I laughed gently at myself remembering I had forgotten this. It was a lesson from previous times.

When I
was out on the very end of a thin, flimsy, bending limb, the only thing to do was surrender and see
where I landed. It was time to let go again.

Surrender is not giving up, far from it. Surrender takes an enormous amount of courage. Often we are
only capable of doing so when the pain of trying to control the outcome becomes too much to bear.
Reaching that point is actually liberating, even if it is not fun. Being able to accept there is absolutely
nothing more you can do, other than hand it over to the greater force, is the catalyst that finally opens
the flow.

They say though that we do more to avoid pain than we do to gain pleasure. So it is when the pain
becomes too much that we finally find the courage to make changes.

The pain I had accepted from others had been their own suffering projected onto me. Happy people do
not treat other people that way. They don’t judge others for living a life true to his or her self. If
anything, they respect it. Recognising the pain carried into my generation from previous ones, I had the
choice to break free of it in my own life. I was never going to be able to control another and had no
desire to. People change because they want to and when they are ready.

Learning to view life compassionately, and accept that I may never have the understanding or loving
relationships I had once yearned for, was liberating. It transformed my life on so many levels. Knowing
the ongoing pain of my own healing, I accepted that not everyone has the courage to face his or her
past, at least not until it becomes unbearable.

The most important thing I have ever learnt in life though, the most, most important thing, is that
compassion starts with yourself. Developing compassion for others allowed the healing to begin and
continue. the only way to experience love is to accept people totally as who they are and have no
expectations of them. While it may be much easier said than done, it was the most loving approach
possible.

“Live true to your own heart. Don’t ever worry what others Think”

how important having courage is, in order to live the life your heart desires.

So if we were all to become a product of our environment, myself included, the best thing I could do was
to choose the right environments from here on, ones that would suit the direction I wanted my life to
move toward. It was still going to take courage to live the way I wanted. But this new awareness, of the
potential effects the surrounding environment could have on me, would make the journey easier.

And so it was with this consciousness and renewed bravery that I became more mindful about the life I
was creating, and the power that lies in the freedom of choice.

I am very grateful life kept me going with it when I didn’t particularly want to. How can we ever know
what gifts are awaiting us through the lessons on hand, if we don’t go through them? I’ll just go where
my path leads.
We all have trappings we need to free ourselves from. Most of those are not physical ones and if they
are, it is likely they originated from non-physical trappings, such as unhealthy thinking and negative
belief systems.

Don’t work too hard. Try to maintain balance. Don’t make work your whole life”.

I am glad for her that she didn’t suffer for too long. I believe she came into my life to teach me the joy of
unconditional love. Since then I have been able to give that to others, even without being related to
them. Dear Tonia, my dear little angel.”

“People play the victim forever,” she continued. “But who are they kidding? They are only robbing
themselves. Life doesn’t owe you anything. Neither does anyone else. Only you owe yourself. So the
best way to make the most out of life is to appreciate the gift of it, and choose not to be a victim.”

“We only owe ourselves to get off our backsides, count our blessings, and face our challenges. When
you live from that perspective, the gifts pour forth.”

“Of course, that is how it should be. When you are doing work you love, it doesn’t feel like work. It is
simply a natural extension of who you are”.

If you totally love what you do, you can become more open to the flow of money because you are more
absorbed in your work and are happier as a person. Of course, it takes some time to change your
thinking and to stop trying to work out how the money will come.”

Keep it Simple.

But it was out of my hands and I had to trust that these events were also a part of Jozsef’s life journey.
How can any of us know what another is here to learn? We can’t.

Contemplating all that had unfolded, I found only blessings. Learning through these dear people before
they died was a rare gift and for that I was grateful. We will all die, but this work was reminding me we
all have a choice too, on how to live in the meantime.

Seeing the anguish Jozsef experienced in not being able to express his feelings left me determined to
always try and be brave enough to share mine. My walls of privacy were being eroded and I began to
wonder why we are all so afraid of being open and honest. Of course, it is to avoid pain that may come
as a result of our honesty. But those walls we create bring pain of their own, by stopping others from
knowing who we truly are. Watching the tears fall down that lovely old man’s face, as he longed to be
known and understood, changed me forever.

It was time to be more courageous and to start expressing my feelings more. The walls around my heart
were of no use anymore. The process of dismantling them was at last, now underway.

I thought about how difficult life can be and how different all of our lessons are.

“We need to be brave enough to express our feelings,”

“We must learn to express our feelings now,” Jude emphasised. “Not when it is too late. None of us ever
know when it will be too late. Tell people you love them. Tell them you appreciate them. If they can’t
accept your honesty or react in a different way to how you hoped, it doesn’t matter. What matters is
you have told them.”

I was also happy to share with him the things I remembered about Jude: her smile, her patience with the
illness, her acceptance, and her determination to get her points across. Guilt is toxic. Expressing our
feelings is a necessity for a happy life.

But just because someone doesn’t respond the way you wish, doesn’t mean you should regret the
attempt to having expressed yourself.

The reaction of others is their choice, just as our own reactions are no one else’s responsibility. As my
walls were being eroded one brick at a time, I was finding the need to express myself increasing. To
express who I am now became more important. Yet, in other ways, it also became less important as I
was also becoming less bothered by how I was perceived. In the end, I guess it was mostly about how I
perceived myself. I wanted to be courageous and honest from here on, regardless. Learning to be open
was also starting to feel good, very good in fact.

We can never know the gifts that will flow to us until they arrive, but of one thing I am certain. Courage
and honesty are always rewarded.

“She has her own life now and I learned over the years you just have to let go. I brought her into the
world, but we do not own our children. We are just blessed with the role of guiding them until they can
fly on their own and that’s what she is doing now.”

Loneliness isn’t a lack of people. It is a lack of understanding and acceptance. Huge amounts of people
the world over have experienced loneliness in crowded rooms. In fact, being alone in crowded rooms
often highlights and exacerbates loneliness. It doesn’t matter how many people are around you. If there
is no one available who understands you, or accepts you as who you are, loneliness can very readily
present its agonising self.

Instead, I was blessed with a beautiful and inspiring moment as the music soared. I decided then that
this is what life was about: Beautiful moments of purity. That’s it, as simple as that. Beautiful moments.
And I wanted to live, to experience and acknowledge more of them.