Kimberly Giles

Failures, mistakes, and difficulties are just locations on your journey through life. They have nothing to do with who you are.

The world needs people who have survived mistakes, tragedies, and trials to help the rest of us through. Where would we be if Victor Frankl had never experienced what he did during the war? He wouldn__ have used his experiences to benefit millions of people around the world. The world needs you to let go of self-pity and shame regarding your life experiences, too. The world needs you to use the things you have learned for good. Stop letting your past mistakes define you and affect your value. Let go of separation and victimhood and find meaning in what you have been through.

I believe the higher power in the universe is compassionate, understanding, and all-knowing, and that there is nothing you can do that will change His love for you. I believe God__ love for you is infinite and absolute, and your value as an irreplaceable, unique, one-of-a-kind, divine soul is infinite and absolute too, because it is based in God__ love for you. Does this make sense to you, the way it does to me? I believe this is truth. I believe your value is not on the line; that your value is literally absolute and unchangeable. You have the same infinite value no matter what you do or don__ do. I believe you are a perfect and divine creation and as such your value is secure forever, no matter how many mistakes (driven by fear and misconception) you make down here. I believe God understands that your mistakes are part of your learning process. Mistakes teach you beautiful and important lessons. It makes no sense to condemn you for being lost, confused, scared and stupid down here, when for the most part we all are. We are doing the best we can with what we know, but we don__ know enough and are no where close to perfect. I believe God wants you to keep learning and growing, but that He loves you and accepts you as you are right now.

Encouragement is the most effective way to change someone__ behavior. When you see the best in them you encourage them to become that and they will want to live up to your high opinion of them.

When a person feels appreciated for their infinite and absolute value, you can then communicate about any issue and you will have their cooperation and respect.

Be a good person, do good things, learn, and love other people, but do these things because you love yourself, God, life and people, not because you fear going to hell if you don__. Keep the commandments (or whatever tenets you believe) because you want to be happy. Do it for you. God and the universe will unconditionally love you no matter which path you choose. You can learn whatever lessons you choose for yourself. If you want to learn things the hard way and experience fear, guilt and shame that is okay. But nothing you do (or don__ do) can separate you from love.

The universe uses every experience you have to help you grow and learn. No experience is wasted. Every choice you make and everything that happens to you because of other people__ choices become your perfect lessons. As you learn to trust this truth, you will experience less fear and more peace.

I say this because all religions, accurately understood, will take away your fear of not being enough. I believe there is a way to understand the tenets of your religion, right now, that will take away your fear and make you feel loved and safe. The problem is that no matter what you believe or to which religion you belong, there are two ways you can experience your beliefs. There is a fear way you can experience your religion, and a love way to experience it. All religions can be experienced both ways. All life philosophies can be experienced both ways too.If you search your personal books of scripture, you will find both ideas equally represented. There will be verses or sections that validate a fear-based view of God and there will be some that validate a love-based view of God. Don__ be confused by this. Both ideas had to be represented for you to have free agency. Anything less than equal representation of each idea would take away your freedom to choose.

You have probably worked your entire life to create a sense of identity around your job, your family, your hobbies, or your physical characteristics. But none of these is who you really are. You are not what you look like. You are not your family. You are not your job, income, or performance. You are not your current situation or the mistakes you have made. Mistakes are just locations on your journey; they have nothing to do with who you are, and neither does what you do or how successful you are. You are bigger than all those things. You are much more than just a businessman or a mom or a student. You are a divine, irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind, amazing, loving, eternal being, and your value comes from that fact alone. You come from God, who is love, which to me would mean - you are love too. You have to be. And if you are love then nothing you do or don__ do can change your value, because no matter what you do or how many mistakes you make, you are still YOU; you are still LOVE. You can__ help it. You cannot be anything else.

The universe will never force a mindset on you. You have complete free agency to choose fear and suffer unnecessarily if you want to.