Lesson 23

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we examine finding our way out of being lost.

When you are young and "dumb" and also old and "dumb", we can make mistakes so large that we feel like we will be judged for them forever.  Here's where I'd like to refer you back to course Day 2 and Day 20.

On Day 2, in a roundabout way, we discussed defying stereotypes and on Day 20 we talked about our broken perspectives.

Everyday someone somewhere is defying the expectations that people have for someone just like you.  Whatever you have done in your life that you are not proud of there is someone who did the same thing, who flourished in society because they have a unique perspective that their failing led them to. They took their chunk of coal and turned it into a diamond. We could name people all day but here are just a few:

Cheryl Strayed 

Gabrielle Bernstein

Merle Haggard

Shaka Senghor 
Patricia Williams
Robert Downey Jr.
Eckhart Tolle - whose depression brought him knowledge that led him to be the most respected spiritual teacher alive today

These are people who succeeded in spite of either spending time in jail, being homeless, being addicted to drugs, selling drugs, having failed marriages and/or on another both related & unrelated note, going through tremendous bouts of depression and wanting to commit suicide.   

No person in the world is passed the point of being rehabilitated. Once they are rehabilitated, people don't readily look at them and immediately recall the terrible things they did. They are mostly just seen with deep respect for having overcome the obstacles that they overcame. 

Don't ever think you have gone too far to come back. 

So, today isn't really a lesson as much as it is a statement. You can always save yourself and people will forgive you. You just have to forgive yourself. 

Go forth in your day and shine.