Because Diane’s thinking was so scrambled she could not see her wisdom. Once her mind calmed down her wisdom appeared. It was there all along. She only couldn’t hear it because of the noise in her head.
The two voices—wisdom and our typical thinking—are always speaking to us. We can notice the difference. If we listen closely we would notice our habits of thinking sound like old news. Many times before we’ve had these types of thoughts. That voice tends to grab us. It’s enticing. On the other hand our wisdom has an “Oh yeah, I see it!” or an “ah-ha” or “ah, yes,” feeling attached, a solid knowing deep within ourselves. Everyone has experienced both. The decision about which voice to listen to can be the difference between living a life of well-being or a life of problems and difficulties. All we have to know is how to access this wisdom [see Chapter IV].
Postscript: The next Spring and then the following New Year’s I received e-mails from Diane, which I combined here:
Guess what Jack?! I finally got it. I am now living for today only. I realized “ I AM “…I am NOW. God is and always has been NOW… No worrying about yesterday or what will happen to me tomorrow or “me” in general. I noticed colors are brighter too. The bad habit of daydreaming is almost gone. When I start thinking about something that isn’t...relevant to what is important NOW, then it isn’t worth thinking about. It makes my mind more clear to think, and it seems to flow better. Also, I stopped looking at men to see if they’re looking at me… It’s cool. Life is good NOW. And if it isn’t, the next moment will be… I am free!!!... Free from everyone finally and for good… I tell it like it is fully and leave out nothing. Truth all the way…I am free of all guilt, and I am happy with me (because being a “totally” a good girl is what makes me feel good, strong and real). I have no burdens on me anymore…I am entering a weight lifting contest (my first) in March. It’s a new beginning… So, now nothing bothers me anymore. It’s a miracle. A wonderful gift I have for the New Year... I am so comfortable in my skin it’s corny. I think I look the best I’ve ever looked… It shows on the outside how wonderfully free I feel on the inside...and I keep it good and wholesome... Jack,it’s nice to feel good about yourself, huh?
* By “Principle,” I mean the root of the word: “a fundamental law or truth” that exists as a fact whether people know about it or not. For example, by this definition three principles work together to create a musical note from a stringed instrument: the tightness of the string, the thickness of the string and the length of the string. Depending on how we use those principles, we get different notes. In a similar way, Mind, Consciousness and Thought are the principles at work in the psychological-spiritual world to create our experience. How we use them gives us different experiences.
Maribel’s Story
What follows is the first of a series of personal stories, written by individuals in their own words, after they experienced insightful changes in their lives as a result of being exposed to the understanding of The Three Principles. These stories are interspersed between many of the chapters. Each is not meant necessarily to reflect the point of the previous chapter; rather, all the stories are meant to demonstrate what can happen when people have deep personal insights about the points made throughout this book.
Maribel is a construction worker who attended a workshop Gabriela Maldonado and I conducted in Puerto Rico. In the middle of the workshop something happened to her. Later she wrote this:
At the Living in Well-Being workshop Jack drew a circle. On the inside of the circle, when he asked us to think of a time in our lives when we were in well-being, he wrote all the positive feelings we felt. Then he drew another circle around the other one, but in this one he wrote our negative thoughts. He explained that the circle inside was full of the positive feelings that are innate within us, and the negative emotions are created by our thoughts during our lives. He said that the positive feelings have always been there, and they are still there. We do not have to create them.
Suddenly he wrote the word “self esteem” on the inside circle. I felt an explosion of energy inside me. It was impossible that positive self-esteem has always been there and was just covered by negative thoughts! And if I am the one who creates the negative thoughts, it means I can also eliminate them. So what I have to do is to eliminate the negative thoughts and the positive ones will appear, which creates a healthy self-esteem.
I could not believe that for the past ten years I have been reading books on self-help, taking seminars, spending lots of money and time and never found an effective way to address the self-esteem problem. I could not believe that it could be so “easy”. Feelings of astonishment, incredibility, shame, anger, guilt, relief ran through my whole body.
I was so worried because I thought I had the responsibility to help my 13 years old son with his low selfesteem problems. That feeling was asphyxiating me; I was worried 24/7 because it was very difficult for me to reason with him. Creating a positive self-esteem for him was like constructing a skyscraper, a humongous task, and I needed to build it fast because things were getting rough. He even jumped from a second floor to feel accepted by his peers.
Jack told me that his positive self esteem has always been there too, that there was no need to build anything. I just needed to help him realize where his negative thoughts were coming from—himself—and liberate the positive ones. I felt so relieved and full of hope that I could breathe again, but at the same time I was mad. Why didn’t anyone tell me this before? Why did my son have to suffer so much? I though it was an injustice; I did not know how could I be so blind.
I could not stand the feelings, so after Jack called for a break at the workshop I went out of the building and took a walk through a backyard. I walked trying to calm and pardon myself. For the first time I could understand what deep listening* was and what a bad listener I was. The deep listening experience made me understand why my kids always complained that I never listened to them. Now I know they were right. I thought of how many painful situations I could have avoided if I only would have listened to my daughter. She is now 17 years but her wisdom surpasses her age. Now I know she has been giving me good advice, talking to me since she was a year and a half, but since adults are told that they are wiser than kids, I underestimate her. I lost 15 years of intrinsic wisdom of another human being.
Not only that, Jack also taught me that my tormented relationship with my daughter was not really because of her strong temper, nor because she is an Aries and I am a Libra, nor because she is active and I am calmed, but because since she was two weeks old I established in my mind that she would be a strong, hard-headed, impatient girl. Ever since, I have been trying to prove my theory right. So I could not understand when people told me how joyful, caring and well behaved she was. I got to think that she had a dual personality or had something against me. Now I know it was a presumption established in my mind.
After the workshop I talked to my daughter and told her what I learned, gave her a big hug and thanked her for being so patient with me. She was happy and told me she never understood why I could not understand how people liked to be with her when I said she was too bad tempered. Now I am full of hope for a new beginning.
After the seminar I went to the beach to think and organize all my new knowledge. I wanted to see how these experiences would change my life and those around me. I promised myself I would apply all what I learned a day at a time in order to be able to surpass certain circumstances.
It is like a baptism, a cleaning for my beautiful soul, a cleaning of all the negative thoughts I had inside. I started a new life. I was a new person. When I see pictures of when I was younger, I see the same body, but still a different person. I even feel pity for the woman I see, because I know how much she is suffering, missing and wasting. I know it is impossible to go back. It is a path that