I feel as though it’s time to address something I have been unable to put into words until now. Physical and Spiritual attachment, connection, love etc. What is the difference and how do you know when one is stronger?

I have never been able to handle death in the ways that other people do. I don’t cry, throw things around, get angry and take out my anger on everyone around me. Not through suicide, drug overdose, accidents… natural death. It doesn’t matter how someone dies — I don’t react the way most people do. I hate going to funerals, not because they’re depressing but because they’re not a celebration of the person’s life. Surely I understand that people need to grieve, but I don’t see the need for most of what goes on at “modern day funerals.” It actually hinders any celebration that could be taking place.

Why have an open casket funeral when the physical body is just a tool for the human spirit? The physical skin is meaningless and should not be present at any funeral, although in a closed casket it is more appropriate. Do dead bodies bother me? Hardly. I once devoured a few tacos and an iced tea while watching an autopsy that had everyone else gagging on their lunch. Do they offend me? Hardly. So… what is it? The human body is merely organic matter… cells… put together in a specific way to enable us to occupy them. Once we leave the physical body it isn’t connected to us any longer. It’s just organic matter. Why on Earth would we want to have a “last viewing” of someone we love in that lifeless state? That doesn’t help us remember them and carry on their life. It’s an image that haunts people instead of inspiring them. People hold onto the physical and are so reluctant to let go that they view funerals as a “final goodbye” and once that body is buried in the ground it’s over. It’s over? Hardly.

This brings me to the attachment issue… people are so attached to the physical persona that they can’t handle “loss.” When you “lose” someone you love, you’ve lost their physical touch, their physical presence, their physical voice, talks, etc. Every physical interaction with that person is gone. But what about the spiritual?

When people build connections with other people, they focus on the physical connections. They like the same kinds of boys/girls, they hang out at the same clubs, they like the same music, they have other mutual friends, they enjoy the same books, they subscribe to the same religion, they play the same instrument and maybe they have had the same struggles in life. But… what kind of lasting connection is that? When they cease to exist, you can’t go to the clubs with them, you can’t play chess with them, you can’t horse around in the backyard and smoke Cuban cigars after a good barbecue. You can’t swim in the ocean together or play video games with them. Those activities you have based your lives around die when that person ceases to physically exist.

So… why do people spend their entire lives building connections with other people that are based around physical existence? It’s no wonder they can’t handle physical death. They really don’t have any other kind of connection. In their mind, that person is really truly gone.

No wonder they grieve for their whole lives sometimes. Now I know why they can’t celebrate. There’s nothing to celebrate for them. The physical connection has been broken and will never exist again. Why celebrate a lifetime of memories with someone when you’ll never have them back?

We say we have ‘spiritual’ connections with people, but do we really? How do you know? I’ll tell you. If someone dies and you don’t feel empty – but completely fulfilled, loved, and full of hope – you’ve got a tight spiritual bond with that person. When you are connected to someone’s spirit, you are connected to the essence that makes them who they are; not just the skin they used to get around.

You’re not going to feel loss. You’re not going to feel pain. Not the way you usually do. When you feel the loss/pain it will be accompanied by joy and hope of the highest caliber. It’s not a feeling easily described. You just feel it.

Connect with the soul, and things will start to change. I promise.

When we allow ourselves to be abused because we can’t let go, we start to believe that we deserve it; that because the good in the situation is the best we’ve had, we can do no better. We hold ourselves back from truly living OUR lives the way WE were meant to live them with this way of thinking.

When we want something and we have little to no self-esteem, we grab the first thing that comes our way. After all, we don’t believe the chance will come around again. We’ve conditioned ourselves to believe we not only don’t deserve it, but that it is impossible to start with. We condition ourselves to tolerate that which destroys us inside as a sacrifice for whatever it is we want to gain, be it a relationship, a family or a job. The cycle continues. Unhealthy relationships are built. Healthy relationships are destroyed because of the other, unhealthy ones. Time goes on and the only way to escape the misery is to detach, let go, and move on.

But when we want something and we believe not only that we deserve it but that it is attainable and it will happen – we break free from the cycle of torturous thoughts of worthlessness and something amazing begins to happen:

We experience, for the first time perhaps since kindergarten, what it means to truly be alive.

Throughout the course of our lives we unknowingly create expectations we can never live up to. We think our peers are the ones who expect too much of us, but we are unknowingly creating those expectations.

With small talk as an example, “I’ll call you later” means, “I need to go but I feel obligated to tell you we will continue this conversation even though I have no intention of doing so.”

So what happens if someone says, “I’ll call you later?” That person will expect to be called later. And then what happens when they don’t get that call? They become worried, upset, or even angry. They feel cheated, worthless and forgotten… cast aside. There never was any intention behind the statement. It’s just one of our many learned ways to escape a situation without being honest.

Once people swallow the belief that without their particular combination of things they won’t be happy, they form an attachment to it. Then they pursue it relentlessly. It consumes all of their time. Then they maintain a defense mechanism to fight off any possibility of losing it. That then creates the emotional dependence… the object of your attachment then has the power to thrill you when you have it, make you anxious when it is momentarily taken away and make you miserable when you lose it forever.

We spend our lives attempting to rearrange the world around us in order to hang onto these attachments. Once in a while it works – and for a brief moment the world caters to our wants and we are happy. But that never lasts, and once again, we become miserable.

I will say it time and time again, when we get what we don’t want, we suffer. When we don’t get what we want, we suffer. And even when we get exactly what we want we still suffer because we can’t hold onto it forever.

Even if you are able to  hang onto 99% of your attachments, the 1% you are unable to hang onto will prey on your mind and cause you immense unhappiness and take over all of your thoughts. The 99% you are able to hang onto won’t overshadow the 1% you have lost.

Attachments. They’re easy to drop. Here’s a tip:

Take the basket you have filled with the injustices you have been collecting over the course of your whole life and turn it upside down. Shake it. Turn it back over and refill it with your attachments. Turn it upside down. Shake it. Rinse and repeat. Voila! You’re free from vengeance AND attachments at the same time!

I feel as though it’s time to address something I have been unable to put into words until now. Physical and Spiritual attachment, connection, love etc. What is the difference and how do you know when one is stronger?

I have never been able to handle death in the ways that other people do. I don’t cry, throw things around, get angry and take out my anger on everyone around me. Not through suicide, drug overdose, accidents… natural death. It doesn’t matter how someone dies — I don’t react the way most people do. I hate going to funerals, not because they’re depressing but because they’re not a celebration of the person’s life. Surely I understand that people need to grieve, but I don’t see the need for most of what goes on at “modern day funerals.” It actually hinders any celebration that could be taking place.

Why have an open casket funeral when the physical body is just a tool for the human spirit? The physical skin is meaningless and should not be present at any funeral, although in a closed casket it is more appropriate. Do dead bodies bother me? Hardly. I once devoured a few tacos and an iced tea while watching an autopsy that had everyone else gagging on their lunch. Do they offend me? Hardly. So… what is it? The human body is merely organic matter… cells… put together in a specific way to enable us to occupy them.

Once we leave the physical body it isn’t connected to us any longer. It’s just organic matter. Why on Earth would we want to have a “last viewing” of someone we love in that lifeless state? That doesn’t help us remember them and carry on their life. It’s an image that haunts people instead of inspiring them. People hold onto the physical and are so reluctant to let go that they view funerals as a “final goodbye” and once that body is buried in the ground it’s over. It’s over? Hardly.

This brings me to the attachment issue… people are so attached to the physical persona that they can’t handle “loss.” When you “lose” someone you love, you’ve lost their physical touch, their physical presence, their physical voice, talks, etc. Every physical interaction with that person is gone. But what about the spiritual?

When people build connections with other people, they focus on the physical connections. They like the same kinds of boys/girls, they hang out at the same clubs, they like the same music, they have other mutual friends, they enjoy the same books, they subscribe to the same religion, they play the same instrument and maybe they have had the same struggles in life. But… what kind of lasting connection is that? When they cease to exist, you can’t go to the clubs with them, you can’t play chess with them, you can’t horse around in the backyard and smoke Cuban cigars after a good barbecue. You can’t swim in the ocean together or play video games with them. Those activities you have based your lives around die when that person ceases to physically exist.

So… why do people spend their entire lives building connections with other people that are based around physical existence? It’s no wonder they can’t handle physical death. They really don’t have any other kind of connection. In their mind, that person is really truly gone.

No wonder they grieve for their whole lives sometimes. Now I know why they can’t celebrate. There’s nothing to celebrate for them. The physical connection has been broken and will never exist again. Why celebrate a lifetime of memories with someone when you’ll never have them back?

We say we have ‘spiritual’ connections with people, but do we really? How do you know? I’ll tell you. If someone dies and you don’t feel empty – but completely fulfilled, loved, and full of hope – you’ve got a tight spiritual bond with that person. When you are connected to someone’s spirit, you are connected to the essence that makes them who they are; not just the skin they used to get around.

You’re not going to feel loss. You’re not going to feel pain. Not the way you usually do. When you feel the loss/pain it will be accompanied by joy and hope of the highest caliber. It’s not a feeling easily described. You just feel it.

Connect with the soul, and things will start to change. I promise.

Whenever there is idle time or an awkward moment – more expectations are silently created. Sometimes people don’t realize they are making commitments with their idle chatter.

So who is to blame? Those who unknowingly make commitments they can never seem to keep? Or the situations which conditioned them to engage in idle chatter and stifled their ability to be honest?

When you love someone, you want to be special to them. You want them to care about you and you want to make a difference in their life. You want to please them, to give them the kind of love you feel they deserve. You want to love them better than the last person they were with and you want them to love you just the same. But these desires all create conditions.

You gradually start feeling like the other person is telling you, “if you want to be special to me and have my love you must meet my conditions. The moment you fail to meet those conditions is the moment you will no longer be special to me.”

And so you spend your time rearranging your life to meet their conditions. There are parts of you that you hide, others you lie about. Some you shove under your bed and in the closet. Your dreams and passions that don’t meet their likes are downplayed and watered down while you slowly die inside. They tell you that they love you for who you are. Mixed messages. Do they even know who you are? It doesn’t matter. You love them. They love you. Love conquers all. You can talk about it later. All that matters right now is not losing them.

The moment you decide that you want to please the other person is the moment you chain yourself to the wall.

When you allow yourself to be chained, you give up all of your freedom to be yourself and pursue your own life.

Would you tell the one you love, “you are free to pursue your own interests and behave in whatever way you like?”

If you think that is too idealistic, think about it from another perspective. Isn’t that what we all want to hear from everyone in our life?

What if your love interest starts to develop romantic feelings for someone else? Do you tell them they’re free to pursue that?

When you’re in a relationship that meets your needs then you aren’t going to have the desire to pursue anything with anyone else. If you’re unhappy, then your mind will wander toward what you’re missing.

People are afraid to lose that kind of love, even if they are unhappy – sometimes it feels better to be unhappy than to be alone. And when problems arise, feelings aren’t shared. Everything is kept inside. They build up and up… until finally one day they come out and it seems like a shock to you when you find out things aren’t working out for the other person.

But you see, if you have open and honest communication to start with, you’ll never end up in a situation that will blindside you like that. But it’s so hard to be open and honest because everyone is fixated on gaining and holding onto the love of the other person at all costs.

“I love you for who you are” has a silent tagline of, “as long as you meet my expectations.”

The moment I learned how to love people for who they are, as they are, regardless of what they offer me or bring into my life… I saw them in a different way. I learned to love them as I love the sunset for its beauty and not for the warmth it gives me.

They no longer belong to anyone, but everyone and no one.

If you love someone, allow them to be free, to be themselves. Encourage them to pursue their own interests and live out their dreams.

By holding onto the past rather than flowing with the changes in our lives and the lives of others around us, we actually create our own discomfort and pain.

We mistakenly believe that the changes that occur separate us from what we know and love and we wonder why things have to change… why can’t things just stay the same so we can be happy? But it’s not the changes that prevent us from being happy. It’s our failure to live in the moment and accept the changes as gradual that creates our unhappiness and eventually leads to our feelings of alienation and unfamiliarity.

We spend so much time holding onto things which quickly become the past and as things gradually change around us, we don’t perceive it as gradual change. Once things start changing, we cling to how things were day and night, night and day… and while the world around us adapts to the day-to-day changes life brings us… there we are, still clinging to the past. And we cling to the past until one day we can’t cling to it anymore. And suddenly we feel alienated and unfamiliar with our surroundings. We blame the changes for these feelings but in reality they come from being unable to live in the moment and let go of attachment.

When we don’t get what we want – we suffer. When we get what we don’t want – we suffer. And even when we get exactly what we want, we still suffer because we can’t hold onto it forever. But life is full of changes and the only way for us to live a life free from longing and attachment is to accept those changes day to day, as they happen rather than staying focused on the past.

It’s much the same with people, too.

When we hold on so tightly to the image we have of someone we love that we invest all of our energy and love in them – as long as that image remains our love for them never fades – however, when people change, as they always do, we think we’ve lost the person we once loved. Really, though, we’ve only lost our ability to live in the moment and let go of the past.

It’s hard to let go of the past. That’s why living in the moment is the easiest way to live. When you never form attachments and don’t hold onto the past – you’ll never have to suffer the pain of having to let go.

Life is too short to keep things inside; to pass up opportunities to tell the people in our lives how we feel about them. Each time I think about holding back I realize that although I think I will have the chance to change my mind later – I may not. Maybe I won’t have tomorrow. Maybe they won’t have tomorrow. The idea of someone I care about leaving this Earth without knowing how deeply I care about them is very unnerving for me.

The idea of me leaving this Earth without people I care about knowing exactly how I feel is just as unnerving. I realize that I probably express myself too much at times and that might be annoying to some people. But that’s who I am, and as hard as I try I just can’t keep things inside. I’m expressive. That’s just part of my life. Accept it or not, I don’t think that will ever change. I try to take into account the way other people respond to and interpret what I have to say, but in the end if I have something to say it will be said.

I’ve taken many chances in my life with expressing myself to people who misinterpret what I have to say and who don’t know how to accept compliments when I give them. That’s completely understandable. I just say what I feel, and expect nothing in return. I wish that everyone could be as open as I can be at times, because I sometimes see things in people that are completely bottled up and stuffed so far down inside of them just screaming for an opportunity to be let out… but without some kind of safety net they can’t. It’s scary. And I can feel that.

There are so many masks that we put on when we go out into the world that sometimes we forget to take them off when we come back home. Sometimes they’re glued on – layer after layer and they feel so natural that they become a second skin. We forget they are masks. We think we’re being honest. But something nags at us, telling us that something is wrong. But when we’ve built relationships around a mask that we mistakenly thought was part of who we really are, if we take off that mask we will appear to be a liar.

Even though it was an honest mistake and we even fooled ourselves into believing that our mask was real. What do we do? Pile on more masks. Convince ourselves that it doesn’t matter. We can’t risk losing everything we have – we want to hang onto what we have. The thought of losing what we have is too devastating that it just simply is not an option to pull off the masks. Thus more masks are born.

But even those who become upset when they discover that we’ve been hiding behind a mask – are, themselves, hiding behind their own mask.

If you look at people with your eyes you’ll see imperfection. You will see only what the masks allow you to see.
If you hold expectations of people you’ll experience frustration and disappointment.

If you look at people with your heart and love them purely for who they are as a whole – you will find beauty in every facet of their soul and you’ll not only be able to accept the traits which would otherwise cause you frustration but you’ll be able to smile, genuinely, despite what goes on. You won’t see what the masks allow – you will see them as if their masks don’t even exist.

You will be able to easily and naturally accept them the way they are. You won’t even see physical traits as undesirable “but love them anyway” – no, you won’t even be aware of that concept. Your brain will not process anything as undesirable. It will turn your whole world around. You’ll experience a purity that you can’t find through any other means.

You’ll no longer feel the desire to change anyone. Even if it would benefit their self-improvement, you will encourage them when they want to take that step but you will have no desire to initiate it because you’ll finally understand that you just simply cannot do it. They have to do it completely on their own.

You’ll be able to see a piece of someone’s soul in everything from the moon to a beautiful pink sunset with the clouds hanging low… you’ll feel them in everything, and you’ll finally realize that there really is no separation in this world – everything is connected. Opening yourself to real Love just helps you experience it first hand. It stops being a theory and becomes a reality.

Walls and masks, masks and walls. Are they to keep others out? Or keep ourselves in? Can others remove our masks and knock down our walls or do we do it ourselves?

In life, there is no destination, only a constant journey.

If you feel like others are ahead of you and getting to their destination in life faster than you, understand that they are not getting closer to an actual destination and even if they achieve the goal they are currently pursing, that is not a destination.

Life is a perpetual cycle of goals. Completing goals creates new goals. We don’t just stop all activity once we get one thing we worked hard for, right? We continue, pursue more goals, and keep going. Goals are like stepping stones. They are walking across stepping stones, just as you are, going from one goal to the next, and at this point in time it may seem as though their next stepping stone is closer than your next, but opportunities present themselves at different times for different people and different paths. Have faith that you are in the right place at the right time.

Sometimes you may see someone propelled to their next stepping stone so quickly it seems like life just picks them up like the wind and carefully places them ever so gently right on top of their next stepping stone while you struggle endlessly to even find your next stone. What you don’t see is what’s going on behind the scenes. Sometimes people are picked up quickly because an important opportunity is waiting. A person to meet; a conversation to engage in; a sight to see. Something that is necessary for their journey.

We’ve all been picked up and whisked away quickly and quietly to some of our own stepping stones. We just don’t seem to notice it when it happens to us. We take it for granted because we just don’t notice when it happens. We don’t notice it because we aren’t satisfied. Only when we are satisfied do we look around us and say, “wow, I’m here! I did it!” We are expecting satisfaction but we think of satisfaction as a final destination. And there is no destination thus we are perpetually searching for that satisfaction. Sometimes when we’re subjected to more questions, more situations and opportunities and choices, we overlook the fact that perhaps we are the lucky ones – we are given multiple opportunities and choices and are able to go at our own pace, while others around us are literally whisked away suddenly and they have no other paths to choose from to follow their dreams.

Ah, but the grass is always greener, is it not? When we get whisked away we wish we had more choices; when we have all the choices in the world we wish life would just take us where we want to be.

But you have to understand that some people have mere inches between the stepping stones in their lives; others have miles. Some people’s lives are paved solid with stepping stones and others are few and far between. But those stepping stones are not destinations. Once we reach one, we continue our path onto the next. It’s never ending. It doesn’t matter if someone else has reached their next stone before you have reached your next one. For all you know, that could be their first stepping stone while you’ve already reached hundreds in your lifetime. All that matters is that you are on your journey, actively pursing your life’s dream.

Comparing yourself to other people and their path in life is like comparing apples to bears. Stay focused on your dream. When you have a longer journey than others between your stepping stones, the knowledge and wisdom you gain along the way will increase the quality of your life and allow you to reach your future  stepping stones without stumbling around or losing your balance.

“Unconditional love is when you love with an open heart no matter the condition of other people’s hearts. It’s putting aside your own wants and needs and loving for the simple sake of loving – expecting nothing in return, and not being disappointed if it goes ignored.”

I think a lot of people forget to love without expectations. Everything we do in life is an expression of love when it comes from the heart. Even something small that seems like it’s devoid of all meaning. Doing favors for people, helping them out with their daily tasks, taking the time out to talk to them, or give something to them even if it’s just a smile – and too many people are so willing to quickly pull that love back when they don’t find immediate gratification returned to them and they don’t get what they want.

We all face that same challenge at different times in our lives — feeling that our efforts are unappreciated and we have wasted our time… and perhaps we have failed, maybe we think our love wasn’t good enough because people don’t seem to care – but when we love with an open and honest heart, we can never fail.

Love in all forms in the moment is always sweet. It’s only when we start to move out of the present moment that it turns bittersweet — when we think of the past or worry about the future or drag our thoughts somewhere beyond the here and now.

When people ask me how to be a better person, I tell them to be more like a tree. Trees don’t withhold their shade from anything or anyone – not even the bugs who eat their bark nor the humans who chop them down.