A Closer Look

So after excitedly reading through half of the book "A Return to Love" by Marianne Williamson, I have decided to start back at the beginning and take each chapter at a time and write about what hits me. 

After reading the Preface, Introduction, and Chapter 1, I could relate a lot to Marianne and the way I have felt.  She wrote in the Preface - "I had often felt as though life was a private club and everybody had received the password except me.  I felt other people knew a secret that I didn't know, but I didn't want to ask them about it because I didn't want them to know I didn't know."  This really hit me hard because this is exactly the way I have felt and it is a great feeling to see what an amazing person that Marianne has become.  She is a huge inspiration to me!  Even though I have felt bad for a long time, I have hope and faith that things are starting to get better!

Basically for my whole life, I went through each day not understanding that I could control my circumstances.  I thought I was a victim of life and for some reason I had bad luck following me everywhere I go.  It wasn't until I watched the movie "The Secret" that I understood that my thoughts controlled my environment and if I had more positive thoughts then I would have more positive outcomes.  Even though I knew this and purchased every self-help book and program I could find, I still did not know how to utilize this "simple" power.  I would think positive and have goals and be able to attract something but then shortly afterwards feel sad and have negative thoughts again.  I could really relate to what Marianne writes in Chapter 1:

I read books about how our minds create our experience, how the brain is like a bio-computer that manufactures whatever we feed into it with our thoughts. "Think success and you'll get it,"  "Expect to fail and you will."  But no matter how much I worked at changing my thoughts, I kept going back to the painful ones.  Temporary break-throughs would occur: I would work on having a more positive attitude, get myself together and get a new job.  But I would eventually screw up at the job.  Sure, I could change my thoughts, but not permanently.  And there's only one despair worse than "I blew it," - and that's "I blew it again."


I have had similar experiences.  I can easily attract a job, always hoping this one would make me happy, but somehow I would always screw it up.  Even though I have my Master's Degree, I have had at least 15 jobs, all of which I really did not like and didn't stay at long.  I have also moved at least 9 times and after the excitement of finding a place and moving my stuff in, I became sad again.

My favorite line in Chapter 1 is:

A power greater than I could do for me what I couldn't do for myself.


I have tried it my way and keep failing.  So it is past time for me to turn my life completely over to God and pray for the strength and guidance to help me find happiness and peace in my life.

I will share my thoughts about Chapter 2 tomorrow. :)

xo Sparkles