In my work with The Course of Miracles there is a saying that everything is “love or a call for love.” 

As you think of the last FEW weeks and the national headlines:

• Gorilla killed after handling 3-year-old boy who got into enclosure
• Orlando Massacre
• Police ID man who killed singer Christina Grimmie
• Divers Find Body of Toddler Snatched by Alligator at Disney Resort

What do you do when darkness happens?

• Do you find it an opportunity to rise above and find compassion?
• Do you find it an opportunity to help others?

What role have you been taking? The critic or the compassionate heart, the hater or the one to look for solutions.

Just like my Louse Hay calendar, “I remind myself that if I want to be accepted as I am, then I need to be willing to accept others as they are.”

I am not saying we not proceed with justice for the shooters, but that you and I reach higher and seek to understand why this is happening? What’s at the core?

See it as a CALL TO LOVE.

How can the love in you find a way to take a stand to help out? Let the anger, sadness and unfathomable of these situations move you to positive action.

How about showing more compassion to the parents who are facing their worst nightmare of losing their child rather than being the critic of how poorly they were parenting?

These parents have lost their loved one. These parents are struggling to understand how this could have happened.

Nothing can ever make sense of any of these horrendous events.

How can you be part of the solution rather than blame? How can you see these opportunities as calls for love?

Seek first to understand. Parenting is one of the hardest jobs, if not the hardest job. Parents need support, guidance and compassion especially in a tragedy. Think about your life as a parent, and how many times you skirted a situation that your child could have been just like one of these. Children are adventurous and curious. Kids make choices you don’t like as parents, even our adult children.

You can help.

How can you shift that critic of how could they have… to one that seeks understanding of who they are, help to make these environments safer or just send love to them?

What’s your solution?

I’m not condoning the behavior that happened. I’m saying things happened in those shooters life that builds up hurt, resentment and rage. It builds up. It’s why unthinkable events can happen in your life and others. Look at just one area of your life. Who do you need to forgive? Who hurt you, betrayed you, embarrassed you? Forgiveness is not about them, it’s about the hold they have on you.

Or, where can this be a call for love to you and your life?

You can begin where you are in your life. Look at your own personal life, how loving are you to yourself, to your family – immediate and extended. Are you compassionate or judging? Look at the little things in your life and how you handle them. Do you seek first to understand? Where are you blaming others?

Everyone’s journey includes the dark nights of the soul.

You have gremlins you are facing. How deep are they disguised? The deeper and more covered up, the stronger the force they will ignite in a way that’s not pretty.

Most people try to cover them up rather than seek guidance and help to release the stronghold they have on their life. Most people aren’t even conscious that they can get the help they need to work through what’s pulling them down into pain, judgment and hatred.

Once again, I’m not saying the situation does not need to be dealt with, but what can you do to deal with what’s underneath creating this.

It is time to rise above. Our world is hurting. People are fed up.

Use these situations as an opportunity, a call for love, to bring more love and acceptance to the world.

What can YOU do?

Find ways to be more loving to yourself and others, to be more accepting of yourself and others.  Find ways you can teach others to seek first to understand, develop empathy, walk a mile in someone’s shoes. 

Get the help you need.

Help change the hatred, the discrimination.  Find peace within yourself.  You don’t have to agree with other’s choices but you don’t have to let it rage and destroy others and you.  It will if you don’t find what lies beneath.

What action can you take today to help brighten our world?  Is it to find the places where you don’t  have peace within yourself?  Is it finding help to deal with your anger and rage?  Is it learning more about mental illness, love, acceptance, gays, Muslims?  Is it about ways to lead more support groups for parents who have lost children? 

What can you do to make a positive difference in these uncertain times?

If you need some guidance or support to deal with your dark nights of the soul, sign up for a FREE discovery session at dottiehager.com.