Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Blessings of Despair

Like many of you, I am no stranger to despair.

These last few months have been very interesting. I have born witness to my own manifestation of despair and boy have I learned a lot about the creation process.

There has been a quiet undercurrent of despair in my life this last year. It all started when I moved from Minnesota to Texas weeks after the birth of my baby daughter. My journey took me a whole country length away from my baby’s father, a move that has broken my heart in a very soft and subtle way (even though I did it to myself…)

There were many wonderful things that happened over the year as well. My days have been full with the joy of having a new baby, life with my family and time with my parents. The winter has been short and warm by my old Minnesota standards and I have a wonderful new house close to miles of hike and bike trails and innumerable parks.

I have a rich and complex life. Maybe you do, too?

In Prosperity Bootcamp we talk about the Law of Focused Succes:

“Where you put your energy and attention is where you get growth.”

As the year progressed, I had a lot of options about where to focus my attention. Some days it was very easy to focus on all the love and joy. When a gorgeous light-filled baby grins at you, it’s hard to feel miserable.

But there were other days fraught with sleep-deprivation or the stress of trying to raise a family of six on my own, run a more-than-full-time business by myself and stay balanced and centered.

On those days my focus was certainly directed more towards the despair.

Feeling crummy and focusing on it only created more feeling crummy.

The worse I felt, the more I avoided feeling my feelings. Rather than diving in and really allowing myself to use my despair as a tool to help me get more clarity about what I’d rather be experiencing instead in my life, I resisted my “bad” feelings.

I could have zipped through the despair, recognized it as a message from my Inner Wisdom, telling me that what I really wanted was to feel supported, nurtured, balanced and closer to my baby’s father.

But no. That would have been simple.

Instead, I chose to walk along the very well-worn neuropathway of Martyrdom and Suffering, going over and over and over all the events that created my despair until I could call up the pain (and then quickly resist it) with very little conscious thought. A cloud of pain just kind of hovered over me all day long.

(You all may now play your violins…)

Of course, as I was focusing on resisting the pain, I created more resistance until I had very little choice but to start really disconnecting from my Inner Wisdom and the Universe.

Not only that, but I was investing so much energy and attention into resisting an experience that, instead of going away, the experience kept getting bigger and bigger.

Isn’t it cool how the Law of Focused Success works?

It’s no wonder we get ourselves trapped in all kinds of self-made sticky situational webs…

This whole mess reached its “high point” just before Valentine’s Day when I decided to have a serious “heart to heart” talk with my guy. I didn’t go the way I hoped, but it did go exactly the way I had imagined, I had been creating it for half a year…

As this conversation went from bad to worse (his cell phone battery died at midnight and he wasn’t able to call back until morning…PERFECTLY CREATED, don’t you think…?!!), I could feel giant, etheric lead doors slam shut on all my charkas until I became nothing but a very logical head with legs. (Not pretty…)

I twisted with numb misery for a couple of weeks. I felt so disconnected from everything, even my kids, and entertained very dramatic visions of having a wildly successful business and being alone for the rest of my life…

Thank God for Inner Wisdom, old friends who kick your butt not matter how logical you think you are and the eternal magic of the Universe (disguised as seductive baby grins…)!

After weeks of whining to some of my friends, one in particular who can etherically “pull my covers” while sitting on a surfboard on the other side of the country, the magic in my life began to slowly reveal itself.

One exceptionall beautiful afternoon I was sitting on my back deck enjoying the warm sun on my body, even though my heart was heavy. In a flash my Inner Wisdom snuck in a brief thought and a light-filled epiphany echoed through my Being.

I was gently reminded that I had been praying to feel closer to my Divine Creator and the magic of the Universe for some time now and that, indeed, in the midst of all this misery, my prayer was being answered.

It’s hard when you’re in the midst of despair to remember that It’s All Good, even the pain. When we are experiencing the pain and identifying with it (I AM…) we can feel overwhelmed and hopeless.

Getting out of pain requires a diligent piecemeal approach. Sometimes we get stuck in pain because we are trying to move into joy too quickly, avoiding the message our pain is bringing us. Such a Giant Leap feels overwhelming and impossible. It’s too big a leap to start with.

While I was sitting on the deck enjoying the sun I decided that I was DONE suffering. And, even though I knew the possibility of joy, I just couldn’t quite get there. I was too dense and heavy with the energy of my suffering. So I started small.

Moving from despair to joy often requires taking tiny steps.

I began by making a mental list of all the things I am grateful for: the sun, my children, warmth, the beauty of the big sky over me.

I certainly didn’t move into joy but gratitude gave me an opening to grow into something that felt better.

Later that evening I headed out for a walk with my baby. As we strolled in the light of the setting sun, I marveled at the way the light hit the tree trunks of the trees lining the hike and bike trail. For 30 uninterrupted minutes I was blessed out by tree bark and the unlimited creative power of my Creator.

The little steps of getting out of pain were the real answer to my big prayer. As I expressed my gratitude for what I was experiencing, my connection to my Creator grew and I began to remember that big feeling of awe and wonder. My pain helped me become more present to the small joys and delights the Universe has to offer.

I remembered how, a few years ago when I was really struggling financially, experiencing deep gratitude for all my financial challenges. Without the challenges, I would never have grown in faith. My struggles taught me to use my creative powers and the lessons I learned are fundamentally a piece of who I am today.

But, I have been conditioned to suffer. While I am grateful for the lessons, what I have also learned is that you don’t have to get to a place of suffering to experience appreciation, joy, connection and gratitude.

Each moment of my last year, I was given a choice. My prayer was to feel more connected to the Divine. My conditioning created opportunities to do it the “old” way. I created despair and suffering as a vehicle to move into re-connecting with my Creator.

Many years ago, when I was a Parent Educator, I used to teach that children don’t have to suffer to learn.

I think adults don’t have to suffer to learn either. But sometimes we forget.

At each of my “choice points” over the last year, I could have just as easily chosen to focus on creating joy, by focusing on all the things that felt “good”. I wonder if I would have felt even more connected had I chosen that path…?

In addition to choosing to suffer, I also shut down and identified with my pain instead of using pain as the compass of my soul.

In Prosperity Bootcamp I talk about how we are not our emotions. Rather, our emotions help us identify how close we are to creating our intentions and our Pure Hearts Desires.

Our so-called “negative” emotions are simply energetic indicators that we are not holding a space in consciousness that is helping us create what we intend. Usually when we are experiencing “negative” emotions, we are either off-target with our thought forms or we are harboring old beliefs that are keeping us from allowing what we truly desire in our lives.

When we are experiencing “negative” emotions, it is simply our Inner Wisdom communicating with us, letting us know that we need to recalibrate our creation process, sometimes simply by asking the question, “What do you want to be experiencing instead?”

Instead of looking for evidence to support my belief that I am not loved, not supported and all alone, I could have searched for evidence to support new beliefs that I am supported, deeply loved, magnificently powerful and I have an abundance of people who love me in my life.

Truthfully, when I look back at this year with my renewed perspective, I HAVE been VERY supported, loved and cherished. But, I missed a lot of it.

It’s important when we are stretching ourselves into new belief patterns that we look for evidence that what we want is already present and growing in our lives, even if it feels like the evidence is teeny tiny. Remember, where you put your energy and attention is where you get growth.

What if I had seen the support that there all along? How different would my experience have been?

I am profoundly grateful for what I have learned. I am grateful for all the love and support I have received. I am grateful for my renewed connection to G-d and the renewed unleashing of magic in my life.

AND, please kick my butt if I choose the suffering path again.

I now choose to know that I am instantly, easily and constantly connected to my Divine Creator and that this awareness is Source of all my Good. I only have to appreciate and energize all that I desire and keep my energy and attention focused on the infinite abundance I AM. I am grateful for all of my life experiences. I am fully supported, deeply loved and magnificently powerful. I am an unlimited Child of the Universe. With this understanding, it is impossible for me to have any unmet needs or desires.

Wooo Hoooo!