I ask you:

What holds your Life back from being a celebration of itself?

With all the opportunities of various kinds that Life provides, why aren't My children very very happy, exceedingly happy rather than down in the mouth? What is all this about --wanting something and not wanting something and fussing about it? There is so much picking and choosing, so much sorting and classifying.

You may say that Life gives you suffering, and you are fed up with suffering and lesser heartaches as well.

In fact, you are very good at being dissatisfied. We could call dissatisfaction a hat you wear pulled down over your eyes. Consider lifting up that cap and beginning to see what you have not heretofore seen.

If you find yourself longing for the past, the long ago past, can you not just simply love the past instead of aching for the past and the ideal parts of the past? If there was someone in your life that you miss now with all your heart, if there were those in your life that you would now find more gracious ways to respond to, be glad for right now, this very morsel of time as your heart is opening. How about relishing the gladness and forgoing the sadness?

Look, you had someone in your life that you perhaps were frustrated with back then. Right now you might welcome him or her back in your life. You might admittedly react differently now, decidedly differently. Your heart would lift up. You would love to have someone back in your life. We are talking now, not solely about those random few who brought out the best in you, yet also deeply those who, at the time, seemed to trammel and dishearten you. You would welcome them now with all your heart and love more.

Put your emphasis on the joy of welcoming those from the past whom you would now use a second chance to give happiness to and thus yourself. You may be pouring dismay upon yourself now. Just turn the idea of regret around a little bit. Have fun with this. Repaint the picture, not with pain and dark colors, but with joy and right and pastel colors.

If you are going to bring up old memories, transform the memories into joy. Rewrite them as you would wish, and then be done. Tip your hat to the past.

Perhaps you have other lifetimes to look forward to rewrite and illustrate your stories. Welcome yourself, yourself once upon a time and yourself now, beloveds. Welcome your Greater Awareness. In any case, the past has gone somewhere.

Where did the idea of suffering come from? How did it become so well-received and such a habit? Sometimes suffering seems like the most popular thing on Earth. Is it not possible that you could just skip over sadness and gulp down joy instead?

You may say that you welcome joy, yet you seem to raise your hand high for sorrow, sadness, suffering. You plop them down before you with alacrity, as if you could hardly wait. It would seem that sorrow, sadness, and suffering are high on your list. You get high on sorrow. Ah, one thing that sorrow, sadness, and suffering do is to let you know you're alive.

Let's note fear, frustration, and franticness and sundry activity as a poor attempt to escape the very matters that do not presently give you the happiness you desire.

Trying to forget seems to improve your memory as you continue to plow through that which takes up so much of your time and heart and leaves you unsatisfied.

Transform suffering as you wish. Every interpretation you have, you have interpreted. It seems that you create happenstance according to your picture of yourself. Change your picture then. This is all imagined anyway.