Ask and you shall receive…

They say that the lessons in life come in threes; my lessons/blessings to learn about pride came as three separate experiences during the same day.

Acknowledging and owning pride is not an easy task – the mind fights it as if its life depended on it and the reality is that it does. Let me share my experiences.

I have a friend that I take dance lessons with every Saturday. We have been doing this for the past three months (here is the number three). Suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, he decided to stop doing it because he started dating someone. Nothing wrong with this, you will say. Yes, I agree, however the problem started because he didn’t tell me his real intentions. Instead, he said that he was dating someone and was going to take dance lessons with her. However, this would not interfere with our Saturday lessons as they would be dancing on Wednesdays. Then, come Thursday morning I received a text from him asking me to call him when I had a free moment. That very morning I received the news that my dad who lives in Venezuela had a stroke during the night. Knowing that he was dying and that he was terrified, I was on my cell texting and talking with his caretaker all morning, helping her to assist him through the death process. For those of you who don’t know me, I have practiced spiritual healing for over 20 years and have helped many people meet with death.

Needless to say, it was an intense emotional experience being my father the person I was assisting to die. To top it off, quite early that day I had received a text from a friend of mine who is dying from cancer and was asking me if I could visit her because she wanted to say goodbye. Asking Spirit what would be a good time for me to visit her, I had gotten the nudge to do so at three in the afternoon (here is that number again!). So, after taking care of my dad and whatever else I needed to do at work, I went to visit my girlfriend. By this time I was feeling pretty tired at every level, physical, emotional and mental. When I left her home I called my dance partner. He had tried calling me while I was visiting her and I was now finally able to call him back.

He asked me if we were still going to dance Saturday and I said that we were. Then he proceeded to inform me that he had called my son and asked him to go dancing with me Saturday so that he could take his new girlfriend instead. I was stunned and knowing that I wasn’t in a good place to answer without getting upset I told him I would talk to him at another time because I had a pretty rough day and that my father had passed away.

The day wasn’t over yet. In fact, I received another text from a friend who gave some information about a woman I have been helping. This information, unbeknown to him showed me that she was taking for granted my help and actually expecting it as if due to her.

Well, by now I was a complete wreck feeling so much anger and turmoil inside me. I decided to remain calm and allow my emotions to settle down by doing a spiritual exercise and ask Spirit for help.

I remembered the contemplation seed card I was working on and asked myself if pride would have anything to do with this angry feeling in my stomach. It could not be because I was right at feeling upset for what these two people had done to me, or so I thought.

The days went by and I could not shake the tight feeling deep inside my gut. Furthermore, I was now remembering all the times my father had hurt me very much in the same fashion as these two people had done. What was at the core of it all that bothered me to the point of taking away my peace?

Hidden behind the anger was a deep pain. It was the pain of being rejected, the pain of being used, and the pain of not being loved. So I cried and cried realizing that most of what I had been feeling towards these two people was the pain I had suppressed all my life in relation to my father. I was a walking open wound and I was glad it was all surfacing so that it could be healed in God’s presence and love.

The days passed and even with all the grieving I was doing I still could not feel at peace inside. What was going on? Why was my heart so tight and closed? Why couldn’t I feel God’s love? Once more I remembered the contemplation seed about pride standing in the way of loving God. Could it be that I was being prideful? How could that be? I asked Spirit to show me if pride was keeping me in this prison.

Guess I was finally ready to realize that indeed pride was standing between me and God’s love and I was holding onto it because I needed to be right in order to win. What a revelation that was for me and how humbling it was. I came to realize that by holding onto pride I was keeping the dynamic of anger and pain going on and on expecting a resolution that would never come. The resolution came once I acknowledged and owned my pride and resolved to let it go instead and to forgive.

I did speak to both people and explained to them how their behavior had caused pain. I did this from a new place, a place of humble truth and not of judgment. One more thing I learned, that when things are done from a place of true love for God everybody wins.