Has everything and everyone has been triggering you lately? Can’t seem to escape it?  Well that’s because you can’t continue to ignore your triggers. You can’t run anymore. They are are in there deeply seated in the unconscious just waiting for you to tend to them so that they don’t manifest into something much worse.

So let’s take a look at this. Think of who or what has been triggering you lately. It is normal to play the “he/she made me feel this way” card and the “they shouldn’t have done that” game, but that only creates more pain. So why are you feeding pain with more pain? Sounds counter productive doesn’t it? Instead of shifting the blame onto that person or situation. Why don’t we look within instead?

The only reason we are being triggered is because there is something in us that wants to heal. What is causing us this pain or discomfort by this person is simply an opportunity for us to heal. THEY ARE JUST THE CATALYST. If we can shift our awareness from “they made me feel this way” instead to “why did I allow this persons behavior to disrupt my own inner peace?” “where does it come from in my past that is triggering me and what can I do to work on in myself?” “Why am I blaming them when I am truly responsible for my own thoughts and behaviors that make me feel this way?”, “How can I be a better person?” “How can I be a happier person consistently and not just when things are going my way?” “How can I retain my inner peace even when storms surround me?”

You might have to just grin and bear through it, but you might also be able to figure your way around it if you can just figure out why — and who the person is behind this process, and how to befriend them.

Instead of condemning these people who “hurt” us, what if we send them love for subconsciously helping us. Thank them for being a catalyst to our inner path of healing. They are not deliberately hurting us. People do not wake up every day looking to hurt others. That is our perception and may be a belief system. So if we shift our perception and send them love instead of condemning them, the hurt will go away. These scenarios might stop attracting into our lives. We have all hurt someone in our lives without even knowing it, simply by a word or an action and we don’t notice because it is not something that would have hurt us… but it hurts them because of their past experiences and beliefs. Most of the things that are happening are really happening around us in the background, to them, not to us. But we choose to believe they are happening to us. So we have a choice to let it go or hold on to it. Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. We don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if we do. Most people’s reactions to obstacles are resistance, which leads to annoyance, frustration, despair, futility, or anger. Dig yourself out of that hole one shovel at a time, find your light again and let it shine like the marvelous you that you are!

We are all humans, all on the path to enlightenment, living and learning lessons along the way. We are all lost somewhere or another. None of us came with a manual. We all need to look at each other as brothers and sisters and have compassion for one another. Underneath our skin and ego we all have a heart, a higher self, and we all have blood running through our veins. We all need love patience and understanding as we figure out this thing called life and as we figure out how to be a better person each step of the way. Every single one of us has some form of a mountain to climb. We all face adversities, none worse than others, just different. What if we stop making it about “me” and treat others the way we would want to be treated back. If they are not loving you the way you would like, so what? Love them back even harder. They probably are struggling with their own self love. If you are not treated the way you would like to be treated, get honest with yourself and ask yourself how have I been treating others or even more importantly, how have I been treating myself? Have I been showing myself love and kindness and compassion or have I been to hard and unforgiving on myself?

Some people experience a lot of hurt at the beginning or their lives and some experience it here or there. We can’t discount what other people are going through because we will never understand the life that they are living because we are not in it. We are all acting and responding according to how we think we should be according to our circumstances. At the end of the day, there’s really no right or wrong. It’s just perception. We should always be doing WHAT IS BEST FOR US. If we don’t make ourselves a priority and forget to give ourselves the love we need, we will not have it in us to give to anyone else. At the end of the day we all just want the same things. We want to experience joy and peace. We want to love and be loved without walls. We all want to give and receive. We are all seeking our purpose in life. We all want to be happy. So why can’t we love one another and extend compassion, understanding and kindness? Why can’t we support and build each other up rather than condemn and compete and judge? We are all the same at the end of the day. We are one. We come from one consciousness, so we are just in fact hurting ourselves.

If someone is going through something we don’t understand, or someone is behaving in a way that we don’t like, we could instead try to understand why. Put our self in their shoes, in their situation. We do not know why they do the things they do because we have not lived the life they did. This is why we are all unique individuals. We all had a different life, different parents, different belief systems, different traumas, different things bring us joy, different things trigger our pain; some things trigger one person whereas another person might not even blink an eye to the same scenario. YOU are responsible for how you are feeling inside, no one else. That’s a really tough thing to come to terms with and we naturally want to resist it because its uncomfortable. If you are giving people your power, that’s on you, not them. Now were aware, but how do we shift it? Contain your energy, don’t give it away. When negative situations come up where you are feeling hurt, come back inside yourself. Breathe. Meditate.Go to yoga. Ask yourself why is this happening? What did this trigger inside of me from my past and how can I heal it? Then, you send that person love instead…because we are all just humans having a human existence, doing the best we can with what we know and the skills we have been given that have been passed down by past generations. Heal these things in yourself, love yourself, have compassion for yourself, and you will heal all the generations before you.

MEL
xox

This originally appeared in Mel’s blog on http://www.melaniecosens.com

My meditations this week have revealed the entirety of the journey I have embarked on since July of last year. What a story that has unfolded over the last 12 months. I’m trying to comprehend how a day is measured in 24 hour increments, but yet the time seems to be faster moving than ever. With all of these new experiences, time feels to be speeding up in 5D. It’s pretty mind boggling to see how all the pieces fit together throughout one short year into this big puzzle that I call my life.

I blinked and BAM. A year later —> a business, a broken arm and a wedding later. I was a hamster on a wheel, headed for everywhere and never stopping for any air.

The universe was not gentle with me this past year. I didn’t know where to go or how to get there with my dream and the only thing that was guaranteed was that I would reach new levels, whether I liked it or not. When I felt like I was walking up a giant mountain, I had to put one foot in front of the other … day after day … until one day: I would reach the top. But throughout that journey, just like the roots of the trees in the forest, they would trip me and I would fall down. And every time I had a choice to stay down or get back up. I chose to be strong because I have always needed to be strong ever since I took my first breath on this planet. I am not ready to get into this part of who I am, and am still working on my vulnerability, but I know it is my strength that has been a beautiful shield that has protected me on my journey and my faith has been my only foot to stand on.

I am strong because for 28 years, I have been riding on a roller coaster driving through some unthinkable storms in my life. Some storms took years to get through and some took only weeks or months but I have come to know that I always escape out of a storm, on the other side where the sun is shining with proof each time that once again … I survived. Each time thereafter, breathing a sigh of relief and just trusting that the storm changed who I was yet again. My skin would get thicker and my relationship with and trust in myself would get much stronger. I had no choice but to trust that each time these storms would bridge the path to consciousness. Instead of choosing to see my life as “being dealt a bad hand” I’ve always known that there was a higher power somewhere out there, just preparing me for the journey ahead by giving me the tools I needed one day to build something great. There was seldomly any ease or grace but I wouldn’t have learnt any of those tough lessons if life were always kind.

In the midst of all the painful moments and life changing lessons I had to learn along the way, painful ones and beautiful ones; I have grown as a person, as a leader and as a soul. The depths of who I am have changed for the better, inside and out.

Starting this business meant my life was going to change in every way possible. This meant changing & re-arranging & revolutionizing my life.

This meant shedding people from my life, old patterns, old belief systems, ways of thinking and doing.

This meant broadening my perspective and stepping into the depths of the unknown by charging into uncharted territory.

This meant change, change and more change.

The funny thing about humans is that we resist change far too much. People are terrified of change. But if you think about all the uncomfortable changes in your life, you’ll realize that with these changes came shifts that always brought something newer and better, and even if you feel it didn’t – you learned some very valuable lessons, tools, strength and life experience.

Change is something as a collective we need to get used to. The only thing that is guaranteed in life is change. Change is the law of life.

So what changes? Technology changes, nature changes, your age changes, your bodies change, situations change, relationships change and fads change. When people finally get sick of their own bullshit, they change. Even your underwear changes (I hope). If things didn’t change we would all still be sitting on yellow, green and orange couches from the 70’s and I for one am glad we aren’t. If things didn’t change I would not have rights or a voice and I most definitely would not be an independent woman running a business.

As for people, they change too, they come and go, just like seasons. You have to appreciate them as the season that they are, and when it’s time for them to exit, gracefully accept and wave goodbye. You do not plot to find ways to force summer to stay when fall starts to near because there is nothing you can do about this change. You simply do not engage. You just surrender to what’s in the plan. This means that you should not change your beliefs nor beg anyone to stay. If they are meant to be, they will never leave. Do not force. Do not contort to please them. Just allow them to fade away. You should not dwell on their past position held in your life because this void space always gets filled with someone better suited for your journey. So like always, this boils down to choices. If we are constantly meeting change with resistance, we are only further addicting ourselves to pain and suffering and continuing on with a bad cycle that never gets us anywhere better.

More often than not, change becomes necessary and stares you right in the face until you listen. If you don’t listen, a volcano will explode in every direction. When life failed to hold meaning for me anymore, I stopped looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and instead I lit it myself. Last year what I was seeking was what I had been searching for my whole life: a place where I belonged. I was looking for a community of like minded conscious people and this is what I found. It turns out that “Seek and you shall find” really holds true.

Let me tell you, this wasn’t a walk in the park. In the beginning of my business there were people who doubted me, then there were ones who were outright unsupportive. Then were the strangers who rolled their eyes at the fact that a 27 year old, nonetheless a woman, thought she could accomplish this great task. Add planning a wedding on top of this and it was like trying to run a marathon with a pocket full of rocks. It was unnecessarily difficult when it should not have been. It was an awful feeling and I had to drown a lot of noise but with each brick they threw at me, I used it to build a beautiful structure. With each layer I would reach a new level where I would be one step closer to living my truth, my dharma.

In this time, I have been taken advantage of more times that I like to admit. I have had to keep my eyes in my own lane when others judged the decisions I knew were necessary to make for the highest good of everyone involved. I’ve had to sacrifice and risk everything I own. I’ve had to let my guard down and learn to trust. I’ve had to learn to take a stand where necessary. I’ve had to remind myself to never apologize for being picky of who I allow on our team – hell would have to freeze over before I allow someone onto our team who does not understand my vision, our community or is not loving, caring, self-aware or kind. And this evidence is there, every single day when you walk through that door.

In the early days, I had get past the hurt and disappointment of being alone to accomplish my goals every single day, because naturally, when I needed people the most – they were nowhere to be found. I was exhausted always but I had to keep my eyes open, smile and stand up tall day after day, from sunrise to sunset knowing that eventually one day, I would get 8 hours of sleep. And when I felt the world was against me and there was no one to save me, I had to turn into my own sanctuary inside of myself and just breathe – because that was the only thing I knew how to do. There were many days where I struggled to find my lantern when the only thing I could see was the darkness. But the truth at the end of the day still remains this: I wouldn’t trade this life for any other.

In one year I experienced massive amounts of change everyday. My life was on fast forward. I worked everyday, all day and all through the night. The only time I went home was to get a bit of sleep. I didn’t see the inside of a grocery store for a year which meant the only time I ate, was take out. I failed to take a breather and see or feel the sunshine that summer. And sadly, I worked right up until 15 minutes before walking down the aisle on my wedding day. I was late for my own wedding. But here is a news flash: it was all self-inflicted. I got lost in the busy-ness of always trying to finish a task or accomplish the next thing. But I look back knowing that these were all choices. Some of which I can say “next time I will know better”. Part of this ridiculousness that I imposed on myself was excitement of wanting to spend all my time in a place that I had been dreaming up and manifesting for years — and the other part of it was this strange belief that there was never enough time and an even stranger belief that when I was doing my best, it still wasn’t good enough. And that’s when I learned of my lurking unconscious belief that “I was never good enough”. The last 365 days I have been trying to destruct this unreasonable belief that I picked up from life. This something I’d like to delve into further, hoping I can help others with in the future, but that’s another story for another day.

The studio has been a sacred journey of stepping into my power and finally being able to let my soul out of the closet after the imprisonment of hiding the depths of my true-self since the beginning of time. Layer after layer, the butterfly would merge from the cocoon. The more layers I shed, eventually I would come to find that the new people who walked through my door every day would understand and support me. The truth is, I am no longer alone. I am graced with the presence of unique and wonderful humans. They are the ones who make it possible for me to wake up everyday and focus on spreading my passions. I think I can speak for everyone where I can say we get to experience love and kindness and endless support. Our community is beyond blessed to have each other. My heart is full. Today I am overwhelmingly surrounded by the most beautiful heart centered people who are part of our Buddha Belly family – the students and every single one of our staff who make it such a special place to be. Each one adds to all of the bits that are weaved together into this intricate and beautiful web of oneness.
I get to meet good, beautiful, inspirational people. As much as I teach them, I also learn from them and I also learn about myself. I get front stage as a witness of the ups and downs of everyday life and how resilient, courageous and kind humanity can be. I am forever astounded at how well they adapt in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, and copious amounts of stress. Everyday I watch people breakdown, people get lost and people get found. I watch people breakthrough, people transform. I watch people love each other, confide in each other, people laugh and people cry. I watch people rescue animals and people rescue children and people rescue themselves. I meet people who want to attempt their own life because sometimes the weight of the world is just too much. I have watched people go through cancer, get a divorce/breakup, lose a job, lose a child and have some pretty big medical scares with their children. I have come to learn how many humans suffer from severe PTSD, depression and anxiety. It reminds us of how little we know about the struggles of others. It hurts me to see the pain of so many people who internalize it all. Some days these things break my heart and some days they remind me to be grateful for the simple things. These people make me a better person. These people inspire me every day, always. I am especially inspired on the days when they are walking in with positivity and a smile on their face despite it all. We are all experiencing different hardships, and somewhere out there is a person, who just doesn’t show it on the outside. We all just want to love and be loved. To be part of something. To be supported. To be healthy, to be safe, to accepted and to be secure. And that all comes from the same space of oneness.

It’s not I AM it’s WE ARE. You are them and they are you. We all have this light, that sometimes goes out and sometimes this light gets blown out by another human being. But when we become an instrument of peace and work together instead to build each other up, we can the shine light on each others road ahead, where eventually we find our way back to the truth. I know today that we are all just humans, doing the best we can, with the awareness that we have and all that we can do is bring more love into everything, everyone and every situation, in hopes for making this world a better place.

Alone we can accomplish something, but together we can accomplish anything.

XOX
MEL