BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Inspiration Book Club - Chp. 2 The Mastery of Love

Chapter 2 - The Loss of Innocence

"...no one in the whole world abuses you more than you abuse yourself."
-Don Miguel Ruiz

In Chapter Two, Ruiz tells us how we arrived at our fearful state.

What do you think of his perspective?

It is Chapter 2 that often makes me feel like Ruiz is yelling at me like a cranky old man. His words can feel harsh. At the same time they hit home and make perfect sense to me. It may take a minute to be honest with myself, but truly, I enable others to treat me certain ways by not loving me enough to say "No".

Yvonnie, they say we teach people how to treat us by the limits we set.

How true and as I look back, yes, I taught them to victimize me.

Now I am working on my relationship with my adult daughter as that is the only person I am allowing into my world. Use to be more social, but after the hell with my ex-boyfriend for the last 4 years - I am now back to enjoying MY company.

With me staying with my adult daughter since June of this year after moving out of his house (had to sneak out/lol) - the stress of trying to come to terms with the mess I had made due to my decisions and wanting some peace with her (we are so much alike) - seems too much on some days. But I know that I can do this and when I leave out of her front door for the last time to begin my NEW life in MY own place again - the time with her will always be treasured.

These are tough times Angela, but you are made of the good stuff. You can claim a new existence, a better one, and bring it to life.

Once you truly define what existence you want, it will arrive in lightning speed.

Remember, you have to be able to see it, stand firm and focused in your vision, and believe it.

I definitely agree with this perspective. How many times have I thought about something from 10, 15, even 20 years and used that unpleasant memory to torture myself. When the other people involved probably aren�t giving me a second thought as they have their own �dramas� being played out where I�m not the star.

Here�s my favorite quote from Chapter 2. �By hooking the attention, the energy goes from one person to another person. The attention is something very powerful in the human mind. Everyone around the world is hunting the attention of others all the time. When we capture the attention we create channels of communication. The Dream is transferred, power is transferred, but emotional poison is transferred also�usually we release the poison with the person we think is responsible for the injustice, but if that person is so powerful we cannot send it to him, we don�t care who we send it to.�

The lesson here is to not transfer the poison at all, since first an innocent person may be the recipient, or the poison may make it�s rounds and come back to you.

Thanks for chiming in Leah.

I like your message about not spreading/sending the poison.

That's exactly what the message is.