i like that ,very positive and useful.i am changing my internal dialogue and it feels good 
 

Thank you for this email and offering today. It is good support for me in particular. The hardest fight anyone will engage in is listening to oneself and not to the social and family messages of listening to what others say is true for you and what you should do, who you are, etc. All usually negative messages. Isn't the whole growth process one of fighting or battling not to listen to these messages? I am not there yet where it is not a battle. I do intuit that will come in the future when I am content and more established in this new pattern, which you allude to, of simply choosing to listen to what the Divine is saying rather than what the ego is saying. I do intuit in the beginning, like now, when I am sorting out which are the messages to leave behind, which are the old conditioned messages from my parents and the others in my life, and I have been drawn back into listening to ego messages now again, some of which are different and new from the old ones!...it is just hell and it takes great compassion, strength, determination, and skill in learning this. It helps for me to hear you say that it is the hardest thing anyone will ever do. It provides support...most people do not even realize what you have said here is true and so worthwhile. I had even forgotten it and not looked at it that way. I am grateful. To stand alone or to be totally responsible, or as you said in the last list above..to 
 
say, I can be independent of others' good opinions and unique... yes that is what i am meaining here. To say to yourself, I can, is a good idea. I have thought that spiritual traditions, at least the Buddhist ones I have been in and left, and even the Hindu ones, say, affirmations are not good, are not spiritual, are not healthy. I have disagreed with their views, too, on that. Any thoughts on that? I guess in my family, where I was told lies about myself, realy whoppers...saying things like inethical things are good, ethical things are bad..sorry for the judgmental terms...like ...getting drunk is good, listening to your father, no matter how depraved he is in what he saying, is good...not listening to humane societal rules and taboos is good...it is a real trip, so to say the least, to sort your mind's truths and lies, and to be led by the Divine and not to believe the crazymaking lies we all receive from everyone and everywhere. So it is with great compassion for myself, when I hang onto familiar beliefs, in the face of such great uncertainty...I really like your saying that the familiar feeling is what keeps us hanging onto the old scripts of saying, no we can't. The familiarity is the thing that hooks us. The comfort and soothing we all need in the midst of great terror when we embark on this spiritual journey. For me, I am learning that there are just some times I have to do that...for my own sanity and really to carry me through until I am ready and all of my ducks are in a row to really let go of the old lies. Yes, it does help to say, Yes I can..I am worthwhile and deserve love and can be independent and stand alone and be totally responsible for my life and I can reach wholeness, I can do this difficult journey I have chosen for myself as the most important thing in my life...I can do this thing even in the midst of seemingly impossible odds and unbearable pain, yes, I can deal with unbearable emotional pain, I can stand alone and listen to just what my divinity is telling me and follow that even when I am not sure that it is the divinity speaking and not some hoax divine teacher (my father) disguised as the ego voice tellling me which path or choice to make. It is mindbending to say the least! To be your totally own guide in this and to be able to do this....I remind myself that Malerapa was a murderer and reached enlightenment. So he must have had some really deep ego messages coming to him in his mind...while he was going for toward the promised land so to speak. So I have someone who has been through worse than I have and experienced more hell than I have been raised with in my family. And he made it, so I can , too. Mara puts on a really convincing show in the torments of the mind it comes up with. I feel uncomfortable and a need to follow a wise choice right here of not sharing the beautiful and divine messages and experiences that have come through to me in the midst of all of this journey, even yesterday. I'll just say very briefly, that it is utterly awe-inpsiring and miraculous how the human life force and spirit and divine love and compassion can come through even in the midst of tremendous torment and hardship. Even in the concentration camps like Victor Frankl lived through...the utter horror and severity of his experience and the conditions he lived in daily...to be able to give a scrap of his bread to another prisoner...that act of giving being able to sustain him and give him enough meaning to survive and endure..it is utterly amazing and wonderful. Even that seemingly "small" gesture of giving has enough of the divine love in it that it sustains him and allows him to survive and overcme the most horrifying ego or tortorous experience..I guess I can call it good triumphing over evil, even though many frown on those terms. That is okay...we all get what i mean here. And I guess for me, I'll end with my saying...perhaps feeling and experiencing the most horrible and painful and tormenting things..feeling such torment...also allows me or is part of feeling also the most beautiful and loving and blissful feelings and circumstances...do you see what I mean? To feel deeply or experience the horrible tihngs or torment...also allows one to feel and appreciate great beauty and joy and love. Maybe the two go hand and hand and the torment and the depth of it I feel is necessary and part of getting to the feelings of great joy and beauty that others don't or rarely feel. I do know that is waiting for me at the end of the road, if there is ever an end to the enlightenment process or no matter how far I get or however this ends up at the end of my life...it is there for me already and shows up many times even now...and those beautiful feelings have made it all worthwhile, and I know I am probably not saying this all correctly, that I can be faulted and criticized by masters and experts on enlightenment..and I am not saying you go for enlightenment to have beautiful and joyful feelings and ...not that attachment lesson, please, here. YOu really have to be careful about what you say in spiritual circles...they really go to town with this stuff...I mean, hours and hours of discussion of what a person means, what is enlightenment, attachment to high states, what does nirvana feel like or what is the nature of the enlightenment experience, does what one person say tell the truth of it or does another, on and on. I am just leaving that all behind and letting everyone else argue about it and decide for themselves what is true, just like i am. I'll just end by saying, don't quote me..or even take what I say with a grain of salt...just thank you for listening and letting me express and share my thoughts...I guess I'll just stand on my own here and say, I can express my experiences in my own way and I can say what I want in my own way even if all the spiritual traditions don't like it or think I 'm full of it or don't even clearly hear what i am trying to say. That is okay, I am no expert and don't profess to be one. I am like you all, traveling the same path, and have much to learn like you all. I am just a little different in what i have been dealt with as far as karmic lessons, and maybe you all can benefit from what i have shared and am learning from the more concentration camp type of life experience, not from the more normal everyday life experience. This is just my expereince as I express it today at this moment. That's all. That's it. Just me.  
 
Take care, and I wish you all love and gratitude and happiness and an easy path today in whatever you do. 
 
Sharon

Dear Ken, I love this comment. It really tells us something very special about ourselves. We need to follow this comment and practice it. Thanks Rita