August 13th, 2009
the wishing year
I am always reading three or four (or five or six) different books at once, but the one I picked up two days ago at a bookstore had to be a good one. What with being a house-sitter now instead of someone with a permanent address, the only books I keep with me anymore are those I know I’ll read (libraries become quite an issue as I have zero willpower in them). And so far, I’m loving it and predict that it will be the next Eat, Pray, Love -esque sensation:The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler.
It’s a book about her forays into manifesting, into making wishes. Arriving at a crossroads in her life, she takes a tip from her friend Carole and begins, tentatively at first, putting herself out there and daring to wish, pushing past all of the messages we’re fed about how we should “only wish for something holy” or “it’s wrong to wish for material things” or “you shouldn’t wish for things for yourself, you should wish for them for other people.”
The book doesn’t have as strong of a narrative line as Gilbert’s book, and I don’t find it quite as funny, but I relate to what she writes, because even though I would say I’ve experienced any number of manifesting miracles, I confess that I still have those little negative critters in my head. Most recently, I remember feeling incredibly guilty about traveling to Italy in June. There was so much on the news about layoffs and financial troubles, and somehow I had pulled in the money to take this trip and not go into debt. To be quite blunt, there were moments when I felt “like a total asshole,” as I put it to my Coach, Matthew.
He asked me why, and I explained that when people would ask me, “Aren’t you excited? Tell me what you’re going to do!” I would notice myself holding back, not quite wanting to say how excited I was, not quite wanting to say it was great, not wanting to own that I was proud that I had manifested the money and the time, that I had decided upon something I wanted, let go, released, and the Universe (because that is what I believe it is) just brought it to me with little or no effort on my part. It seemed almost…unfair. As a result, I was hardly saying anything about my trip, and I deferred a lot of conversations about it to some other topic.
But this struggle is not simply a recent one. It has been a lifelong challenge to simply be who I am–someone with a willingness to go after what I desire, wholeheartedly, and to sift through the feelings of fear and the possibility of failure and the ohshit moments–and then realize that this can be a huge trigger for others. A friend once told me that whenever we would talk, “you’d have three or four new things going on, and I’d just feel like with me, it was the same old thing every time.” And what she hadn’t realized was that I didn’t really care about her having new things to report; I simply thought she was great and it had never occurred to me that her life was “the same old” anything (I promptly commenced with telling her this!). I genuinely enjoyed talking with her, laughing with her, window shopping with her, just…hanging out.
I’ve also been told, in both blatant and passive-aggressive terms, that in my joy, I’ve been guilty of selfishness–because I wasn’t keeping a focus on the fact that others were/are suffering. And this has been an accusation that, when lobbed at me, I find to be a little crippling, especially because the times when it has happened I feel clean and in integrity that I wasn’t bragging or talking about some stroke of good fortune in order to make myself feel good–I had only shared it, because I was happy and excited and because I hadn’t anticipated that the person I was talking to would be anything other than happy and excited alongside me.
It was only after some time with personal growth work that made any headway on it at all and realized that, hey, people who are suffering probably wish they weren’t suffering, and the most offensive thing I can do–as someone who was born into this lifetime with access to clean, running water; an education and subsequently a job; a family and partner who love me; a host of social options that come from being born with white skin; a host of options that come from being born into what is currently the richest and most powerful country in the world; a healthy body–would be to not enjoy that fully or to live a life full of nothing but guilt or to reject it in any way. Better to offer it all up in gratitude, loving it, praising it, being thankful for it. Better to continually ask the question: How amazing can my life be? And then: How much more amazing can my life be? And then encouraging others to ask the same questions.
I love it when I can exist totally in this space, and some days it is a challenge more than others. When I had this pre-trip session with Matthew, I was not existing in a good space. I was feeling guilty, worried that I would trigger others and that they might reject me in some way, or feel badly about their own lives.
[Notice, by the way, how laughable it is that I put myself and my own tiny little Ego at the center of so much of this!]
“So what if they feel bad about their lives?” Matthew said.
I think I might have blinked a few times and then said, “Come again?”
“So what if they feel bad about their lives?” he repeated.
“Um…I don’t want to make someone feel bad about their life.”
“How in the world could you do that?”
“Well, if someone else wants to travel but they can’t because they don’t have the money or time, they might feel bad if I talk too much about my trip,” I explained.
“So what if they feel bad?” he said. “Sometimes pain is just what we need in order to look around at our lives and decide to make changes.”
And then he pointed out to me that it wasn’t my responsibility to usher in other people’s happiness–that’s theirresponsibility–and no one else is responsible for my own happiness–that’s my responsibility–and that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t control other people’s feelings anyway.
The thing I love about Matthew is that he said all of this so lovingly, without any of the “So get over yourself, already” subtext that I find myself thinking of as I relay the session, now.
We live in such an odd society with so many mixed messages about happiness: what it means, what it looks like, how to get it, who deserves it and who doesn’t deserve it, how one can become deserving, the ways in which one can fall from grace and no longer be deserving.
I realize that I am stepping out of my comfort zone and into a bigger space when I declare this:
IT’S ALL KIND OF BULLSHIT!
No, wait: IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!
Thaaat’s better.
The people who raised us, who made sacrifices both big and small, did not invest that time and effort and energy for any of us to live halfway.
And I am hardly perfect, and don’t anticipate that I will become perfect tomorrow, and yet I am declaring right now that I deserve, absolutely, to live 100% fully alive because that’s why I’m here.
And I can’t imagine that you, reading this, are perfect, but I am declaring right now that you, absolutely, without a doubt in my mind, deserve to live 100% fully alive. That’s why you’re here, too.
I believe that we are at a place in time, especially with so many global crises occurring, where we need to do away entirely with this notion of who is and isn’t deserving. It seems to me that “the bad guys” are created by this very notion. People who have been taught that they are worthy and good in healthy ways simply do not become terrorists. I think of a bumper sticker I’ve seen several times now: “We are creating our enemies faster than we can kill them.” We create them through poverty and lack of the basic necessities. While I do not currently experience poverty or lack of access to basic necessities, I do know that when I am personally fulfilled–when all of my needs are attended to–I am a better person in this world.
So why not live abundantly? Why not ask how much better life can be? Why not dream bigger?
I think we need the world to be more committed to dreaming bigger than to disaster management. We need the world to be more committed to possibility than to shrinking away in fear.
I grew up in the Midwest, a place where one is conditioned to read words like this and have a response that is something along the lines of: “Enough with the hippie-talk. You don’t get somewhere through wishing and dreaming. You get somewhere through hard work and sacrifice. The hard work is what determines who deserves/gets what they want.”
While my “rational mind” tells me that this is the truth, some deeper knowing beyond all knowing that is in me has story upon story upon story of magic in my own personal experience, of times and ways that something I wanted, something I was afraid to want, something that seemed so BIG (too big!) to want, came to me–almost effortlessly. What I did time and time again was this: I was more committed to what I wanted, than I was to fear.
I always know that I am on my way to bringing something great into my life when I am more committed to the thing I’m bringing than I am to fear (and fear can show up as procrastination, excuses, outright fear, crying, a sudden predisposition for drama, critical voices…so many different things).
I also believe that the fear shows up in direct proportion to how badly something is wanted. If MONSTER fear is showing up, you can believe that there’s a MONSTER desire behind it. The fear is showing up big because I am dreaming big.
I refuse to believe that dreaming big could ever be wrong.
So here’s what I’m currently wishing to bring into my life. Some of these things feel bigger and harder than others, and I’m trying to notice that and just believe that they are all the absolutely the same.
- Complete and total forgiveness, on a core “little kid” level, of my parents.
- Greater intimacy with Andy. No more wasting time with the petty arguments.
- Patience. Inner calm. More ease with tapping into my knowing beyond all knowing higher self.
- To be a multi-millionaire. [**Oooh, does that one ever trigger the "Who do you think you are?" gremlins...]
- To own a home in the Trestle Glen area of Oakland, which serves as a home base for Andy and I when we are in California, but which also allows some an artist or student to house-sit for us (in exchange for free room/board) while we are away.
- To travel as often as I was inspired to travel–probably 3-4 months out of the year.
- To have a child // To trust that I’ll be an amazing mother.
- To teach classes part-time, and only at the college where I desire to teach.
- To coach part-time.
- To have a healthy, disease-free body. [I currently have this, and wish for the chronic aches/pains to let go of their hold, release their grip.]
- To publish my writing–novels–non-fiction–short stories with a company who really desires my work and treats it well.
- For my writing to be received well, understood, nurtured.
- A wider circle of close friends who are committed to a shared vision for our lives/the world.
- One very close female friend–the kind of best friend that seemed so easy to find at five years old. Utter trust, loyalty, laughter, joy, and a willingness to invest the time into the relationship.
- To speak Italian fluently and effortlessly.
- To travel to India this upcoming December.
- To visit NYC this upcoming October.
That’s where I start.
What about you? If you were to step outside of your comfort zone and declare boldly that you wanted something–something you know you’re terrified to want or something that you think you “shouldn’t” want or something you’re pretty sure would “never happen”–what would it be?
