5/23/12 Righteous Fantasies

I was raised by a father who rarely took a vacation and often worked six or seven days a week.  I followed the same path.  I worked long hours, sometimes ten to twelve hours a day often for seven days a week, month after month.  I rarely took time off and when I did indulge in a vacation, it was usually to visit family and, as many know, those types of holidays from work are not always restful and often not fun.   My husband, now deceased, had a similar childhood experience.  When his family rarely took a “vacation”, it was a two, possibly three, day trip to one of the beaches east of their home in Gainesville.  Not exactly great travelers, were they?  At least the few vacations my father initiated took us out of our state! 

During our nearly thirty year marriage, most of the vacations my husband and I took were what I call “obligatory vacations” - visiting long-distance relatives, attending weddings or funerals, or pre-move trips to find a place to live, etc.  Those obligatory trips often had some moments of fun and joy, but, especially for me, were still working vacations.  First, we traveled long distances, usually driving  6 to 16 straight hours - not restful or fun.  And, spending a week at a relative’s home did not excuse me from domestic duties.  I still helped with food preparation and cleanup.  I still did laundry.  I often helped with childcare and housework, depending on who we were visiting.  A few days off from my paying job was nice, but sometimes I did more domestic work on vacation than I did at home. 

Because cash was always in short supply, these obligatory vacations were less expensive and all we could afford.  Because of our lack of funds and because of the long hours necessary at the majority of my jobs, the most we could manage was possibly one vacation a year that lasted for more than a long weekend.  Many years we did not even take that one week.

In my childhood, I dreamed of traveling.  In fact, I wanted to be a travel writer, venturing around the world and writing articles, stories and books about my experiences.  But, as often happens, I grew up and discovered, or decided, that life had different plans for me.  Rather than being a world traveler, I reluctantly and resentfully became a home-body.  My world travels were reduced to a very few obligatory vacations to visit family and friends with the longest trip being from Florida to Maine to visit my mom.  Two exceptions were trips to Niagara Falls, Canada - one to accompany my niece to a wedding she was attending and another to attend a wedding of my own friends.  Both trips were fabulous, but definitely the exception to the norm of my life. 

For the first few years of my “new life” after leaving my husband, money, and credit for that matter, was even tighter and the most I could manage was a couple of days in St. Augustine each year.  Then, I sold my former home in the country.  By the time of the sale, the real estate market had crashed and the purchase price had been reduced several times just to release me from the mortgage, insurance and tax expenses.  After paying off the mortgage and a few home-related debts, the cash in my pocket was much less than I’d ever thought possible.  Most of that cash went to pay off other financial obligations, leaving me with even less.  But, still, that less was more than I’d had in my bank account for many years.  After experiencing such rough financial times, my plan was to save the money, using it very conservatively, when needed.  It wasn’t much, but it was all I had, so a hoarding mentality took over my mind.  Even though I’d been practicing the Law of Attraction and even though I know that money only has energy when it is being used, I chose to live small and hold tightly to what little I had.  Until. . .

One day, while my man and I were passing time in the public library while some repairs were being done on my car, I picked up a book called “Do Less, Achieve More - Discover the Hidden Power of Giving In” by Chin-Ning Chu.  That book and “Creative Visualization” by Shakti Gawain are the two books at the top of my prosperity recommended reading list.  The book is short and easy to read, so please make the effort. 

While reading that book, I had what Oprah calls a “light bulb moment”.  The author tells the story of a 53-year-old woman (I was 54 at the time) who was raised in France and immigrated to the U.S. in her twenties.  She longed to return for an extended visit to her homeland, but the expense of such a trip and her loss of time from work led her to settle for no more than week-long trips, which were never long enough.  Even after being offered a rent-free home for two months in France, she hesitated because of some pressing responsibilities at her job and because she feared losing her job if she took so much time off.  She struggled in vain to find a way to connect such a visit to France with her job so she could justify the lengthy stay with her employer.  Frustrated and disappointed, she nixed the idea of a two-month stay in her homeland.  When she told a friend that there was no way she could go, the friend said, “You weren’t born to work yourself to death.  You were born to fulfill your desire for experiences.  To love well, which includes fulfilling your righteous fantasies, leads you to complete your desire to experience life.  To your soul, the fulfilling of fantasies is as important as accomplishing your career goals.  It is wrong to die without satisfying those fantasies.”  The woman heeded those words and scheduled her trip. That extended stay in France changed her life forever.  She reconnected with an old high school boyfriend, their romance was rekindled and they married.  Her American employer valued her work so highly that he allowed her to continue working for the company from her new, permanent home in France. 

That story was my light-bulb moment.  The words “righteous fantasies” energized and haunted me and, while sitting in the library, I made the decision to use some of the cash from the sale of my home to take a long-dreamed-of trip to New York City.  Within a week, reservations were made and in less than a month, my man and I were off to the city he loves so much and to which he always wanted to introduce me.  Our trip was amazing.  I’d always wanted to visit NYC, but I never dreamed I would love it so much.  Visiting NYC was one of my “righteous fantasies”.  I took ten days off work - the longest I’d ever been away from any job and the longest time off I’d taken since starting my business 11 years before.  Since then, we return to NYC every year and each trip is as amazing the ones before. 


I would have thought that leaving my work for ten days would be impossible, but once I voiced the intention of the New York City trip, all fell into place with amazing simplicity.  The travel plans came together easily.  My work magically slowed to a level that was reasonable to abandon for ten days.  Loose ends tied up into lovely bows of anticipation.  A trip that had once seemed impossible became righteously doable.  And, I have found that to be the case when engaging in other plans.  If the plans are truly righteous, if they are truly what I need and what I desire, if they will elevate, educate and evolve me, if I will have time for rejuvenation and fun, all the details come together like cake batter ingredients - smooth, sweet and tasty! 

It has been years since I thought of “righteous fantasies”.  It took Manifesting Mount Dora to bring those words to mind.  The word “righteous” means morally or ethically justified.  It seems odd to think of our fantasies as being morally or ethically justified.  Righteous just does not seem to be the correct adjective to pair with the word “fantasies”.  But, why don’t we think of our fantasies as righteous?  We are here to live large, to experience boldly.  But, most of us live small and in fear.  I pledge to start visualizing and manifesting other righteous fantasies.  Mount Dora is already in the works.  What next?? 

4/15/12 Getting Help

Mark Twain is attributed with this famous saying:  “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”

Basically, if you want your life to change, if you want something different or something more than you have, you need to change what you do.  Easier said than done.  We are creatures of habit and products of our environment.  We tend to follow in the foot steps of those who preceded us - usually, our parents.  My father possessed an explosive temper and in my late teens, my nickname was “Time Bomb”.  Let me get angry and someone could say “tick, tick, tick” and I would explode right on time.  My supervisor at my job when I was 19 was lobbying for me to be promoted, but he warned me that my temper was well-known and could sabotage my chances.  I considered my temper and its origins and realized I was becoming my father, at least in that aspect.  I made a conscious decision that day to hold my temper in check.  Now, anyone who knows me cannot imagine that I once displayed a nearly out-of-control temper.  Did I get the promotion?  No, but that was due to an economic decline that led to the elimination of the job.  I missed the promotion, but changed my personality. 

Sometimes we can make conscious decisions to change and we follow through successfully, sometimes we try and try and still do not succeed, sometimes we don’t even know how to initiate a change and sometimes we don’t even realize we need to change. 

First, each of us needs to be aware of who we are and how we appear to others.  We need to take inventory of our problems and decide if those issues can be corrected by changing what we do and how we behave.  If you lack friends or long-term friendships, maybe your behavior turns off people, perhaps you come across as cold and unfriendly or maybe you have a reputation for being unreliable or a gossip.  If you always struggle financially, perhaps your spending habits need to be fine-tuned or you may have a mentality of lack, always thinking of what you don’t have or what you think you can’t have.  If we are honest with ourselves, each of us can find some area of our lives that can stand improvement. 

Second, once you identify an aspect of your behavior or an area of your life that needs improvement, determine if you know how to make constructed changes that will move you in a new and better direction.  Do you already possess the knowledge and the skills to curb your temper, increase your reliability, stop a bad habit like gossiping, learn to be a better listener, handle your finances with care or change your outlook?  Whatever your identified issue or issues, figure out if you can create a plan for improvement and put it in motion to make the changes you desire.  If you can, great, get started!  If you can’t, start searching for the information and help you need.

There are scores of life coaches, therapists, books, DVD’s, CD’s, audio downloads and websites that can educate you on how to make positive changes in your life.  There are hundreds of different lessons and practices you can try - affirmations, visualizations, journaling, EFT, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, meditation, life coaching, support groups, yoga, etc.  Each modality, each approach has something to offer and some work better for some people than for others.  Try them out.  Find one or two or three that work well with your mind set, your personality and your lifestyle.  Whatever you choose must become part of your life, a regular practice.  If you try one approach and see only minor or no results, try another.  Just as all medicines do not work well for all people, neither do these types of “therapies”.  Keep looking until you find one or more that gives you the results you want, but be sure you allow enough time to evaluate a new practice.  Give it a chance to work for you before you give up on it and try something new.  In our lightening fast world, we want instant gratification and results, but changing how we think or behave is not always a fast or easy process.  Even if you are only noticing small improvements, they can mount up to a life-changing shift. 

 About six years ago, I attended my first chord cutting ceremony - a practice based on Native American and Eastern ceremonies to facilitate the breaking of our ties with unhealthy, unneeded or limiting parts of our lives and relationships - present or past.  I went because a friend attended the month before and noticed immediate and profound changes in her life.  After my first ceremony, I could not identify even the slightest change in my life, but I went back month after month and am still going several times a year.  Slowly I noticed changes.  Unlike my friend, these transformations were gradual and more subtle.  But, since I did see changes no matter how small and since the ceremonies usually left me with a feeling of peace that last for several hours and sometimes a few days, I continued participating.  Looking back, I realized that rapid changes would have been bad for me.  My life had already gone through several major upheavals and although the end results were positive, I needed some downtime to assimilate what I’d already experienced.  I desired more changes, but too much, too fast would have been overwhelming and counter-productive.  My changes came slow and steady, just as I needed.  After each ceremony, participants can discuss what they experienced and I often heard of visions, intense feelings, out-of-body type sensations, unusual sounds and the like.  It was a long time before I began experiencing anything stronger than a sense of floating.  But, again, I believe the sensations came to me as I was able to accept and appreciate them. 

Friday night, I was at a chord cutting and had the most profound emotional experience yet.  An amazing feeling of happiness and gratitude swept over me, is still hanging around and I am sure it has something to do with my Manifesting Mount Dora project.  Last week, my man and I were in Mount Dora during a weather pattern of gusty winds - some 30 to 40 miles per hour.  We sat at the end of Grantham Point Park (also known as Lighthouse Park) watching birds soar and dip in the high winds, just enjoying their ability to ride the winds as a child would a roller coaster.  During the chord cutting, with eyes closed, I felt like one of those birds - I was  undulating on the winds, feeling joyful and childlike.  Below me, I saw water (Lake Dora?) and thick canopies of trees.  Suddenly, in mid-air, a young racoon appeared before me.  He was identical to the young racoon we’d come across last week on the shores of Mount Dora.  He just floated before my face, looking impish and gleeful.  Wherever I flew, he stayed bobbing in front of me, sometimes chattering and always consumed with childlike happiness.  Those at the ceremony said I was swaying and smiling as they’d never seen me before.  Later, during our final mediation when I was reclining on my back on the floor, the racoon appeared again; this time sitting on my chest with his smiling face just above mine.  I left the ceremony feeling airy, hopeful, and intensely happy.  All weekend, even during some stressful or annoying moments, I was able to access that same feeling of joy. 

Had I immediately given up after my first chord cutting with its less than notable results, I would never have had the experiences and sensations that have gradually come to me.  I am so grateful for my introduction to chord cutting ceremonies and I unerringly know that I am a better and a freer person for all the ceremonies I’ve attended.  I made a choice to do something different so I would get something different than I’d always got, to paraphrase Mr. Twain. 

Color outside the lines - step beyond the boundaries, real or imagined, that fence in your life - fly a little - run instead of walk - skip when no one is looking and then when everyone is looking - swirl the water around you and disperse the stagnation - feel the breeze on your face - just do something different and see what becomes of it.  You may be surprised.  

 

3/28/12 Let No One Steal Your Joy

Now that I have made a commitment to something positive and life-affirming, it seems that the world is against me.  That may not be true, but it sure feels that way.  Is there really more negativity and problems surrounding me or am I just hyper-sensitive to anything that is not positive in nature?  Maybe my joyful nature is rubbing people wrong and they are responding mean-spiritedly with sarcasm and anger.  Perhaps, as I strive to be happy, I am overly conscience of anything negative.  Not sure of the reason, but I know that I am sensing an increased amount of negativity and am determined to rise above the clouds and storms around me.  I am allowing people to feel what they feel, act how they want to act while I look for my center and hold on to my joy.  In fact, tonight I called a friend to tell her of a situation that slapped me in the face this evening and she shared that her household has a saying: Don’t let anyone steal your joy.  I will not steal her joy but have definitely pilfered her saying.  Although in my quest for positivity, I reworded it slightly: Allow no one to steal your joy. 

One of the inspirations for this manifestation project and my blog was the book “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin.  Happiness is so ethereal, it seems unattainable.  Her book breaks down the feeling and causes of happiness in charts and lists devised from hours and hours of research.  Rather than taking the magic out of happiness for me, her didactic approach to such a lofty ideal made it more real to me, more graspable and with that I was able to think of Manifesting Mount Dora as something I can accomplish.  She also gave writing a human touch that seeded the confidence I needed to start pounding away at my keyboard in a way I have not been able to do in years.  Gretchen was already a published author when she took up the happiness cause.  In her year’s experiment to be happy, she expanded her writing to include blogging and inspired me to try the same.  I highly recommend the book to anyone, no matter how happy you may already consider yourself.  She inspires you to study your life in minute detail, identifying that which is not quite happy enough and creating ways to infuse more happiness into even the most everyday tasks. 

The Law of Attraction is all about happiness and it’s all a process.  That is important - it is a process.  It is a learning and growing experience, not just a wanting and getting experience.  It is about who I am and who I want to be, not just about who I think I can be if I obtain this or that or something else.  For you, it may not entail charts and research, but it should spur soul-searching, self-evaluation and personal growth.   

I survived this evening, smiling most of the time in spite of the rough seas around me.  I allowed no one to steal my joy and that is my goal for this experience of Manifesting Mount Dora.

(Thanks, Cheryl!)