Love doesn't run an agenda

I recently completed an interview and was asked, "what is the thing you are most proud of in your life?"  Without missing a beat, I replied, "learning how to love".  Think about it, none of us have ever been taught how to love.  It is my belief that it is inherent in each of us, but that, life's events and experiences, teach us ways to "protect" ourselves from love.  

During the ages of 2-8, we make "decisions" about our lives that impact how we live the rest of our life.  You can imagine what might be terrifying to a two year old, or even, an eight year old.  Now, imagine that you relate to other people based on what was terrifying at the age of 8.  It may seem silly, but that is how our programming works.  To read about how we live in our lives in Fear and how to embrace Fear to make positive life changes, I strongly recommend the book, Fearvana by Akshay Nanavati.  Wow, just Wow!  How our brain works and how we can turn it around.

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Most of us are living our lives through an agenda, that we are not even consciously aware of!  To live life fully and openly, we would be living in Love.  What does that mean?  To live in love means to know beyond a doubt that you are perfectly safe at all times, that what is happening right now is the exact, perfect thing to be happening, and that no matter what is happening, you are now, and have always been, perfectly whole, complete, and unharmed.  Sounds nice, right?  How great would it be to actually feel that way all the time​?

Running an Agenda
Normally, when we have a fear response come up, before we even know it, we start running an agenda.  What is an agenda?  An agenda is the thoughts, actions, and behaviors that you created, way back when (2-8 years) to avoid the seeming pain of a situation.  It is how you respond to fear and to your perception of lack of love.  Some agendas are really basic - getting angry, ignoring, pretending nothing is happening, are a few.  Others are more sophisticated.  You will not be surprised to learn that recently, I uncovered a beautifully-orchestrated, sophisticated, amazing agenda I have created to handle situations with conflict.  While the agendas may work, they may even seem good, in reality, when you are running an agenda, you are not being your own wonderful, amazing, authentic self, who is worthy and deserving of love, just because.  When we run agendas, we feel like we need to handle or take care of a situation, instead of trust in the Greater Power of the world to allow something to flow and bring us to where we need to be.  These small actions we take, within our agenda, reinforce this idea that we cannot trust and count on God's Love, perfect safety.  And, each time we reinforce that message, our agenda gets stronger and more entrenched. 

I was in a bizarre situation the other day, that in and of itself, was not a big deal.  But, it left me shaken and crying.  When I had the time to reflect on it, I realized a few things that I noticed while the situation was happening  but chose to ignore.  Instead, I ran my elaborate agenda.  But, it did not work.  Not only did it not work, it totally backfired.  See if you can relate to this.  My agenda is like a golden get-out-of-jail free card.  It always works.  The tears came from the shock and corresponding fear in realizing that my golden card was not accepted in this situation.  However, that is exactly what I have been praying for.  I have spent the last few months building up my own inner compassion, inner strength and another way to say all this is my own relationship to God.  Of course the agenda was not going to work!  I have been working on dismantling it (though, I did not even consciously know it existed) for months!

I realized when there is conflict, I immediately go into "action" mode to end it.  In developing a stronger relationship with myself, I have realized, that sometimes when there is conflict, it means the other person has a problem.  The first step would be to ask, is this my problem or their problem.  Had I done this in this situation (hee hee, hindsight!), I would have seen this was their problem and no action was necessary on my part.  But, I did not do that.  I jumped into "action" mode.  I became the agenda version of myself I would call, "Super Amina".  Super Amina is AWESOME!  She is sweet, kind and willing to say sorry or take responsibility even if it is not her fault, because, well, she is a Super Hero and she can handle your "bad behavior".  People LOVE Super Amina.  Unfortunately, often times, Super Amina has to put real authentic Amina into a box to come out.  As I went to approach this lady, I heard a small voice saying, "you know, you don't really need to fix this".  I ignored it and marched ahead (as Super Amina) to a horrible, painful, conversation, that left me in tears.  There is so much more to this story - such as your energy travels and I really did think I was better than this woman.  At some level, I am sure she picked up on that.  But for now, we can stop at my running my Super Amina agenda.  And, you all have seen me running my authentic joy agenda in the joy challenge.  If you see them both side by side, authentic Amina is a clear winner.  

How do we get to authentic agenda-less living?
We get here by looking at all the times we are not here, one at a time.  Each time you are not feeling like you are in the perfect flow of life, stop, and ask for Holy guidance to see the situation differently.  In A Course in Miracles, we are told that all that is required of us to have a change of mind is to our willingness.  When we are in a situation and it is unfolding in a way that brings up any amount or type of fear, we simply ask Source to show us the situation differently.  Show us the situation through the eyes of perfect, holy, Love.

When you see yourself getting upset (any of the fear behaviors, scared, angry, mad, annoyed, irritated, frustrated, etc), realize I am about to run an agenda!  I am about to create a story about this situation, and that story is going to require another version of myself (not the authentic one) to come out.

At the end of the day, we all just want peace.  We want to love and be loved.  We want to give and receive. We want to be part of a community, a group, where we can be celebrated for being our authentic selves.  I maintain that all of us have access to that right this moment.  If you feel you don't, ask yourself, what is the story I am telling myself about life?  If the story has any aspects of needing to protect yourself, know (with love) that of course you are going to step out of your authentic self and try to protect yourself.  As long as we feel vulnerable, we will feel the need to protect ourselves.  But in truth, we did not create ourselves.  You did not bring yourself into being.  And the force that did create you, is pure love, and therefore, created you with and as pure love too.