This is the day I’ve been waiting for all of my life. Actually, it’s the day I’ve been preparing for all of my life. I thought it would be different “ bands playing and a lot of whoop-ti-do. But, no; it’s just me and Gracie on the mountain, overlooking Crow Valley, clouds rolling by with the sun peeking through on occasion.
It sounds like a normal, run of the mill day, but something dramatic has shifted: I’m happy!
I used to think happy was a vacuous, mindless, blissful state. I’ve realized how much effort it takes to be happy “ I mean what it actually requires is a huge amount of mindfulness.
I realize too that happy and peaceful are constants in my life. Over this lifetime, I’ve actually been creating unhappiness in so many ways “ it’s ridiculous. Through imagining the future, where I hope my life will be happy and fulfilled, or remembering either when things were good or not so good; the inevitable belief underlying all my daydreaming is that something is lacking in my life.
Thinking about what I had in the past but I don’t have now, or waiting with intolerance for what has yet to arrive “ well, of course I’d be frustrated, disappointed, suffering and barely surviving “ not to mention full of worry and anxiety! This moment couldn’t possibly be fulfilling “ could it?
I check off the items on my to-do list and wonder what value is being served by any of it. I’m finishing the re-design of my websites and wonder what’s the point! Is it really going to make a difference in the number of people who call for coaching, who buy my books or invite me to be a keynote speaker? I have no doubt that it will contribute little to my financial well-being. So why bother?
On the other hand, financial well-being aside, my life is great! And, the creative process of the website, logo, tagline and content has been a process of refining the essence of my work “ the essence of me. I’ve come to define my sweet-spot in my work and resonate more clearly with the quality of the experience available when I’m in that sweet-spot. I’m now allowing myself to pick and choose my clients and students much more carefully. I have no idea whether there will be a future; and, A Course in Miracles, Oneness and other spiritual writings all say the same thing: Do what you love, let go of the attachment to the outcome, don’t worry, be happy! So, more often than not, now I’m not worrying and I’m happy!
Most of you, over the past year or so, who have been reading my blogs, know that there’s been a lot of deep work that goes into experiencing the simplicity of life in this moment. Excavating and removing lifetimes of patterns of beliefs and assumption, and all of the emotions and behaviors associated with those beliefs “ well it’s damn hard work. I don’t blame people who are busy distracting themselves from personal and spiritual evolution. I say "GO FOR IT! Cause, when Spirit is ready, she will find you; and that will be the end of that! Once Spirit’s got you in her grips “ well, you can’t run but you can’t hide!
I’m as creative as ever, I’m as productive as ever, and though I’d like my financial well-being to catch up with all the other ways I’m in well-being, well, it’s just a big fat be-with, and it’s a great area within which to let go, let God and continue leaping in faith. An interesting fact: Money influences our happiness by only 10%. We don’t know how little it contributes to our happiness until we have that money and find it’s not really making all that much of a difference.
This may sound depressing to many of you because it appears as though, no matter how hard I try I just can’t get ahead. In our current paradigm, I would totally agree. However, as the paradigm shifts, the reality I once lived in is no longer the one I reside in now. I had no choice but to surrender my grip on what was, in order to embrace what is “ now “ in this moment. I had to let go of a belief that something was lacking in me, in my life, in the world at large. This has made room for the cultivating of awareness of a reality where nothing is lacking “ in me, it or the world. In such a practice, I find peace and happiness regardless of my circumstances. And, like the Hokey-Pokey “ that’s what it’s all about!
