Our lives don't merely reflect our beliefs, it becomes what we believe it to be. If you believe the world has more than enough for you, you will experience a life free of fear of having to go without. If you live your life from a place of fear and greed, that is what you will see in the world and you forever will fill like there isn't going to be enough for you so you refuse to share and have a death grip on on all you view as important. I know a lady who would appear very generous by her actions but on the inside she resents you taking what she gives you and sees your successes at anything or good luck as a direct strike to her storehouse of having enough for her. You can't have good fortune because it means there is less for her to have. It's prison and it's taken a toll on her and especially with relationships. I would rather quit life now than spend even a year unable to be happy for someone else's success or good fortune. The core of 12 steps is we share freely and copiously our experience , strength and hope and each time we do, it is returned to us. This is the spiritual law of RECIPROCITY. Quid Pro Quo. To quote Dr. Dyer's book title , "Change your thoughts, change your life". My actions need to match my intention. Give without expectation. Serve without conditions. The break I give you today when you have botched something up, is the one that will be available to me, the next time I botch something. Ask yourself this question. Is there enough love for me in the world or is there a lack of it. You will find your life reflects your answer.

I was at Family Dollar earlier. Just in front of me at the checkout counter was this handsome cowboy, his pretty wife and their two kids. The daughter around 7 or 8 had wrapped herself around the dad's long long and was doing ballet moves while holding on to him to keep steady. He dials his phone and I listen. His voice, as manly as his countenance , he seemed to be looking for way to end the phone call as soon as it started. Something in the tone of his voice reminded me of the phone calls to my dad. Stilted and halting, "Well, ....I..Just wanted to wish you a ....happy birthday before they day got away". "Well, I'll try to get by next weekend but I can't say for sure. "Okay", "Well, you know..we love you". He hit the end button and looked his wife. Wife "how was he". Husband, "couldn't wait to tell me his OTHER two sons both got big deers this week". Wife rolled eyes, husband shrugged. Clinton's heart broke a little. He scooped his kids up like a grizzly bear and they disappeared while my Alka Seltzer was rung up. I have made hundreds of calls like that. I felt lonely in the middle of those "How is the weather calls" and depressed when they were over. It was a tiny slice of "REALITY THEATER" happening 2 feet from me and it drives the point home once more, we are all more alike than we are different. Phone calls to my dad are better these days. I don't feel depressed when I phone him or see him, but it's no fantasy ending either. I let him be who he is, which is a man who doesn't navigate emotion well and feels more at ease with horses and cows and I show up as myself, a much less desperate angry truer version of myself. Sometimes we talk about the weather. He's a farmer and the weather is a big deal to them but when it happens it doesn't hurt. Lower realistic expectations have given me a real freedom from the crazy fantasy in my head of what our relationship was suppose to be like. It's a freedom I take, these days I am ALL ABOUT collecting the freedoms, Bitches!