Expectations and Disappointments

I knew Manifesting Mount Dora would be a learning experience for me.  This quest was not just about manifesting soemthing I want, but also about finding answers (or no answers) to questions, seeking enlightenment, embracing change and discerning what really matters.  I have blogged about many lessons that have come my way during the past almost-eight-months and, although I have yet to manifest Mount Dora, I have learned much on this journey and this past weekend presented another learning opportunity. 

Recently, I read "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. Based on native Toltec beliefs, Ruiz teaches about four "agreements" that make life easier and more peaceful.  The agreements are:

Be impeccable with your word
Don't take anything personally
Don't make assumptions
Always do your best

In spite of their simplicity, the agreements are difficult to practice.  Most of us value honesty, but often forget that when we fail to live up to our word, we are are being dishonest.  Most of us make promises without a lot of thought.  I know I am often guilty of wanting so badly to please others, wanting to help out, that I am quick to make a promise without thinking it through.  Do I really have the time or the money to fulfill the promise?  Do I really want to do what I said I would do?  Will the promise create a burden for me?  Should I take on another responsibility right now?  Will fulfilling this promise mean that I must renege on another earlier made promise?

Probably I have the most difficulty with the second and third agreements.  I tend to take everything personally and I make major assumptions, resulting in hurt feelings, misunderstandings and deep disappointments.  Probably, the fourth agreement is the easiest for me as I focus on doing my best whenever I tackle a job. 

My lesson this weekend dealt with my most difficult agreements - don't take anything personally and don't make assumptions.  My birthday is this week. Awhile ago, I made a birthday request of someone, whom I will call "X". I did not ask X for a "thing", but for something X would have to do that would involve others who would also benefit from my gift. X agreed and plans were made.

This past weekend I asked to add one more person to the list of participants and X protested vigorously.  Considering the extra person would require no extra work and is a relatively quiet, pleasant person, I was surprised by X’s negative reaction. I stood my ground and insisted until X relented. 

Later, I was thinking about why X protested the inclusion of that person and although I could not think of a truly good reason, I felt a swirl of negativity around the whole incidence that made me uncomfortable in a way and for a reason I could not identify. My thoughts were waylaid by other activities until later in the day when I noticed X was moody and seemed annoyed. When I pressed for a reason, X went off on a rant about others who would be at the event. X was not complaining about these people participating, but was being critical about other issues regarding them which were not related to my birthday. I disagreed completely with what X was saying and certainly with the way it was being said. In my mind, X was being judgmental without knowing all the facts, but it was very apparent that X had strong feelings, wrongly or rightly.

As I was tending to some chores, I had time to contemplate the two exchanges with X. I realized that the original gift request put X in an difficult position. Had X refused, I would have been hurt. X agreed in an attempt to make me happy and I know X’s intentions were good.  Unfortunately, X was not able to contain negative feelings for others participating in the event and I was hurt by X’s declamation. Ideally, X would have agreed to the event and then would have withheld any negative comments about the attendees until the event was over, but that is not what occurred. I also realized that some of the attendees may have some negative feelings toward X, but, due to their feelings for me, they agreed to participate. Unintentionally, I had created a toxic event for my own birthday.

I broke two of the agreements. I made assumptions that X wanted to do what I requested and that X and the other participants could put aside any negative feelings for one another to make the event successful. Although I am sure the event would have been a success, I had no right to make those assumptions about others. I also had no right to put anyone in a situation where he or she may have felt uncomfortable or resentful. And finally, I let my personal feelings get all mixed up in the situation, something I am very inclined to do. I took X’s unwillingness to include the additional person and X’s verbal explosion personally. My feelings were hurt by statements and words that were not about me.

I chose to cancel the event because it no longer felt "right". There was too much negativity surrounding it. I was not angry nor disappointed because I accepted responsibility for creating an unhealthy situation. That does not mean I agree with X’s rants or attitude, but I accept that X’s feelings are just as real as mine. Perhaps X’s behavior could have been better, but so could have mine. I certainly could have been more sensitive to everyone else’s feelings.

By cancelling the toxic event, a space was created for those who had accepted my previous invitation to plan a new event that was held last night and was a tremendous success. X did not participate, I believe, out of confusion about the whole chain of events. I tried to explain my choice to cancel the original event, but X just did not understand. I felt a little sad that X was not at last night’s event, but I also knew it was the best result for all. And, now X has the opportunity to plan something else for my birthday, if X is so inclined.

In hindsight, I realize I often create toxic situations that leave me disappointed and hurt.  I want everyone I know and love to be together and I want them all to love, or at least respect and like, one another.  Sadly, that is not always the case and, since I am not in charge of everyone else's feelings, I need to accept how they feel and not take their attitudes towards and opinions of others personally.   If I go forward with expectations that rely on the actions of others, I am sure to be disappointed and others may be also. This weekend I learned that if I am forcing something, it probably should not happen.  If I let it go, something better is created in its place. 

　
　
　
　

Starting Today

This morning my daughter was getting her children ready for school in a rush.  The rush part was causing her much stress.  My grandchildren, like my daughter, are not morning people and, although they love school, they would rather get there sometime in the mid-morning than at 8 AM.  They awaken slowly, with much encouragement, often to the point of lifting them out of bed and placing them upright on their feet with their eyes still closed tightly against the start of the day.  And, being only three and five years old, they are easily distracted and efforts to get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair and eat breakfast are often delayed by a toy, a book or a disagreement between brother and sister.  Patience is a must to survive the morning wake-up routine and patience was in short supply for my daughter this morning.  Perhaps she did not sleep well or has not fully recovered from the cold virus that our household has shared this past week or she may have been worried about something.  Maybe, she was just in a bad mood, as we all are from time to time, or perhaps she got up late herself, leaving little time to get the children ready before they had to leave for school.  The result of her lack of patience, however, was a voice-raising, child-crying episode that tainted the start to everyone's morning.  I rose from bed and joined her and the children in the bathroom for the morning teeth-brushing activity and inquired as to why she was raising her voice which was, inevitably, leading to the crying fits of the children.  Understandably, she was quick to blame the children - they don't listen, they don't pay attention, they are too slow - all true statements.  But, they are just little kids who are learning how to get up and get going.  After all, this is only my grandson's second year of school and my granddaughter's first.  To her irritation, I pointed out that her reaction to their actions, or non-actions, was her choice - the children did not cause her to raise her voice, that is what she chose to do.  I would have really been ticked if someone said that to me under the same circumstances early in the morning, so I understand if she was not too thrilled to have me standing there at that moment, but I felt my statement needed to be said.  Unlike me, I hope she learns the lesson that others don't "make" us react the way we do while she is still young enough to incorporate that wisdom into most of her life. I learned that lesson late in life and still sometimes struggle with it.  

My daughter was concentrating on the negative things, which were the children's lack of attention and slow responses, and allowing that to irritate and annoy her.  The more attention she paid to the negative, the more it happened and the more upset she became.  Her reaction was normal, but not helpful.  She could have shifted her attention from what the children were not doing and concentrate on what they were doing.  By shifting her attention from the negative to the positive, the positive would grow.  By not reacting to the negative in a negative way, she would stop the flow of unwanted actions and reactions.  Perhaps, she needed to just accept that they started off their morning late and getting to school on time, while maintaining a level of harmony and cooperation, was not possible.  So, be late this time and make the choice to start the day off earlier and better tomorrow and for all the upcoming days. 

Sometimes when we learn a lesson, when we have a light-bulb moment and something that was confusing becomes clear, when we reach a point when a change is necessary, we just need to decide right then that we will start anew.  Often we put off changes until New Year's Day or our birthday or some other significant date, but when we put off the action of change, we lose the momentum and energy of the lesson as it is happening, or we just forget to later commit ourselves to the new action we want to take.  Pause, take a breath, and say out loud, if possible, what you want to change and commit yourself to make the change immediately.  I will wake up earlier on school mornings.  I will be patient in the mornings.  I will speak kindly and gently to others.  I will - whatever - whatever it is that you choose to change RIGHT NOW.  There is no better time than right now to start new.

My daughter is a good mother, but she, like all of us, have stressful moments and I am using this one incident to make a point about reactions, choices and changes.  We are all in training to be better people.  We all have bad mornings, stressful days, short tempers, sharp tongues and a lack of patience from time to time, but we can all be aware of what is happening - the triggers and our reactions - and choose to change - not tomorrow or next month or at the start of the new year, but today.  By making a conscience decision in the moment and by saying the words of commitment out loud or clearly in our minds, we create a memory that will be triggered the next time we are faced with the same situation.  We make a promise to ourselves and to the Universe that we acknowledge the lesson and are promising to change.

Daily irritations may seem small and not worthy of our attention, but what occurs on any somewhat regular basis accumulates into a heavy cape of negativity that weighs us down and strips us of the positive energy that we need to manifest our desires.  If we can learn to react positively to those negative triggers, or even better, learn to see those negative triggers in a positive way, we can cloak ourselves in positive energy that will protect, energize and inspire us. 

 

The Power of The Butterfly

The Butterfly Effect is a chaos theory that a small action can affect larger, more complex systems on the other side of the world.  The idea of the Butterfly Effect is attributed to Edward Norton Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, who applied his theory to weather patterns.  His theory was that  a small, seemingly inconsequential action in one corner of the world, such as the motion of a butterfly's wings, can affect weather in another corner of the world.  His theory has been expanded and applied to many aspects of human life - a small action of one individual grows and flows forward affecting others in its path.  Although Lorenz’s theory as applied to weather has never been proved, we time and again see the proof of the Butterfly Effect as applied to our actions.  Of course, we know that our personal actions and decisions usually affect those in our lives - our family members, our friends, our co-workers - but we may not realize that those actions and decisions can affect those whom we don’t know and may never know.  It may happen step-by-step which is easy to understand: I make a decision that affects one person causing them to take a certain action that affects someone else and so on.  But, there is also the greater, more complex, less easy to comprehend theory that what is learned, done, or changed in one place automatically, not step-by-step but through some sort of universal energy or knowledge, makes a change hundreds or thousand of miles away.  Both applications of the Butterfly Effect are fascinating and I’ve had a personal experience with the Butterfly Effect through this blog.

I started the Manifesting Mount Dora blog to keep myself focused on my desire to manifest a new home and new life in Mount Dora, Florida.  I knew this endeavor would be a learning experience and I wanted a record of my journey and what I learned along the way.  By sharing the blog, I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone else was interested in or inspired by my life experiment.  I thought a few of my friends might read my blog now and again, but I did not expect more attention than that, which was fine since I was writing it for myself.  As the weeks passed, I was amazed to read my blog statistics and discover that people from all over the world were reading it.  I could guess who some of those people in other countries were since I have many Facebook friends around the world, but I have no connections in some of the other countries in my blog stats.  It amazes me that people a world away are interested in this more-than-middle-aged woman in Florida who is using the Law of Attraction to create a new life.  I wonder who these people are, what their lives are like, why they are interested in my blog.  Almost all the comments generated by my blog have been from friends, so I don’t even know what the unknown people think of my musings.  Are they inspired, amused, surprised, shocked, entertained or just curious?  Are my posts affecting their lives in any way?

We have seen how thoughts, ideas, and even revolutions go viral online, affecting how we live, the choices we make, the chances we take, the way we dream.  Our world is truly getting smaller which can be inspiring or frightening.  A relatively unknown person in the U.S. makes a movie about Muhammad that is deemed to be insulting to Islam and people riot around the world, breaching U.S. embassies and killing innocent people.  A bus monitor is tormented by the children in her care and people around the world donate money so she can take a vacation.  Someone posts that an actor is dead and soon everyone is talking about it and re-posting the story even though it is not true.  An injustice in small town USA is detailed in the online news and petitions are created that hundreds of thousands of people sign to right the wrong.  We are inundated with causes to support or ignore.  We are brought to tears or enraged by stories that ten years ago we would never have known.  We get caught up in the real and the unreal, the truth and the lies.

There is great power in the written word these days - more so than in the past because today words travel so quickly and can do such harm or produce so much good.  We seem to have become more vulnerable, less likely to research what is true and what is not.  We jump on bandwagons, wave the flags of causes and riot in the streets without taking the time to check out the facts, without reflecting on the effects of our actions or pausing to take a breath before passing on that juicy tidbit that may or may not be true.  A decade or so ago our over-reactions and our impetuousness would likely only have caused a limited amount of damage or perhaps none at all.  Now our reckless actions may cause deaths half a world away.  Or, in the case of supporting a worthy cause, we can truly change a condition or someone’s life in an amazingly positive way.

I love that people are reading what I am writing and although I don’t think I am writing anything questionable or dangerous, I hope that my readers realize that this is my experience and my life and what I write does not necessarily represent the lives of anyone else in the United States or in Florida.  I hope they realize I am one woman figuring out what life is about and trying my best to create a life that is amazing for me.  If someone gets inspired or encouraged or comforted by something I write, I am thrilled, but I hope they use that inspiration, encouragement or comfort to figure out their own lives, to define their own possibilities and to reach for their own stars in whatever heavens they may be.

I encourage everyone to walk gently on this earth because we do affect one another, even half a world away, and we should want our effects to be positive, not destructive.  We have no comprehension of the power we wield through the written word online.  Let’s use that power to lift up one another, to encourage those who feel hopeless, to help those who are down, to teach those who want to learn, to feed those who are hungry, to respect those who are different.  Let’s use that power to embrace and to educate.  We are living the Butterfly Effect every day and The Power of The Butterfly is daunting.  Use it wisely, use it with caution.  We can be the change we want to see in the world or we can be the change that ends the world.  It is our choice.