I was married to a wonderful man. All my life, I’d dreamed of having a happy marriage; and Charles was funny, warm, and caring. I felt that I had worked through a lot of my own insecurities and was ready to be a part of a healthy, loving relationship—but I wasn’t.
Unbeknownst to me, I still had a deeply rooted feeling of unworthiness, so even though I had attracted this terrific man into my life, I was subconsciously sabotaging yet another relationship. I was afraid that if I confronted him about any of the problems in our marriage, he’d get angry and leave me; therefore, I repressed the difficult emotions of fear and low self-worth and pretended everything was fine. He didn’t speak up about his needs, and I didn’t voice mine.
Again, attending a seminar of Bob Proctor’s sparked an epiphany for me. Bob placed two clear glasses on a table, each half full—one with coffee, the other with water. He took a teaspoon of water and stirred it into the glass that held coffee, but I could see no change in it.
He mixed in another teaspoonful of water—and another, and another. It wasn’t until he’d added several spoonfuls that I began to observe the coffee becoming slightly more transparent. Bob explained that this represented the effect of positive emotions on a person who has a negative state of mind.
As I sat there, I took in his words and tried to apply them to my life. I had to admit that it did take a great deal of positive energy for me to overcome my feelings of anger, sadness, or unworthiness.
Then Bob stirred one teaspoonful of the coffee into the glass of clear water. Instantly, I perceived the liquid changing color. He explained that this is the effect of negativity on a positive mind: It’s like a tiny bit of poison. Bob’s words became my third epiphany:
“It only takes a little bit of poison to kill.”
It was true. While for the most part I felt as if my life was moving forward, each time I experienced something that brought a negative emotion, I immediately returned to that devastated, hopeless feeling I’d experienced when I was a teenager in misery. If someone at work criticized me, or Charles and I had an argument, all my positive feelings vanished—and anger, embarrassment, and unworthiness hijacked me.
The smallest bit of poison would kill my positive attitude. Here I’d convinced myself that all these self-help gurus were living perfect lives, free from any jealousy, anger, or self-doubt, so anytime I
experienced those negative emotions, I felt bad about myself. Instead of trying to be more positive, I let my toxic feelings dominate my experience, and then I felt guilty and awful for not being more in control of my emotions.
It began to dawn on me that my expectations of myself were completely unrealistic. I started to realize that all the self-help experts weren’t trying to tell me that I couldn’t experience negativity, but rather that I needed to manage its effect on my life and stop letting it act like a drop of cyanide, destroying my outlook. I needed to develop the habit of learning what I could from my darker feelings before quickly pulling myself out of my negative emotional state and back into a positive one.
After having my third epiphany, I started to apply Bob’s words to my life, but it was too late to save my marriage. I’d always been so afraid of my negative feelings that I refused to explore them, and they had acted like a poison within my relationship.
When I look back, I remember that my marriage was filled with love, caring, loyalty, and faithfulness. Still, instead of experiencing gratitude, I felt unworthiness. It wasn’t an overwhelming feeling so much as a lingering sense that I didn’t deserve happiness. Sadly, within a very short period of time, Charles and I were both so unhappy that our relationship began to unravel. Within four short years, we were divorced and living 20 miles apart. Of course, we both loved our little
boy, Michel, deeply and wanted what was best for him more than anything else, so we shared custody. Against all odds, my ex-husband and I created a solid, respectful, loving relationship as co-parents; in fact, to this day we’re still friends.
Find out what the most destructive and poisonous emotions you may have that could be destroying your dreams.
[Excerpt from Your Destiny Switch: Master Your Key Emotions, And Attract the Life of Your Dreams by Peggy McColl, Foreword by Neale Donald Walsc
The coffee/water is a great analogy. Your story is unfortunate, but also very inspiring. Sometimes it takes something harsh to make a positive impact on our perception on things.
I get what you are saying, but also, I feel that people have different lessons, different temperments. There are some happy sunshiny people that have great fear of delving into anything that looks the slightest bit negative, and so reject anyone that has deep lessons to learn, for fear it might be "negative". I have known many people like this.
I think that everyone learns their lessons in the right time, and the fact that you are still loving and respectful, and friends and being there for your child means that you did learn the crucial lesson.