Quotes from Gina Lake

Try giving up all the thoughts that make you feel bad, or even just some of them, and see how doing that changes your life. You don't need negative thoughts. All they have ever given you was a false self that suffers. They are all lies.

When we give freely, we feel full and complete; when we withhold, we feel small, petty, impotent, and lacking. We are meant to learn this great truth, that giving fulfills us, while withholding and trying to get causes us to feel empty and even more needy. This truth runs counter to our programming, which drives us to try to get something from others to fulfill our neediness, only to end up even more needy, grasping, lacking, and unfulfilled.

To get the most out of the relationship you are in, it won't be helpful to listen to the ego's stories about it. They will only bring separation and conflict. Essence would tell a different story about your loved one. It would probably be something like: "This person is in my life for me to love to the best of my ability. Let's see what happens if I do that." As Essence, we are here to serve others and serve life. The ego, on the other hand, is all about serving itself.

You need nothing more than the experience you are having right now. It is enough. It is plenty. It is perfect just as it is. It was designed for you, given to you for your experience. All you have to do, and all you have ever had to do is accept this gift. Take it and let it in. Let yourself experience the present moment just as it is. It doesn't get any better than this. This is the simple truth the ego refuses to accept, and it will suffer as long as that is the case.

We are meant to discover that we are powerful creators, if not of our entire reality, at least of our experience of reality. We aren't responsible for what each moment holds, but we are responsible for our experience of each moment because we have the power to make any moment heaven or hell.

When you find yourself wanting a better moment -wanting something else in the future- it can be helpful to ask: What will that give me? We think we will finally be happy when that moment arrives. What we discover when we do get what we want is that even that wonderful moment disappears. Life keeps moving on, bringing us a mixture of what we like and don't like. Why not like- love - it all because it won't be here for long, it will never be this way again, and it's all you've got.

Essence simply enjoys and commits attention and love to whatever is. In fact, committing attention to anything that is present results in enjoyment. The ego enjoys so little because it commits attention to what isn't present and to what it doesn't have, and suffers over that, instead of committing attention to whatever is. It loves its fantasies, dreams, and desires more than it loves reality.

There are two possible experiences of every moment: the moment as experienced by Essence and the moment experienced by the ego. The ego's experience of the moment is struggle, conflict, effort, dissatisfaction, restlessness, and unease. Essence's experience of it is freedom, happiness, peace, acceptance, contentment, and joy. Either experience is possible in any moment, depending on whether we are identified with the ego or with Essence.

Essence loves whatever is happening because it either created it or allowed you (your ego) to create it for your growth and evolution. What you learn to love about whatever you are experiencing is not how it makes you feel, but how perfectly it is suited to support your evolution toward greater love, wisdom, compassion, courage, patience, and understanding. Life is perfectly designed to evolve us, and that is what is lovable about every moment.

Not only is it not our business to change others, but it's also harmful to relationships to try to do so. Ideas are just not worth the price paid in love lost. Love is more important than any conditioned idea or belief, but if you take your conditioning more seriously than love, you will lose love. The other person will withhold love from you because it will be too painful for him or her to love you.

Love shows up, and you had nothing to do with it.

When two people are meant to be together—to enjoy love and life together, to help each other, or to learn something—love is just there. Where it comes from and why is one of the great mysteries of life. You don't and can't make love happen; it just happens.

Love isn't something we can understand because it's not able to be grasped by the mind. Love is not in the mind's or the ego's domain. It's a quality of Essence—of who we really are—and that is too mysterious for the mind to be able to contemplate. And the mind doesn't want to. Yet love is where fulfillment lies and why relationships are so important to us.

Love is the opposite of judgment. Love is acceptance. It is accepting our own judgments without acting on them and accepting other people's judgments and beliefs without reacting to them. The result of acceptance is peace. Therefore, the antidote to war is acceptance. If everyone would let everyone else have their beliefs, it would be possible for people to live in harmony.

What we resist persists.

We don't have to stop thinking or do away with our negative thoughts to be happy and aligned with Essence; we only have to stop responding to them.

What if you are the awareness, and you were just pretending to be attached to a particular body-mind for the experience it provides consciousness?

The real you is not your body, your mind, your personality, or any of the things you call yourself. What are these labels, after all? They are just ideas. Are you an idea, or are you what is aware of the ideas, labels, thoughts, desires, and feelings of a particular body-mind? The

have. Our true nature is steady, receptive, and accepting of everything that happens, including our own misguided conclusions and behaviors.

Our true nature is steady, receptive, and accepting of everything that happens, including our own misguided conclusions and behaviors.

If you can maintain a positive inner climate, that will help you drop into and remain in the flow. Then life will feel much easier and Life's opportunities and support will be more apparent. Doing the work of weeding out or learning to detach from beliefs that create a negative internal climate is so important, since such beliefs are what prevent you from being in the flow and, consequently, from tapping into the wisdom and resources you need to handle whatever the flow is bringing.

If you are unkind, insecure, defensive, or cold in relationship because of some belief, that inner climate is bound to sabotage your chance for a healthy relationship. Who you are likely to end up with is someone who is willing to be with someone who is unloving, insecure, defensive, or cold because he needs to be with someone—anyone—rather than because he loves you. This can't be a satisfying relationship for long, and your belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So the catch is that you are programmed to choose the ego over Essence until a time comes in your evolution for the realization of the truth to surface.

because life is not designed to meet your desires and expectations. Life has its own purpose and its own plan. Life brings you the people it does for many reasons, which you may never understand. Your only choice is whether or not to love who Life brings you.