“Perhaps you chose to be in an advanced class for the evolution of your soul. That you placed yourself with the right mother in order to develop certain qualities in your life. That perhaps there are certain qualities that you have that you would not have developed if in fact you had Mrs. Cosby or Harriet from Ozzie and Harriet as a mother, that perfect pictured mother. Perhaps there is something about you that you now have within you because you had the mother that perhaps you didn’t think you wanted but you chose anyway.” – Michael Beckwith
Mother’s Day was challenging for a few reasons, one of which has been my mediocre relationship with my mother. It has been a source of pain for the majority of my life but only truly came keenly into my awareness in the last decade or so. A lot could be said on the subject, but the point is that it sparked this blog about choice and being at cause for our life experiences. I took on a new vantage point about why I would choose the experience of being raised by a mother such as mine.
I recently had this incredibly illuminating session with a spiritual counselor, and since then I’ve been experimenting with the application of a certain concept to my life. She encouraged me to put myself at cause for a situation I feel I have been “stuck” in. She asked me to assume I was at cause and had consciously stuck myself there, and if this was so to ask myself why I would have chosen to do that. To change my vantage point from “at effect” to “at cause” immediately took away any victim energy I was stuck in and forced me to go deeper with why I would have chosen to stick myself in this situation. Answers began to bubble up as to the deeper purpose for being in this given situation, and the reasons were very good reasons I would have chosen this experience for myself. Profound things were happening and clearing precisely because of this situation. It melted all of my resistance to the situation which was actually causing me to stay more stuck in it.
I started thinking maybe I should experiment with applying this to all of the situations/experiences I’ve been feeling at the effect of or which were troubling me. I began realizing this was a very powerful practice as it has the potential to provide much insight as well as give me back the power I falsely believed I didn’t have. I’m pretty sure it’s probably a great way to energetically release myself from such sticky situations. I think transformations, miracles, and much needed solutions can find their way in when the energy around a situation is shifted in this way.
Take any situation in your life and just play with the idea that you chose to put yourself in it. Maybe it’s a nasty divorce with a spiteful ex, a financial situation involving a lot of loss, being single, being in a dysfunctional marriage, or even being born to a mother or father who has never been what you wanted or showed up the way you felt you needed. Ask yourself the following:
why would you choose to put yourself in that situation?
what are you gaining from it?
what are you learning from it?
what qualities in you have developed and/or what has healed or released as a result of being in this situation?
how is your life deeper and richer and more meaningful because of having been in this situation?
how has this situation helped to bring you more in line with the purpose for your life?
The answers you get might be very illuminating for you. Once I applied this practice, it brought into my awareness how I was actually “finding” myself in experiences and situations that my soul knew I needed in order to bring me closer to my higher and overall aim for myself and my life: Freedom. It was clear how on some level I had orchestrated the entire thing to give me what I needed to evolve and grow. Sometimes it is really hard to want to put myself at cause for some things I really really want to say is because of someone else’s doing and not mine. But then I remember that I’m not saying they don’t have responsibility. Rather, I am shifting the perspective to ask the question as to why I would choose to be in said exchange/conflict/dynamic with that person. It’s a very slight shift that makes a world of difference mainly because it isn’t about the experience or the person per se, it is about it’s purpose for my life.
Back to my mother…I’ve cleared and healed a lot in the last five years around this subject. This piece where I truly could see why I chose this experience with her is maybe the final piece for me. I could forgive knowing I chose exactly what I needed in this life to make me who I needed and wanted to be. I chose this advanced course, as Michael Beckwith says, and I can definitely let that truth set me free.
Note: The quote above is from Sunday’s talk at Agape International Spiritual Center. You can see the whole thing at http://agapelive.com/streaming-archives/sunday-05-12-2013/
