Forgiveness is one of those things we hear about all the time that sounds good in theory, but when it happens to us … “I ain’t gone forgive them! They need to pay!”

Why do we give up on our principles so quickly?

Perhaps we never truly believed in forgiveness, to begin with. Or maybe we never understood it but acted as if we did so that we can seem good and noble.

Whatever the case, I’m going to break it down for you here.

By the end of this, you’ll know whether you should join the forgiveness bandwagon or shrug it off forever.

You’ll also understand how forgiveness can give you everything you ever wanted.

And best of all, you’ll be able to explain it to others with ease.

If you stop reading right here then you are stupid!

No, you aren’t. I just wanted to see if you would forgive me and continuing reading.

Besides, you are as smart as the smartest person in the world whether you realize it or not.

What Is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is the act of one of the following:

• no longer feeling angry or resentful toward a person for an offense, flaw, or mistake
• canceling a debt

Canceling of a debt

Let’s start with the canceling of a debt owed since it’s simpler to explain.

To perceive that a debt is owed is to also be in debt. This is similar to that of a jailer.

To put one in jail, one must also be confined to that jail in order to watch over the other that is imprisoned. This notion explains why besides the prisoners, prison guards spend the most time at a jail.

When you hold a debt over another, it is held over your head as well. Any time you think of the one that owes you, you are reminded of this debt.

Until the debt is taken care of, it is perceived as a loss or else it would not matter. This loss could be one of money, pride, principle, or any number of self-imprisonments.

Thus whenever you perceive that you are at a loss, you act accordingly. You act as one that loses.

To put it another way, you behave like a loser.

A loser sees the world as a place that takes advantage of him or her. He or she makes loser decisions and speaks loser phrases to anyone that would listen.

Yet this loser is not a loser at all. This person is simply living out the beliefs he or she has set forth in his or her illusion (ill-lose-shun).

So if holding another in your debt puts you in a debt that you weren’t in before, does the canceling of this debt really do anything at all?

No, it simply brings you back to your natural state. This is the state you would have been in had you not declared that someone owes you something.

This is how forgiveness works. It restores what was never broken at all.

Are you with me?

Read this section again if you need to and then proceed.

… for an offense, flaw, or mistake

To fully explain forgiveness in this context, let’s start with what would make you angry.

In the above definition, it says an offense, flaw, or mistake. This can also be called imperfections.

To know what imperfection is, you would have to know what perfection is.

Quick exercise: Close your eyes and for one minute, picture exactly what perfection is.

…

Based on what you saw, try to answer the following to yourself about perfection.

What exactly is perfection?

Is it a certain look? Is perfection a way of speaking? Could it be a certain way a person acts?

If what one person calls a flaw, another calls beauty, and vice versa, can anything really be perfect or imperfect?

Since your meaning of perfect can change tomorrow, is what you’ve seen actually perfection or just your idea of perfection today?

If it’s not so easy to identify perfection, why do you believe it’s easy to witness imperfection? Wouldn’t it be, at best, a guess?

…

Yes, these are a lot of questions. Hopefully, you are answering them and seeing just how flawed your idea of perfection can be.

And if perfection is flawed, should it still be called perfection?

Don’t worry, I’m getting to my point in this.

Without truly knowing the outcome of certain actions, it is impossible to know whether something is an offense, flaw, or mistake at all.

It could all be imagined.

Even the word mistake implies a false view. You mistook what happened.

No longer feeling angry or resentful toward a person …

Now that we’ve addressed what can make you angry, which in a way is nothing at all, let’s talk about you feeling angry or resentful toward another.

When you feel angry or resentful toward another, you are the one that is feeling it.

This is obvious.

But if you have full authority and control over your feelings, why ever feel angry at all. The only logical explanation is that you enjoy it.

Furthermore, if you don’t know that what is happening is actually “bad”, then what’s the real purpose of your anger or resentment?

This again brings us to forgiveness. Forgiveness is only about you, not the one you have yet to forgive.

What Forgiveness Is and Isn’t

Forgiveness does not say that you are a bigger person than the one you are forgiving? It does not say that you have authority over another to absolve them of their actions.

Forgiveness simply brings you back into the awareness of reality instead of what never was.

It is giving up these feelings of anger and/or resentment so that you can be restored to your natural state of peace.

So what forgiveness is saying through you is, “I give up these unwanted feelings caused by what I have no idea about.”

If you are giving up unwanted feelings, you are giving up nothing. Nothing wanted is sacrificed.

What you receive in return is the awareness of what you’ve always been…love, abundance, joy, peace, etc.

Technically, forgiveness doesn’t do anything because it undoes what never was. What never was never needed forgiveness.

An Even Deeper Look at Forgiveness

I know right now many are reading this and saying, “Ok JClay. I get it, but these people really hurt me and did unspeakable things that should never be forgiven.”

There are few things at play when you think similar to this.

First, at this moment you would rather re-live this supposed wrongdoing instead of being happy.

Even though there is never a reason needed to be happy, you could still be happy that this situation is not occurring right now.

You are presently in a safe space. At least it’s safe enough where you can read this article.

Secondly, you are acknowledging that others have control over you and your wellbeing.

This can never be true because the mind controls the body and you control your mind.

By not giving away control of your mind to outside forces, your body is under your complete control always.

I’ll use this example to better illustrate it.

That which you chase will often run away.

Every relationship is a partnership whether it’s a romantic one, friendship, or one of an oppressor & oppressed.

In this example, this is an agreement between the chaser and the one being chased.

Right now if you were at a store and saw a couple of people running toward you at full speed, chances are you would run.

You would have fully accepted your role as one being chased.

However, if in that same situation you instead start running toward those people at full speed, there would be hesitation on their part. They would reassess the terms of the relationship and choose instead to be the ones being chased.

Most likely the original chasers would think, “This person is crazy and must know something that we don’t. Let’s get out of here.”

Similarly, in cases where someone has “wronged” you, you have given him or her full permission to do so.

And since the authority of what happens to you rests solely on you, then you can never truly be mad at another. You can only be mad at yourself.

To be mad is to be crazy. To be crazy at another is to still be crazy.

Don’t be crazy. Forgive them for what they did not and cannot do.

The Mind/Body Relationship Revisited

It’s been understood that the mind controls the body, but what isn’t fully understood is how much.

Your height, muscle mass, “illnesses”, facial expressions, weight consumption, etc are all in your control.

By your control, I don’t mean physically. This is totally relating to the mind.

Your body bends to your intentions of how you want to use your body.

For example, basketball players are usually the tallest in their families despite genetics because they have a habit of reaching for a higher height (the basketball goal).

Likewise, gymnasts are usually the shortest in their families despite genetics because the tighter and stronger their core, the better they can whip their body around.

It doesn’t end there. Your body loses about its weight in normal cell reproduction every year^[1], which means physically you have a brand new body every year.

But what blueprint does cell regeneration follow? If you didn’t have these same attributes or illnesses as a child, why are they regenerated now?

It’s because you have created a purpose for this and your body embodies this purpose.

So if your body isn’t real in the sense that it can be regenerated to your likeness at any time, why ever be concerned with what happens to the body?

Cause and Effect

The body is an effect where the mind is the cause. Effects always follow their cause.

Bodies can seem to attack, but minds can never attack.

So when you feel you are wronged, it’s in relation to how you view yourself as a body.

To state it another way. It’s like you’re playing a video game.

When your video game character is hurt by another video game character, you think it means the end of you.

It may only mean the end of your character, but never you.

You can create infinite characters with infinite attributes at will by your beliefs and intentions.

The source of your pain is never rooted in reality because pain does not really exist.

Forgiveness is just the acknowledgment of reality. It’s saying that you forgive another for what they could not do.

How easy is that?

How Forgiveness Heals

Pain is just a manifestation of guilt.

I won’t go into the many causes of the guilt illusion, but this song will help you become and stay guilt-free.

People project guilt onto others so that they won’t have to blame themselves. It’s part of that relationship agreement we spoke about earlier between you and the “guilty” party.

It makes sense because would you rather spend all day being mad at yourself or at another?

Right, at another.

The problem is that what you give, you also receive. So instead of being free of this guilt, you multiply it because you witness the guilt every time you see those you projected it onto.

When you forgive others, this guilt is no longer seen on the faces of those you projected it onto.

Since you don’t witness it, you enjoy the guilt-free world you live in. You also think of and treat others, whom you’ve forgiven, with respect.

And if these individuals don’t already treat themselves with respect, your respect is enough for them to start respecting themselves.

They can now begin forgiving themselves and others so that this healing process can continue with all of mankind.

This is all because of your forgiveness.

In Conclusion

I didn’t want this article to be too long, but I wanted to address as much as possible related to forgiveness.

Message me directly on IG @jclay1st with any personal questions related to forgiveness. Also, pre-order IAMNOBODY, IAMSOMEONE. This album will help you forgive and be healed with very little effort.

The post It’s Not Hard To Forgive, It’s Hard To Keep Lying To Yourself About It appeared first on JClay.

This is a big topic, especially if you’re dealing with chronic pain, the death of a loved one, and/or a person that seems to wish you harm.

Death, pain, and evil may even be so ingrained in your life that you will not know how you can live without them.

I will not force this information upon you, especially if you are not ready to receive it.

So before you proceed with reading, do this.

1. Take a super slow deep breath.
2. Decide if you want to know the truth or if you want things to remain as they are in your life.

Yes, this situation is similar to the red-pill/blue-pill decision in the Matrix movie. However, in this version, choosing to know the truth will add to your joy, peace, and overall passion for life.

If there is a side effect to this, it would be that many things that used to interest you, simply won’t. Close friends may find it difficult to be around you. And you might even get name-called as “One of those hippie people.”

Regardless, I’m going to break down each of these for you. Once you see the truth of what death, pain, and evil are, you will be able to remove their imagined effects from your life with little effort.

And for those people that distance themselves from you…don’t worry, they’ll come back and be inspired by you.

So have you made your decision yet?

No matter what you decide, know that it’s the perfect choice for you right now.

What Is Meant By Illusion

First, congratulation on taking the first step toward ultimate healing. I’m excited for you. This will be like being born again.

Now place your attention toward The Truth Test (TTT).

What’s so great about TTT is its simplicity. There’s no way it can be argued away or debated.

Anything that changes is not real because it is not the truth. What is true does not need any extra attention or help to keep it alive.

What is true will always remain regardless of the circumstance.

When you accept this ultimate truth for yourself, many walls of illusions will instantly be broken down.

Illusions are fully useless, complicated bits of information that keeps your focus on trying to understand them. Each answer discovered leads to another question.

On the other hand, the truth is indeed simple, always. Its answer is easily accepted and understood without any further questions.

The Belief in Death

The matter of death is a matter of identity.

Who or what do you identify with?

This answer is different for everybody.

I once identified as a smart, straight, black man. Many still identify me like that. Those that do are not wrong, they are just caught up in their own identity.

Let’s take a closer look at the above example. Two of these attributes are mind-based (smart, straight), while the other two are body-based (black, man).

Some may argue that both black and man are mind-based too depending on their cultural representation.

Speaking in terms of the body, the mass of cells that you lose each year through normal cell-death is close to your entire body weight. In the process, these cells are replaced with new ones.

So every year you have a brand new body. Brand new! And your old one dies a supposed death.

Yet you are still you through all of this

What’s even more strange is that your thoughts work similarly.

Think about what you thought about 7 years ago. You were completely different back then with a different identity.

You had your own set of beliefs and goals that have nothing to do with who you are now. Those thoughts have since died out.

Yet you’re still you.

So again I ask, what exactly are you?

Perhaps you think that you’re the thoughts that you choose to keep.

Or that you are that story you tell to any person you meet, which is why you tell the story. It keeps you alive.

Take a brief moment to think about who you are in comparison to who you thought you were at a prior time.

What’s to make you think that your identity now is indeed real if your other identity could not stand the test of time?

Not only do you seem to be tied to your identity, but you are tied to the identity of others.

Is it true that you love your family/friends or do you love the identities they that wear?

Blended Realities

Throughout what you would consider life, you’ve had several realities based on who you’ve identified with.

Now let’s add another component…dreams.

Most of the time when you dream, you accept that reality no matter how absurd it is. You don’t even question it.

What makes this reality any different? Could you be dreaming now?

The reality of death is but the ending of yet another dream.

If death was able to withstand the truth test, then all things would be dead always and you would not be here to read this article.

Yet because life is real, the illusion of death seems possible.

And no matter what reality you go through, you’re always alive and you’re always you.

Do you ever remember a time when you weren’t? Do you even know who the real you is?

Let the belief of death go and enjoy what you are now, which is alive.

If someone tells you that you may die, he or she just wants you to accept his or her dream of death.

Don’t accept it. It is not of you.

And to any loved ones that you think you miss right now. Do this.

Close your eyes and fill your heart with all the love you can muster. Visualize your loved one and say what you would want to them. Listen, they will respond to you as if they are right here.

Nothing real is ever lost and nothing real can ever die.

The Belief in Pain

Pain is nothing more than a belief.

It’s a belief that you’ve associated with certain aspects of your body.

This is why you could be fine in your reality but experience pain in a dream. Or vice versa. You could be experiencing pain in your reality, but be perfectly at ease in your dream.

Pain is an acceptance of this belief.

So why does the pain seem real and where did this belief come from?

The belief in pain came from a false sense of control, which goes back to the identity we spoke of earlier.

Your True Identity

Just to give you the truth of what/who you are, you share your identity with everything real in the world.

In other words, you and your friend are the same. If the universe had a body, you would be like the index finger and your friend would be like the middle finger.

Both are needed, appreciated, and help make up the body.

If you accept your identity as this, you will always do things that serve yourself (the entire body).

However, you believe that you are a separate identity from your fellow human. And so you do things that serve what you believe to be yourself only.

Because of this separateness, you seem to experience loss when it appears that your fellow human has something you do not have that you want.

This is a misperception.

For example, if you massage your right hand with your left hand, you will be happy for the overall experience.

Yet if you believed you were just the left hand, you may feel cheated not realizing how it affects your entire world.

Similarly, when you believe that you are separate from all, you open your experience to loss, loneliness, doubt, worry, and fear.

How Does Pain Factor Into This?

This emptiness that is created by your believed separateness gets filled.

The filling or feeling is the building block of pain.

Once you experience it, you want it gone.

Again, since you share your identity with everything that is real, you attempt to share your pain with others, and sometimes you try to project it onto others without even realizing it.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky in your mind.

The pain of loss, for example, makes you feel guilty. The reason for this guilt is because deep within, you know the truth of what you are. And if you are all, there could never be any loss.

And when you share this idea of littleness with others, you make both yourself and them weak through your eyes. Since in these moments of sharing pain you become the source of suffering for many, you feel intense guilt.

So after creating such guilt and wanting no part of it, you share it with others constantly because all you know how to do is share that which you believe you are.

You say things like, “You always disrespect me even though I would never disrespect you.” or “You owe me for all I’ve done for you.”

All of your actions become a way to serve and feed your separate identity. You no longer give just as an expression of love, you give to receive something that will make you feel bigger in your separateness.

Since you’ve gone through periods of sharing emptiness with others, emptiness is now among what you witness around and within you.

This causes great discomfort, which begins to manifest itself within your body and this associated thought becomes known as pain.

Not realizing you are the cause, you seek remedies outside of yourself to heal yourself. Each time you give power to these remedies through your belief in them, you weaken yourself even more and repeat the process of guilt and pain.

The Undoing of Pain

The only way to be rid of pain once and for all is the same way you made it real.

Start by sharing ideas of abundance with all. Share only that which you would want to have so that it becomes the only witness of who and what you are.

Be the cause of joy in yourself and others by giving freely without expecting or wanting anything in return. Be the example of contentment and not of loss.

Know that by helping others, you are helping your true Self (the entire body).

The Belief in Evil

The main thing that would stop you from helping everyone in the world is that you believe some are evil.

The subject of evil is a broader topic that I discuss in this article about God and evil.

To sum it up, evil does not exist. It is another false belief that you would carry with you from moment to moment.

You attempt to speak it into existence each time you bear witness to so-called evilness making you its preacher and sustainer. Any evil that you witness is made real through you.

Use the techniques mentioned above and below to withdraw faith in such a belief.

Next Steps

To start seeing reality instead of only your beliefs here are a few things you can do.

1. Listen to Let Go twice a day for at least a month.
2. Share ONLY love with others.
3. Read this book.

The post There Is No Death, No Pain, and No Evil appeared first on JClay.

Truthfully, many adults never learn these life lessons no matter what age they are. I threw the age of 40 out there just to get your attention.

When life lessons aren’t properly learned, the self-defined hurtful circumstances surrounding them continue to repeat.

Don’t be trapped by these beliefs all your life. Learn the lesson and transform the quality of your life.

In this article, I will outline the 7 most important life lessons that you can begin learning now.

Don’t worry if you don’t agree or aren’t ready to shift your perception. All is unfolding as it should. The fact that you are being exposed to this right now means you’re welcoming amazing things into your life.

Are you ready? Then let’s proceed.

1> The importance of letting go

Followers of my music know how much I speak about letting go, but many may not fully understand the reasons why.

Currently, you may feel weighed down by the heavy burdens you choose to carry.

In the simplest terms, letting go allows you to feel light.

When you feel light, you are like a leaf rolling down the street. You feel free as if you are part of the wind. No matter where you land, you land softly because you are light.

There is no coincidence that the word light in terms of weight is the same as light in terms of that which helps you to see.

When you let go, you can see clearer. What seemed like a dark, scary figure was just a shadow that could have no effect on you.

Whether it’s a grudge, bad news, fear, ideas of who you think you are, or any number of unwanting things … let them all go.

Try it now. There’s something that’s bothering you. Let it go. It’s as easy as dropping your phone. The only reason you wouldn’t let go of your phone is if you valued it.

Why value this heavy burden? Let go.

2> You keep what you share with others

You may have been taught or witnessed the relationship that exists between giving and taking.

The give-and-take relationship says that with any transaction, one person gives and the other takes. Yet there’s more at play here.

“Taking” has more of a negative connotation to it. It implies that you must lay claim to what was never yours.

This thinking introduces the idea that there are things that you lack. The idea germinates and you start to focus on what else you lack. So you begin a cycle of taking.

Taking can be of force, through careful planning, or even through means of deception. It also contradicts giving.

By accepting that you must “take” to live properly, you have already created a disadvantage for yourself. You are telling yourself that you are inadequate as is and that you must “take” control of all. In addition, you are making real the belief that all can be “taken” from you at any moment.

This belief makes it even harder to give because now you want to control the gift even when it’s no longer in your possession. Your giving comes with conditions.

So give-and-take isn’t actually a thing. It would be accurately described as take-and-try-to-keep. To take is to try to keep, and to try to keep is to take. There is no contradiction here.

2.1> Let’s compare give-and-take to give-and-receive

Give-and-receive is similar to take-and-try-to-keep in that there is no contradiction. What is given is received and what is received is given. It also passes the truth test.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

When you give unconditionally, you have no need to control the gift. You are showing with your actions that you believe it is ok to give freely.

This belief allows you to receive freely. You won’t feel bad about receiving gifts because you know by your own actions that gifts are not a form of indebtedness.

And I’m sure you’ve gotten helped in many ways over the years in such a way that you could not possibly begin to repay, nor would the gift-givers want you to repay.

To demonstrate this relationship of giving and receiving, give someone a huge smile. Once you see their reaction, your smile will grow even bigger because you would have received back what you gave.

Now do the same thing in reverse. Give a person a mean look. Chances are you won’t like what you receive back from it.

2.2> The role that sharing plays in this

Sharing is another form of giving. You may not realize it, but you share often.

At any moment, you share your thoughts, emotions, mannerisms, way of being, loves, etc.

As you can see, you can only share what you have to share.

So when you lash out at another, complain, or share your disgusts, it’s because you have those things. You have accepted them as part of yourself.

The reason you would openly share these things is that you believe it’s a way to get rid of them. But as we’ve learned, this is not true. Giving and receiving are one.

You actually strengthen in yourself what you share with others.

The proper way to rid yourself of what you don’t want is again to simply let it go.

When something is not a part of you, you have no need to speak about it. It’s not even in your mental space to even be thought to speak about.

3> Forgiveness is a strength

A lot of people still see forgiveness as a weakness. Why else would they not forgive?

There is still a huge misconception when it comes to forgiving. Many believe that to forgive means that, “I know you did me wrong, but I’m going to prove that I’m better than you by forgiving you.”

This does not pass the truth test.

Forgiveness is similar to the following, “I know you think you did me wrong, but you only did yourself a disservice by believing you could cause pain or discomfort. You have strengthened your belief in was is not real. In reality, you can never hurt me. I forgive you, not for what you thought you did, but for your belief in what is not of you.”

To put this another way, it’s like the famous quote of Jesus that if someone slaps you, turn to give them the other cheek to slap.

The reason this is an accurate depiction is that it doesn’t give a false representation of what you are. You are not a body nor what it represents. You are not fragile and susceptible to death.

To fight for the body’s weakness is to recognize that you are weak, even though you are not weak.

This leads us to the next life lesson, but I’ll say this one last thing first. Getting is another word for receiving. And since giving and getting are one, so are forgiving and forgetting (for-giving and for-getting).

To forgive is to forget. Why would you remember and continue to be limited by what is not? You are what is.

4> Having enemies makes you weak

This life lesson is very similar to what we were speaking about above.

When you acknowledge someone as your enemy, you have assigned them to be your superior. You believe that they have power over you, because why else would you regard them as your enemy?

If a 3-year-old said that he was going to beat you up, you wouldn’t call him your enemy. You would say, “Allll, you’re so cute. Where’s yo mama?” lol.

Well, adults are just tall kids. Treat them the same way.

Hate tries to make more hate, but it is always inferior to love. It cannot exist where love exists.

On the other hand, love creates more love and it is inferior to nothing.

Create loved ones instead of trying to make enemies.

5> If the promise of money is the only reason you’re doing something, you shouldn’t be doing it

Chasing money is often a sign of fear. You feel that having money allows you to be safe. By doing this you are again giving power to something outside of yourself and you are also giving it power over you.

You are also making real the belief that safety is needed. Safety would only be needed if you identify with what is temporary.

A common thing amongst those that grew up in poverty is that they never knew they were in poverty until someone showed them differently. For years they were happy with life, but because someone said they should value money over happiness, they entered a cycle where they become a slave to money.

Money is just a tool for cooperation. You want people to cooperate with you and many are willing for the right price whether they want to or not.

But why would you ever do what you don’t want to do? It’s because of fear of the unknown.

What is even more absurd is how can you be afraid of the unknown? It’s unknown!

Instead, openly cooperate with others. You won’t need money ever again. This is not to say that you won’t use money ever again or that you won’t have access to it, you just won’t “need” it.

6> The past is a trap

The past only exists in your mind. It’s not real and it’s not here, but you always visit it every chance you get.

A lot may argue that you can learn from the past. True, but what do you really learn?

You learn that you would rather be nowhere than here. In addition, you learn untrue lessons because you learned them by being in a place that is untrue.

6.1> The fabricated lessons learned from the past

The past has taught you about pain, which is an illusion, and it’s taught you about death, which goes against what you are because you could not exist if you were death.

One of the main things that focusing on the past does is give you a team to root for. You take on the persona of that team that you identify with by way of its story. His story. History.

History attempts to make division real. If you believe you are of a certain sex, you are more likely to take on the behaviors and baggage you think that sex carries. You even attempt to enforce these behaviors with others that don’t behave in a similar manner.

It’s the same for race, culture, religion, affiliations, territory, education, job titles, etc.

People even start there sentences like this:

• As someone that grew up in Chicago…
• As an award-winning artist…
• As someone with ADD…
• As a cancer survivor…
• As a gunshot victim…
• As a church goer…
• As a grown man…
• As a mother…
• As a victim…

What would happen if you shed those definitions (limitations)?

It may look something like this:

• As a perfect creation from a Perfect Creator…
• As an unlimited being…
• As a creator of time…
• As all there is…
• As life itself…

In fact, you won’t even need the pretense to speak.

Let go of the past and focus on right now. I recommend this book by Eckhart Tolle called The Power of Now.

7> Your mind controls your body

Everyone agrees with this one, but nobody agrees with this one.

I understand how that sounds.

You tell your body to raise it’s arm and it does. You tell your body to hold your pee so that you can make it to a bathroom, and so it does (most times ).

The power your mind has over your body is total.

But even within that power, your mind has the power to give that power away to illusion. It can say, “Let’s allow sickness to control this body.”

“Let’s let chance determine what happens to this body.”

And so it does.

Your physical body is a representation of who you think you are. If you change who you think you are, your body will change accordingly, naturally.

Everything your mind tells your body to do allows it to become more efficient the more you do it.

If you work out all the time, your body will become more efficient at helping you to work out by way of muscles and loss of fat. The same for if you sat down in one spot the whole day. Your body would become more efficient at that.

And if you do a combination of both, who knows?

My point is that your mind controls your body. You don’t have to go to another body to find out what’s wrong with yours. There is only a mis-thought that’s causing all of your body-related troubles.

You can let that go as well. Let go of all limitations. You may even end up being able to walk on water.

One thing is certain. As long as you believe you won’t be able to walk on water, you won’t be able to.

Recap

Here are those 7 lessons again:

1. The importance of letting go
2. You keep what you share with others
3. Forgiveness is a strength
4. Having enemies makes you weak
5. If the promise of money is the only reason you’re doing something, you shouldn’t be doing it
6. The past is a trap
7. Your mind controls your body

Learn these lessons and have fun in the process. In fact, have fun always!

If you find this article helpful, share it. Remember, what you share with others, you strengthen in yourself.

The post 7 Life Lessons People Still Haven’t Learned By the Age of 40 appeared first on JClay.

Is your family toxic? How can you be sure?

First off, I commend you for even clicking on this article. There are many that would encourage you to remove yourself from the presence of toxic people immediately. You have shown that you want to try a different approach. Or maybe you are in a situation where you can’t get away so easily. Either way, you made the right choice.

By the end of this article, you’ll know how to identify toxic people, how to be free of them forever, and how to always be in a loving environment. Therefore, I encourage you to read to the end.

“If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” -Ram Dass

What Makes a Person Toxic?

Before we dive into what you should do around toxic people, let’s get on the same page about what a toxic person really is.

A 2016 article on Psychology Today listed the 8 things that most toxic people in your life have in common. These 8 things are:

• They are not caring, supportive, or interested in what’s important to you.
• They take no responsibility for their own feelings.
• They make you prove yourself to them.
• They make you defend yourself.
• Toxic people are manipulative.
• They are inconsistent.
• They don’t apologize.
• They are judgmental.

To sum it up, a toxic person is an energy vampire. They feed off your “life force” so that they can build themselves up.

Let’s break down 3 of these because all 8 are basically saying the same things in a different way, which is, “I matter more than you.”

1. They are not caring, supportive, or interested in what’s important to you.

Because you can only see through the eyes of your beliefs, you want what’s important to you to be also important to everyone. As a result, you understand that everyone wants that as well for themselves.

Or do you?

Let’s say you’re in a situation where a family member wants a goal for you that is in direct opposition to the goal you want for yourself. This can result in conflict, especially since you don’t understand why they won’t just support you. It is of course, your life.

At the same time, you are not supporting them in the way they want to support you. They feel that they are being selfless because they are “helping” you. Henceforward, you both exhibit toxic behavior toward one another by not being supportive in the way the other wants.

Does that make you a toxic person or just a person with toxic behavior? Let’s come back to this question later.

2. They take no responsibility for their own feelings.

Everyone has met that person who blames everyone else for their troubles. They say things like, “You never support me. You make me so angry. This is all your fault…”

All the while, they never look at themselves.

It can seem very difficult to be around such people because they only think of themselves and never even think to support you. Instead, they just make you angry. It’s their fault that you even get angry at all.

Wait a minute…it seems like you are doing to them what you are accusing them of doing to you.

So does that make you a toxic person or just a person reacting to toxic behavior in a toxic way? You don’t have to answer this right now either.

3. They make you prove yourself to them.

As described above, toxic people want you to prove that you love them by doing something you may not want to do. They want you to support them in some way or even do them a favor. When you don’t, they complain about it saying you don’t care about them. They may even list examples of when they helped you.

Observe what feelings surface in response to the following questions.

• Have your family and friends proved themselves to you yet?
• Do they even have to?
• How do you feel when you ask them for a favor and they don’t come through?
• Do you feel similar to what was described above of the toxic person?

If you feel similar to that of a toxic person, does that make you a toxic person?

The Pattern of Toxicity

You’re starting to see a pattern. A person is not really toxic, they just exhibit toxic behavior from time to time. They are inconsistent in that way, which is one of the listed traits.

It’s also starting to look like you are the toxic person you claim another to be. This is because there is no separation between what you feel and what you experience.

Whenever a person experiences an unwanted feeling, he thinks that separating it from himself will lead to him feeling better. To try and separate it, he projects this behavior onto another thus creating his own enemy in a sense.

This is a major breakthrough because you can begin to see how you’ve also done this. Once you are aware, you can make the necessary changes.

What To Remember About Energy Vampirism

If someone can take your energy, this means that someone can also give you energy. Similarly, if someone can be toxic, this means someone can be a cure.

It is as easy to focus on the energy drainers as it is to focus on the energy givers. Since what you focus on expands, it’s better to focus on the energy givers instead.

Instead of just focusing on the energy givers, what if you could become an energy giver?

A lot of people believe that to give is to lose, but in reality, to give is to receive.

This is why when you project to separate, you still experience what you’re projecting.

You can try this experiment right now.

Give a genuine compliment to someone. Observe their reaction and yours. You would observe how happy they get and how much more happy it makes you.

Now, criticize someone harshly. Ok, you don’t have to do this one. That bad feeling that you felt in your heart shows that you don’t really want to give that because you know that you’ll receive it. And in some ways, just by thinking it, you already have.

Being A Energy Giver, Being the Cure

Check out this shift in perspective.

A toxic person wants to feel better by either taking your energy or making you feel smaller.

On the flip side, an energy giver wants you to feel better by either giving you energy or making you feel better.

The same result is applied, but everybody feels better about it. By being an energy giver, you also receive the energy you gave but in greater amounts. That’s all a “toxic” person wants.

The next time a “toxic” person comes your way, willingly give them that love that they are really asking for. You will have cured them of their toxicity making your environment toxic-free and peaceful.

The Role Your Family & Friends Play In Your Life

In truth, the only toxic person you’ve ever perceived is yourself. Now that you know how not to be toxic, you won’t perceive it in others.

Because your loved ones are so close to you, they can bring up feelings that you would not care to have around others.

What’s special about this is they are reflecting your innermost thoughts. They are showing you what you need to overcome to remain happy. How can a person such as that ever be toxic? They are your savior.

Will you try to see the world another way? Let me know in the comments.

The post How To Be Around Toxic Family & Friends appeared first on JClay.

Fight fight fight are words that commonly command the attention of the masses. Yet no fight is ever winnable.

I can tell just how you’re looking at this article that this is a touchy subject. As a result, you’re probably ready to verbally fight me because you believe I’m threatening your right to fight.

Fear not, this is one encounter that we’ll both end up winning.

All throughout our history books, our television shows, and within our family, there are long records of fighting.

Despite this, what do you actually win after a fight? How do you feel moving forward and encountering the one(s) you’ve fought with? What’s actually changed?

In this article, all of these questions and more will be answered. You will learn more about yourself and your motives for fighting than you have from engaging in any fight.

Are you ready to let go of the idea of fighting?

What You’re Really Fighting For (It’s Purpose)

There’s a belief that you must fight for what is right.

This leads to important questions like what exactly is right and why does it need you to fight for it? Wouldn’t it’s rightness be enough to stand on?

For instance, the truth doesn’t need anyone to validate it for it to remain true. What is true will always be true. On the other hand, a lie, it’s constantly looking for witnesses to uphold its claims. A lie will fight to stay alive.

At its core, fighting is an effect of fear. Fear is an illusion. It’s caused by trying to give away what you do not want. You’ve judged against a part of yourself, which can show up as guilt, shame, or feelings of inadequacy. As a result of only being able to give what you have, you give these feelings to others thinking that you can gain freedom from such feelings.

As you continue to give away these feelings, you strengthen your belief in them. Your ability to share is what gives power to what you experience.

For instance, you share:

• what you want to keep alive
• what has your attention
• your inner being
• what excites you

If you want to know what you cherish most in life, pay attention to what you’re sharing with others.

Since illusions cannot birth reality, you fight to maintain these illusions.

Truth/reality is the only thing that seems to contradict illusion. But since the truth has no fear of itself and is peaceful, you are fighting against peace itself. More specifically, you are fighting against your own peace.

Your Deeply Held Beliefs That Leads To Any Fight

As I said above, fighting stems from fear. This fear is based on the belief that you can be threatened in some way.

You share this vulnerability with others and it’s made stronger within yourself.

The irony is that you believe in your weakness, but you seek to prove to yourself that you are not weak.

This belief is but a manifestation of a deeper one. You believe that God or even the universe is a cruel, unfair Creator to create what can be so easily destroyed.

As a result, you believe yourself to be better than God because why else would you find fault with His creations. You seek to force your will upon others because you believe so strongly in your ability to be right while also knowing that you don’t know everything. This is contradictory and can be seen as narcissistic. Yet you see others as narcissistic, ignorant, threats to your ideas of “rightness”, evil monsters, etc.

So more than anything you are fighting against yourself because those you choose to fight embody the same beliefs you do, which are inconsistent.

Be sure to read: Why You Keep Losing To The Enemy.

After every fight, there’s always some sense of guilt. Why wouldn’t there be, you’ve just attacked yourself.

What About When Being Attacked?

These same inconsistencies that apply when fighting others are the same ones that attract situations where you feel you are being attacked.

To believe that you can attack is to believe that you can be attacked. And since you’ve proven this by attacking yourself for any number of fears, you confuse it and believe others are attacking you as well.

Even though pain is also an illusion, you use it as a witness to your being attack and so you feel more pain.

Let’s restate the previous sentence in its simple truth form.

Even though non-reality is also non-reality, you use non-reality as a witness to your non-reality and so you feel more non-reality.

Non-reality is synonymous with fantasy. How often have you fantasized about a situation where you were wronged by another, you then got “revenge” on that other, and you came out as the hero?

Better yet, how often have you fantasized about a situation where you were wronged by another and you wanted people to feel sorry for you because of it?

And what do you get for this? A combination of any of these illusions:

• a strengthened belief in death instead of what you are
• feeling sorry for yourself
• seeing others as threats
• feeling fearful
• depression

As the saying goes … play stupid games, when stupid prizes.

Fighting For Sport

If you’ll fight for anything, you’ll fight for everything.

The goal of fighting is the same no matter the situation. That goal is to put yourself above another in some form.

The Reality of It All

When you fight, you are denying the reality of your oneness with all. You are accepting a reality where you are separate from everyone and so you fight to maintain this separateness.

Feeling small, you seek to expand your being by taking people and objects as possessions. Claim is laid upon them by using the term “my”. “This is my house, my car, my favorite chair, etc.” The consequence of taking on so many possessions is a feeling of fatigue or overextension.

When people are used as possessions, these are known as special relationships. “My wife, my boyfriend, my kid, my best friend, etc.”

You confuse yourself with this illusionary reality and as a result, your being is limited only to those special relationships and possessions. So you fear losing them because you fear losing yourself. You fight more, lay claim to more possessions, and deepen the burden these possessions places on you to maintain them. You are now prisoner to your own “possessions”.

Instead of living, you start dying a little more each day. Well, the self you created starts to die a little more each day because it is robbed of the essence of life. It is stuck in a world that could never be while trying to keep it real.

Now you know what is truly meant when another says, “I’m just keeping it real.”

The cycle repeats and repeats.

So What Do You Do?

1. Stop fighting.

Recognize what fighting really is. It’s a call for love.

If someone is calling for love towards you, show them that love.

Ever tried to fight someone looking at you with pure love? It can’t happen. It’s like trying to fight the happiest baby ever. Whatever darkness that person harbored will instantly flee out of that person in the presence of love.

2. Let go of favoritism.

Treat everyone as the Godly creation that they are. Love all of them with all of your heart.

Treat others how you want to be treated.

3. Love yourself.

When you truly love yourself, you want the best for yourself.

The best for yourself is to be surrounded by the best because what’s best becomes the new norm.
Pour love into your surroundings the same way you would want love poured into you.

For example, let’s say that your best friend is a millionaire. You will get all the benefits of being a millionaire without having to be a millionaire because your friend will want to share his or her experiences with you.

Now imagine if everyone is your best friend. You get the benefits of everyone.

4. Stay reminded.

Your intentions may be good right now, but you may be habitually used to fighting. When things seem to go wrong, your habits will most likely take over.

Until you’ve replaced that habit with a new one, you will need to stay focused on what it is you want.

Subscribe to my email list here or down below. You will receive songs, tips, and content once per week that keeps your mind focused on what you truly want. Peace.

The post Why It’s Impossible To Win A Fight appeared first on JClay.

Many adults believe that making friends as an adult gets harder with age. But the real obstacle usually isn’t age, time, or opportunity.

It’s perception.

The way you judge people, experiences, and even yourself slowly shrinks the number of people you’re willing to let into your life.

Once you see this pattern, however, you can begin reversing it.

By the end of this article, you’ll be able to start reversing the process of a shrinking circle.

First, let me remind you why having friends is great. Don’t worry, I’m not talking about the Friends Blu-ray set.

Friends can give a sense of belonging and support that will enhance your life tremendously. They are who you get to share experiences with and help each other in more ways than can be described.

The current belief is that the older you get, making friends grows increasingly harder. This is partly true, but for an often-overlooked reason.

Not only will this shed light on your friendships, but on your romantic relationships as well.

Why Making Friends as an Adult Feels So Difficult

The simple reason why making friends as an adult seems difficult for you is because of how you’ve judged the world. Often these judgments aren’t even based on truth. They are based on opinions that have been retold to you repeatedly by people you already love and/or admire.

For example, you may have said or thought a combination of the following: “I can never be friends with someone that…

• does/doesn’t believe in spanking kids.”
• is in a mixed-race relationship.”
• listens to this type of music.”
• votes for this political party.”
• is friends with this person.”
• does not believe in God.”
• is of another religion.”
• doesn’t have a job.”
• sold drugs before.”
• doesn’t vote.”
• cheated.”
• smokes.”
• is gay.”

Be honest with yourself, how many of these issues have you let either ruin your friendship or prevent new friendships from happening? How many other issues that are not listed above have you allowed to do the same?

There could be 99 things you have in common with a person, but because of that 1 nagging item, you would miss out on a lifetime of joy. Is it worth it?

The Meaning You’ve Assigned To It

One of the biggest things preventing new friendships is the conclusions and judgments you’ve formed about the world.

But what would make a person derive such conclusions without knowing all of the details? That thing is trust.

At some point in your life, you’ve trusted someone or something. It could be:

• a rapper named JClay
• the government
• your parents
• a Youtuber
• a teacher
• the news
• anybody

Because you trust this person or organization, you don’t always question their beliefs when they are shared with you.

So when a person who has always been a source of love and truth says something against another, you tend to regard that statement highly in your mind, even when you have examples against it.

For example, that source can tell you that all black males are thugs. Even though you know plenty of black males that aren’t, you may still accept this as true while thinking that you just so happen to know the “good” ones. This is one of the ways your mind can betray you.

Before you know it, you’ve created another judgment in your mind that affects how you see the world. As in this example:

• A man who believes snakes are friendly animals will embrace a snake upon discovery.
• A man who believes snakes are harmful creatures will run from or attack a snake upon discovery.

A snake is just being a snake. But the meaning you give to what it means for a snake to be a snake determines how you will interact with the snake.

This is the same for all people (potential friends), places, and things. In a way, everything is meaningless until you define it. Everything you’ve experienced you’ve given meaning to, which influenced what you’ve experienced. Many wonder what’s the meaning of life? It’s whatever meaning you have given it.

After being made aware that this world is created in your image, how will you define things from now on?

The Split That Occurs

When you judge a person or thing, you create a split in perception. Half of this split is for what you have judged against and the other half is for what you have judged in favor of.

Negative thoughts are just the things that you’ve judged against.

Since you become more efficient at whatever you focus on, you also become more efficient at finding reasons to separate yourself from others.

A judgment repeated often enough becomes a belief.

A belief repeated often enough becomes a lens through which you see the world.

Eventually, you’re no longer seeing people as they are. You’re seeing them through conclusions you’ve already made.

This is why making friends can feel difficult. You’re not meeting people with an open mind. You’re meeting them through filters.

Splitting Repeatedly

Going back to our split-perception example, let’s say someone sees the world as half good and half bad. After taking another look, he sees that of the good half, another portion of that is bad. So he splits that again and now the bad is the majority.

And this continues until he consciously changes his focus.

Mathematically speaking, if 1 thing becomes 2 and is split again & again a total of 6,000 times (the number of thoughts people think on average per day), a person would barely perceive 1% of all things as being good.

No wonder a person isn’t easily making friends when they believe 99% of people are bad/flawed/stupid/any-other-negative-adjective. They see everyone as a potential enemy.

Can This Be Fixed?

To fully understand this answer, you must first understand judgments.

To accurately judge a thing, you would have to know everything about everything with certainty. But if you’re reading this article in the attempt to learn why it can seem difficult to make new friends, you’re already admitting that you don’t know everything about everything with certainty.

With such a flawed perception, how could you accurately judge anything? It can’t be done. You would be trying to teach yourself what you think you already know.

And the only way to truly know something is to live it.

With that said, the way to heal your perceptions is with forgiveness.

What Happens When You Release Judgment?

When you stop requiring people to agree with you on everything, something interesting happens.

You discover how much you actually have in common.

Conversations become easier.

Curiosity replaces defensiveness.

Friendship becomes possible again.

Not because everyone changed, but because your perception changed.

This is why making friends as an adult often becomes easier once you stop filtering people through old judgments.

Forgive all continuously.

When you forgive your judgments, you can rejoin what you separated in your mind. Instead of feeling like an excluded 1%, you can be a part of the entire 100%.

Try to imagine what it would feel like to go anywhere at any time and not have to worry about anything. It’s a beautiful feeling.

Making friends would be the easiest thing to do. There would be no armor to navigate.

If you’re a movie/television watcher, think about some of the best friendship comedies & dramas that made you truly love all the characters. It was the fact that no matter what they did, their friends would not hold it against them. They would always embrace them with open arms.

You can do this too.

Forgive, forgive, forgive.

Resistance To Forgiveness

You may have some resistance to forgiving certain people for certain things. But remember this.

You’re never mad at a person’s actions, you’re mad at the meaning you gave to the person’s actions.

Since you are the one that gives meaning to everything in your life, you can change that meaning at any time.

You’re probably saying, “Naw, JClay! They deserve punishment.”

Whether they deserve punishment or not, this hurts you more than them because you become an advocate for punishment.

That which you believe in becomes impossible to separate from your life. It will even trickle down into your loved ones’ lives because you will be attempting to extend this belief to them.

The belief in punishment comes with relatives. One of those relatives is fear. You would fear doing what you truly enjoy because you would think there is some form of punishment on the other end.

Again, this is all your creation. You’ve given meaning to otherwise meaningless things.

Let go!

Forgive.

Rejoin all there is. Don’t be a part of the 1%, be part of the 100%. This way you can go to any group and be fully accepted simply because you fully accept the members of that group.

If you’ve been struggling to make friends as an adult, the solution isn’t finding different people. It’s seeing people differently. Seeing as a child would.

Every judgment draws a line.

Every act of forgiveness erases one.

The people you’ve been looking for may already be all around you.

The question is:

What would happen if you allowed yourself to see them?

The post Why Adults Struggle to Make Friends (Nobody Wants to Hear This) appeared first on JClay.

Whether it’s a hater, someone of different financial status, the police, the government, a member of another political party, a member of another religion, or the devil … people believe in an enemy.

By enemy, I’m referring to someone you believe wishes you harm, ill-fate, or failure.

Before we get into the purpose of your enemy, let’s talk about some of the positives of an enemy.

The Enemy That Unites

Siblings fight. Let a neighbor wish to harm a sibling, siblings will unite against the neighbor.

Neighbors fight. Let people of a rival block/neighborhood wish to harm a person of another neighborhood, neighbors will unite against the rival neighborhood.

Students fight. Let a rival school wish to harm a student of another school, students will unite against the rival school.

This goes on for organizations, cities, states, countries, and even earth if we saw an alien nation as a threat. And don’t let Thanos come to threaten the galaxy. Then all the aliens will be joining forces.

What’s my point?

If all of these people can unite under the threat of an enemy, why can’t they just unite?

But even the fact that people are uniting means an enemy isn’t such a bad thing, right?

The Enemy That Reveals

Many consider a person that says hurtful things to you as an enemy. But our real anger is not with the enemy. It’s with ourselves. I’ll explain.

If someone says to you, “Hey, your body is made of marbles.”

You’ll just look at them confused. You know for a fact that your body is not made of marbles. You wouldn’t even argue. You would disregard the comment and move on.

Yet if you’re a rapper and someone says, “Your raps suck!” You may take offense. But what’s the difference and why take offense now?

The difference is, it only appears to hurt when you believe that it’s true.

By becoming angry, you now get a glimpse of your true beliefs. If you no longer wish to be angered by such thoughts, you now know exactly what limiting beliefs to let go of.

Beliefs are important because they are the lens through which we view the world.

For example, if you believe that people suck, you will always find examples of people that fit these conditions.

But if you believe that everyone is your savior, you will hear God’s voice behind everyone’s words and understand exactly what you were meant to hear in those moments despite what was spoken.

Now back to our original example.

To recap, you’re a rapper and you were just told, “Your raps suck!”

If this statement is believed, the common behavioral pattern is to dislike the revealer of your beliefs. You may even go around telling others how much you dislike this person.

Once again, how can such a person be considered an enemy? This “enemy” has just given you the keys to the kingdom.

He/she has given you an actual way to expand your once limited beliefs.

The Enemy That Inspires

Many that we consider successful have said variations of the following:

• I want to thank my haters for doubting me.
• “They” said I wouldn’t amount to anything, so I did this to show “them”.
• I did this because “they” said I couldn’t.

If enemies are responsible for so many major successes, are they really enemies?

The Reason Why You Keep Losing To The Enemy

The reason you keep losing to the enemy is that you believe that you’re weak and that your so-called enemy is strong.

To put it another way, this enemy exists only in your mind and is created in your own likeness.

You’ve created this enemy because you believe that you can rid yourself of guilt/pain/shame by directing it away from yourself and toward another.

This is the source of your suffering.

Everything you share with another gets received by the other and then reflected back to you so that you also receive it. So the feelings you seek to get rid of it, you receive them back doubly if the person received those feelings as you intended.

What about those that have become “successful” because of their enemies?

These people also appear lost. They are slaves because they do things for their “enemies” out of spite instead of doing things from their own desire. They can be controlled by saying, “You can’t do that.”

Let go of the idea of an enemy. See enemies for what they truly are.

They are your brothers, your sisters. They are holy beings of light (hue-man beings).

These people are saviors that unite us. They are saviors that show us our perceived limits so that we may be free of them forever.

These so-called enemies are saviors that inspire us to be our best selves, our True Self.

Next Step

Observe your thoughts. Don’t give in to the idea that an enemy controls your behavior or fate.

Observe how the idea of an enemy is replayed over and over throughout our society.

Don’t judge it, just observe it.

The plot of most movies, tv shows, and rap songs are focused on building up an “enemy” that does seemingly despicable things without remorse. Then it is usually ended by people of various backgrounds uniting to defeat this despicable character.

Apologies because you’re going to see this EVERYWHERE now.

Depending on your feelings or how you’ve judged this content while consuming it (ie a tv show, a song, etc), you will understand why you always have an enemy.

It’s only because you believe in distrust so you seek witnesses of its existence.

You speak about it. You fantasize about what you would do in a given situation when confronted with such distrust.

Let go of that belief. You can replace it with thoughts of trust, but since trust is part of your natural state, you need not do anything but let go.

“Only the weak have enemies, and the strong have inner peace.”

Stream Let Go now!

The post Why You Keep Losing To The Enemy appeared first on JClay.