The End is only the Beginning...

This book changed my life. I feel like this book allowed me to have the life that I was blocking from myself. It swept me up at the most perfect time. I was experiencing lows that were coming more frequently. I was manifesting so much pain-body. I remember driving to knitting class with Lou one Monday night and telling her my weekend had been shitty. That I didn’t know how I was going to make it through more time in Arizona. Lou looked at me and said, “You need to read the book.”

I also saw A New Earth featured on the Oprah show, and I heard the quote Erika mentioned in her first post about, “How do you know this is the right experience? Because it is the experience you are having at this moment.” That one quote had a powerful impact on me, and I could only imagine what reading it in its entirety might do for my state of mind.

I was finding a lot of fault in my present situation, but there was nothing terrible about the present moment. My thoughts about things were terrible. How I reacted was terrible. Sure, I disliked my job something fierce, but I later learned to accept it for what it was, and not make it my identity.

When my parents were here in January, I came home from work every single day upset about my job. Why the F didn’t I just enjoy that time with my parents?! I would also ruin nights or sometimes even days with Jason being in a foul mood. Like Erika, I had no idea I was carrying that pain-body in me. The greatest revelation of all is that, like E said, it was all me which allowed that to happen!

My thinking also got crazy when I got this idea in my head about what I should be achieving and when. I forgot the present and began looking to the things I didn’t have that would bring future happiness.

“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” - Eckhart Tolle.

I still experience pain-body but I usually recognize what triggers it. That recognition is my awareness. My ego still gets in the way, but the awareness doesn't let me totally lose myself. Even when my sister received a huge medical scare for something that has impacted her health greatly and changed her life forever, and I worried about her like I never have before, and I wanted to be with her just to be there with her, I held onto some sanity. That sanity, that peace, is in the present moment. The present moment was that she does not have worst case scenario, and we can look at the changes in her life in a positive way. There is no point cursing the situation that we can’t change. The resistance causes more pain.

When I made the decision and the effort to accept that job situation for “what it is,” I became happier and I could bettter tolerate it. Things then got worse at work and I was fine. I knew I had to get out of the situation but I wasn’t going to do anything rash and it wasn’t getting me down in my day to day. In a spectacular turns of events, I was laid off from the job, which then led me to applying for my dream job and securing it just one week later.

“Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” - Tolle. “The source of all abundance is not outside you. It is a part of who you are.”

Hi, The Secret.

I am astounded, looking back, at how often I let myself be engulfed in pain-body. Jason was the #1 person who had to deal with that and the only person really affected by it. When I focus on my present being with him, I am the happiest person in the world. How could I let so much other stuff matter to the extent I thought it did?

I truly hold this book in very high regard and I am so, so happy that I read it. Thank you, Lou, for busting my ass! E, it was so much fun reading it with you.

Love, Kim