My Only Regret

“Kindness effects more than severity.”

I spoke with a man last week who confided that his only regret was that he had spared the rod with his second daughter. He felt that by spoiling her without punishment he had lost her in more ways than one. She doesn’t respect him. She doesn’t love him and she has nothing to do with him. 

Well, I would have to say that my only regret is that I have not mastered what it is to love unconditionally. My only regret would be that I could not love my children unconditionally, because I did not have an understanding of what it was to love myself that way. Until I have fully mastered self-love, I will never be able to be the all-loving parent I aspire to be.

 

I resurface an imprint of a conversation I had with my late Mom. She said: “Nicolette, if you can’t get the balance right between discipline and love, then just LOVE.” You see, LOVE surpasses all our flaws. Love is like super glue. It heals every crack, every wound, every ache and every doubt. LOVE HEALS. 

When you hit a child you are perpetuating the cycle of resentment, bitterness, revenge and war. How do you teach a child about love? By loving them, not by hitting them. When you hit a child you are taking advantage of your physical power over them. It is a form of bullying at the most intimate level. 

If you want to earn your children's respect you love them regardless of their tastes, their cleverness, their lack of achievement, their sexual preferences and their determination to things their way and not yours. You put your religion, your culture, your education and conditioning aside and you just LOVE. 

Love melts away resentment and warms the most hardened of hearts. 

It reminds me of that beautiful children’s story about the man, the sun and the wind. The sun and the wind are arguing over who has the most power. They agree to a contest. Whichever of them is able to get the man’s coat off is the victor. The wind goes first and he howls and blows up a hurricane force, but the harder he blows, the tighter the man holds onto his coat. The sun has her chance. She shines her magnificent warmth and within minutes the man voluntarily peels off his coat.

Love is like the sunshine. It is allowing. It is non-judgemental. It just IS. The wind is like the ego. In all its trying to force and direct and achieve, it creates resistance. And what you resist persists.

War perpetuates war. The end of war in relationships, in families and all of humanity is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

I know what I am going to be doing for the rest of this week – accessing more and more self-love.

 

Have a fabulous week! 

Just a reminder TO DIARISE the remaining five FORGIVENESS mini workshops I am holding at Leafy Greens Café. 

We are systematically peeling away the layers of unconsciousness that prevent us from letting go and forgiving. We are only four workshops away from fully letting go of our pasts and receiving the highest reward – the life we were intended to live.

The dates are: 

Sat 13 Sep     SUFFERING – Repeating Patterns and Holding onto Stuff

Sat 27 Sep     INNER POWER – Acceptance and Choices

Sat 18 Oct     INNER CHILD – Honesty, Authenticity and Happiness

Sat 08 Nov    FORGIVENESS – The gift of Love you give Yourself

Sat 15 Nov    GRATITUDE – The Highest Form of Forgiveness

See you there!

Love

Nicolette

IT HURTS

 Today I am hurting because of all the unconsciousness in the world.

We have people who regard themselves as different because they happen to be born on the other side of an invisible, man-drawn line. This invisible line is supposed to define who they are and keep at bay those individuals they judge as ‘not their kind’. These individuals are killing and bombing each other. Why?

We have people who are exploiting others by paying them as little as they can get away with, because there are thousands who would do the work for the same. They don’t see that their unconscious actions have a ripple effect of suffering, which feeds our planet with desperate people who will do anything to make a buck.

By playing by those rules we are encouraging the prevailing situation in our world where life is cheap. We are perpetuating the prevalence of prostitution, murder, theft, drugs, pornography and so on.

By continuing to buy cheap Chinese products, we are condoning the plight of Chinese workers who are working like slaves. We are also undercutting those who are trying to make an honest income.

We don’t see it. We don’t feel it, because we are OK. Our immediate families are OK and because we don’t know about it, or we prefer to avoid confronting it we turn a blind eye. We act oblivious. There is no excuse for ignorance.

It is time that we all wake up and open our heart’s to compassion and caring, because our actions are going to come right back at us.

We are living in a world which is a mess and it was created not by someone else. It was created by each one of us. We are drowning in the consequences of our actions or inactions.

Our ignorance is no longer a valid excuse. Our planet is groaning from all the most atrocious, unkind acts of mutilation and rape by humankind. When will we wake up and realise that it is the Earth that sustains us and not money.

We are not considering the effect of our actions upon those who are further down the chain. We are an ‘instant gratification’ generation who are trampling all over the humble and the weak.

We need to check in with our consciences. We need to ask ourselves: “Would I be prepared to work for what I am paying my staff? Would I be prepared to work for a dollar a day?”

And if you would not, then you and I need to take a stand and stop supporting Chinese industry. We need to stop paying people less than their worth because we can get away with it.

We need to stop considering others as different to us, stop focusing on the outer physical differences like colour, gender, Nationality, religion and social status and start connecting with what we all have in common. We all belong to the Earth. We all have a right to be here and we need to care for and support one another. We need to be compassionate with the least of those amongst us because how we treat them is ultimately the hand we are dealing ourselves.

Slavery, prostitution, extreme poverty, crime, pollution and war all have their roots in the unconscious way we are living. The solution lies with us. If we want to see change in our world we need to act consciously and change how we are doing things. “We need to be the change”, as Gandhi so succinctly put it.

I appeal to you: “Together we can make this a beautiful world. Let’s act consciously.”

All my love

Nicolette