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Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.
- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose

In the Bible, there’s a passage that says, “Love thy Enemies.” And you know what? I think this is why. If you really look into yourself and be open to the possibility that what you loathe in another is the very thing that you loathe in yourself (and I know it is difficult), then you’ll find out that you are just the same. Sometimes, you are the person you hate. Ouch.

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment..” - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

I’m still reading the book and I have to say I haven’t read at this slow pace in a long time. I’m relishing the words like I’m savoring a rich chocolate bar. I’ve signed up for the class and have started on the workbook. I’m on page 75 and I am immensely grateful that I found this at the right time. You know when you get something at just the right time?

I told myself that if there is something I want to accomplish by the time I turn 30, it needs to be some sort of self-actualization. Nothing material. Nothing that would give me happiness externally, but within me. I’ve promised this to myself when I turned twenty, and saw it was “shedding”. In my mind then, my 30’s will be another a new phase just like 20, and in order for me to move on I need something…to be self-fulfilled, independent, and happy…Something encompassing all that. I feel that for each decade that I live, something comes to full circle, like a peeled onion getting back its layers one by one. I’m shedding, and yet I’m un-shedding.

It’s true what the quote says — whatever experience you are having at this moment is whatever it is that you need. I found Tolle’s book at just the right time. I’m turning 30 in a few months and although I feel very much that my cup is full, the experience of reading this book will be that cherry top to this good life, as I segue into my third decade on earth. [Third! Holy cow.] Last week, I turned on the TV, just as Oprah’s show was ending and she promoted that book. Curious, I checked it out at the bookstore, and ended up buying it. It’s those things that just happens one after the other, as if going through a connect-a-dot puzzle. There is order in the chaos.

When I look back at all the experiences I’ve had in my life, whether they are good or bad, they happened at the right time. There were moments of utter bliss, and complete misery. Coming back to the quote, it’s important to remember through all our experiences that they are happening, because it is very easy to resent moments of difficulties, and be bitter, and angry. It is very easy to be lost in the whirlwind of happiness and not remember a bit of later. We must remember that the moment is there because it is there for you to experience. I had moments of utter rage in my twenties because instead of accepting the present, I was continually battling with it. The more I battled with it, the more it pushed me down. When I learned to take the ‘beating’, allow myself to take part in the present, learn however difficult the lessons…that’s when I truly grew. I hated it when my mother said, “Everything happens for a reason.” I’m stubborn and refused to accept hardships. I will try to wrestle with it as much as I can. The bitter truth is that you will never grow if you don’t go through all these experiences.

It’s almost like being given a ball of clay and a sculptor was assigned to make a masterpiece of it. You are that ball of clay. Sometimes you will not like the position you’re in, but there’s not getting around to it. The needs to be molded, contorted, dismantled, poked, rolled, flattened, and refined…until it is a masterpiece.

If you’re looking for a book to read this spring, make it this book. It’s a great “spring-cleaning” book for the soul.

“When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought. A depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. And the greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels, and images.”

- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

I think the same can be said about how we deal with other people. When a friend tells you that someone you’ve never met is an arrogant person, try meeting that person. You are likely to adhere to that belief and it will be a continuous process of trying to either debunk it or keep looking for proofs that he/she is indeed arrogant. I have been guilty of that so many times. The funny thing is, there are times when I let go of descriptions of persons and just try to sincerely find out the person behind all these, we end up being friends at the very least. Sometimes people aren’t as bad as we think they are if we try harder to know them.

The mistakes we make with identifying people with certain characteristics is the same as how we think of ourselves, and corollary to that, I also I think that we do end up following the molds that we tell ourselves we fit in or we convince ourselves we are. For example, if you tell yourself that you are a shy person and no one will listen to you anyway if you speak, chances are you will be timid and quiet and won’t even try to express your thoughts and opinions verbally. In contrast, if you convince yourself that you are a happy person, somehow you will be happy and find ways to keep yourself happy. The mind is easily swayed like that.

But is it enough to follow these molds, labels, and identifiers?

I remember when I moved out for university, it was an entirely different world for me. I was far from the comforts of home, from the safety net of my parents, and not so accessible to what I hold as Me…as Mine. Everything was new! New city, new school, new acquaintances, new friends… I had entirely different sets of people I encountered on a daily basis. Whoa. It felt like I was floating in an unknown sea of “Who am I?” It was scary and yet very liberating. I thought to myself that I can be whoever I want to be! Of course, I soon found out that people perceived you on what school you went to, if you graduated with honors, what clothes you wear and if it was an expensive brand, what perfume you wear, how many shoes you own, if you can impress professors, and if you can cope academically, socially, and psychological in the lion’s den that is college life.

That time of feeling completely liberated was bliss, now that I think of it. And why? Because for a brief moment in time, it felt like I was free from any pre-conceived notions of me. I was just Me.

I just bought the book I mentioned above and it does make a lot of sense to me. It’s not an easy read and it presents some abstract and conceptual ideas. If you don’t pay enough attention, you will have to re-read again to grasp their meanings. It talks about Awakening. I’ve read about this before. It reminds me a bit of the book “Awakening The Buddha Within” by Lama Surya Das. The difference I think is that Tolle’s book seems more digestible. Or maybe I am just more open and understanding of all these ideas now. Maybe I’ve gained more experience and maturity. Admittedly, I read Lama Surya Das’s book at a a very confusing and trying time of my life, and meditating, looking inward and just being weren’t the easiest things to do and understand at the time.

I’ll talk more about Tolle’s book in the coming days as I read through it. Have you heard of it? Are you reading it? If you are, let me know what you think of it.

I closed the book at about 4:30 in the morning, Saturday. And I kept thinking to myself how hard it must have been to write about and share the things that you would rather forget.

Secrets. They can be a source of comfort. They can also haunt you night and day pulling you back to that time and place. It’s a cocoon that cradles and destroys you at the same time. The image of the organic art installation we saw a couple of weeks ago at the Desert Botanical Garden came to mind. It fits in a way.

The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here made me think about a lot of things, about myself and my own interesting relationship with my mother, about Felicia. I can’t remember how exactly I “met” Fel online, but I’m pretty sure it was before this book was even conceptualized. Has it been 4, 5, or 6 years ago? While reading her memoir, I got flashbacks of her posts, our online comment exchanges between our websites. Was it…? I asked myself. It was a surreal experience to read the story of someone you sort of know. From an emotional point of view, this was a whole different experience and something I wasn’t expecting. I had to put the book down the book several times because I kept reconciling in my mind that this is Felicia, the same woman I’ve known from my early days of blogging. This is her memoir. Her published hardbound book!

Here is a woman who has been through so much and came out a warrior, not a mere survivor. Through abuses, addictions, and all sorts of hardships, it wasn’t a smooth road from the past to the present, to sanity, to peace, to love, to happiness, to finding herself. I keep being at a loss for words to describe her powerful and moving memoir. Raw…honest…fearless…this is Felicia’s work like I’ve never encountered before. I knew she was capable of great things, but Sky blew me away.

I enjoyed reading the details. I twiddled them between my fingers and were mesmerized by them. I was there in every room and every closing door, every heartbreak, each tear, and through watchful eyes.

A book is a lot of different things to different people. To me, books are always about what positive thing I can get out of them. And that’s how I am with my life, too. In the end, I see Fel, so strong, so different, but still the inspiring Fel.

I have always admired this rockstar, Felicia Sullivan, for her smarts, chutzpah, and energy without knowing much about her personal life. I’ve read a lot of her work before, and in some, they left me feeling like there was something deeper there that she wasn’t letting go just yet. In her memoir, she did let go, and she has grown so much in her writing.

Felicia, dear, I’m SO proud of you! This is brilliant! Brilliant, you hear?! I’m very happy for your successes, and there will be more, I’m so sure of it. :-)