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The
Value of NO (Editorial
by
Hilda de la Rosa) |
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Power. Wars are waged over it. Relationships are destroyed by it. Lives are lost because of it. Power is very valuable. The single biggest emotion that comes from the lack of it, is RESENTMENT. Mostly we resent those people around us, to whom we have given our power. We give our own power away without even noticing it and on one fine day, we wake up and find that we are resentful, resentful of our partners, our children, our religion, our country, our boss or our whatever.
It starts very slowly. We agree to do one small thing for a friend – something that we inwardly know that we do not really want to do. Instead of telling the friend that we do not want to do it, we agree to do it because we do not want to say no. Then another friend asks, and yet again we agree. Our boss asks us to work late on a night that is not convenient for us, our daughter asks for new shoes, our partner complains that we served pasta for supper two nights ago, our church asks for more money, our country asks us to fight in its war and so it goes on.
We do not point out to someone that we feel that they are taking advantage of us, or we do not say no at the time that the event is occurring, we let it slide “to save the peace”. And the next incident occurs. Not one incident is by any means a major event, but eventually all these small incidents feel like a great, big mountain. We are resentful. When we have ignored all the small incidents for so long, everything becomes a major issue. It all just feels simply too much to cope with.
Resentment can only occur when we are out of integrity with ourselves, when we have agreed to do/give more than we can comfortably cope with, when we have said yes when we should have said no. We do not establish boundaries. Boundaries are not there because we are selfish. Boundaries are there, because we know that if our boundaries are crossed and we do not say anything – resentment becomes the result. Words that otherwise would not have been spoken, words that hurt, can be avoided if we do not give our power away and take on more than we can cope with.
It is the same when you allow someone to treat you with disrespect. People threat you the way you allow them to treat you. If you let it slide just once, you are giving that person permission to continue to treat you in a disrespectful way. Stay in integrity with yourself. Tell the person with whom you are interacting how you feel – BE HONEST. Do not attack the other person’s
behaviour; rather state clearly how you are feeling. E.g. “What you have said hurts me deeply and I would rather that you did not use that language in my presence again.”
Stay in integrity with yourself. Avoid doing or giving more than you feel you can cope with. By this we do not mean to say that you must avoid the situation. Learn the value of the word NO. It has been known to prevent wars.
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Unconditional
Love (Editorial
by
Hilda de la Rosa)
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What have I learned
about God in the last five years? Not a lot, really. But
the most important for me, is that God has no ego. There
is nothing that He/She wants from you. There is nothing
that you need to do. She has no requirement of you, nor
does She value any career more than another. Whether you
are a missionary, lawyer, broker, priest or prostitute
is completely irrelevant to God. Her love is
unconditional.
Let’s look at that word, unconditional = no-condition.
Therefore there is no condition under which God will
love you any more or any less. He has no requirement of
you. God does not “choose” people – people choose
God. Just because you have chosen to be a healer,
banker, murderer, nurse, magazine publisher, priest,
thief, minister, psychic or whatever, does not
automatically grant you special favours. You do not have
to follow any path, perform any ritual, pray any
particular way, meditate for any specific length of
time, in any posture – in fact you don’t even have
to believe in God. You are already loved beyond measure.
You cannot be “more” loved. You are already made in
the image of God – there is no other image for you to
have – it is simply not possible.
Now for me, this concept is very difficult to grasp
because we are a species of “doers”. We have been
taught from the time that we are in the womb that
nothing is for nothing, we have to work hard to get
anywhere, and that money does not grow on trees. If you
don’t go to church – God won’t love you, or –
even worse, Jesus is watching you and if you are naughty
– you won’t go to heaven.
The closest I have ever been to this experience of
unconditional love, was when my son was in a coma in
hospital. Nothing he had ever done, said, claimed or
experienced, was important. Not even his recovery was
important. It was only important that I loved him. For
the first time in his life – I had NO REQUIREMENT for
him. I did not want him to pass a test, I did not want
him to stop mumbling, I did not want him to eat his food
or appreciate my cooking. I wanted nothing from him. I
did not even need him to love me back. I just wanted him
to know that I LOVED HIM. That is as close as I could
get to understand God’s love.
This was the scariest love I have EVER felt – no
wonder we cannot grasp that God simply loves us and has
no requirement of us!
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