive divine." - Alexander Pope
 

Forgiveness is the act of erasing an emotional debt. As you move from compassion to forgiveness, your heart is already open, and you engage in a conscious and deliberate release of resentment. Perceiving past actions as mistakes implies guide and blame, and it is not possible to learn anything meaningful while you are engaged in blaming.
 

c. Ethics

 

"There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from." - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

So you made what you perceived to be a mistake, you eventually forgave yourself, made amends, and released the situation from your mind. You will still be left with one lingering lesson: the importance of ethics. Morality is conforming to the established standards of right and wrong that have been set by the society in which you live. But ethical codes are not universal. There is no one set of guidelines that works for everyone around the world, since what we may consider morally wrong in one culture might be acceptable in another. For some, ethics defined by religious laws. For others, moral codes arise from lessons learned in school or from parents. Most people in our culture were raised with the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

 

d. Humor

 

"It is of immerse importance to learn to laugh at ourselves." - Katherine Mansfield

The lesson of humor means learning to invite levity and amusement into situations that might otherwise be disastrous. If you are going to view the hardships that happen to you or the slip-ups you make as lessons rather than mistakes, a sense of humor will prove helpful. When you learn to laugh at you mishaps you re able to instantaneously transform perceived bad situations into opportunities to learn something about the absurdity of human behavior, most especially your own!

 

RULE FOUR:

 

A LESSON IS REPEATED UNTIL LEARNED.

 

Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms

until you have learned them.

When you have learned them,

you can then go on to the next lesson.

 

a. Awareness

 

"Only the day dawns to which we are awake." - Henry David Thoreau

Awareness is the process of becoming fully conscious. Awareness can trickle into the corners of your mind slowly, as you clean out the cobwebs, or it can dawn suddenly the moment you become cognizant of your patterns and begin to see yourself objectively. However it is attained, it is like a light-bulb being switched on that illuminates the dark pockets of your unconscious mind. It is the first step to facilitating any change you wish to make in yourself.
 

b. Willingness

 

"Life doesn't require that we be the best - only that we try our best." - H. Jackson Brown Jr.

The real secret to being able to change is the willingness to do so. If you are to make any progress at all in excavating yourself from the cycles that entrap you, you must first identify the patterns that keep you stuck. Then you can begin to release the old behaviors.
 

c. Causality

 

"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction." - Sir Isaac Newton

Causality is the acknowledgment that you are the source of your manifestations. In other words, everything that you attract in your life is coming to you because of something you are projecting out into the world, and you are therefore responsible for drawing to you all of your circumstances. It's difficult to give up the idea that circumstances just happen to you, as opposed to because of you or your behavior. By remaining an innocent victim of fate, you do not have to acknowledge that you are in any way responsible for what befalls you, and you can continue to hide deep within the vortex of your patterns.

 

d. Patience

 

"Be patient. You'll know when it's time for you to wake up and move ahead." - Ram Dass

Patience is the display of tolerance while awaiting an outcome. You are presented with the lesson of patience the moment you try to create a change within yourself. You expect immediate results and are often disappointed when your first few attempts to follow through fall short. When people who try to lose weight cheat on their diets, they get very frustrated with themselves for not being able to stay with their new earing regime and berate themselves for not changing their patterns.
 

RULE FIVE:

 

LEARNING DOE NOT END.

 

There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

 

a. Surrender

 

"Surrender doesn't obstruct our power, it enhances it." - Marianne Williamson

Surrender is the transcendence of ego and the release of control. When you surrender to your lessons that arise, you allow yourself to flow with the rhythm of life, rather than struggling against it. The peaks and valleys that mark your personal path become easier to traverse when you surrender to them.
 

b. Commitment

 

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." Thomas Edison

Commitment means devoting yourself to something or someone and staying with it - no matter what. If you look at anyone who is a good student, you will see a shining example of commitment. He or she is sully devoted to his or her course of study and commits to it all the time and energy that is needed to excel. As you come to embrace your role as a matriculating student, you need to make a commitment to yourself and the universe to learning and mastering all your lessons.

 

c. Humility

 

"And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb." - Kahlil Gibran

A person of humility has a confident yet modest sense of his or her own merits, but also an understanding of his or her limitations. The moment you think you have seen everything or know it all ("Been there, done that .... "), the universe senses arrogance and gives you a great big dose of humility. You must give up on the idea that you can ever become so enlightened that you have nothing left to learn; Zen masters know that even for them learning never ends
 

d. Flexibility

 

"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." - Winston Churchill

Flexibility is defined as being adaptable to change. In the course of your lifetime, you will be tempted to try to hold on to what is, where in fact, what is only a temporary phase that evolves almost immediately into what was. It is essential that you learn to bend and flex around every new circumstances, as rigidity robs you of the opportunity to see the freedom of new possibilities.

 

RULE SIX:

 

"THERE" IS NO BETTER THAN "HERE."

 

When your 'there' has become a "here," you will simply obtain a "there" that will look better to you than your present "here". - Cherie Carter-Scott
 

a. Gratitude

 

"When you stop comparing what is right here and now with what you wish were, you can begin to enjoy what is." - Cheri Huber

To be grateful means you are thankful for and appreciative of what you have and where you are on your path right now. Gratitude fills your heart with the joyful feeling of being blessed with many gifts and allows you to fully appreciate everything that arises on your path. As you strive to keep your focus on the present moment, you can experience the full wonder of "here".
 

b. Unattachment

 

"Perhaps the hardest lesson to learn is not to be attached to the results of your actions." - Joan Borysenko

Unattchment is the release of need or expectation associated with a specific outcome. For most people, this is one of the most difficult lessons to learn. We become attached to the way we envision something working out, and struggle to make circumstances bend to our desires. Life, however, often has its own agenda, and we are destined to suffer unless we give up our attachment to things working out exactly as we would like. We learn un-attachment when we are able to release out belief that "there" is any better than "here"

 

c. Abundance

 

"The richest person is the one who is contented with what he has." - Robert. C. Savage

One of the most common human fears is scarcity. Many people are afraid of not having enough of whatever it is they need or want, and so they are always striving to get to some point in the future when they finally have enough. They fool themselves into believing that one day they will have everything "all-set" - they will have all the money they need, all the possessions they desire, all the love they crave, all the success they strive for. But is anything ever really enough? Did anyone ever really arrive "there"?.

 

d. Peace

 

"There is nothing to do but be." - Stephen Levine

Living in the present brings the one thing most people spend their lives striving to achieve: peace. Relaxing into the present moment puts you inn the mental and physical state of calm, quiet, and tranquility and finally gets us off the here-but-gotta-get-there treadmill. If you are in the moment doing whatever you are doing, then there is no time to examine the gap between your expectation and the reality of how things are, or between where you are and where you think you should be. You are too busy being in the moment to analyze it and find fault with it.

 

RULE SEVEN:

 

OTHERS ARE ONLY MIRRORS OF YOU

 

You cannot love or hate something

about another person

unless it reflects something

you love or hate about yourself

 

a. Tolerance

 

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." - Carl Jung

In Rule One, you learned the lesson of acceptance, in which you learned to embrace all parts of yourself. Tolerance is the outward extension of acceptance: it is when you learn to embrace all parts of others and allow them to be and express themselves fully as the unique humans that they are. You will need to learn tolerance in order to coexist peacefully with others. Tolerance quiets the inner critic that chatters in your mind so that you can apply the old adage, "live and let live."

 

b. Clarity

 

"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right." - Jerry Garcia


Clarity is the state of seeing clearly. You achieve clarity in those moments of startling insight when you are able to shift you perspective by viewing a situation in a new light. I like to think of clarity as the result of applying Windex to you soul. As you begin to view others as mirrors of yourself, it is as if you move into a new reality in which you experience life with astonishing crystal vision. You learn the lesson of clarity in the exact moments that you accomplish this perspective shift.

 

c. Healing

 

"Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity." - Hippocrates

Healing is restoration to a state of wholeness and well-being. While healing is generally thought of in physical terms, it is no less essential in the emotional and spiritual realm. Healing is a lifelong process that endeavors to unearth the issues clouding your soul and to repair the metaphorical holes in your hearts. 

 

d. Support

 

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." - Edith Wharton

Support is holding up from underneath. You support someone when you willingly step forward to strengthen, energize, and help her through a challenging time. Yes the great irony is that when you support others, you are also, in fact, supporting yourself. When you withhold support from others, it is usually an indicator that you are also withholding support from yourself.

 

RULE EIGHT:

 

WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOUR LIFE IS UP TO YOU.

 

You have all the tools and resources you need.

What you do with them is up to you

 

a. Responsibility

 

"We have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime." - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
 

To take responsibility means you admit your accountability and acknowledge your influence and role in the circumstances in which you find yourself. It means you are answerable for your behavior and you fully accept any consequences created by your actions.
 

b. Release

 

"Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness." - The Buddha

Release is simply the act of letting go. In every situation, you can either take responsibility and attempt to cause things to happen, or you can let go. Neither option is better or worse. Every situation is different, and only you will know what is the right thing to do in each case. These are times when you will need to take responsibility for the progression of a relationship, and time you will need to just let go and walk away, just as there are times you need to fight with your boss for what you believe and other times when you need to release the situation to save your energy for more important battles. You learn the lesson of release when you begin to choose it as a conscious act rather than as a passive means to hide from responsibility.

 

c. Courage

 

"Courage is the price life exacts for granting peace." - Amelia Earhart

Courage is finding the inner strength and bravery required when confronting danger, difficulty, or opposition. Courage is the energy current behind all great actions and the spark that ignites the initial baby steps of growth. It resides deep within each of us, ready to be accessed in those moments when you need to forge ahead or break through seemingly insurmountable barriers. It is the intangible force that propels you forward on your journey.

 

d. Power

 

"There isn't a person anywhere who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can." - Henry Ford

Power means demonstrating your ability to manifest reality. Within each of us lies a power center, and we learn to call upon this power as we set out to design our lives according to our will. Power is a natural state of being - it is a force to which we are all entitled and to which we all have unlimited access.

 

e. Adventure

 

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." - Helen Keller

Your life has the potential to be a wondrous journey, filled with exciting moments and astonishing experiences. It can be a thrilling ride if you are open to exploring all that is available to you. Adventure is the result of your willingness to live life with a spirit of enthusiasm.

As Goethe advised: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
 

RULE NINE:

 

ALL YOUR ANSWERS LIE INSIDE OF YOU.

 

All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

 

a. Listening

 

"Consciousness is nothing but awareness - the composite of all the things we pay attention to." - Deepak Chopra

Listening is actively focusing on what messages you are receiving, both verbally and nonverbally. Nowhere is the lessons of listening more important than when it comes to you inner knowing; what good in such divine knowledge if you don't tune in to hear it? You will learn the lesson of listening when you tune in to the messages your spiritual DNAA is sending you, and to what you know is right for you.

 

b. Trust

 

"Trust yourself; every heart vibrates to that iron string." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once you learn to listen to your messages, you then move to the next , deeper level of growth : trusting those messages. You learn the lesson of trust when you take a leap of faith and believe that your inner knowing is guiding you toward your greater good. Trust is the attunement of your instincts to know who and what is in your best interest, so that you may rely absolutely on the validity of your messages.

 

c. Inspiration

 

"In the midst of our daily lives, we must find the juice to nourish our creative souls." - Sark




Inspiration is the moment in which the spirit within is accessed and revealed. Inspiration dawns when something in your outer world sparks a flame within you and calls forth a message. It arrives to remind you that all your answers lie inside of you, and that you alone are the wisest wizard in your kingdom.

 

RULE TEN:

 

YOU WILL FORGET ALL OF THIS AT BIRTH

 

You can remember it if you want

by unraveling

the double helix of inner knowing.

 

a. Faith

 

"Faith is a gift of the spirit that allows the soul to remain attached to its own unfolding." - Thomas Moore




Have faith in yourself that you will remember your truth and the knowledge stored deep within your soul. There may be moments in which you cannot see your way clear to your truth - moments of darkness and uncertainty. Life can be difficult, and there may be times when you cannot make sense out of it or stay afloat. These are the moments that require faith.

 

b. Wisdom

 

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us." - Marcel Proust




The ultimate destination of your life path is wisdom. Wisdom is the highest and deepest degree of knowledge, insight, and understanding. It provides you with the broadest perspective on life, its purpose, and the lessons you learn throughout your life-time. When you find your wisdom, you are living in the light.

 

c. Limitlessness

 

"What we call results are beginnings." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 

You were born knowing your limitlessness. As you grew and became socialized in this world, however, you might have come to believe that there are boundaries that prevent you from reaching the highest levels of spiritual, emotional, or mental evolution. However, boundaries exist only in your mind. When you are able to transcend them, you learn the lesson of limitlessness.

 

SUMMARY

 

Your time here on earth is brief. Time passes and things change. You have options and choices in which to make your wishes, dreams, and goals become reality.

 

When you ask yourself, "Why am I here?" or "Why is this happening to me?" or "What's it all about?" turn to your spiritual primer. Ask youself "What is the lesson?" If you hear a defensive reaction using the words "never" or "always" in your response, you haven't yet learned the lesson. Next, go a little deeper and ask, "What is there for me to learn from this experience?"

 

Each time you view your circumstances as possessing value, regardless of the apparent confusion or hardship, you grow. Your personal evolution will depend on how readily you embrace your lessons and integrate them into your life. Remember, the only consequence for resisting lessons, is that they will keep repeating themselves until you learn them. When you learned a lesson, you will always be tested. When the lesson is learned, the test will be easily passed, and you then move on to more complex and challenging ones.

 

You can look back on the incidents in your past and see clearly the lessons you have learned, resisted and are still repeating. "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that is why we call it the present."

 

It is more challenging to look at your present situation and see exactly what your lessons are. Looking into the future is the most difficult. Wishing that you had already graduated from the school of life does not accelerate your progress or make the lessons any easier. Examining the situation for  the real lesson is the scavenger hunt.

 

Remember that you are here to learn lessons.

 

Be present with your process. Pay attention to what you are experiencing.

 

Be diligent with actions which enable you to "get" the lessons presented to you.

 

Ask for answers and you shall receive them.

 

Listen with an open heart.

 

Explore all options.

 

See your judgment as a mirror.

 

View each crisis as an opportunity.

 

Trust yourself.

 

Believe in yourself.

 

Look within yourself, to your higher self, for guidance on all your choices.

 

Extend compassion to yourself.

 

Remember, there are no mistakes, only lessons (Rule Three).

 

Love yourself, trust your choices, and everything is possible!