In doing the daily readings from The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino, I appreciate and see the value in most of the reading…. until I reach the following from pages 54-55:

“I will form good habits and become their slaves.”

“As a child I was slave to my impulses; now I am slave to my habits, as are all grown men.”“

Therefore, if I must be a slave to habit let me be a slave to good habits.”

“I will form good habits and become their slave.”

What each of these phrases have in common is the word “slave”.

My prior trainings and experience have shown me that each word has a meaning, carries a vibration, a frequency, and an association or personal meaning/interpretation based on my life experiences.

Og Mandino published this book in 1968 and our perspectives of our history in the United States with slaves, as well as treatment of indigenous people in all countries, is evolving.

While I have not personally experienced literally being a slave to someone else in my current life, I find myself resistant to saying the word “slave” each of the three times I am to read it daily.

I believe we are co-creators with the infinite, God, whoever we define that to be. And that, as a co-creator, I am not a victim. Therefore, I believe I am neither a victim nor a slave.

I have discovered each of my life experiences has value, lessons, and wisdom for me to discover and glean – even experiences which I felt were painful, challenging, hurtful, overwhelming, difficult when they occurred.

An agreement in The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz is do not take things personally. In deeper reflection on some of my painful past experiences, I have discovered that by taking responsibility that I co-created the experience, I was able to realize how my emotions, energy, body language, tone of voice as well as the words I spoke contributed to what occurred.

Acknowledging what I did to contribute to what occurred enabled me to shift my perception of myself from being a victim to instead recognize thoughts and emotions, such as my judgement, criticism, resentment, frustration that I was experiencing, were being conveyed from me to the other person even though I did not speak those actual words.

In recognizing this in myself and asking who I wanted to be, I realized that was not the person I wanted to be. This has given me an opportunity to make a new agreement with myself regarding my thoughts toward myself and others, and to have more compassion and forgiveness for both others and myself.

Remembering each expression is either an expression of love, or a cry for love, no matter how unskilled it may be, has helped me to provide more grace and forgive unskilled cries for love.

While I mindlessly created habits in the past, I choose to replace those mindlessly created habits with beneficial habits.