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Choosing Love: Why I’m Still a Hopeful Romantic

Choosing Love: Why I’m Still a Hopeful Romantic

 

love

Despite my past, I am still a hopeful romantic.

All I care about is the heart of a man.

I want to know what inspires him and what he’s passionate about. I want to know the kind of person he is without anything but his mind and soul.

Of course, physical chemistry must be there, but it is his deeper core values and approach to life that attract me.

No one is perfect, but it is within that realm of honest presentation where I can respect him, admire him and ultimately fall in love with him.

I cannot help but be put off when I see a man hoping to learn these things. I want to “see” who he is before I actually see him.

Unfortunately, I have been trained to be on high alert. Finally, today I trust my intuition, so I can feel his energy and pick up on certain vibes.

I know there is the mask and there is what’s real. I need to see real. I need real.

I am patient, so I’m going to wait for it.

I have already fallen for the “persona” and I simply can’t risk doing so again.

I wouldn’t survive that again and I know I’m lucky that I survived it in the past. I now know that love shouldn’t hurt. I know that love is kind, open, forgiving, soulful and joyful.

Every one of us has a choice. We can be bitter, angry or resentful.

Or we can be kind, appreciative and respectful.

We can always choose love.

So here I am, choosing to let go of my past and allowing love to come in. I am letting go of the hurt and pain, the people in my life who didn’t love me.

I want to be swept off my feet with love.

I have always been the thinker, the dreamer; I have always chosen to believe in love. I’ve tried to act in the highest state of love.

It is the only way to fight darkness.

It is the only way to let go of the people who hurt me, let go of the heartbreak that broke me and to release my past.

You can choose love by:

  1.  Imagining and envisioning the love you want. Remind yourself of painful and hurtful love and know that you’re looking for the opposite of that. Use contrasts to remind yourself of the love you want.
  2.  Not believing the world’s definition of love. Or not believing the notion that love is dead. Focus on passion, romance and love. Cultivate it within you before you seek it in a partner.
  3. Living romance. With or without a partner, embrace and cultivate more romance in your life. Yes, I’m talking about chocolates, romantic love songs, poetry, massage oils, perfume, cologne, champagne, lingerie. Take trips together or take day trips alone! Bring romance into all areas of your life.
  4. Showing up as love to the people you love. Send the people you love a sweet text in the morning. Call the people you love and let them know how much they mean to you. Again, it doesn’t have to be a partner.
  5. Watching your thoughts and words. You can’t expect romance if you’re stuck in a pattern or mindset of judgment and resentment. You must work on affirming romance, embracing it in your mind and cultivating it in your words. Speak gently, kindly, lovingly.

I’m not naive anymore. I am well aware of what is out there, so I’m patient. I give someone the time to reveal themselves without all the pomp and circumstance.

I trust more in what I feel and I listen, really listen.

I refuse to give up my romantic nature, my art, my poetry, my spirituality, my way of life because I like to dwell in passion in light and love.

I don’t stay stuck in my past, but I will never forget, either.

The past doesn’t define me or the world around me and herein lies my victory. Survival might be about breathing and getting through the day.

But living is a choice – a dedication to wake up every day to embrace joy, passion and love.

For me, it’s also about being that hopeless hopeful romantic.

I’m not going to settle. I’m going to wait for love to come ashore.

Hillary Barry is a Long Island New York-based reiki practioner at Beach Reiki. Her passion in life is to help raise the vibrational energy of the planet and heal one another through light work and love. You can follow her on Facebook here.

5 Love Lessons from the Temple of Heartbreak

5 Love Lessons from the Temple of Heartbreak

lessons

My hands started shaking and my cheeks turned red.

This was not happening!

Unfortunately, it was. He had unfriended me on Facebook.

Big deal, you will say. It happens all the time. But to me, this unfriend meant so much more than having one less person on my list.

It was the end of a three-month intense friendship that had recently moved from the virtual life into the real world, and of a professional partnership. It also implied a financial loss since I had a non-refundable airplane ticket to a destination where nobody expected me anymore. Feelings of being betrayed, taken for granted, reduced to a grain of dust took hold of me.

The question mark appeared red and tall in front of me, stopping my evening run, forcing me down on a bench, making me rewind the near past.

Reading the signs

He knew me.

I had no idea he existed.

He had had a crush on me in his early twenties. I was just discovering this enigmatic, Collin Farrell looking-like guy.

Apparently, this time, the crush was on me.

A friend request and a short message turned instantly into daily conversations. We talked about music and our teenage years and life and purpose and happiness and the city where we were born and grew up. We said good morning and goodnight. When he told me that the next time I travel to his adoptive country I could crash at his place, I opened the Internet browser to look up for an airplane ticket.

Hearts and emoticons slowly showed up in our conversations.

He was constantly reaching out to me, knew when sadness or anger crept into my soul.

A professional project was born. He was there for me during the launch of my first self-published book. I was waking up and falling asleep with a smile on my face.

Of course, there were signs. They always are. Occasional mood swings. Constantly changing the Facebook profile picture. A legion of female fans.

At some point, early in March, right after placing the order for the airplane ticket, my intuition told me that something was terribly wrong. The last thing I wanted was to cross the Ocean just to make a fool of myself. The next day I canceled it and got a full refund. I told him that the airline couldn’t issue the ticket because of a system error. He seemed pretty disappointed yet confident that in a two-month time, he would pick me up from the airport.

He was right. I bought another ticket, at a better price, and stuck with the initial plan.

Riding the pendulum swing

Finally, the big day arrived.

He waited for me as he promised.

A fugitive, awkward hug, that was our first contact. Yet he was sweet and caring. He took me to the beach and later we went shopping for food like old friends. We kept our distance until the next day’s evening. The chemistry between us was high. The morning after I felt great.

But then I noticed he had failed to make coffee before leaving for work (as he had done the previous day).

As out of place as it may seem, I felt terrible. I felt used and tossed away. That was just the beginning.

The rest of the week I spent with him turned into a pendulum swing from agony to bliss. Where was the A.G. I knew back home, all self-confidence, balance, optimism, and joy?

Who was this unsure and demanding girl?

Who was this person with a sad face and a frown? Why was she making scenes instead of being assertive? Why was she having expectations instead of letting herself be surprised? Why was she acting as if all her spiritual knowledge had been erased?

The answers hold up yet I knew that this was not just my intuition at work.

When thunder strikes

We didn’t make any promises when the departure day arrived. He didn’t tell me I hope we meet again soon. I kind of knew I had blown it big time. I had failed to be authentic. But I clung on to the words he spoke when he saw the tears on my cheeks: you can come back whenever you want. And hoped.

After my return home, we kept in touch.

Our conversations were not as lively and long as before but at least we were saying good morning.

One week and a new airplane ticket later, the first clash of thunder struck.

He simply stopped talking to me. He would reply to my messages but unlike before, he would not initiate a conversation.

The second clash of thunder occurred a week later when he admitted that he had been in an on-and-off relationship with another woman from our country. She was in trouble and she needed his moral support. Yet, I was still to go and visit him the second time as we had agreed.

The third clash of thunder, the one that was keeping me glued to the bench that day, instead of running: without any warning, without having a fight, he had unfriended me on Facebook. Our main communication channel.

“Why? What kind of person are you?” I punched in the messenger chat window as I started walking. It was Sunday early morning in the US yet he was up and replied right away. No excuses, only reproof and complaints about his poor financial situation.

The kind of energy-eating drama that I thought it belonged in my past. The more we talked, the angrier I was. I also felt a kind of masochistic joy. This exchange of low energy was recreating a bond between us. In a weird way, the situation seemed unreal. You know, like a volcano explosion in a movie. Being face to face would have taken the heat off right away. Yet I ended the conversation telling him I hoped we never meet again.

Surviving the “unfriend” tragedy

I lied. I cannot be mad at him. On the contrary, I care about him deeply. Are students ever mad at their teachers?

Here are the lessons I learned:

1. We can not ask other people to be honest with us as long as we are dishonest. Not only to them but to ourselves as well.

2. Nobody will truly love us unless we love ourselves. Self-love is accompanied by other gifts: self-confidence, assertiveness, compassion, and understanding. It helps us see our uniqueness and stop compare ourselves to other people.

3.Let go of control and expectations. Yes, we can set intentions and objectives but we need to trust the Universe to support them. In most cases, the outcome will be so much more than what we expect.

4. Never, ever, ignore your intuition. Intuition always knows what’s best for our growth and us.

5. Live from a place of love. Love attracts more love. Had I lived our encounter from a place of love, instead of a place of fear (of not being good or beautiful enough, of being lied to or losing him), things would have been different. Or perhaps we would have never met.

Under the circumstances, he had to appear in my life.

That handsome and kind and passionate man I was dreaming of. Put a mirror in front of me. Show me those unresolved issues I needed to address. Awaken my inner dormant call for growth and expansion. Inspire me to be better.

Do you want to know how this story ends? It’s hard to tell, it is still a work in progress. I am a work in progress.

AG BilligA.G. Billig believes that love is your natural state of being. Since fear and love cannot coexist in one heart, her mission is to empower you to overcome your fears and attract the life you want with love. Pick up her Amazon best seller “I CHOOSE LOVE!”  here and learn more about her work at the Project of Love.

7 Sacred Promises: A Practical Guide for Living With Meaning and Purpose

7 Sacred Promises: A Practical Guide for Living With Meaning and Purpose

Seven Sacred Promises

You did everything you were supposed to do, but something is missing.

Your job has no meaning. Your relationships are unfulfilling. You don’t have a life purpose. It feels like you’re living someone else’s life.

How did this happen?

In 7 Sacred Promises: A Practical Guide for Living with Meaning and Purpose, you’ll learn who led you astray and what to do about it. It really has very little to do with you and much to do with the people around you. Learn why they lied to you and the incentives behind their bold untruths. Yes, there are very selfish reasons why society guides you to live a certain way.

Once you wake up to the truths in this book, you’re going to slam your palm in your face and knock your head against the wall out of frustration. You’ll realize that you’ve been snookered into living someone else’s life.

The good news is that you can do something about it. Instead of dancing to the tune of society’s false promises, this book reveals 7 new sacred promises – rules of living – that will create more meaning and purpose in your life.

Join me on my journey from unhappy married lawyer to a more peaceful and happier version of myself. Learn how I quit my career, ended my marriage, closed a business but still ended up happier and more purposeful. Follow my journey to rid my life of society’s false promises and learn how I started on a new set of sacred promises to a more fulfilling life.

This book is the wake-up call you’ve been waiting for. Get off the treadmill, breathe a sigh of relief and welcome in a new way of living.

Pick up this transformational book and welcome peace, clarity and happiness into your life. Follow the practical steps to wake up every day with meaning and purpose.

7 Sacred Promises is available on Amazon and free until Thursday, June 9th.  Click here to pick up a copy of the book. If you enjoy the book, please consider leaving a review.