Trade Your Inner-Hell for Inner-Heaven

“A persecution was started against Paul and Barnabas, who were then expelled from the territory. They shook the dust from their feet in protest.

They knew only how to be filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.”

The Christian Bible, Acts of the Apostles

Why is it that when bad things happen to us we are far from being filled with joy and the Holy Spirit? Maybe it’s because we are rarely filled with joy even when good things are happening to us.

And why would that be? Well, because we fail to recognize that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, and that we have the power to cultivate that heaven and to live it. Instead, as life-long addictive victims, we have chosen to give away our personal power over our inner-lives and to create our own internal-hells.

Many of us have been guilty of giving away our inner-personal-power since we were small children. We gave away the heaven inside of us to Mom and Dad and many, many others. We were born believing we were beautiful, but we gave that belief away to Mom when she told us we were the ugly duckling of the family. And in doing so, we gave away the Kingdom of Heaven within us.

As small children, some of us believed we were intelligent and important, but then we gave that belief away to Dad when he told us we were stupid and worthless. And in doing so, we gave away the Kingdom of Heaven within us.

In essence, we traded our life-giving internal Heaven for a life-draining internal Hell. And we have been living in our little internal hells ever since. Sadly, many of us have been content to be the life-long victims of our own personal hells, and so it makes no difference whether good or bad things happen to us, we are still never truly filled with joy and we are essentially disconnected from the help of our Higher Powers. Is it any wonder then that we don’t experience joy and the Holy Spirit?

Recovery is all about getting our personal power and our inner-joy back. It’s not about changing the world so that bad things don’t happen to us anymore. It’s about changing ourselves from the inside out, so that we have peace and joy despite anything that may effect us from outside ourselves.

Paul and Barnabas were persecuted by people and yet they were filled with joy because they had great self-love and thus a living Kingdom of Heaven dwelling within them. Their self-love gave them the self-esteem to retain their personal power and to refuse to play the roles of victims. And so, despite bad things happening to them, they were at peace. Nothing from outside could shake their inner-connection to their Higher Power or their personal joy.

The same can be true for us. Do you have the Kingdom of Heaven alive within you? Or are you still living miserably as a victim of your own internal hell? If you are wallowing in an internal hell, who is forcing you to be a victim of your internal hell? The answer to that question is simple: Only YOU are. And only you can do the work to transform your internal hell into an internal Kingdom of Heaven. You have the power to begin that transformation right now. Yes, you will need assistance from a Higher Power, and all you have to do is ask for that assistance. But your Higher Power cannot help you until you first decide to help yourself.

Say to yourself right now “I will no longer be the victim of an internal hell that I have perpetuated by playing the victim of life! I am no longer a victim because, from this day forward, I take my personal power back from all of those who have hurt me in any way—including myself. I choose today to believe that I am created in the Image and Likeness of God and that I am a truly valuable and lovable human being. I choose to believe that I am worthy of love and all that is good in life. And from this moment forward, I will freely give love and approval to myself. I will also freely accept the love and approval of others, but only as it compliments my own self-love and approval. I will no longer be dependent on anyone else’s love or approval for my happiness in life. Today I trade my inner-hell for inner-heaven and I ask my Higher Power to provide me with all of the clarity and self-love I need to move my life forward in positive and life-giving ways!”

Say it over and over until you feel a positive personal power arising inside of you. Then take your newfound inner-power and work on converting all of your old internal-hell into your rightful internal Kingdom of Heaven. This conversion will be the foundation for your being able to handle all of the ups and downs of life in positive, life-affirming ways from this day forward.

Start building your Internal-Heaven right now. No one can stop you!