The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life (31 page)

 NEALE DONALD WALSCH

You can even be grateful for things that you imagine aren’t any good for you, that you imagine that you don’t really want, or that you wish you hadn’t had to experience. Even in those moments, masters say, ”Thank you to life, thank you to God, thank you to the divine self for this particular experience, because I know that before too long I will see the extraordinary gift that has been folded into this physical encounter.”

Setbacks offer unique opportunities to explore the resilience of your soul. You can come out of them less vulnerable and more skillful at dealing with new setbacks. You will see that the headwind you experienced along the way was key to your journey. Your survival is more precious. Love is all the sweeter. And you appreciate success for however long it lasts after a reversal.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

—CONFUCIUS

In order to free yourself from despair, anger, and self-pity, even when life is a struggle, remind yourself of everything you are grateful for. Sometimes these things may be difficult to see, but they are there. Gratitude helps you transform the scale and meaning of your setbacks and make them more bearable.

 RUEDIGER SCHACHE

If you express yourself in appreciation or in gratitude, it’s like sending love out to God. Gratitude is opening your heart and giving a big, big yes to God, to the universe, to your soul, or to whatever you believe in. Gratitude is one of the most powerful things you can do to open your heart.

Whatever happens in your life, have faith in a higher order, in the support of something greater, knowing that you are not alone. Bear in mind, even in times of adversity, that you are more than a body, you are a soul connected to others.

Ruediger Schache

 GARY ZUKAV

A five-sensory human looks at experience as good fortune and bad fortune, positive or negative, the best of luck or the worst of luck. But a multisensory human has a more expanded perception. A multisensory human sees all experience as potential to grow spiritually. All experience.

When something hurts in life, we don’t usually think of it as our path or as the source of wisdom. In fact, we think that the reason we’re on the path is to get rid of this feeling . . . This is the time to open your heart, to be kind, right now in this moment. Now is the time . . . Now is the only time.

—PEMA CHÖDRÖN,
WHEN THINGS FALL APART

Fear and love are opposites, but they also complement each other. Everything that is not love is fear. Love comes from the soul, whereas fear is a collective term for all negative emotions, including anger, irritation, jealousy, resentment, hatred, machismo, and a sense of superiority or inferiority or both. Fear is everything that prevents you from connecting with your heart. This kind of fear is something entirely different from the sense of physical threat you may have when hearing ominous sounds or when somebody intimidates you.

 PAULO COELHO

Of course there are fears that we need to have. Look before you cross the street, because otherwise you can be hit by a car. This is a positive fear. On the other hand, there are fears like “I am scared to talk to this lady or to this man, because I fear to be rejected.” This is a stupid fear. So choose your fears and don’t be paralyzed by the bad ones. Somehow the fear is there to test us.

We all have fears. Of course, this is annoying, and most of us are not exactly proud of the fearful sides of our personality. And yet the moments when you feel fear provide the perfect opportunity for greater self-understanding.

If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return.

—DEEPAK CHOPRA,
THE THIRD JESUS

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

—PEMA CHÖDRÖN

 GARY ZUKAV

The fear-based parts of your personality are not your obstacles, they are not your enemies. They are your avenues to spiritual growth.

When somebody wrongly accuses you of something, when somebody is trying to pin something on you that you have absolutely nothing to do with, you feel victimized and angry or indignant. Still, you can determine the way you handle your anger by whether you decide to align your personality with your soul at that moment. The cause of your anger is only that fearful part of your personality, and not your soul, that views the behavior of the other person (the one you believe has wrongly accused you) as unjust. As long as you let yourself be governed by a fearful part of your personality, anger will remain in charge.

 RUEDIGER SCHACHE

What happens outside is just to press a button in your system and then it activates, for example, fear or anger. And then what you can do is focus on the inner world, on the anger or on the fear.

 MICHAEL BECKWITH

When we consider challenging a fear, we’re actually considering shining the light of awareness on those places within us that are fearful.

Before connecting with your heart to turn your anger into love, you need to face your anger and recognize it as an impulse from a fearful part of your personality. Remind yourself that, like the person identified by your fear, you are more than just personalities but equal souls.

 PAULO COELHO