Paradigm shifts.
I'm all about paradigm shifts.
“Nothing on Earth can resist an absolutely non-resistant person.”
It’s true.
Think about air. Think about water. Think about being like that.
Now by ‘that’ I don’t mean passive, or complacent, or inactive; not necessarily anyway. This isn’t a blanket statement to, in the face of injustice for example, just stand by and watch. This not what we mean by ‘non-resistance’; and why air and water are such good examples. They don’t stop at every wall they meet; they don’t try to go through it either; and they don’t put up much of a fight when something invades ‘their territory’. And yet – or even, and so, they quietly persevere in getting to where they want to go. Barring vacuums in time-space, I think they pretty much always get to where they want to go.
So the recommendation is not ‘to go with the flow’ in the sense of completely relinquishing your power, desire or energy to direct it. The opposite: it is to go with the flow precisely so that you may effectively exercise your power, desire and energy to direct it. It’s not about sitting back and doing nothing. It’s about the way you do – that is, the way you do do – something. Go with the flow in order that you might change it. Go directly against it, and you probably won’t go anywhere at all.
That is the idea anyway.
Water and air get to where they want to go precisely by offering so little resistance. ‘Okay, block me there?’, they say, ‘That’s fine, I’ll go this way around.’ (And note, this isn’t just lip-service: when they say ‘that’s fine’ they really mean, ‘That’s fine. No problem. Doesn’t put me out at all.’ We have to mean it too. For that is when we become irresistible.) Forever committed to their direction, completely flexible for every part of the ride. They get in everywhere, and persevere every time.
Nothing on Earth can resist a truly non-resistant person. It’s true. Quite literally. Enjoy that. By which I mean both: make use of it and, allow it to make you feel good.
“The real world isn’t a place – it’s an excuse. It’s a justification for not trying. It has nothing to do with you.” (Rework, Jason Fried & David Heinenmeier Hansson)
Okay, this is a hard one. Because as much as I adore this quote, this perspective, I know how it sounds every time I advocate it, especially out of context. “Yeah, yeah,” I hear, “there is something called reality out there Cathy. You can’t just be an idealistic, unrealistic, delusional moron about the facts of life.” Actually I can be, but I’m not. Neither are Fried & Hansson. Nor the plethora of other intelligent beings who are getting their Work done despite the so-called ‘realities’ of life.
Are they superhuman? No. Are they ordinary? Most definitely not. Ordinary stops at ‘the facts’ handed to it: “It’s hard.” “We’re in the middle of an economic recession!” “I’m just one [insignificant] person.” “I have responsibilities, and duties, and obligations! – I can’t x, y, z” and, let’s be honest, probably most of the other letters of the alphabet as well.
No one is asking you to be superhuman – there are only two beings that could ever deign to ask this of you: you and Life. No one is asking you to deny reality either. You are being invited to be extra-ordinary in the sense that you may very well have to leave the crowd behind to move past the facts and realities we are spoon-fed and, likely, choking on. You are being asked to decide what goes on your spoon, what you are going to swallow, how much, and what you are going to send back to the kitchen. I look forward to the day enough of us are doing this that it becomes the baseline, and this kind of extraordinary becomes ordinary. Until then … extra-ordinary, so be it.
WHAT IT MEANS
What we mean when we say the real world is an excuse, or that one’s reasons – however true, reasonable, and real they are – are excuses, is not that they don’t exist. We are not with our heads steadfastly planted in the sand or, amputated from our shoulders, la-la-la-ing away on cloud nine. We are not in some childish pose with eyes firmly closed and fingers shoved directly into our ears. And we’re certainly not asking you to take up this position.
Reality exists! Your reasons exist! And the reasons you have your reasons exist too! Especially in our hardest times our reasons are likely to be so true and real and substantial as to seem obvious and inarguable. And it is rightly infuriating, and often painful, for someone else to argue that these reasons don’t exist, or that they aren’t ‘good’ reasons, or that they aren’t worth the breath it takes to articulate them.
But it’s not the reasons, the facts, or the realities of your situation that are being brought into question here. The question is not whether our reasons, facts and realities are true – it’s not even whether they are good. The question is how we are using them. It is what we are doing with the facts that is being brought into question.
You see the facts by themselves don’t mean much, everything rides on what we decide to do with them. “It’s hard.” “The unemployment rate is high.” “One person is an infinitesimal part of existence.” “I have responsibilities, and duties, and obligations.” – These are all fine and true. Or maybe not so fine and true. But they become excuses when they are used as reasons not to try. Because, they could equally be used as reasons to try.
The facts are the facts, but what they mean for you and your life is determined by you. It’s up for grabs. It’s still up for grabs. I mean, like right now, for you.
Will the fact that ‘it’s hard’ mean more cause for rejoicing when you accomplish it? or will it mean that you’re not going to invest any energy in it?
Will the fact that we’re in an economic recession mean even more pride as his start-up continues to grow? or will it mean that he puts the idea off for another 3 years?
Will the fact that she has so many obligations, duties and responsibilities that she is unable to do something she really wants or needs to do – will that mean she redresses and re-prioritizes her commitments and where she puts her energy? or it will mean that she sacrifices those needs or desires?
Will the fact that I failed mean that there’s still some growing I have to do, or that I will forever be incapable? Will it be the turning point that spurred me on to greater heights, or the straw that irrevocably broke my back, my confidence and self-esteem?
Someone found a job today despite the unemployment rate and the economic recession. Someone went into remission despite their diagnosis and prognosis. And someone found love despite their 20 year history of loneliness. The question we really want the answer to is whether we will be this someone, (in relation to whatever reality or facts we are handed). And the answer to that question is not determined by the facts alone. It is not determined by our past. It is determined by each of us. Now. I mean right now. … … … And now, too. And so on, in each present moment of our lives.
“Resentment is the poison we swallow hoping the other person will die.”
I’m sorry, because I know how compelling it is to think otherwise – but its true. Stop drinking the poison. It’s not working. Not in the way we want it to anyway. It is slowly eating away at us; slowly increasing the toxicity in our mind and body; slowly, but steadily, destroying us. At best it quietly and assuredly holds us back; keeps us stuck in the past; keeps our hands tied to beating the drum of our anger, resentment, and vicitimization. And, keeps us hooked in to the poison.
This is why forgiveness is so important. Whenever I ‘prescribe’ forgiveness to a client I always try to make clear: Yes, it is something nice you can do for the other (colossal understatement). Yes, it may be the ‘right’ thing to do. Yes, it is probably the ‘high road’ to take. But even when all these are true this is not why I recommend it, and not the most important reason I urge you to find it in yourself to do it. The reason you should – nay, must, find it in yourself to forgive whatever or whomever has wronged you, is for yourself. It is negatively effecting, if not ruining, your life. You do it to free yourself. You do it, first and foremost, for you.
That may be difficult to make sense of. We tend to think we are somehow honoring ourselves by keeping the grudge, the anger, and the middle finger pointed straight up. We may think that by forgiving and letting go we are letting the other person ‘off the hook’ for the wrong they have done. But take a good second look: how is your anger and resentment fairing at keeping them ‘on the hook’? Are you getting what you want? Their apology? Their punishment? Retribution? No. Even if they are getting ‘the shitty end’ of the stick don’t kid yourself into thinking that your grudge is responsible: Life hands them the stick, not you. We do not have this kind of control over the other person’s life; over what they get in life; over how they handle and deal with the situation, their actions, or their reactions to us. All each subsequent beating of the drum gets us is another helping of the poison we swallow hoping the other person will die – or at least get really, really violently ill.
Free yourself. Now. Don’t do it for them – do it for you.
Take a minute to list 5 grievances you are still holding on to. Make a commitment to yourself to let at least one go (start with the smallest if you need to) now. Right now. For you. Don’t do it later, do it now. So that now, right now, you may be a little less toxic, a little lighter in your step, a little freer to be. And watch as the result is not ‘a little’ but a helluva lot.
Keep going. Do at least one a week, or one a month – depending on how quickly you’d like to be free. Free from ingesting the poison; free from the toxicity it creates in your body and life; and, most of all, free to exist, to make choices, to create, to love, to live – in freedom from this moment, this past, this dark cloud casting its shadow. Our landscape can exist without it. And the sooner we release ourselves from resentment-ties that bind, the sooner we’ll find ourselves there.
Need help? Contact me to book a session. You can do this. And it will make a world of difference to your life.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” (Samuel Beckett)
Beautiful, truthful and cynical. Perfectly Beckett.
The other side of this enlightened coin reads:
“Life is a successive unfolding of success from failure.”
Think about it. Always before you can do something, there is a period of time in which you cannot do it (or at least haven’t ‘proved’ you can do it). You always can’t do it, first. In fact up until that 3rd, 10th, for 500th time when you succeed – every prior attempt is a failure. (Though hopefully you are, failing better.)
That means: the road to success looks exactly the same as the road to failure. Same obstacles, same pit falls, same road blocks. It’s the same road. Success is just further up the road.
You know what that means? It means successful people fail just as often – if not more – than their unsuccessful counterparts. You’ve probably heard some version of the saying that the most important difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that the successful ones never interpret failure as the final word on the subject. I really like Robert Kiyosaki’s version:
“The fear of losing … is real. Everyone has it. It’s how you handle losing that makes the difference in one’s life. Failure inspires winners and defeats losers. The greatest secret of winners is that failure inspires winning; thus, they’re not afraid of losing.”
Internalizing this message will change your life.
This is Part Two of, ‘What the #$@%, Cathy, do you do?’. (See ‘The Consultancy Practice’ Category on the side bar to read the other parts in the series.)
Today’s question: What exactly is a ‘manifesting consultant’? (Quite possibly a job title I’ve made up.)
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area. A manifesting consultant provides professional or expert advice in the area of manifesting. To manifest something means to materialize, or to realize it. Manifesting consultants aid and advise clients on how to best materialize their desires; that is, to make them reality.
If business consultants, say, help organizations improve their performance by evaluating and advising on a suitable structure to support their business. And nutritional consultants help individuals improve their physical health by proffering advice on nutrition and diet to support their lifestyle. Manifesting consultants help clients improve their ability to get/make/be/do/have what they want in life (and not get/make/be/have/do what they do not want) by assessing and re-structuring the mind; and advising or prescribing mental nutrition and diet.
Why the mind? Well because, if you haven’t already heard (or read my last post on metaphysics), you don’t just create reality with your hands, sweat, blood and tears. In fact, even when that is how you make something happen for yourself, it is just the last stage of the creative process. The first stage – always – is impulse or inspiration. Creation starts with the desire, the thought, the belief, the idea. It doesn’t have to be conscious. In fact the majority of the time it is unconscious, subconscious or automatic. Autonomic and habitual processes run the greater part of our day, and thereby our lives. Nevertheless, everything created in the physical world begins in the intangible realm of the mind (which, here, most definitely includes the heart).
Airplanes, democracy, the internet – all were ideas before they were things. (Note too, how the physical making or putting together of thing is the last part in process of its creation.) The same is true of all the things we have created (again, consciously or unconsciously) in our lives: the relationship, the career, the wealth, the health – or, the lack thereof. All have their origin in an idea, a belief, a thought, instinct or desire. Gandhi put it this way:
Your beliefs become your thoughts.
Your thoughts become your words.
Your words become your actions.
Your actions become your habits.
Your habits become your values.
Your values become your destiny.
Manifesting consultants work with the mind because they are working directly with the first stage in the process of creation. Often, if not always, it is not our execution of ‘the plan’ that is to blame when we fail to manifest or realize a particular desire (though just as often we think it is): it is the blueprint. Manifesting consultants advise clients on a suitable ‘blueprint’ to support their desires, the mind components (thoughts and beliefs) needed to effectively turn the particular desire or idea into reality.
In brief: A manifesting consultant provides professional or expert advice in the area of manifesting – i.e., materializing or transforming one’s desire(s) into reality. Their area of expertise is in transforming a non-physical impulse (a desire, idea, thought) into its physical, material counterpart. And because the process of creating and materializing begins in the mind, manifesting consultants spend time working with it consciously and directly.
*Note: In addition to the consulting services, I, personally, use energy work to instill the supportive or productive ‘blueprint’ in my client, (i.e. to, effectively, ‘re-program’ the subconscious mind). I assume a manifesting consultant could advise without offering the integration service, essentially servicing awareness only. However, because awareness alone is often not enough to produce the desired change in behavior, integrating it in the subconscious offers the client the added possibility of immediate and lasting change.
Want to learn more? Click here to read more about my practice or here to subscribe to the mailing list. Know enough and want in? Click here to request an appointment.
As always, if you would like to see a particular issue addressed, please feel free to contact me with your suggestion.
This is Part One of, ‘What the #$@%, Cathy, do you do?’. (Note: Please don’t be discouraged if you find this post ‘too academic’, I have to start somewhere and the deeply inbred scholar within me throws a hissy fit with every attempt to start somewhere else. So stayed tuned, this is only the first in a series of posts I will be publishing about my work and my practice, and I promise they will get more colloquial, if that’s what you’re looking for.)
Today’s question: What exactly is a ‘metaphysician’? (My WordPress spell check doesn’t even recognize it as a word.)
The short answer: A metaphysician is a doctor/healer who makes changes in the physical world through meta-physical (i.e. decidedly not ‘physical’) principles. As a metaphysician, I work the principles of mind (and beyond) to create powerful and lasting change in peoples’ lives. The result of metaphysical work, or working with metaphysical principles, often looks like this:
That is the old-school – and by ‘old-school’ I mean at least 2,000 years old – idea of a metaphysician. The more modern, mainstream, and largely academic conception of a metaphysician is a philosopher whose area of study or expertise is the nature of reality itself (called metaphysics). That looks something more like this:
I am a practicing philosopher and healer, a metaphysician in both senses of the word. My consultancy practice is the only one of its kind I currently know of in existence. (If you are interested in working with me, fill out the contact form to get in touch with me directly.)
Now the more detailed answer for those of you who are interested:
Metaphysician as philosopher
In academic circles, a metaphysician is a philosopher whose area of study or expertise is metaphysics: the study of the fundamental nature of reality and existence itself. ‘Meta-‘ means beyond or transcending; so meta-physical means that which lies beyond, underlies or transcends the physical realm/world/reality. So if physics (in addition chemistry, biology, etc.) is the study of the physical world, concerned with discovering and describing the properties and interactions of physical objects (which now explicitly includes energy, hooray!), meta-physics is concerned with discovering and describing the principles that make these objects, properties, interactions and principles possible in the first place. These are the laws and principles that make the laws and principles that science describes and discovers possible and coherent. (This is why we could equally flip the elements of the image directly above, placing ‘Science’ and ‘Physics’ on top with arrows pointing downward to ‘Ultimate Beliefs’ and ‘Metaphysics’.)
Metaphysicians tackle – or, okay, let’s be fair, attempt to tackle – questions that lie beyond or behind those capable of being tackled by the physical sciences. For this reason – and not because it is unscientific – metaphysics is a branch of philosophy and not science. In fact, it is a meta-science (at its best, anyway): a scientific description of the laws and principles that make the physical sciences possible and coherent in the first place.
Here are some examples of the areas that metaphysics deals with. (The academic name of the particular area is in italics, followed by some examples of the kinds of questions it deals with.)
Ontology: What is there? What exists? What is it like?
Epistemology: What is knowledge? What is truth? How do we know anything at all? Do we know anything, really? Does the world/reality exist independently of our knowledge of it?
Philosophy of Mind: What is the exact nature of the interaction between mind (mental phenomena) and body (physical phenomena)? What is consciousness? How can we come to have knowledge of minds other than our own?
Other areas of study and interest include: time, free will, meaning and value, causation, universals and particulars, substance, and appearance vs. reality.
Are you picking up what I’m putting down? If you’re feeling that a lot of these questions are either absurdly simple and/or stupid, or ridiculously weighty and/or profound – or, even better, both – then … you’re hot like fire.
Metaphysician as physician
Outside modern Western academic halls, there exists an older and more esoteric conception of the word as a meta-physician. This is a kind of doctor/healer who effects change in the physical world by effecting, changing, and tampering with what is meta-, or beyond or underlying it. In other words, the metaphysician works with metaphysical laws and principles – not first and foremost with the everyday physical ones. It is because the meta- or more fundamental level of the physical is itself non-physical (sub- and supra- physical), that metaphysicians can and do effect healing and change in the physical by working with what is non-physical.
In working with the principles and powers and ‘things’ in the realm where matter and what is beyond matter meet that we are definitely putting a toe, or maybe a whole leg, down the rabbit-hole. That is, from the perspective of everyday life. Finding any value in this kind of work definitely involves a perspective that is different from the first-person every day experience of our ego. It involves, for example: the psyche, the mind, symbolic language, quantum mechanics, and the clear understanding that where the direction of the mind-body connection is not equal – it is most definitely weighted in the direction of mind to body, not body to mind.
The result of metaphysical work may look, at one far end of the spectrum, like magic and miracle, and, at the other, like placebo or coincidence – and everything in between. Clearly the most important thing is that it works.
In brief, a metaphysician is either a philosopher whose area of expertise is the study of the fundamental nature of reality and existence and/or, more esoterically, a practicing healer/adviser that changes physical reality by working with the principles and powers and ‘things’ that underlie it, and especially the mind or psyche. Again, if you are interested working with me you can contact me here; I am currently taking new clients.
I recently heard a wonderful lecture, as her lectures characteristically are, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes (for info on Dr. Estes see Theatre of the Imagination in my Resources). In it, Dr. Estes tells the story of a boy, (and yes, later a man), whose godmother was the Goddess of Life and Death (if you don’t know who that is, just imagine you do). The story, briefly, goes like this:
The Goddess of Life and Death (a.k.a. the Life/Death/Life Mother) endows her godson with the gift and art of healing. Her instruction is as follows: when the healer walks into his patient’s room, he is to notice whether She is standing at the foot, or at the head of the patient’s bed. If She is standing at the foot of the bed this means the patient will survive, and can be healed; and the healer should therefore administer the remedy She has taught him to make. If, however, the Goddess is standing at the head of the patient’s bed, this means it is time for the patient to die; and no remedy therefore, should be given.
Under Her tutelage, the man becomes recognized as the greatest healer ‘in all the land’. (Cue fairytale kingdom music as camera pans out across ‘all the land’.) Then, one day, the healer is called to the palace. The king is deathly ill (oh no!) and has promised to give the healer a portion of his kingdom in exchange for saving his life (okay!). The healer walks into the king’s chamber (hooray for riches!), and looks up to see the Life/Death/Life Mother standing at the head of the king’s bed, meaning (yikes!): it is time for the king to die, no remedy should be given. In a moment of pure genius, (even if drunk genius, intoxicated by visions of ‘my very own kingdom!’) – the healer walks into the room, goes straight to the bed, bends down, and turns it around. Now: Goddess standing at the foot of the bed; patient can be cured; administer the remedy; healed, no problem. Except, of course, that you have to answer to your godmother, who also happens to be, in this case, the Mother of Life and Death. (double, triple yikes.) She grabs him on his way out of the room and let’s him know that if he ever – and her eyes mean ever – even attempts anything like that again, She will be forced to open a can of Goddess-of-Life-and-Death-whoopin’ on his — with the quickness.
Shortly thereafter the healer is called to the palace again; this time the princess is desperately ill. (uh oh…) The king, pleading, promises the healer that if he can save the princess’ life, he can have her hand in marriage. Obviously, she is the most beautiful woman in all the land, and a princess, and, suddenly, he’s looking for a wife. So that when the healer walks into the princess’ room, and sees the Goddess standing at the head of her bed, before he knows what he’s doing he has already turned the bed around, administered the remedy, and left. (yikes to the infinite power.)
The Goddess grabs him again on his way out, but this time She doesn’t let go. She takes him down, down, all the way down (somewhere near the bowls of existence I’m guessing), and into a candlelit room. By candlelit I mean lit by thousands, give or take a kajillion candles, and containing only candles. (A little creepy, plus a little magical, equals uncanny.) The Life/Death/Life Mother explains that the candles represent peoples’ lives, and their life force. The healer looks at them, some tall and brightly burning, others on the verge of being snuffed out, and assumes that all the tall and bright candles must represent young children and that the ones with almost no wax and wick to burn are the elderly. But no, the Goddess explains, not at all: some children have very short candles, and some of the very tall and very bright ones are very old people. ‘Look, here is yours.’, She tells him. The healer is directed to one of the dimmest, most pathetic, struggling-for-its-last-few-moments-of-burning-candle in all the land. He understands what that means.
‘No,’ he pleads, ‘please Godmother do something! You are, after all, the Goddess of Life and Death. Please don’t let me die.’ But, She knows what it means too: It is time for him to die – and one cannot cheat death. Not even the Life and Death Mother Herself.
Even more than her telling of the story, even more than her explaining the meaning of the story, I love when Dr. Estes asks me, the listener: ‘What, in your life, is it time to let die, – and you, keep turning the bed around?’.
What, in your life, do you know it is time for you to let go of, to let die and, in your intoxication, or perhaps in your fear, you refuse to see what you see and to know what you know: you go to, turn the bed around, and start to administer remedies. The ointments, the solutions, the more time and effort, the less of myself and truth – a million cures suddenly at hand to rally behind the, ‘Say it isn’t so!’.
The problem, and of course the point of the story, is that: sometimes it is so. Sometimes, ‘it really ain’t so’ – but sometimes, at least sometimes, it is. And when it is, it is. No remedies, no cures – the thing is dying. It isn’t maybe dying. In that sense, you cannot cheat death.
You can try, you might even manage to turn the bed around – and win what? A little more time? Maybe. But you do understand that this extra time is really just extra time of it dying – i.e. prolonging its decline toward death? That’s the maximum of what we can hope to achieve with our remedies – a slower and yes, likely more painful, death – the max.
Ask yourself today, maybe throughout the week too, regularly even, perhaps once a month, and better still once a year (every autumn, birthday, or New Year’s, say): ‘What is it time for me to let die – and I keep trying to turn the bed around?’
What relationship?
What job or career?
What habit?
What story about myself is it time to let go of? or about [insert family member’s name here]?
What way of relating to others? to myself? to Life?
You know what you know. You may not know where everything in your life stands in the cycle of birth-growth-entropy/decline-death, but you don’t have to. Start with what you do know. And you do know that it is time to let some things, at least one thing, go; to let it die. At least you know this sometimes.
When you do, let it go. What is in your power is not whether but how it dies. The best thing you could do, for all involved, is to help it to pass easily, gracefully, even lovingly out of your life.
A dream is half a prophecy.
Can you imagine if that were true? If, simply by dreaming something you were already half way there to making it true? And not just true – a prophecy. A truth so fated that it was destined to happen even before you dreamed it; even, likely, before you were born.
I’m not just talking about the epic, changing the course of humanity kind of dreams now – I’m talking about the small ones, the really personal, self-centered (not necessarily selfish), ones too. The relationship, the career, the house, the car, and the vacation home in Cuba, as well as the one where you seamlessly resolve the country’s ludicrous healthcare system. All of them. What if it were true that simply having the dream went 50% of the way to making it fate?
‘Impossible.’ you say. Sure, fine – but I don’t actually care right now. We think about a lot of things that are ‘impossible,’ all the time: being Mrs. Brad Pitt; sexual exploits with Penthouse’s twins of the year; traveling through wormholes in the fabric of space-time. The fact that it isn’t possible hasn’t stopped us from thinking – even ruminating, obsessing, or indulging in the thought(s) before, so why exactly start now, with this?
We let ourselves think, feel and fantasize about ‘impossible’ things because, hopefully, it feels good. And there are few thoughts that feel as good as this: a dream is half a prophecy.
If you’re still thinking: ‘That just feels stupid.’, you haven’t really stepped into fantasy-land, the land where all things are possible – if only for a moment. You have to engage your suspension of disbelief – the same way you would in indulging the Xena Princess Warrior fantasy (being her, or being with her). Imagining winning the lottery doesn’t feel stupid – though believing or thinking it may. Imagining winning feels pretty damn good.
I’m not asking you to believe or to think that a dream is half a prophecy. Not yet anyway, not here. I’m asking you to imagine what it would be like if it were true – and what you would feel like if it was true.
How far do you think winning the lottery would get you to fulfilling all your needs, desires and dreams – the 500 kagillion mega-lottery one? 90%? 80%? Let’s call it 50%. Obviously because it serves my purpose, but also because, though you might be able to buy whatever you want, and maybe 50% of whomever you want, there are still all those other dreams which don’t involve money, or can’t be bought. So if a dream were half a prophecy – you’d be at least as close to having them come true as winning the kagillion dollar lottery. And if you’ve ever imagined winning the lottery, and I mean really ‘winning it big’, you’ve experienced the overwhelming rush of freedom it brings. The enormous freedom that winning the lottery would bring – even if you pissed away the money so fast that it flew by in an instant.
If a dream was half a prophecy, we’d be equally liberated and empowered. Only, it’d always be true; we couldn’t piss our power away. But there is more to this fantasy. There is the uncanny, charmed quality of life that comes with dreaming your desires into being that isn’t there with simply paying for them all.
A dream is half a prophecy. If that were true, I’d be half way to having all of my dreams come true. And the point about the lottery is that half way is a long way. When we think of visionaries, or think of ourselves as visionaries, half way seems like nothing. How many times have we heard that the greatest inventions and feats of mankind began as an idea, a thought, a dream? And how much weight have we actually given to this part of the process? – How much weight have their creators given them?
What, do you think, would have been more valuable to Martin Luther King, Jr. to fulfilling his dream than the dream itself? How far do you think he could have gotten without it? How far do you think he’d have gotten if it happened to leave him?
I know that simply having a dream doesn’t feel like a lot, but maybe we should give it more credit. I know that the action part appears to be the most productive part, but maybe that’s not actually so. I know that we’ve come to think that the hard things, the ones that cause you sweat, pain and suffering, are the really valuable ones – pretty much necessarily. But I’m not sure that is true either.
What if the easiest part – which does not necessarily mean that it is easy – was the most productive part? The only part that alone could get you 50% of the way there – to fated. What if?
I like it. You?
Yesterday I posted the following quote from Marianne Williamson’s A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Yesterday, it seemed too … impetuous perhaps, to add anything to Williamson’s inspiringly lucid and powerful insight. It seemed too soon to say anything more about the truth. And inappropriate to do anything but give it due respect by just letting it hang out there, in full view, for awhile.
Today is a different day, and I’m ready to talk about it – if only for a little. (Being ‘our deepest fear’ it will, likely, need some patience and courting to fully dissolve, and disappear. Some dipping in and out – like a post or twelve, every year, for the rest of my life.)
Today I want to ask you explicitly, to do what yesterday I left implicit: To reflect on the wisdom and insight contained in Williamson’s words. To reflect on their truth. To recognize the tendency within yourself to shrink – not from fear of failure, but from the fear of your true glory.
And further, if you dare, to give yourself permission to shine in all your brilliance – whatever that turns out to be. Please, by all means, dare: not only so that you might actually taste real fulfillment and satisfaction in your life – but so that you might thereby inspire others to do the same, i.e. to give themselves the same permission. For this, you understand, is how we are going to effect any kind of lasting and enlightened change in the world, (if, of course, we are going to do so at all), namely: by invoking our best – our most glorious, most powerful, best.
We must have the freedom to shine if we are going to have even the hope of doing so.
As Oscar Wilde said: “A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”
Do not apologize for the good that you are and that you do. Make no mistake: that is not what it means to be humble or helpful. Do not ask a rose – whether it is your brother, your partner, your colleague, your friend, or yourself – to hold back its beauty, its charisma, and/or well-being. Do not imagine that a rose might augment the glory of the flower-bed by limiting its flourishing or success. Do not be ridiculous. Be free. And be so not only for yourself, but so that others might be too.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
How eerily, how profoundly, how earth-shatteringly true. A dear friend sent this quote to me the other day, from Marianne Williamson’s A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles. Here is the excerpt in full:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Ummm, I don’t really think there is anything to add to this. – Today at least. I’ll be back tomorrow.
