I have been analyzing literary pieces for so many years, dedicated to the cause and effect paradigm. My logical mind has been constantly questioning: why? Expectations were held sacred, more sacrosanct than the flow. Surprises were not honored. Science rather than Faith ruled my life.

Not anymore! At 70 years, I often feel challenged by everything contrary to what I planned. It is as though the Law of perversity rules my life now. But I have awakened. I don’t allow disappointments to define me.

There are countless inspirational and colorful posts in my newsfeeds on Facebook any time of the day or night. They soften the blow when I am dealt with irritants like text messages from those who offer loans. Recently, I had to turn off my celphone for a while to stop a certain Cherry from sending me the same message all of six times!

I wonder if my subconscious attracted this to my life. The day before I searched for pictures of cherries on Facebook. I expected to get pictures I saw in the past from “Radiant Clicks”, “Nostalgia”, etc. Amusing! The search resulted in wedding pictures of one named Cherry.

Google apparently is more intelligent. My subconscious must be attracted to Facebook, sending me an irritant via a certain Cherry.
What I resist, persists.

“What happens in your life is not your fault, but it is your responsibility,” so said Joe Vitale in his book “Zero Limits”. Lately I have had problems with a lobby guard on OJT at our building. I have also been bothered with food and water being delivered by mistake to our unit.

I can’t blame anyone or anything for my current reality. Rational thinking can’t do much. It is frustrating to analyze. The intellect will try to establish cause and effect. However, the intellect working alone can’t solve problems because it only manages.

According to Vitale, “All you can do is take responsibility for it which means accept it, own it and love it.”
“Acknowledge that something without you knowing what it is – has gotten into your body/mind system. You have no idea how it got there. You don’t need to know.”

The answer according to M. Tamura is to trust the divine to take care of you. When you let go of your ego and the ego’s desires you allow something better to guide you: the Divine.

According to Rabbi Brickner many of our disappointments over prayers can be traced to our anthropomorphizing God. God is. We do. I understand this to mean that God can’t be expected to bring say, justice into the world. It is man’s responsibility to bring about justice. God inspires.

That being the case, the pragmatic thing to do is use the Ho’oponopono healing strategy. By this I cleanse myself of all programs of fear and frustrations. But how long will this take? Meantime am I meant to endure all the objects of my fears and limitations?

According to the Ho’oponopono strategy once I am cleansed of my fears and limitations then I will be able to hear God’s inspiration and act accordingly. Then I can enjoy heaven on earth.
What a burden of responsibility I will have to carry once I stop ascribing to God human characteristics that will allow me to blame Him for my own human failures.

This essay was inspired by an incident report on a mother-daughter sensitive exchange I read on Facebook last July 30. The report was written by a former college student of mine in her early 30s.

The report brought back poignant memories revolving around my own sensitive exchange with our own daughter who was then a graduating student in high school.

I had been diagnosed with severe clinical depression after weeks of visits to the emergency room and hospital confinement due to hypertension. Our daughter was devastated. Her supermom had feet of clay after all.

Generously, Cynthia Patag, sent a close friend, an ex-nun to help our daughter process what was going on in our lives. She had to grow up. She had to accept my limitations.

My former college student who wrote on Facebook must have raised her daughter in a progressive manner. For how could the daughter have retorted if the atmosphere at home was oppressive.

Unlike my former student, I was already in my 50s. I didn’t even bother to pick myself up; I was too sick. I didn’t have the energy to defend our daughter from critics who didn’t understand our way of parenting. Our daughter was reared in an open-communication way. What others considered as sassy comebacks were deemed normal expressions of ideas. As long she didn’t harm anybody nor herself!

I didn’t feel the need to defend my turf. Even as a depressed mom, I felt I didn’t have to prove myself to our daughter.

Our daughter has grown up. She is now London-based as an HR Director of a multinational company. I pray that the daughters and sons our daughter and of all my former students will cross over into adulthood in a normal manner and whenver and wherever possible in joy!

  The Law of Pragmatism makes energy workers of all varieties to stick with methods that produce results, regardless of whether these make sense to hostile observers. This can explain why for months I have been using the Ho’ oponopono mantra. After all  it attracted back to me an important book I misplaced twice!. I has made my nightmares less frequent. It has helped me with my anxieties over our daughter’s high level demands at work.

However, recently the Ho’oponopono healing stratagem has failed to relieve our daughter from seemingly insurmountable problems at work. It has affected even her health.

One night in near desperation I took hold of a novena to St Therese given by a well-meaning friend. I placed my cell phone on top of the novena and went to sleep. Hours after I was awakened to the sound of my phone. Goodness! Finally our daughter chose to connect.
Silly! But I enjoyed wrapping a rosary blest by the pope around the ankles of St Calungsod to heal the sprained ankle of our daughter. I even said one rosary. All of these, simply because they used to work for me.

This tops them all. Some evenings ago, our daughter called our landline. I couldn’t put in a word. She triumphantly announced her “very good” rating from her very demanding boss.
I was jubilant. How can I not go back to saying the rosary! It works wonders for pragmatic me.

As you enter into the Spiritual Zone, you will learn that in awakened consciousness, every action no matter how small, will intentionally support your end result. (Gary Quinn)