No need to be nervous! No need to be jittery about the Law of Attraction.
For years I have been reacting to irritating text messages re loans, condos, food franchises etc. I kept on forgetting what I learned from M. Tamura:

“When crises arise in your life, they are not due to something inherently wrong with you.”

“Although you may take them personally, situations in your life don’t happen to you. They just happen. And you are involved in them according to the way you respond to [them].”

I have found it hard not to blame myself when: I misplace things; when I get unhappy text messages; when I get negative news in my Facebook News Feeds. I agonize over saying/writing the wrong things. I feel bad over inefficient/poor services.

I automatically ask myself: “How did I attract such things?”

These past 2 months or so, I have been agitated by biased national news as well as by international interpretations of the country’s situation.

Sylvia Boorstein wrote:”It’s part of the whole system of painful things that happen to human beings and you can manage.”

Laura Day wrote: “Things are what they are. Ruminating won’t change them. Nor will it provide an insurance policy for avoiding pain  in the future. In fact it perpetuates it.”

Gill Edwards and  Rabbi Brickner left their bodies years ago. Wayne Dyer went last year. So I choose to be guided by M. Tamura, Tato Malay and of course my husband Emil who are still alive. I aspire to be like Sylvia Boorstein who tuned 80 last month.

Sylvia wrote about meeting challenges: “…I relax see what my options are and choose the best of them. I won’t always be pleased but I’ll be happy.”

I learned some practical guidelines from Gill Edwards: “Whenever we talk of using will power…we mean declaring war upon the Basic Self. And it doesn’t work. Eventually, the Basic Self fights back. And feeling out of control…”
“What we resist, persists.”
“The only long-term solution is to co-operate, to befriend your enemy and realise it was trying to help you all along. (The enemy is not any external force; it is a challenge from the Basic Self)

M. Tamura has warned against judging ourselves lest we split into the one who judges and the one judged.

Boorstein is ever so kind: “Sweetheart, you are in pain. Relax. Take a breath. Let’s pay attention to what is happening. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

From “Infinite Possibilities”

“Our first responsibility in life is not to make the world a better place or to tend to those less fortunate but to live up to our own high standards, to act with faith that our dreams are meant to be and to maintain a tolerance and compassion for our own divine journey.”

This was not how I was taught in school. Neither did I teach this!!!!
From Gill Edwards:

“I believe that our first responsibility is to make our own lives work. By finding inner peace, for example, we are contributing towards global peace.”

My own sister, Julie Escay, and Tato Malay are living examples of the above. I have chosen to be guided by the two quotations above.

I’m 73 years old. I am happily recovering from a hip surgery. The last time I left our condo building was almost a month ago. While apparently isolated from the world, I am actually inundated with soooo many challenges/stimuli.

Pick any day. I  deal with many stimuli created by my ever-productive mind sometimes as early as 1 am. I have significantly tamed my thoughts thanks to Boorstein, Tamura, Brickner, Malay etc. But it is still a challenge not to enter into darkness like what happened in the 90s.

I am grateful my husband is stable emotionally, mentally and whatever “-ally”.

Often I get updates from our daughter now a British citizen. Thank God. For more than a month now I get only pleasant messages.

As early as 9 AM I get pesky cellphone messages about food franchise, loans, condos etc. When I go to Facebook, I have to deal with ads after every 3 or more posts from friends. To think Facebook keeps repeating they are managing my preferences! AS THOUGH THEY CARE.
Makes me feel I am dealing with the government.

Every so often I get irritating PLDT calls from promo agents. An unforgettable one was from a female agent who kept insisting on talking to my husband even after I identified myself several times as the wife. Eventually I got peeved. She thought she had better chances of convincing my husband. I threatened to report her to Mr Pangilinan. She stopped! But how could I report? I was not able to get her name. Perhaps, the trouble was she kept on using Filipino while I kept speaking English. And my English gets better when I am angry!

Dealing with delivery boys/men whether for food or laundry can sometimes be entertaining but at other times be trying to my patience.

I often speak English because my Filipino is not good enough.One particular young man is an eager learner. Once when he delivered food at 6pm he greeted me good afternoon. I pointed to our wall clock and taught him “Good evening”. Next day he delivered in the morning. He was smart enough to know how to greet me.

I have many other anecdotes but surely with the above I can claim I can isolate myself in our tower on the 37th floor but I am still vulnerable.

I would like to ed with a quote from Tamura:
“Although you may take them (crises) personally, situations in life don’t happen to you. They just happen and you get involved in them according to the way you respond to [them].”

The Buddhism of Sylvia Boorstein inspires me to trust life. She wrote:
“Terrible things do happen. I do believe that fully mindful prayer, undistracted presence establishes the capacity of the mind to see clearly, and when necessary to surrender gracefully.”

“…that it is possible for the mind to be at ease whatever the circumstance.”

“…the capacity of the mind to manage even very challenging situations gracefully.”

“…inclined the mind to the insight that everything is manageable, absolutely everything.”

Thus my prayer has been as inspired by Rabbi Balfour Brickner. I pray to access my finer self, deal with my emotions, access a deeper understanding of the situation and reach out for a solution.
M. Tamura wrote that the answers are already in me.

Michael Tamura wrote: “… when crises arise in your life, they aren’t due to something wrong with you. Although you may take them personally, situations in your life don’t happen to you. They just happen and you are involved in them according to the way you respond to them.”

Certainly I am not amused with the statements of M. Tamura. Of course I take the situations personally!!!!! Why did I fall last March 16 when just that very morning, I announced to an Ilonggo couple waiting for the door of the mall to open, that I would no longer need my cane in April.

Yes, I would not need my cane because I would need a walker to go around our condo and be wheeled outside the comforts of our unit. What wry humor life has!

“The New World of Self-Healing” seems to add insult to injury with the following: “Everyone has an inner essence, soul a spirit. It is this inner essence that attracts life situations and experiences for your highest good. We may not constantly realize that we invite the lessons needed to assist  our spiritual growth!”

Grrr! I am not pleased with the pronoun shifts! From “you” to “we”.

I agree it took me quite some time to accept that my spirit may have invited my March 16 fall for my highest good. Obviously my ego is still in control.

Our daughter reminded me that my surgery brought together a lot of our relatives and friends to pray for me. Silently, I mused: could they not have prayed for something for pleasant like finally liberating me from my cane which I have been using expertly for three years?

Well, It has made my husband even more loving and caring – my superhero, my healing presence! It has brought to the surface my my secret resistance towads yet again applying for a UK visa. It has made me admit the surgery has given me a convenient excuse not to go to Mass and agonize over the unpalatable sermons, ever scolding!!!!

But Dr Sarno does not subscribe to the theory of “secondary gains”. He believes that the secondary gains which in my case are: not applying for a visa again and not going to mass are forms of conditioning. He believes in “Treat the disorder that is the root cause of the pain.” He was referring to repressed emotions that cause oxygen depletion in the body.

Lynn Grabhorn has given me a refreshing insight towards my pains: “The need to feel the old pain is nothing but a trick  your ego is playing on you to avoid assuming the RESPONSIBILITY for and therefore the joy of life.”

Yes! I am “an unlimited being of light” I can take control. I can recognize what has happened. Yes! I won’t let my ego have its way.