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A while ago I wrote about the incredible anticipation I was feeling about an upcoming trip. I had planned months ago, a trip to Stockholm. As it approached, I found myself thinking about what a great trip it would be.
Well, somehow that anticipation turned into a storm of angst. As my travel approached, through a flurry of emails I realized that some of my plans with friends in Sweden were changing. At about the same time, I casually opened the drawer I always keep my passport in, and it wasn’t there. I looked again, not there. I pulled the entire drawer out of the little chest it rested in and searched the contents. There were travel folders, a set of car keys and lots of relevant and important papers. The more I searched, the less it felt like I would find it. And, my anticipation of my trip was suddenly replaced with anxiety about plans that felt like they were going wrong, and a trip that was shaping up to be something other than I anticipated.
Over the next few days, which extended into weeks, I searched for my passport. I looked everywhere I thought it might be and everywhere I could think of where it might not. I searched every logical place and my energy tightened up as I pulled open cabinets, files and drawers. I became focused on a negative, the loss of my passport. If you must know, I even called my favorite radio psychic to ask her opinion. Despite all of my searching, as of last Satuday, I still hadn’t found it.
I look forward to telling you how things turned around for me in my next post.
In my last post, I framed an exercise around deserving. In particular, it focused on our own abilities to see ourselves as worthy and deserving of our wishes and dreams.
If you find some resistance as you explore your own sense of deserving, or being entitled to your dreams, here is a exercise that can help you experience the actions of caring for your self in a tangible way. Try it with an open mind.
1. Visit the card shop or the greeting card section of your favorite store. Allow yourself at least 10-15 minutes for this part of the exercise.
2. Look for a card that you would send to a close friend or family member to offer encouragement. Think about someone trying to accomplish a great goal. Avoid cards with a negative sentiment. If the words seem more sympathetic than encouraging, move on to the next card. You may even choose a card offering congratulations. Or, simply find a beautiful card that is blank inside.
3. Once you have chosen and purchased your card, find a calm place to personalize it. If you haven’t figured it out yet, this card is meant for you. Although this may feel awkward, you are going to write yourself a note. If you struggle with this, hold in your mind again, the thought of what you would write to someone you truly care about.
4. Think about one of the things you would like to manifest in your life. Now write yourself a congratulations for the progress towards this dream. This is regardless of what you may or may not feel you have achieved so far. Having trouble doing that, or knowing what to write? If so, try writing this, “Congratulations. You are already on the way to achieving your dreams. I know that you will do it.”
5. Make sure this note is addressed to you. Sign it with love from you.
6 Take a look at the card and the sentiment once more before sealing the envelope.
7. Address the envelope to yourself and stamp it.
8. Find a mailbox or post office and mail your card. This is an important part of the process. Mailing it gives you some distance from the message and adds to the power you will feel when you receive your card in the mail.
That’s the exercise, a bit unconventional for some, but worth trying. It is a simple exercise in self-caring, one that you may find quite powerful. It’s kind of fun too, to get that card in the mail. You deserve to live your dream life.
Do you deserve to have all of your dreams come true?
And, why would I ask such a question? You might respond to yourself, something like, “of course I do.” If you do think that upon reading the question, great. Perhaps, rationally and intellectually, you believe you deserve your dream life. Or, perhaps, you believe this is the type of answer you should have to such a question.
Certainly, understanding in a conscious and rational way that you deserve something is great and that is one part of living your dream life. However, I ask you to notice how you feel when you read that question. Sometimes we trick ourselves. What we say, even in our minds, may not match what we feel.
Read that question again to yourself. Read it out loud. What do you feel? Now, I’m not asking what words or thoughts you might comprehend in your mind. I am asking at a deeper level, what you feel?
This is a key to understand if your energy is matching your goal, and in this case in particular, if deep down, you accept the truth that you deserve to live your dreams.
Have you ever seen someone smile, yet know underneath it their mood doesn’t match that smile? Can you take an image of that sort of forced smile and contrast with a child’s emotion, a genuine smile a happy child exhibits as a truthful simplicity of emotion. We can learn much from the emotions of children.
With that analogy in mind, think of one of your dreams that you are wanting to manifest. Think of it and picture it as clearly and specifically as possible.
Once you have that image, ask the question, “Do I deserve this?”.
How do you feel as you ask yourself that question? Is it high vibrational sense of joy? Do you smile when you say it? Or, do you feel low and sluggish? Are you somewhere in between?
If it’s not clear, repeat the exercise a few times.
You now may find yourself more in touch with how much you feel that you deserve to live this manifestation realized. If your energy is low, and if there is resistance to this dream manifesting for you, you may be experiencing some sense of not being “worthy” or “deserving” of your dream life.
Look for part two of the exercise soon, which will offer a strategy to help you feel more deserving and more vibrationally aligned with your dreams. And most importantly, more comfortable with the universal truth that you do deserve to live your dream life.
Feel free and post a comment with your own suggestions on how to feel more deserving.
The perspective that thoughts and desires create our realities is catching on, and becoming more mainstream. Recent books and movies have certainly helped to spread the word. But, it began long before books like “The Secret” became popular. It’s encouraging to see that some people are beginning to view the world in a more positive light. It is a view in which we have the power to change individually and co-create the world we desire to live in. It is the ultimate in creative expression.
(photo courtesy of Gustavo Castaneda)
This picture represents an example of creating that I saw over the weekend. This is a picture of the fencing around a Chicago public grade school. There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of ribbons of cloth tied to the wrought iron fences. Attached to one of the posts was a message to the community which reads, “students and teachers have tied a piece of fabric on the fence to symbolize their personal intention to the universe: a thanks for another school year to learn and grow, and a hope or wish for the long glorious summer that lies ahead.”
It’s inspiring. Isn’t it?
Perhaps you have in mind something you want to manifest. You have thought about it, visualized, practiced living like “it” is already here. Yet, somehow “it” hasn’t happened.
It has passed some arbitrary time-frame that you created, without happening. So, you begin to make a shift in your mindset, focusing on what hasn’t happened yet. Now admit it, haven’t you done that before? I have.
You want something badly and disappointment sets in when it doesn’t appear right away. But, if you think about it, once you start focusing on why “it” hasn’t happened yet, you are manifesting just that. You are then working with the universe to create a specific situation, specifically not happening. So, if you find yourself doing this, congratulations for noticing. Noticing allows you to move forward.
Now that you have identified the challenge, you have the opportunity to again, clarify what you desire, and then release that desire into the universe. Once it is released, try to think of it in a different way, as if it was a product ordered that you are just waiting to arrive. Ordering a book from Amazon.com is a good analogy. Once you have ordered the book, you know it is coming, even before it has arrived. Think of that example next time you order something from the universe.
So, how long is this holiday weekend? It’s as long as you choose to make it.
I have noticed all week, people looking forward with great anticipation to the Fourth of July holiday weekend. I hear stories of time with family, friends, fireworks, cook-outs or just some extra relaxation time. I’ll be spending time with my friends and family as well. It seems to be one of those holidays with positive emotions attached for many. I have found myself to be in a particularly good mood this week as well. Perhaps some of it is from the infectious energy around me.
As you enjoy this weekend, notice if you find yourself in a different frame of mind than you typically do. If so, are you feeling at a higher or lower vibrational state? If it is higher, what’s different? Is it the routine, the people you are around, your expectations? It may be a combination of all of those things. Now, try to hold onto that good energy and realize, you can make any day a holiday by getting in touch with those emotions.
Here’s the update I was looking forward to writing. The meeting I described in my last entry went well. It was much improved from last week’s meeting and it met many of my expectations and the details I journaled about this morning, with one exception. The exception was that it began late and lasted longer than I desired. But, it did have a positive tone. The people who faced the biggest challenges last week were positive, prepared and were treated better. After the meeting one of the participants told me that she had decided to look at this meeting positively before I had even given her that suggestion and she was pleased with how well it went. ”I just knew it would be better,” she said. It was.
So, I can confidently say that in the challenge between anxiety and journaling expectations, that the expectations won.
I woke this morning with vague yet noticeable anxiousness. This was not that positive twist on anxiety I sometimes feel before an exciting day or a trip. This was the negative variety. And as I came to full conciousness in my morning world, it increased with every wake-up stretch and yawn.
These pangs of anxiety were quickly followed with a realization of the source. The source was a meeting I had been scheduled to attend this afternoon. I quickly remembered flashes of last week’s meeting with the same group of people, one or two people in posititons of power, criticizing those worker bees at the meeting who obviously had not carried out the plans of the week as the leader’s expected. Now, how clear those expectations were, is another story. Suffice it to say, the energy level was low and dropping by meetings end. I was in attendance in a sort of neutral position, one of coordination of efforts, yet not of any official power. Today would be a follow-up to last week.
Yesterday, I spoke with some of the group in preparation for today, asking them to visualize the results they desired and how today’s meeting would play out. It hit me this morning, despite my advice, I had not given much of my own energy to the process in a positive way. I was in fact, focusing on the negativity of the last meeting, as evidenced by my anxious feelings. So, I paused my thought process, like stopping a tape playing in my head, a tape full of negative emotions that was playing as a vague background noise to my morning routine. Once I entered this full realization of what was going on, my next step was to journal. It is a technique that often works well for me.
I sat down in a comfortable spot, my chair angled out to a view of the beautiful morning sky, and began to write. I wrote in detail how I see today going. How I would like the day to be. Soon, the noisy anxiety quieted, still there, but softer, and I wrote some more. It will be a positive meeting where progress will be reviewed, a forward looking meeting, encouraging in its tone. I continued, adding some specific details. One detail is that it will be brief compared to last weeks, just enough time used to cover what is important.
So, I am off to that meeting now, and my next blog entry will be Pt. 2 of this anxiety vs. journaling exercise. It is a case of having specific intentions for today’s meeting. Just by journaling, I have already improved my energy level and my perspective on the day. I also realize I am co-creating the outcome of today’s meeting, my expectations intermingled with the rest of those in attendance. I will let you know how it goes.
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