Happy Mother’s Day!

I’ve said it many times, the people in my life who are TRUE HEROES are the ones who had intense family challenges, who were abused, used and neglected as children, who grew up to be really good, kind, loving and successful parents and grand parents.  

I admire them so much.

I have many people in my life who’ve done this.  These people have stopped the repeating generational trauma in their families and healed the patterns of pain.  They’ve taken what their ancestors and their parents and grandparents gave them and they’ve turned it into a whole new experience of what’s possible in life – Real Love.

Their healing brings benefit to all beings on the planet, to all the generations to come, as well as to their ancestors.  To me, that’s the best of the best.  I feel grateful to them for helping to shift the consciousness of the human race.

I used to feel that while I inherited a lot of really good and wonderful qualities from my family, I also inherited some things that were less than ideal – as we all do.  

I always felt that my family was loving and kind and caring, but also judgmental and opinionated.  

Occasionally, I saw that members of my family could be cruel to each other – and regardless of how normal that might be, it hurt to see it happening.

I recall one time when my grandmother was having a cocktail party.  (And doesn’t that sound so elegant compared to “having people over for drinks”?)  The party guests were friends of my grandmother, my parents and my brother and me.  At one point, my grandmother got everyone’s attention and then asked us all, “don’t you think Gayle, would look better if she lost weight?”  

Talk about a buzz kill.

Gayle was my Mom, my grandmother’s daughter.  That was cruel, and just awful.  We were all embarrassed for my mother and my grandmother.  

My grandmother certainly didn’t learn that behavior from her mother, who was sweet as pie, but maybe she learned it from her father who was cruel in his own ways.

I don’t hold these things against my grandmother.  Her personality had been shaped by the considerable challenges of her childhood, and the death of both her husbands.  She loved my mother and she wanted the best for her and that meant losing that weight.

What has always impressed me is how loving my mother was, and that she didn’t ever become like her mother.  

Sometimes I don’t think we appreciate enough how hard some people work to not repeat what they learned from their parents, and to rise above their past.  My mother worried that I would feel about her the way she felt about her mother.  Of course I didn’t.

Just like there are Presidential Medals of Honor, I wish there were Family Medals of Honor that people could be given for being more loving and supportive than their parents were.  

I encourage you to actively acknowledge the people you know who have done a heroic job of leaving their inherited family trauma behind.  

My Mom made her transition in 2008, but she lives in my heart and I’ll always be grateful that she married my Dad and that she raised me to be the person that I am and she didn’t give up on me even when I wasn’t a very nice person.

My Mother would never have shamed me the way her mother shamed her.  My Mom had body issues, and when I was a teenager that really bothered me.   I had fear that I’d have the same issues.  And I have.

My body has been a main avenue of my spiritual practice for many years and I’m oh so grateful now for the journey we’ve been on.  I used to think that if my body could be a particular way then I’d be happy.  Much the same as my grandmother may have thought that if her body and her daughter’s body could be a particular way then she’d have Peace.

It just doesn’t work that way. 

Seek not to change the world, but to change your mind about the world.
Seek not to change your body, but to change your mind about your body.

I am not a body, but I have a body and I decided to have a holy relationship with my body – which was one of the best decisions I’ve made.  I’m interested in having a holy relationship with all of life.  

I’ve been so grateful and so very impressed with the healing I’ve experienced in my mind as a result of cultivating a right relationship with my body.

I swear, I wish we could be taught these things as children.  I hold that someday that’s how it will be so that all beings will know who they truly are and their body is a beloved companion in this journey of Love.

Today is Sunday and I’ll be at Sundays With Spirit, come and join me and we’ll celebrate Spirit together!

TODAY is the LAST DAY for the Early Bird Special Change Your Mind About Your Body using A Course in Miracles principles – this is a 5 month program with a long list of great ACIM teachers including Alan Cohen, Aaron Abke, Lisa Natoli, Gary Renard, Jon Mundy and more!  We have an amazing early-bird special that expires TODAY!

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE!  The most recent episode of my podcast’s topic is The Body As Mighty Companion. We can change our mind about the body and cultivate a holy relationship with it. I am not a body, but I have one and I’d like to feel good about it at all times!

CAMINO WALK in October: If you’re interested in joining me in Portugal and Spain on the Camino check out the details of our adventure and please sign up soon as we’ll sell out FAST! Click here now for more info.