Relating to the Future

Although the skeletons in your closet are all about the past, it is very important to consider how you relate to the future. As I talk about in the last chapter of Love Your Skeletons, finding a way to have hope is crucial.

Even if your past is a mess of mistakes, abuse, bad parents, crazy friends and terrible relationships, the future isn’t written yet. Life can be anything you make it. But you have to learn to leave the past behind and look forward with hope — make plans, imagine the best, think kind thoughts about yourself — in order to make a new future.

How can you actually do this? It’s not as hard as you think. Here are a few ideas:

-Think of someone who is successful, and imagine that she had a messed-up past too. She found a way to overcome whatever happened, love herself and allow her abundance and success to come in! Now imagine that you can do the same!

– Whenever you feel tempted to deny yourself something you enjoy, or punish yourself, take a deep breath and say “I am not going to be mean to myself. I am a good person. I deserve good things in my life.”

– Sit down in the morning with a hot cup of coffee or tea and watch the sun rise. As its rays lighten the sky and then break over the horizon, hopefulness comes naturally.


Photo by Mary Klassen

The Truth About Discrimination

Have you ever felt like you were being discriminated against? For whatever reason, you felt like you weren’t being treated fairly… and you may have obsessed over it. It doesn’t matter if you figured out the exact reason, or what type of discrimination was taking place. It doesn’t even matter if the discrimination was intentional or not, real or imagined.

What can you do when you feel like you aren’t being treated the same as everyone else?

Let me tell you the secret to stopping discrimination. It is not about the discriminator — it is all about how you, the victim, thinks and feels about how others treat you.

The absolute best thing you can do is not think about your perceived mistreatment. Whenever you catch yourself thinking about it, you must change your thinking — think about something completely different. Have you ever played a first-person-shooter video game? If you have, think of changing your thinking like when you swing around in the game and run the opposite way.

At times when you feel good and are not obsessing about your discrimination or mistreatment, try telling yourself this:

“I am a fantastic person! I am amazing and wonderful and everyone around me can see that just because. I attract people who treat me properly. I attract people who respect me and see my value.”

When you focus on this, the vibration of discrimination goes away, and the Universe sees you a person who has wonderful, positive interactions with everyone, and that’s all you will have.

You will attract people who respect you and see your value. The Universe takes care of the rest. You don’t need to worry about how or if the disrespectful person/people will change. If they don’t change, they may spontaneously quit or leave your life in some other way. Perhaps you will be the one to move on, or even be fired! It sounds terrible, but at least then, you will be moving on. Chances are, the day you are fired will be the day you find a better job where everyone will respect you and treat you properly. It will happen really fast, once you are clear, because the Universe doesn’t waste time. Once you see yourself as the wonderful, deserving person you are, and you see what types of interactions you want to have with people, the Universe can only respond to this new vibration.

All your interactions on the street, from other drivers to coffee baristas, will be positive when that’s what you see and you cannot see anything else. When you get that clear, it will happen very, very fast. The bully might spontaneously start treating you nice. Or you’ll get that promotion. You won’t have to look for the nice coffee baristas, they will find you. You don’t have to make it happen, it will just all work out. The trick is to focus on the end point — having positive, respectful interactions with everyone — without noticing that you aren’t there yet.

The truth about discrimination is that discriminators don’t go around looking for people to discriminate against; victims attract people who treat them badly. If everyone expected to be treated fairly and with respect, everyone would be. Discrimination would fade into our history, never to be seen again. Now that’s the kind of world I want to live in! Don’t you agree?