Category: Relationships

Editor’s note: The holidays suck for many trans people, especially those estranged from families. We’re sharing this Positively Focused holiday post because it can inspire those struggling during the holidays to transform old stories into new ones and create whole new relationships with the holidays.

The holidays used to suck. My emotional pain so grated on me that I forswore holiday celebrations of all kinds once on my own.

That was before attaining enlightenment.

Now, I recognize I create my reality. Since the past is just another reality, I also re-create my past. That’s what happened this holiday season.

I’m sharing this for the many people who, like me, struggle with holidays. I know now “struggle” is optional. No matter how bad I used to feel, this year, I’m having the best Thanksgiving ever, in large part thanks to my house mate, who I’ll call Kimberly.

I’m going to relate how I transformed my holiday experience while interspersing some theory. If you want to know how all this works as a cohesive living approach I call Positively Focused, please visit my website. There you can schedule a free 30-minute 1:1 in which I’ll answer any questions at no cost to you.

How I transformed the Thanksgiving holiday in less than 15 minutes.

My house mate Kimberly is a manifestation I created after a wonderful ordeal involving previous house mates. In January I’ll tell that story.

Kimberly’s arrival fulfilled many desires. I know though that all fulfilled desires contain within them seeds for more consciousness expansion. That usually looks like “negative” experiences, although they aren’t that. Indeed, what happened Thanksgiving morning was perfect.

Excitement filled our little home the night before. We bought an enormous turkey, planned several decadent side dishes and even went in together on a new projector to watch Killing Eve and Uncle Frank, Amazon’s new feel-good holiday movie.

Settled in for the night, we anticipated a wonderful morning cooking food, listening to music and generally enjoying time together.

That’s not what happened, at first

I’m an early riser. Kimberly usually wakes later. I got up eager for our culinary adventure. But as I got things ready, I noticed she had made a bag of popcorn late last night. That meant, I realized, that she might not get up early enough.

Little did I know she had planned on joining me. She even set an alarm. But something went wrong. Little did I know how “going wrong” presents enormous gifts.

For hours I relished the morning, preparing our dishes. As turkey dressing time neared though, Kimberly’s absence loomed large. Where was she?

It was a passing thought at first. Then it turned into worry. Then it turned into resentment. Kimberly wasn’t meeting my expectations, expectations I thought we shared.

That’s not her purpose though

Kimberly need not meet my expectations. No one lives to meet my expectations. When I got that a while ago, I mostly stopped resenting people when they did their own thing.

Everyone comes into reality pursuing their fulfillment, whatever that looks like. The paradox is, when a person shows up in my reality, pursuing their fulfillment, I know now they aren’t real, objective people. Instead, they reflect back to me beliefs I hold in my Belief Constellation even while they pursue individual self-fulfillment.

Other people (as well as everything else in my reality) are physicalized versions of beliefs active in me. I tested this over several years. Improving my beliefs always changed people’s behavior, especially the way they treated me.

Today, people in my life are angels. They show me active beliefs in my Moment of Becoming on their way to becoming my tangible reality. Realities I want I welcome. Realities I don’t want I know I can do something about.

Here’s what that looks like

I knew from years of Positively Focused practice that resentment and worry had nothing to do with Kimberly. Instead they indicated beliefs active that drew into my now, an experience I preferred not having.

Realizing that I did something about it. First, I looked inside to see what thoughts/beliefs I activated. After all, I had enjoyed, up to that moment, being in the kitchen by myself, making all this food my way, without having to compromise anything about what I was doing. It was fun!

My exploration showed old beliefs I created as a kid active in my now. They were about my parents, my family and holidays with them. That’s when Kimberly offered an amazing opportunity. I could clean up those old beliefs and, simultaneously, clean up how I experienced my now, create better future experiences and transform the past too!

Once I got that I stopped preparing meals. I went to my room, set a 15 minute timer, then went into deliberate focus. In that focus I realized/remembered the following:

• Kimberly is a manifestation. She is not real.
• Kimberly is a manifestation of my entire Belief Constellation embodied in an apparition in my evolving now consciousness.
• As such, constructively using realizations represents allows stronger connections with my Personal Trinity. Reacting any other way creates unwanted futures.
• Kimberly’s choices are hers and those acts aren’t about me. But make them about me when I interpret them as such!

Such a wonderful gift.

Circumstances in life do this all day every day. People, objects, experiences all are physical representations of my ongoing beliefs.

For better or worse, most people don’t know this, so they interact with their reality as though it is separate, an objective reality apart from who they are, what they are and what they’re believing.

Even among those who know physical reality is a mirror of one’s internal reality, few know what to do with that information.

Those who don’t know struggle with all kinds of mental and emotional traumas, with few remedies other than iffy mental health therapies which often stretch over years and produce scant lasting results.

Rather than taking these wonderful gifts evidenced in people, places, objects and events, for granted, humans can use them for personal transformation. Done diligently, such transformation also transforms ordinary life into the Charmed Life I share with my clients.

Seeing Kimberly as a transformational opportunity also let’s her off the hook. She can be how she’s being and in the absence of me making her wrong, she becomes the angel she is, but only when I see her from my Inner Being perspective, my Broader Perspective which sees everything in reality as blessed, perfectly unfolding and beneficial to all the Universe.

Creating awesome from ordinary

The moment I tuned into my Inner Being, the discomfort, angst and resentment lifted. It was crazy how fast and complete it was! One moment it was there, the next POOF! Totally abscent.

What flowed in its place were thoughts about how wonderful this experience turned out to be, how good realizing that felt, and how remarkable I was as a deliberate creator creating this experience. I felt compelled to voice these thoughts:

• Wow, I feel much better.
• This is so much better than how I felt before.
• Those old beliefs soothed in my awareness placed on more empowering thoughts.
• I am having a good time creating a new reality with just my awareness.
• I get that my reality is my creation, including other people in my reality.

Then I started thinking about the meal I’m preparing:

• This meal is going to be really good!
• The au gratin smells delicious!
• So do the roasted veggies!
• The stuffing is going to be good too!

Then came the extraordinary convergence of reality matching my new perspective: At that exact point in time, Kimberly came bounding down the stairs. I heard her walk into the kitchen from inside my basement space. Then she sent me a text:

Trippy! The very moment I tuned into these better-feeling thoughts, my experience of Kimberly shifted. A new reality showed up including a different Kimberly!

Nevertheless I wanted to amplify how good I felt. It felt so good. These thoughts flowed next…

• That’s so cool what just happened.
• I shifted my reality!
• And my apparitions shifted too.
• What I’m discovering is so accurate.
• I love my Inner Being relationship!

I felt waaaay better by now.

In that moment I returned to my original bliss. I realized too my old beliefs transformed as well: I see them now as having created experiences long ago that, I was destined to shift, in my now, my current Thanksgiving; and in doing so transforming my past holiday experiences, my present one and all future ones.

I have wonderful new memories about the holidays. Memories made more powerful because they sprung from enlightened consciousness. I know thoughts born from enlightened consciousness are far more powerful than those born out of it.

I also now know that I’ve transformed past, present and future in one fell swoop. I know it because I feel it.

What does it feel like? It feels like Joyful invincibility.