Proving I Am

Thanks to sticking to my own $10 Million Dollar Project guidelines, I’ve been writing a lot lately.  I’ve finally established a habit of writing daily, something for which I’m incredibly grateful!  With that, however, there are definitely days when I don’t know what to write about.  Today is one of those days, so I decided to ask myself what I need to know about my Life right now in this moment.

What came to me is to remember what an incredible journey I am on right now, seeking Truth about the Life I’m living, as well as the Life I am creating for myself in every moment.  I’ve got some specific goals and ideas for myself in Mind, and I know without any doubt they already exist in the Mind of God.  There is work for me to do, sure.  And I’m doing a LOT of it at the moment: Way Mental summer, changing my eating and exercise habits, analyzing my relationships and relationship history, doing a lot of self-coaching to rid myself of mental and physical clutter, adjusting to a new job and new daily schedule, thinking about having to move again in a few months, reinventing my relationship to creativity and work and money.  “Do the work, live the results.”  That’s the tagline of Mental Muscle.

But with all the work and all the goals and programs and ideas, I am also reminded to enjoy where I am right now!  I forget to do that sometimes.  This is my new decision:  I trust all I require and want already exists. I don’t need to worry about whether or not it will show up in my Life.  Knowing the Infinite Intelligence works perfectly every time (and with unlimited resources at its disposal!), I let Life flow.  HOW things happen isn’t my department.  The Law of Cause and Effect can do the work.  If I throw a bowling ball out the window, I’m not concerned whether or not the Law of gravity is going to work.  I just know that it does.  Gravity is a physical law.  Cause and Effect is a spiritual law, but they work with the same ease and consistency every single time.  (By the way, I do not typically throw bowling balls out windows.  I don’t even own a bowling ball.)

And so I do what I can, let Infinite Intelligence take care of the how, and I now choose to have fun watching it all unfold in my experience.

I am amazed a year has passed since I started the process of InvisAlign for my teeth.  (For the record, you can read about my initial reaction to getting them HERE, on my other blog, which yes, needs an update. I know.  Stop yelling at me.)  The changes I have seen are quite remarkable.  I love the current results, and I know when it is finally all said and done, I will be over the moon.  My appointment this week was to receive a new set of trays that are called a “refinement.”  Interesting.  Even though I had great results with my year-long treatment, there were some stubborn teeth and a few small problems my perfectionist orthodontist Larry wanted to address.  By the way, if you want a perfectionist in your Life, your orthodontist is a good choice, I’d say.

So anyway, we’re refining now for a few more months.  After then, I’m not exactly sure what we’re doing, but since now is all there is, we’ll focus on the refinement.  Larry showed me the 3D rendering of my teeth on his computer, as well as what each phase of this refinement process is going to do.  What happens in the first weeks of the refinement is the teeth are pushed forward a bit, creating space for the remaining adjustments to take place (a little twist there, a little pull here).  If this is not a metaphor for what I’ve been living and blogging about in recent weeks, I do not know what is – making space for new experiences, people, opportunities, abundance, creativity, love and more to flow to me.  All of it is rightfully mine ANYWAY, only now it has a clearer path to flow to me, and I’m letting it come.

There is some initial discomfort with each InvisAlign adjustment, and that’s been part of my recent Life experience too.  My new job has been the biggest adjustment I’ve had to make.  I explained that to my boss, telling him how challenging it was for me to let go of how I thought my goals would manifest – goals that are still very much in play, mind you.  Oh, those cursed hows!  I thought one path would get me there, but another path showed up.  Still, I kept doubting it.  I could not see how this was where I was supposed to be in my Life.  How blessed am I that I work for someone with whom I can have these kinds of conversations!

It was a thoughtful, powerful conversation.  He wrapped it up with two thoughts.  The first was:  “You are in the right place at the right time.”  If I know who I am, how can that not be true?  It’s a variation on “The Universe is always conspiring for your highest good.”  What other option could there be?  Unless I wanted to believe in some sort of vengeful, punishing energy or Source or God, which I don’t.  That kind of God, logically, to me, can not exist.  My boss went on to say:  “I’m not saying this to be disrespectful, but it sounds like you were perhaps trying to create your Life from a fantasy ideal.  Now you’re in the reality, and it’s a MUCH more powerful place from which to create the Life you want.”  I knew exactly what he meant, even if that wasn’t exactly easy to hear.  From the moment our discussion ended, a weight of about 8000 tons was lifted from my shoulders.  That weight is an approximation, but I’m sure I’m close.

I looked up the definitions of “refine,” and most included some reference to purifying.  Cool.  The whole metaphor totally works for me.  After the space has been created and the adjustments made, everything then falls easily and naturally into place, leaving one, big, perfect smile.  It’s a process, and I’m willing to let it keep happening.

Omigod.  I’m behind blogging about my Way Mental week!  I continue to be amazed at how the weeks fly by.

The Artist’s Way work continues to illuminate things further.  There were a few “list” exercises this week that were intriguing:  ten items I would like to own that I don’t (easy), and ten ways I am mean to myself (boo).  The first list should be an obvious no brainer to complete for most folks.  The most unusual thing that came up for me on that list was one of those endless pool/treadmill things.  I don’t know why – and I don’t need to know why – but I want one.  It came into my Mind, so I wrote it down.  It was not designated as a ‘things I want and the reason for wanting them, and oh yeah they better be practical’ list.

On the second list though… well, it got interesting.  Cameron wants us to look at these aspects of our thinking not to dwell on them and punish ourselves further, but to diminish their power.  I have a few bad habits that, by continuing them, I am not really serving my highest good.  To me, that’s being mean – not honoring myself.  When I waste time, or don’t believe in my talent, or procrastinate, or when I compare myself to anyone else, or when I hold anger or resentment toward myself for past mistakes, or when I let my room/desk/car get waaaay too messy, or when I eat Del Taco at 11pm (damn them and their medium sized #9 combo special – defi not happening on the raw eating experiment, tho).  For me, these are all ways I am being mean to myself.  Subtle perhaps, but true.  Cameron was on track with this exercise.  Oh yes, and of course any time I am not honoring someone ELSE for who they truly are… well… since we’re all one, I’m dishonoring myself as well.  The lesson here – say it with me – be good to yourself and others.  Again… SHOULD be a no brainer.  But it isn’t always.  Not even for someone as perfect as me.

In terms of Mental Muscle, it was “Listen/Resolve” week, which means you quiet your Mind and listen to it, as well as listening to other people and the world around you.  If something comes up that needs resolution, you resolve it in that moment.  I really like this week.  All the bullshit and excuses are put aside, and you do what you have to do.  There were several times during the week where, had I not consciously resolved something in the moment it was happening, I know it would have consumed my thoughts for the entire day (or more).  I want to do that more and more.  It is empowering and freeing just to do it, and have it be done!

I’m not sure I was entirely successful, but that’s really the point of all of this:  to make us more aware of the lives we are creating by the decisions we make.  I thought it would probably be a good idea to repeat this week, right along side the next week which is “Boundaries and Priorities.”  In Artist’s Way, the week is about Rediscovering a Sense of Abundance.  So far, so good!  Good shifts this week.  Way Mental, peeps!  Get some!

Nature abhors a vacuum.  We’ve all heard this right?  It has felt like the theme of my Life for, um, well, let’s just say for way too long now.  Lord, the stuff piles up, doesn’t it?  Clutter of every kind and shape:  physical, emotional, mental, financial… things that need attention and yet, go unattended.  How can the next, new, fabulous, perfect thing arrive in our lives when we have stuff in the way that is decidedly not next.  Not new.  Or it is simply unfabulous.  Grr.

Knowing my roomie would be out of town several weeks, I decided it would be an ideal time to clear everything out of my room and load my stuff down in the living room, where I could sift through through the boxes and piles, streamline, purge, reorganize and then put only the necessary things back into my room in a peaceful, Zen-like way.  Oh, how I wish that is how it played out, but… no.  I was at critical mass with her impending arrival.   There was no way I could avoid the disaster in the living room any longer, and no way I could go through things the way I had wanted to.

As I was hauling everything back up into my room, I realized during the time all of it was not in my room, I found I actually needed surprisingly little of it.  What WAS all of this stuff?  Why am I holding on to it?  What are my attachments to this STUFF?  And why can’t I seem to get rid of more of it more often?  Just let it go, right?  It makes complete sense that certain new things I want and even require in my Life have not revealed themselves to me because all this other stuff is in the way.  There is some of my energy attached to every single thing in my possession, so why is it stored away in boxes, disorganized, doing nothing but sitting there?  It makes no sense.  And here I am, lugging it from city to city, apartment to apartment, room to room.  Oy.  Seriously, what’s going on there?

I’m in a bit of a reinventing/rebirthing phase at the moment.  I’m clearing out the gunk.  As I mentioned here, I’m doing it with my body.  My belongings are a logical next step.  I’ve already gone through my clothes – if I didn’t absolutely love it right now at this point in my experience, it went in the giveaway box.  Sure I’ve wound up with three shirts, four pairs of underwear and one pair of shoes, but I LOVE all of them!  On each box of other stuff I have to go through now, I’m putting a post-it note with a date: the day I will go through the box, ruthlessly asking if each item or piece of paper fits in with the Life I am creating for myself now.  I know there will be challenges, but making room has to be done – for new things I may want, sure, but also for new habits, new beliefs, new abundance, new relationships and new ideas.

Life continues unfolding, and it looks like a beautiful John Varvatos shirt…

It has been more challenging than I thought it would be to Trust that my path is still unfolding perfectly.  I feel very much off course.  It does not help that I’ve had some incredibly emotional moments this week, wondering exactly what’s happening in my Life.  I’d like to think at least some of it is connected to the physical detox my body is experiencing – that some old ideas and thoughts and beliefs are being released along with old, impacted food.  (Eeeew.)  Flush ‘em all away.

Yes, I still know things are shifting and changing, and no matter what, everything is temporary.  Everything.  The raw food diet phase, the insane exercise program I am working through, the clothes I am wearing, the apartment where I live, the car I drive, the money I have in the bank account, the little scar on my index finger, and everything else.  It all changes and evolves into the next experience.

It is a serious adjustment to live in that space of “What happens now?” when Life takes a turn you didn’t anticipate, and I’ve not had great success recently.  With all of my spiritual study and Truth knowin’, I am surprised at all the resistance I’ve been feeling around my current path of work and creativity.  And of course, when you give that energy attention, everything else unsettling that’s just like it comes to join the party.  Like in Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.”  If you start down that bad-feeling road, it’s a very short trip before you’re in a seriously super-sucky place.  And yet, it is so much easier to reside there than to go to the better-feeling place and stay THERE, especially with the existing circumstances all around you reminding you of the reality.

What else is there to do but ask “What do I need to know here?  What is everything that is right about this situation?  How can I be of service to others and to the Universe in these circumstances?”  And then listen for the answers.  And hear them, trust them, and keep moving forward.