Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at any given moment.
This is my mantra. I remind myself of this often.
At first it was a bit difficult to embrace. I kept coming up with caveats, exclusions, reasons why this didn’t apply to someone or some situation. It never occurred to me that this also applied to ME – I was focused on forgiving others.
But the more I worked with this concept, the more I embraced it as a way to live, well, the more I came to believe that this is true for EVERYONE, including ME.
So what does it mean to totally and whole-heartedly embrace this idea? What resistance is showing up in you as I invite you to consider this?
Can you, as I did, come up with a list of exclusions to this, people that this couldn’t possibly apply to? Mass murderers? Abusers? That person who cut you off in traffic today or stole your parking place? Your parent? Your spouse? Your neighbor?
Think about this: do you think that any soul comes into this lifetime wanting to hurt other people as its purpose? What spirit wants to be the ‘bad guy’?
People look around at their options and choose one to act upon. You do this, too. Sometimes people are influenced by others to the point that their view is narrowed to only one option. You, from the outside, might see that they had lots of other choices. But, inside their situation, with the information that they had or the influence that they experienced, they did what they thought they must.
Look back over the decisions that you have made in your life. Do you tend to count up all the ‘mistakes’ you have made? Do you think of the ‘wrong decisions’ you have chosen?
What if I now say that, if you were to go back to that point in your timeline, you would make the same choice that you made then because of the information (resources) that you had available in that moment? If you went back knowing what you know now, you would be taking some extra resources with you, wouldn’t you? The knowledge that came from the feedback you received after that decision. BUT you didn’t have that information when you were making the choice you made.
Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at any given moment.
Imagine how you might feel if you look at your ex-spouse, your boss, your friend, the person who cut you off in traffic through the lens of this mantra. There is probably a story behind each situation that you don’t know and that story defines the resources that that other person had available to them at the time.
Now look at yourself and your life. Your story defined the possibilities for action that you were able to see at any given moment. It might never have occurred to you that you had more options because you believed that if you chose to do X, then Y would happen. Immediately after you made the choice, you might have received more information but you didn’t have it before you made the choice. Can you forgive yourself now?
Here’s the thing.
You are always at choice. So is everyone else. And you can only choose among the options that you see before you, based on the information that you have, or think your have, in your reality at the time you make the choice.
Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have at any given moment, including you.
Learn and grow and keep making choices. Also, keep looking for possibilities that maybe you can’t see yet but someone else can help you to see. Increase your resources and you increase your choices.
You are, and always have been, doing the best you could.
Mystic Messages 
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Honor and Love Yourself!
March 13, 2015 — RosemaryThis is a time to honor yourself and to LOVE yourself! Most of our training is about loving others, caring for others, helping others. But I have come to see that this training can lead us to believe that serving others means denying our own needs, serving until we are depleted and forced to cry ‘uncle.’
This moonth is about loving yourself enough to have love and service energy to spare to give to others.
Lisa Nichols teaches about ‘serving from the saucer.’ She says that a teacup represents you and the saucer catches the overflow when you are filled up. Don’t serve others from the teacup, which you must keep filled if you want to be of use to others.
Instead, serve from the overflow in the saucer. When the saucer is empty, you must fill up the cup (you) until it overflows again. If you empty the cup, there is nothing to give to others.
This makes sense, doesn’t it?
I frequently hear clients struggling with trying to find balance between taking care of others – children, parents, spouse – and taking care of self. Sometimes they have to get sick to get a day off! I hope you hear Lisa Nichols’ idea as permission to fill up your cup before you have to get sick.
Love is a powerful energy. It is meant to be shared, to radiate outward. But, remember, that ‘All love flows from self-love.’ Until you really embrace that belief, you will give until you are depleted and then you cannot help either yourself or others.
Self-love is not the same as the selfish belief that others don’t matter. Self-love says, ‘I love myself enough to take care of myself so that I am able to take care of others.’
That spiel on the airplane about ‘put your own oxygen mask on first before you help someone else with theirs’ has real meaning. If you pass out from lack of oxygen there are 2 of you in trouble!
So during this time, ask yourself, ‘How can I best serve myself? What is my inner self needing/wanting? How can I give that to myself?’
Maybe it’s time to explore what is holding you back from having great joy in your life. Dissolve the blocks that keep you from manifesting magnificence. Let them go as the moon gets smaller in the sky.
Clear the way for the new energy that is wanting to come in at the next New Moon on Friday, March 20 at 5:36 am Eastern Daylight Time. This will be a special day – with a Total Solar Eclipse and the Sun moving into Aries – Spring Equinox!