Appreciation Vs. Victim - L,L,&L W/ Glenn Ambrose

Welcome to Life,

Lessons & Laughter with your host,

Glenn Ambrose.

Hey,

My friends.

Welcome,

Welcome,

Welcome.

Welcome to the show.

So today I'm talking about Appreciation versus Victim mentality.

You know,

You know how I'm always saying,

Feed what you want,

Starve what you don't want.

Works very well.

You know,

Everything is energy,

We put more energy,

We put our attention towards something that's energy,

It expands.

We don't put our attention on something,

It shrinks.

You know,

It's a very important principle to understand because it's a spiritual law.

So the entire universe works off of this.

So it's very important.

And some of my other teachings,

You might remember that I talk about the replacement technique and also in my book.

Replacement is a very important technique and it goes along with feed and starve law.

It's basically the same thing.

It's just another way to look at it.

Because if I say,

Don't think of the color red,

That's not feeding something.

That's attempting not to do something.

Right?

So like,

Don't think of the color red.

What are you thinking of?

You're thinking of the color red.

Okay,

Well,

Then you're feeding the color red.

Why?

Because you're thinking of it and your attention is energy.

So this is why the replacement technique works so well.

Because it gives you something to put your energy towards as opposed to just trying to starve something and just not do anything.

It's very hard to not put your energy towards something just to be completely still.

Now,

Don't get me wrong.

There's times where we're practicing stillness.

We're just in a stillness.

That's fine.

I'm just talking about if you're trying to change a behavior or look at something differently or something like that,

Then the replacement technique is very important because just not doing something,

You're about a particular topic.

Don't think about that.

Well,

I can't control it.

At some point,

I'm going to think about it.

And if the only way I know how to think about it is negatively,

Then I'm going to think about it negatively.

There's just kind of no stopping that.

I guess people try to do that through stuffing.

They just,

Oh,

Well,

I'll just let it go and let God and pretend that they let it go,

Which they haven't.

They just stuffed it,

And they're just not looking at it at that particular moment.

But then when it gets triggered,

When it comes back up,

All the negativity comes back up with it.

So I was coming at this mentality as far as appreciation,

And I was thinking about how to present it.

And I was like,

Well,

Appreciation is kind of the antidote for victim mentality.

It's the opposite.

Appreciation for something is the opposite of being a victim of something.

So you either wish that it didn't happen or you're grateful for it.

So I thought it would be a good way to explain this because that way you get to see both sides of it,

And you can understand it deeper.

You can find other ways to implement it.

So I was just laying in bed.

The musings when I lay down into bed are just,

Yeah,

I get a lot of them,

And I have to shut them off.

But I was laying in bed,

And I was just thinking about appreciation for the past,

And it popped right into relationships for some reason.

And I was thinking about my past relationships.

I didn't go into any particular one specifically.

I was just thinking about past relationships and how I appreciated what I learned out of those relationships.

So when I think back to my first love,

When I think back to my second love,

When I think back to other relationships that I had where I felt love,

That were really important to me and made an impact on me,

When I think of any of them,

I feel gratitude.

I feel appreciation for those relationships,

And it kind of dawned on me that a lot of people don't feel that way,

Even my ex-wife.

I mean,

I feel it's not.

Okay,

So this is probably a good one to dive into it deeper on.

So my ex-wife is a good example because,

I mean,

I've said before,

She hates me to this day.

I haven't talked to her in many years,

But from what my son says.

So it was very,

Very difficult.

I mean,

I think maybe six months into the marriage,

I was just like,

Uh-oh.

I made a lot of mistakes in my life up until that point,

But I had this feeling that this one was a big one.

Like there was going to be a high cost to this one,

And there was.

Now,

Don't get me wrong,

I got my son out of it.

So that's an obvious.

I think a lot of people can probably relate to that.

If you get a child or children out of a relationship,

Of course,

You're going to love your child.

So therefore,

You're going to have some appreciation just for the fact that you have your children in your life now whom you love so much.

So that's kind of obvious.

I'm not going to dwell on that,

Although I do experience it.

Of course,

I feel gratitude for that.

But more so,

It was family court two,

Three times a year for 10 years.

It was vicious and attacking.

It was the hardest thing I ever went through because it was just relentless,

Constantly,

Constant battle.

I had to constantly keep choosing the spiritual path and constantly not engage to the best of my ability and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And then,

Like I said,

There was never any relief.

She never stopped hating me or stopped attacking,

Which is pretty rare.

I mean,

A lot of people feel this way.

But I'm talking if you're handling something spiritually over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again,

The people who are interacting with you,

To some degree,

Change their behaviors.

Why?

Because their behavior is not working.

And at some point,

A light goes off and says,

I'm not getting what I want out of this.

So therefore,

They start looking for other ways of doing things.

And I've worked with many clients in many relationships that this has worked.

Sometimes it takes time.

I mean,

You know,

Sometimes I've seen it take six months a year with people who are really stuck in a negative behavior pattern.

But if you just keep taking the spiritual path over and over,

Their behaviors tend to start shifting.

That never happened in my case.

So it was really,

Really hard.

And,

You know,

The protection that I felt for my son was very hard to deal with as well for all those years.

You know,

For 12 years,

He was in her house full time until I got full custody.

But the difficulties didn't stop at age 12 either,

But they minimized dramatically once he moved in with me.

So it was one of my life's biggest lessons,

Definitely.

And it was quite,

I don't know.

You know,

I've been through my stuff,

Alcoholism,

And I had a wonderful childhood in one way.

But then in another way,

I was just my self-esteem was beating out of me on a daily basis.

So I hated myself and didn't feel I deserved anything good,

Including love or success or anything.

And so I lived a life like that for many,

Many years.

So it's,

You know,

I've had my share of my lessons,

But that was probably,

She was probably my hardest.

It was vicious.

And,

You know,

I have no resentment towards her.

I have no anger towards her,

Which is just lovely.

It's one of my favorite things.

It's one of my favorite things.

It's just like I don't do it often,

Of course.

But it just makes me feel so good about myself and the work that I've done that when her name comes up or something comes up,

Like I don't feel any anger towards her.

You know,

It just is what it is,

You know,

And I learned what I learned.

And if I slow down and really start thinking about it,

I actually experience gratitude.

That doesn't mean that I would go back and write the script if I had my choice to experience all the stuff that I experienced.

You know,

I don't know,

From my limited perspective as a human being,

I would probably guess that I would not want to go through that again.

However,

What's the point of why we're here?

You know,

This is,

I always try to get back to the point of anything,

Why we're here,

You know,

The overarching mentality.

First,

We have to get clear on that,

And then we can discern what's transpired in a particular situation.

And I believe that we're here to evolve.

We're here to grow.

We're here to expand.

We're here to work through things.

We're here to get ourselves to a place where we can experience peace in spite of our external circumstances.

You know,

We're in control of what we experience internally,

The peace that's within us.

We're safe.

We're calm.

We're okay.

You know,

And to do that,

This world has a lot of duality and a lot of triggers to help us get to a place where we can do that.

Like,

You can't learn to stand calmly in the center of a storm if there's no storm.

You can't.

Like,

There's no way.

So the storms that we go through,

These difficult situations,

You know,

Now,

A lot of my past relationships,

They're,

Of course,

A lot more pleasant,

So it's much easier to do this with.

But that's why I chose to use my ex-wife as the example because it was the hardest one to do it with,

You know,

With all that anger coming at me and all the suffering that I experienced as well as my son.

Like,

To work through all that and get to a place where you harbor no resentment,

That took a lot of work.

And I was constantly doing it through the process and after.

And once I got to that place where I was free inside,

That's where you land.

That's one of my favorite feelings.

It's just freedom.

Like,

Nothing owns you.

She can't say or do anything to me that can hurt me.

Like,

She's done it all.

She's tried.

And I'm not bitter.

I'm not angry.

I'm not vicious.

I didn't let her turn me into something negative.

I didn't allow it.

And I feel free.

There's no attachment.

There's no.

.

.

You know,

That's why I love it.

I don't need her to change.

I don't need an apology.

I don't need closure in that way.

I just need to work through my stuff,

Which I did.

So it's just beautiful.

So now I can look back and I can say,

Okay,

Well,

If the purpose of my existence here is to grow and expand and be a better version of myself,

She was one of my best teachers,

By far,

If not my best teacher.

So thank you.

Because I never could have gotten to the place where I am without her.

Like,

I mean,

I've had people.

.

.

I've heard of the concept of forgiving somebody.

You know,

Not to let them off the hook,

But just to stop poisoning myself and all that stuff.

And,

You know,

When you first hear about that,

It's like,

Yeah,

It's a nice concept.

Then you think about some big thing that somebody did to you,

And you're like,

Well,

I ain't going to do it for them.

Like,

Maybe something small,

But not them.

So the fact that I was capable of doing it with her,

Just,

It means a lot to me.

And the relief,

The freedom,

The peace that I experienced because I did do that,

I worked through it,

Is immense.

I'm not carrying anything with me.

So I can feel gratitude.

Like I said,

Now,

From a human perspective,

When I go back and say,

Hey,

I want to go do this again because I learned so much and it was so fun.

I don't know,

Man.

I'd like to try to find an easier way to learn,

Quite honestly,

Because it was hard.

But that's just resisting reality,

Which causes suffering.

I'm not here to resist reality.

It is what it is.

I went through it.

I did the best I could.

I came out a better version of myself.

So thank you.

There's a level of appreciation.

Now,

Do I run around clicking my heels every time I hear her name and go,

Oh,

My God.

Like,

She's one of my favorite people.

No,

I don't do that.

Nor is that required.

It has nothing to do with it.

It's just when they don't own you,

When they're not renting space in your head,

When you're not their victim,

Right,

That's the other way.

And,

You know,

Like everybody knows victim mentality now.

It's a catchphrase.

Everybody knows it's negative.

So now everybody just forms a defense to it.

Like you tell somebody that they're behaving in a victim mode,

And they're like,

Oh,

My God,

No,

I'm not,

No,

I'm not.

And they just defend themselves against it.

And it's like,

Yeah,

But you are.

Like,

I mean,

If you're going to do this work,

You have to be able to be honest with yourself.

With yourself.

I mean,

With other people,

Yeah,

It helps,

But it's not as mandatory.

But you do have to be honest with yourself.

And as a general rule,

If you have a situation in your life,

You know,

I'm kind of talking about people right now,

But a situation in your life that you've gone through,

If you're on the other side of it,

And you are not feeling any level of gratitude or appreciation,

Like you look back and you're just like,

I hate that that happened and never should have happened.

It was horrible.

I hate it.

And that's just your outlook.

That's victim mentality.

You are a victim of that situation.

You're thinking on an unconscious level,

Maybe you won't say it out loud,

But on an unconscious level,

You're resisting reality.

You're resisting the reality that it happened.

You're angry that it happened.

If you're angry that it happened,

Then no part of you is looking for the lesson.

No part.

You're just caught in the victim.

They did something to you.

You didn't like it.

And that's the end of the story.

So you are their victim.

That's victim mentality.

So if you're not holding any appreciation for difficult situations,

I'm not saying that it has to be complete appreciation.

Like I said,

I don't get all warm and fuzzy when I think about my ex-wife and go,

Oh my God,

She's my favorite person.

That's not what I'm saying.

It's neutral.

I love neutrality.

She's a non-issue,

Completely non-issue.

She can't affect me.

That's freedom.

There's no resentment.

There's no anger.

It's just neutral.

It's just Switzerland,

Man.

Doesn't matter.

It's fine.

Oh,

She hates you.

Okay.

That's fine.

She has a right to hate me.

She has a right to her perspectives.

I don't try to change the way she thinks about me.

That's her business.

It's none of her business what she thinks about me.

It's none of my business.

Her thoughts are her business.

If she chooses to work through them,

She can work through them.

She could get to a place where she's free of all the hatred and the anger too.

I haven't seen any symptoms of that yet,

But anybody can do it at any time.

If she chooses to,

She could.

My space is my responsibility.

I have no resentment.

Then I can look back.

Like I said,

Do I jump up and down and get the warm and fuzzies?

No,

But I look back and I'm completely neutral.

Which feels free.

I know nothing about it controls me.

I'm completely fine with it.

Then I can look at it and find bits of appreciation.

Be like,

Wow.

Look at my son.

My son has turned out amazingly wonderful.

He's 25 now and he's just so capable and intelligent and strong.

He has the ability to navigate problems in his life and learn from them and grow and become a better version of himself.

He just does that as he walks through life,

Which is what we're supposed to be doing.

He just does it masterfully.

It's amazing to watch.

If I think that I'm the only one that had a part in that,

That's delusional.

I'm not the only one that had a part in that.

Of course,

Maybe I was the one that was giving the more stability,

The more open heart,

The more loving,

The more explaining things to him.

Maybe I did that part of it,

But that's not all that shapes us.

I'm sure his mother gave him some good things in good ways,

Too.

She loves him.

She wasn't a monster.

She did do some good things,

Especially in his younger years.

There's appreciation for that,

But also the negative things.

It pushed him to grow,

And it was hard.

It was hard for him,

But he grew through it.

I told him,

I don't know,

In his teen years or something,

When we're kind of on the other side of all the custody and all that stuff,

I told him,

I said,

When you get older,

You're going to see that everything that you went through with the court and having to break away from his mom and all this stuff and the difficulties that he experienced growing up and all this stuff.

I told him,

You are going to be able to handle life and problems so much better than other people because of the strength you acquired going through this at such a young age.

It's going to benefit you in the future.

I think he was around 18 when he started noticing that there were other kids around his age and older that weren't handling life as well as he was.

They weren't looking at it clearly.

They weren't problem-solving.

He came to me,

And he's like,

What the heck?

I said,

Yeah.

I said,

Remember when I told you this several years ago?

This is what I was talking about.

You went through a lot when you were young,

And now look at the strength and the capabilities you have because of it.

He went,

Oh.

Oh,

That's what you were talking about.

I'm like,

Yeah.

This is what I mean.

Not only me,

But him too because I can see both.

I saw his journey,

And I experienced my journey.

Both of us grew because of her.

Was it pleasant?

Heck no,

But we both grew and became better versions of ourselves because of her.

There's a level of appreciation that I'm able to enter.

I don't think he's completely there yet,

But he had to just shut down to some degree for a little while and allow himself to get older and develop his life and his confidence.

And then now he'll go and lean into that relationship with his mother every once in a while and try to work through it with her and stuff like that.

But that's him doing his work on his timeline.

So I don't think he's at the level where he's feeling the appreciation yet.

But I am.

I'm feeling the appreciation.

And like I said,

That was the most extreme situation,

I would say.

But my drinking,

I feel appreciation for my drinking.

I understand.

I mean,

I had some fun too.

I destroyed a lot too,

Though.

I learned and I grew a lot through that.

A lot.

I wouldn't have woken up.

Even with all the suffering that I was going through,

I still wasn't waking up.

That's why I needed to find my ex-wife.

She was able to break me,

Literally.

I saw this in a guided.

.

.

I always forget what they call these.

Hypnosis.

Because to me,

Most of the spiritual-type hypnosis that I've experienced are more like guided meditations.

They're very deep,

Deep guided meditations.

But I could see that my ex-wife came.

I needed somebody like her to just pummel me into the ground until I couldn't take it anymore.

And I couldn't get up and I couldn't handle it.

Because every time life knocked me down,

I just kept pulling myself back up.

God,

Guardian angels,

Soul team,

Whatever,

Were looking at me going,

This dude will not wake up.

He's refusing to and he's supposed to.

So we got to bury him so deep that he can't pull himself back up.

And that's what happened at the beginning of that relationship.

I just got beaten down so much.

I had nothing left.

I couldn't pull myself back up.

But the love of my son was the love I needed to pull me back up because that's what needed to happen to me.

I needed to get buried so deep that I couldn't get myself back up anymore.

And then after that,

Then I could surrender and stop getting back up and fighting.

And then once I completely admitted complete failure,

Exhaustion,

Defeat,

Whatever,

Once I surrendered,

Then I would have been dead.

I was close to death already spiritually,

Physically,

Mentally.

So I needed a strong source of love to pull me back out of those depths.

And that's what my son was for.

So it was quite the journey.

But when I look back,

I'm not her victim.

I might have been her student,

But I ain't her victim.

I'm completely free of any type of victim mentality about anything that she did.

None,

Completely free.

No resentments.

Gratitude for who I became through the process.

So there's a level of appreciation.

So I think you guys probably get the concept.

If you get still and go back,

We can remember the things that we still have resentments about.

And resentment means to re-feel,

To feel again.

Resentment comes from centire,

Which means to feel.

And re- means again,

So it means to feel again.

So if we're carrying that,

The negativity inside of us,

These negative outlooks,

This victim mentality within us that somebody did us wrong,

Or life did us wrong,

Or it wasn't fair,

This shouldn't have happened.

That's,

You know,

We don't realize it.

We think,

Oh,

You know,

I wish that didn't happen,

Or that didn't.

Like,

We don't think anything of it,

Saying that,

But we don't.

Like,

You got to slow down and understand what that means energetically,

Because that's how your body functions.

You know,

And we rationalize our behavior,

And we stuff things all the time.

So,

You know,

I can't count how many times somebody would be like,

You know,

They'd be like,

Oh yeah,

This person that did this negative thing,

They're a jerk.

Man,

Every time I see them,

I just think of what they did and how much of a jerk.

And,

You know,

Then of course I might say something like,

Well,

You know,

You should learn to let that go and work through that,

Let go of the resentment,

So you don't have to continue feeling this.

Like,

If I say anything like that,

Or the word victim mentality or something,

People usually go,

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

I mean,

It doesn't bother me,

I don't care.

That's just stuffing.

Yes,

It does bother you.

You can't sit there and think.

You can't have a situation processed.

See,

We have a situation happen,

We process it in a particular way,

And then it generates a particular emotion off of it.

That's how we function.

So if you processed a situation in the past where you were like,

This person did me wrong,

And they shouldn't have,

And that's it?

That's how you processed it?

That is victim mentality,

And it generates negative emotion.

You can pretend it doesn't.

You can pretend it doesn't bother you that much.

Maybe it doesn't bother you that much,

But it does bother you.

How can it not?

How can we,

You know,

Like,

If you slow down and really think of this,

Like,

Energetically follow it.

Oh,

Somebody did something to me that they shouldn't have done.

Okay,

Well,

What does that mean?

Well,

Energetically try to follow me down,

Right?

Well,

If somebody did something wrong to me,

And they shouldn't have done that,

Then that basically means that there's something wrong with either that person or life,

Most often on an unconscious level.

We believe it's both,

And we go,

Okay,

Because it shouldn't have happened.

How can something happen that's not supposed to happen?

That's literally impossible.

Well,

It wasn't supposed.

It did.

Yeah,

But it wasn't supposed.

What do you mean it wasn't supposed to?

How could it happen if it wasn't supposed to happen?

Like,

What you're saying is that God or the universe made a mistake,

And you know better than them.

Like,

Energetically,

That's what you're saying.

Oh,

No,

I don't mean it.

Yes,

You do.

You're just not thinking deep enough to understand that that's what you mean.

That's what the concept means.

If you believe something shouldn't have happened,

And yet it did,

Then the universe or God screwed up,

And you know better.

Period.

It's a fact.

That's what it means on an energetic level.

You think that there's things happening in the world that you're a victim of that aren't supposed to be happening.

That's a foundational problem with existence.

And it has to be solved if you're expecting to have peace.

You know,

I mean,

Hopefully,

Depending on the person,

If somebody ate a piece of gum that you were having,

Hopefully you didn't latch on.

You didn't generate enough victim mentality to really have it bother you that much.

Some little things like that you might be able to let go of,

Maybe,

Because they're so inconsequential.

So you don't really internalize the way you processed it so much.

You just start processing it that way,

And then you just go,

Whatever.

And then it never really fully becomes part of you.

But most things really are part of us.

This is why I'm constantly paying attention when things happen in my life to how I'm processing them.

Am I a victim of that situation?

If it's bothering me,

Then I am.

So I need to reframe it so I'm not a victim.

And so that I don't start feeding my unconscious that there's something wrong with life,

That things that shouldn't be happening keep happening to me.

And I'm just this poor victim.

I can't feed that.

I can't ingest that.

If I do,

I have to reframe it into a different way.

The ex,

Oh,

She did this,

She did that,

She did this.

Okay.

I'll give an example.

I think the last straw,

I guess,

Was when my son decided to do his senior year of high school down in Florida,

Where he grew up in Rhode Island.

And because he was going to get in-state tuition for Florida colleges because he wanted to go to college down there.

And if you have a year residency,

Then you can get in-state tuition,

Which is dramatically cheaper.

So we're going to move down to Florida.

Now this is like six months before his 18th birthday,

Where his mom doesn't have a say at all.

And I needed her permission to move from Rhode Island to Florida.

He was going to be 18 in six months.

And she fought it anyway.

And I ended up spending $4,

000 on a lawyer to get the right to move to Florida.

And the day of court,

She just didn't show.

At the end of it all,

She just went,

Eh,

Whatever,

He can go.

So I spent $4,

000 for nothing.

So,

You know,

And I didn't have that $4,

000 to spend.

I had to borrow that money.

So it was frustrating.

But I don't harbor resentment towards that now.

That was my choice.

Like I chose to spend $4,

000 to get my son to do what he had decided he wanted to do with his life.

Okay,

All right,

Well,

Guess what?

I'd make that choice again.

Why?

Because my son's happiness is primarily important.

So $4,

000 or whether it was fair or whether it wasn't fair,

Whatever,

I have no control over that.

I had to make a choice.

Do I abandon what my son wants to do?

Not only,

You know,

Moving to Florida that year,

But it was even more so for four years of college thereafter.

Like you want to go to school there.

And we didn't have a lot of money.

So like he was being conscious of the amount of money that he was going to spend.

He had it all figured out.

He had like two years of college.

And then transferring to a particular four-year school that was affiliated with the two-year school.

And he had it all figured out.

And I mean,

It was,

I think it might have been like $14,

000 for all four years.

It was like $2,

000 for each year for the first two years,

If I remember right.

And then the last two years at the four-year school was going to be like $5,

000 each or something.

So it was like 14 grand,

I think.

It was something small like that for a four-year education.

And he comes to me with this at,

Well,

He was like 16,

16 or 17 at the time,

You know?

And I'm like,

Wow,

Nicely done,

Sir.

You know?

So I was going to support him in that.

And I did.

So a lot of people,

You know,

A lot of people would harbor resentment towards that and care.

Four grand,

I didn't,

And I had to borrow it and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And it's not fair and it shouldn't have happened.

I'd do it again.

Because I made the best choice that I could make at the time.

My son wants to do this.

Can I support him in it?

Can I find a way?

Yes,

Found a way to support him in it.

Okay,

Do that.

Done.

Now,

If I had a time machine,

Which I don't,

And I would have,

Or I could see into the future that she wasn't going to show up for court,

And then would I have paid the $4,

000 to a lawyer?

Well,

No,

I mean,

But she might've shown up if she didn't see that I had a lawyer,

Right?

And fought it,

Who knows?

So,

But it's all hypotheticals at this point.

You just made the best,

I made the best decision I could at the time.

And that's how it played out.

So that's how it played out.

So you dig yourself out of that $4,

000 hole at some point and you move on with your life.

Do I think it was fair?

No,

I wouldn't do that to somebody,

You know?

But it is what it is,

It happened.

And I grew from it and I learned from it.

And now because of a situation like that,

I'm less likely to harbor something.

You know,

Now if somebody kind of does me wrong in some sort of way,

It's easier for me.

You know,

I might still take an initial hit and get irritated,

But at some point,

Usually within a couple of days,

Like I can't have anger and resentment inside of me for that long.

Usually within a few days,

If it keeps coming up and occupying my mind,

I'm like,

Well,

Glenn,

You're gonna be carrying this around for the rest of your life?

Like,

You gotta get rid of this,

You know?

So I'll do the work and reframe it and go,

Okay,

Well,

What did I learn from this?

You know,

I think that that's the biggest thing is if we can look at our relationships,

Our experiences and go,

What did I learn from it?

If we didn't learn what we're supposed to learn,

We will be harboring a resentment.

If we did learn what we're supposed to learn,

Then we won't.

Because,

You know,

If you're looking at a situation and all you see is the negative aspects of it,

They did this,

They did this,

They did,

Okay,

Well,

What's your lesson in that?

It happened to you for a reason.

You either need to learn to set healthier boundaries,

You need to be a little bit more conscious with the people you spend your time around,

You need to,

Like,

There's all types of life lessons that are involved in these circumstances,

But things aren't happening to people for no apparent reason.

There's a lesson in everything.

And the people that are stuck in the victim mentality,

And negative things keep happening,

And happening,

And happening,

And happening.

I know,

I was one of them,

You know?

I mean,

For 20 years as an alcoholic,

And years before that it even started.

Like,

Negative stuff happened to me all the time.

All the time.

And I never learned.

I never learned from them.

As a general rule,

I mean,

I,

You know,

I learned a couple little things here and there,

But as a general rule,

I didn't learn.

Most alcoholics and addicts don't.

Because you anesthetize yourself with the alcohol or the drugs.

So basically,

What they say is,

Like,

Your emotional maturity stops when you really started with your drug of choice.

So,

Like,

I started drinking when I was,

Like,

15.

And when I looked at myself at 35,

The way I processed things in my brain,

Not necessarily my actions,

Like,

I wasn't running around punching people at 35,

But I was at 15.

So that changed.

The external actions,

I,

You know,

When you suffer enough consequences,

You stop pulling back on external behaviors especially.

But internally,

The way that I process,

I wanted to run around drilling people,

Like I was when I was 15,

16 years old.

I just forced myself not to.

But the way I process things,

How much of a victim I was of their behavior and life's behavior and all that stuff,

I was a constant victim of life.

I was a constant victim of other people.

I was constantly experiencing things that weren't fair.

But I wasn't learning from them,

So I never grew,

So I never broke out of it.

It wasn't until I got sober and woke up spiritually that I started seeing the lessons.

And I was like,

Oh,

Once I got the lessons,

Then the repeated lessons stopped.

Like once I learned,

Then another situation sometimes would come in,

But I wouldn't be a victim of it.

I'd use it to stand in what I had already learned,

And then all of a sudden it would stop happening.

You know?

That's the thing.

Like when we,

You know,

Even though we've been on this spiritual path for a long time,

The system still works the same.

So like even 22 years later,

Sometimes I'll find myself where I'm going like,

You know,

This keeps happening.

Like this work,

I keep having problems dealing with companies like Zoom or a money transfer company or a credit card or a phone contract or just anything,

You know,

These huge companies usually.

And it's like,

Okay,

Well,

If I'm experiencing a negative situation over and over and over and over and over again in that genre,

Then I'm not learning what I'm supposed to be learning because those are happening to me so I can keep seeing them.

And then once I learned the lesson,

They still might happen,

But not as often for one.

And then if they do happen,

It doesn't really bother me.

Like when I'm not learning,

It upsets me.

After I've learned,

It doesn't upset me.

I'm free of it.

So it just gives me an opportunity to stand in what I've already learned,

Not get upset and just go,

Oh yeah,

That type of thing used to upset me before.

I'm fine with it now.

I learned what I needed to learn.

And then I can have some appreciation for that because I got something out of it.

I'm appreciative of what I got.

You know,

We think of this victim mentality and this forgiveness thing and we're like,

No,

You know,

When there's initial resistance to it,

No,

Like it's,

That's when we're thinking about other people.

It's about them.

No,

I don't want to forgive them.

No,

I don't want to say that what they're doing is okay because it's not,

No,

I don't want to make peace with this situation because they're bad and it's not fair.

And it's like,

Okay,

Well you can stay in that,

But you're,

You're going to keep,

It's going to keep happening because you're not learning anything.

Right?

So when we stop looking at the,

At them and stop paying attention to us,

We go,

Oh,

Well this is destroying me.

I'm feeling lots of anger and frustration all the time because of this.

I don't want to do that.

Well,

Okay.

How do I become free?

Well,

I have to learn what I need to learn.

Then I can enter into forgiveness.

I can reframe this into a healthier way of looking.

Then I can deal with these situations differently.

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Once we do our work,

Then we're free.

We're free of the resentment.

It's neutral.

It doesn't bother us anymore.

We're fine.

We can handle it.

If it does come up,

It doesn't come up very often because there's nothing there for us to learn.

It might just be an opportunity for us to stand in our new way of being here and there,

But other than,

But it's no big deal.

It's because,

Why?

Because you're not triggered.

It doesn't bother you because you work through it.

So then we land in appreciation.

So now all of a sudden,

You know,

Like if I,

If,

If I refuse to accept somebody's behavior,

You know,

Or,

Or do or forgive them or work through any of that stuff,

I'm the one that's walking around with all the anger and resentment and frustration.

I'm hurting me,

You know?

And then if I work through it,

I'm the one that's neutral.

I'm the one that's at peace.

I'm the one that can handle controversial situations better without getting knocked around.

So I benefit.

That's why forgiveness is never about the other person.

It's just about me.

We're going to stop carrying stuff around.

You know,

I shared this post recently.

It's this old story that I had heard a long time ago.

I didn't even read it when I shared it,

To be honest with you.

I just skimmed it a little to remind myself.

I just like to get the,

The point of it.

And I knew the story from before.

So basically the story is like two monks are,

Are walking through the wilderness and they come across this woman who's on the side of a,

A Creek.

And,

And I think she in like one time I read it,

It was like all muddy or something.

And then this time I think it said that woman had an injured leg and she was unstable and she was scared to cross the Creek or something.

So one of the monks picks up the woman on his back and carries her across the Creek and puts her down.

Now these monks aren't supposed to touch women.

And so he does that.

And then the two monks walk,

You know,

Another four hours back to the monastery.

And when they get back to the monastery,

The monk looks at the one who carried the woman across Creek and he goes,

I can't believe you did that.

We're not supposed to touch a woman and here you are.

You'd picked her up and you carried her across that Creek.

How could you do that?

And he,

And the monk looked at him and he says,

Well,

I only picked her up and carried her for a couple minutes to get her across the Creek to try to help her.

You've been carrying her for four hours in your mind.

You've been carrying the resentment,

The anger for four hours,

You know,

And it's,

This is what we're doing to ourselves.

This is why go look at the,

The difficult situations in your life.

And if there's no appreciation for them,

Then slow down and look for the lesson,

Learn from it.

And then you'll start experiencing the,

The appreciation,

You know?

So we're feeding the appreciation.

We're starving the victim.

How?

By reframing what's important.

What's important is our growth,

Not about what they did.

It's about,

Are we growing?

That's what's important.

So for experiencing growth,

We should experience some appreciation for that growth because we're here to do.

We're here doing what we're supposed to be doing.

We're growing,

We're expanding,

We're becoming better versions of ourselves.

And therefore we're going to experience more happiness,

More peace,

More contentment,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

All right.

I think that will do it.

Thank you for listening,

Peeps.

And I will talk with you soon.

Peace.