I must tell you first that “acceptance is the key.” What has happened has happened. It is in the past. There is nothing you can do to change it. You can however change your perspective of it. Chose to see the past as a learning process. The past does not have to define who you are. Accepting that it has occured wothout passing judgement on yourself will allow you to release it and move forward.

Every moment offers you an opportunity to recreate yourself anew. The repetative tape full of self recrimination you continue to allow to run in your head only takes you down into an endless spiral of negativity and self loathing. “What you think about comes about.” “LIke energy attracts like energy.” All you achieve with self recrimination is to revert to a childhood pattern of “poor me, poor me.” and all you will achieve will to be to continue to live up to your worst expectations for yourself. It becomes easier to fail than to make the effort to succeed. Negative thinking will become a self fulfilling profesty of failure.

So, happiness and faith in yourself are choices that you can make just as easily as the negative alternatives. Yes, you can simply chose to be happy! It is that simple! The difficulty arises in overcoming the ego and its familiar patterns.

It is reminicent of a story about a young man addicted to living in a barell full of fecies. You see, he had been raised that way and knew no better. It felt familiar and safe. A dear friend saw him in the barell of fecies and so he took him home, gave him a wonderful bubble bath, provided a massage, some really fine new clothes and sat him down to have a talk. He told him all about how much better he would live in this fine home and of how much better he would feel about his life. People would even love to be around him and he would have friends and maybe even a relationship.

He then announced that he was going to run out and pick up some groceries to make a tasty supper with. When he returned, quess what? The young man had found a rain barrel in the yard and filled it with water and feces and was in standing in it in the corner of the living room. Why he asked? It may not have been the best or most sane choice, but to the young man the new life felt scary and threatening and as bad as it was, the barrel was familiar and safe.

Your choice is to recognize that we are all spiritual beings living in a human body and that our essence is love. The opposite of love is fear. If you allow your ego to run your life then you will always live in fear. The ego feels it must control all things, but that is never possible. On the other hand, if you recognize God, Spirit, a higher power or an oversoul (whatever it is that you chose to believe in) that is greater than yourself, then you will recognize that you are not in control of all things.

So you can make a choice to turn your thougts and your actions over to Spirit in order to live in love and love yourself. Trust that you are always loved and taken care of. With that burden of needing to control the universe removed you are free to live in the present moment, mindfully and simply taking care of what is in front of you. Intuitively you will begin to know what to do in situations that used to baffle you before. You will make choices from the perspective of love and acceptance rather than fear and self loathing.

Choose to stop the running tape of negativity in your head. You are a valued spirit of the universe just as any other and a true expression of Godliness. Choose to be happy in every moment. Connect with your God daily and feel the love and direction that is given. Humbly move forward in your beauty and light, excited by the fantasic experience and opportunity that surrounds you. You are truly a co-creator of you experience here. Trust that you are loved.