Your best interest at heart...

A dear friend, mentor, colleague and protector of mine, "D," died just over one year ago.  When I learned that she was dying - from a terribly painful battle with pancreatic cancer - I was in a state of shock.  She was in her early 40's and she was someone I looked up to and who, to me, was the closest thing I would ever have to a big sister.  As the oldest sister myself, I spent my life worried about and on the lookout for my little sister but spent much of life without much protection for myself.  I never really learned - despite the many, many challenges in my life as a child - to be careful about who I trusted.  I was given a kind of innate naivete that has been a gift in life because I find myself in states of awe and wonder often, but at times it has also caused me to trust and believe some people who did not wish the best for me.

While my journey with this particular karma has become a great learning lesson, it has also caused me a fair bit of pain.  I am someone who still believes the best in people until they prove me wrong - but sometimes at the expense of something dear to me, like my heart or my trust.

I am reminded today of the guiding words my dear friend D. said to me often.  I spoke them just over a year ago at an event I hosted for 120 people.  She had passed away the night before and I woke the next morning with a heavy heart and I held her with me throughout my day and during my morning speech.  D. said to me years earlier and on quite a few occasions something along the lines of, "Amy, not everyone has your best interest at heart.  You have to find the people who do and be aware of those who don't."  It was not until the first time she said this to me that I was ever really consciously aware that people could be careless about the way they would treat me - or worse, be out to hurt me.  Yes, I had been hurt before but I had spent my life operating from a place of love for others and I assumed that everyone else did as well.  I was wrong.  And I was grateful that she cared enough to help me navigate some situations where people did not have my best interest at heart.

So I choose tonight to share her advice with you.  Be sure to always take care of yourself and look for the individuals in your life who do truly have your best interest at heart. If you can't tell, check your gut.  Pay attention to your dreams.  Ask those you trust for what they see.  There may be only a very few who have your best interest at heart.  Or there may be many.  But until we heal the pain and fear that exits in humanity, you must protect yourself from those whose intentions are not what is best for you.  And when you figure out that someone is betraying you, my advice is to send them loving kindness and wish for them that no one does them harm because they are coming from a place of being hurt.  ...But their hurt should not become yours.  So please, as My friend D's words and her face and her mannerisms linger in my mind right now, let me give this energy to you to use and stay safe along your journey in life.

Look for those who have your best interest at heart 

and let go of those who do not...

Thank you for watching over me and may you be at peace wherever you are, dear D.