Everyone has their own beliefs and religion and that’s good, what ever works for you. But what I feel is that a belief is something which you are given, not something you really choose for yourselves and I feel that even religion is a false hope. We all have some amazing leaders in our life’s, but from how they started off initially and what they seemed to have changed to along the way, are two completely different things altogether don’t you think? How can something what we believe in which is meant to be so good for us be causing so much destruction, violence and war in the world? I used to believe in god I suppose, but for a long time even though I still know that something exists, that is not my belief anymore. It’s only at the lowest and saddest times in your life that you really ever rely and trust in your faith. Sometimes it can pull you though those times, sometimes it lets you down so much; you wonder where the belief ever got you in the first place. I used to go to church every Sunday when I was younger. I never really choose to go, but because my mother thought it was the ‘right’ thing to do and she believed in that, we were kind of forced to go. Never really understood any of it, appart from the fact the Sunday School where you mixed with all the other kids and had fun was alright, but the singing part in the church was so boring and you weren’t meant to fidget either, or talk? Looking back I can understand why she made us go, it was really to get us out of bed early on a Sunday morning and sing. She believes and still believes, which is fine with me.

The crunch time for me came, when one morning out of the blue, we had a visit from the police. We instantly knew, it was my brother. He had been involved in a serious car accident and had been taken to the hospital. To this day, I will never forget what I said to myself in the shower as we rushed to get ready to go to hospital. I said ’If I get through this, I’ll get through anything’. Little did I know what was just round the corner? The amount of times I prayed for him to be ok again and sat there beside his bed holding his hand, but he never regained consciousness. I believed that he was loved so much, that no one would ever take him away from us. How could someone possibly do that to someone so young fit and healthy and only 25? Sadly, he had head injuries and didn’t survive. From that moment onwards, I no longer believed in god or anything anymore.

I think it’s cruel in a way that people who practice their religion force it onto their children; we should all have a choice not an instruction or order. We do have a choice but only when we are old enough to make our own decision’s. I don’t feel in this day and age belief or religion seems to be a choice which is such a shame unless of course you strong minded to whatever you want to do or what feels right.

I admire the Buddhist Philosophy and the Buddhist way of life it really intrigues me. I lived that way for so long while living in South East Asia. Although I never practiced it, I have a fascination with it and the pure loving energy you feel each time you walked into a temple. I still live that way in the UK; To be honest, I can’t live any other way now. Comparing Thailand and Asia to the UK is just impossible. Living in Thailand is like living in the slow lane and appreciating everything which is around you and everything you have. Living in the UK is like living in the fast lane, always thinking about the future and the past, what we used to have or what we feel we must have, never enjoying the moments for what they are, each and every one of them special. The UK is so focused on the future it’s unhealthy. Always wondering and planning what you will be doing in a week’s time or tomorrow. Before you know it today has long gone and we never lived one second of it, only planned for next week. What if next week never came, what if tomorrow never arrived? We don’t know what’s round the corner for us. Life is all about your journey each and every day; it’s never about the destination. Life happens while we are busy making plans, planning the future and before we realise half our life has gone, just on planning the future, never living in the moment and appreciating it. Life is made from moments not minutes and in order to really appreciate how special each one is you need to be present in it. That is why people who live like this are not happy. How can you ever possibly be happy when you are constantly striving for something you think you want and need, but might never have? Is it any wonder we feel something is missing in our life’s? We place the emphasis on what we think we want and need so much, that it’s completely taken away from appreciating what we already have. What’s missing is the biggest part called living and enjoying the here and now. If you are so focused on reaching your destination, you take the emphasis completely off the here and now, as though its no relevance whatsoever, this is the mistake we all make. When you learn to live for now and not the future, it’s amazing how different you see everything, it’s like you have been blind all your life and been given sight to see. Yet we still take it all for granted each and every day and let it slip through our hands and pass us by like we have an unlimited supply. Who would want an unlimited supply if you were miserable, so busy living in the future to appreciate right now?

If someone would have said to you before you were given your life ‘you can have a life on earth on one condition, you cannot live it, have fun or enjoy it each and every day, you must only concentrate on your future and live to plan for your future’ What would your reply have been? ‘I don’t think I’ll bother, that doesn’t sound like fun’ or ‘I’ll give that a miss, thanks all the same’. Yet each and every day of your waking life, this is ALL you ever do, by choice? You are in charge of your thoughts and have the choice to do this or not to do this each and every day, yet you still choose to do this? Maybe it’s time you started asking yourself why?

Each and every day I choose to be happy, healthy, loved and have fun, and each day I am all of these things. Happiness is a mindset and a choice we can chose it any time we wish. It really is that simple, how could anyone never manage to do this is beyond me. I only wish someone would have pointed all this out to me years ago, it would have saved an awful lot of suffering unnecessarily and given me back my life. When you grieve, the only person who is sad is you. I’m not saying don’t grieve, that’s perfectly normal, it’s normal and healthy to cry and release the sadness but the blame, guilt and all the other destructive feelings you continue to have, are all so unnecessary and unhealthy, just don’t be so hard on yourself either. It took me an awful lot of internal searching to find what I have (and was there all along)  and now I have, there’s no going back. I have never been and could never be the 9-5 kind of person ever again. I know that when my life on earth is over, I have learnt the most important lessons already. I have experienced loss and pain on the deepest of levels, when I lost the closest person to me in the world, my brother. It would have been easier to have ended my life than to live, but the only thing which stopped me was seeing all the pain and pieces it left behind for others to deal with. I wasn’t that selfish to take the easy option. Then I have experienced love, love on the highest levels possible, love and acceptance for myself. I know when I leave earth and move on to the spirit realm, which I’m already a big part of (as we all are because that is our real essence) we are all one to begin with, the only seperatioin is in our mind. I know I won’t be returning to earth. I will just be helping and healing like I have on earth. Like all my spirit guides, reiki helpers and personal guides have helped me to help others and myself. The other side so to speak is only a couple of feet above the earth plane to start with, so how can we not feel the people we have loved and lost in our life’s? How can they not be around us still, it’s impossible, you just need to be open and aware of the vibrations around you allow your mind to be quiet enough for things to come through. We are all vibrational beings, universal life force energy every living entity on the planet, so the other side is never far and as near as you would like it to be and the people also.

It is only when you forgive yourself and allow yourself to let go of those feelings, you will be able to live again. When I say let go, you will never let go of the closest people to you in your life that you have lost, never, I wouldn’t expect anyone to do that. All those wonderful and precious memories and moments are sometimes what keep us going and will be there forever until we meet again. Blame and guilt are only feelings which we allow ourselves to feel and are so destructive and damaging to our bodies. When we have these destructive feelings, we should remember, the choices were never in our hands to make were they, so please for one minute stop and realise, we couldn’t have done one single thing to change the outcome, it was never our fault, so allow yourself to live again and let these feelings go before you to have no life only guilt and blame and feel at fault. How can it have ever been your fault when it wasn’t your choice or decision? So allow the guilt and blame to go, be free from feeling like this, you have enough to cope with going through the grieving process; don’t punish yourself anymore, allow yourself to live. Where does it say while you are grieving you are not allowed to have fun, be happy, smile or live your life? Nowhere, but this is what we have programmed ourselves to think each and every second of every day. If we don’t act like this, we feel it’s not normal. What’s normal anyway? We do, feel and think whatever we feel is right at that time, but what we don’t need to do is feel like we have to punish ourselves anymore than we already feel we have been punished with the loss.

It is only time that can heal, because we manage to learn to forgive, never forget. I used to feel I wasn’t allowed to let an hour go by without thinking about them, or I would feel they’d been forgotten, when they never would have to start with. They never wanted me to feel this way, I chose to. They never wanted me to feel sad for one minute or to stop living my life and the more I thought about this, the more I realized it was true. While I was sad all the time, even though they were no longer here in physical body, they were in spirit and never wanted me to feel sad, because they to saw me sad and was upset because they felt like this was their fault I was sad. It is a vicious circle. The choice had been taken away from us both, so to punish ourselves even more, is not necessary, don’t you see that? Life is far to short to live with regrets, blame, guilt and all the destructive feelings we place on ourselves each and every day, for who knows what’s around the corner for us? Start now allowing yourself to live and let all those useless and destructive emotions and thoughts go. Be free and feel free again, the only person who is keeping you where you are in your life, and making you feel the way you do is you. So stop being so hard on yourself and learn to let go and live again, please. I did, it wasn’t easy, but it was certainly better than the way I was living and feeling at the time. If I was to go back to that and the sad existence I had called life, which I chose, I really wouldn’t want to be here.

If you were to ask someone why they were Muslim or Buddhist or Catholic or whatever religion they were, most would not be able to give you an answer regarding their faith. The reason for this is because they have NEVER once asked themselves the same question! Their answer would only be because they believe. Like I said belief is something which you are given, not something which you choose. So really when you look at any faith in this universe, we are one and always will be one, no matter what anyone thinks. The only thing we are actually doing is following great leaders of the past, nothing more.