How to Manifest

There are many words that become misconstrued over time due to misuse.  Manifest definitely falls into that category. The way I understand the term manifest directly relates to how to create one's reality. From my own experience, I know that what is happening externally to me (my experience of reality) is based on what is happening internally (my emotional reality).

I caution that in my way of thinking, I don't buy into victim blaming. Shit happens. Bad shit happens to good people. Nothing of value comes from saying to a person that they caused their cancer or their car accident. Or that there must be a reason they called the cancer or the car accident into their lives. No.

It's about understanding the blocks that created a dam and skewed the path. What are the blocks that prevent your life from flowing easily? Let’s look at those.

When a little baby is born, it is born without shame or apology. A baby is a little drop of spirit-life who spits-up and poops and without knowing they should apologize for having such human needs. As the little drop of spirit-life grows, the world (via parents) soon teaches them that they do in fact need to mold their self around expectations. This is an experience that their value of belonging is contingent on their rearranging their Self to meet the needs of others. This harsh reality is the beginning of internalizing: "something is wrong with me!" The implicit messages become internalized: I need to be a certain way to have value.  Don't cry too much. Don't have big feelings. Don’t be __[fill in the blank]___ or I won’t be accepted. Don’t have needs that are inconvenient for others. And so we grow from the unashamed little drop of spirit into a shame-based human.

Some of the messages that lead to this idea of needing to mold around people, to the point of denying our own Self, include:

-Productivity leads to personal value (you are of no value on your own sitting around, you have to do something)

-There is a lack in the world: don't take up to much space; don't take too much food; don't be too loud. Stay small. (Brene Brown refers to this idea as the culture of scarcity.)

-There is suffering… and an obligation to keep going anyway. Life sucks. Suck it up. Keep going.

-Meet the needs of others even it means your needs aren't met.

You can argue about whether you got these messages growing up or not. You can probably relate to a couple of them. There are unique messages you got in your family, too. These messages are both explicit and implicit through an adult’s responses to events in life or from your observation of family relationships.

How do any of us know who we are without the mirror of relationships to show us? Our first mirror is our family of origin. The way we are looked at from the beginning, is how we grow to see ourselves. Our self-talk grows out of the way we were talked to early in life.

Let's use a more extreme situation for the purpose of example. A child raised by a depressed mother or a violent father is going to carry messages of: "I'm not good enough"; “The world is unsafe"; "I can't trust that I'll be okay." As this child grows, the messages might become less apparent and more buried within a way of being. Perhaps the child continues to engage in difficult relationships as an adult or perhaps the child becomes highly successful and achieves great things. It's not about success or failure and what that means. It's about how the self- talk continues.

If there is no room in my own Self for acknowledging my feelings or meeting my needs, then I am not likely to bring good things into my life. When I set out to create a fortune or to find love, I will be doing so from a place of low worth. How can I manifest wealth or acceptance, if I carry in my own self-talk: "I don't deserve good things."; "I am not worthy of being loved."

These messages are not on the surface most of the time. There can be an internal emotional experience that isn't filled with negative self-talk, but there will be emotions. The underlying emotions are often fear, shame, sadness and grief.

So, how to manifest?

1. Get an alignment between: 1) how you think about your Self; 2) what you want; 3) how you live.

2. Cast out your intention of what you want through writing it out. Be specific in the description of the future picture that you want. (Do not write out the steps to get there. Manifesting is not goal -setting.) In this picture, how will you feel? What will it look like?

3. Let go of attachment. Manifesting requires we practically forget about it. We don't work actively to think it through or to worry about how to get what we want. We just let it go. Like a stone into the water and we stand back and notice the ripples, but the stone is gone.

4. Live in the alignment.

Here’s an example. If I want to lose weight, I must first think of myself as "a healthy person" despite my current state of health. Then I cast out the intention of being a healthy person. Then I live like I am a healthy person. The alignment is between perception of Self, a clear desire (want) and the actions or behaviors based on that.

That might seem oversimplified or ridiculous, but once the blocks are cleared out, manifesting an outer world is this easy. First, you need to understand the blocks. Why can't you get what you want? What are the specific hooks in beliefs that are holding you back? They are the messages that you were given. They are the legacy that you are carrying around from your family and early experiences. Unpack these untrue messages and the emotional logic that weighs you down and you will create a life of wonder! You will feel like a hungry human who has found a free buffet! Your life will be yours to live freely.

                                    The world is but a canvas to our imagination

                                                                              ~ H. D. Thoreau

Oh this labyrinth!

Oh this labyrinth! Oh this labyrinth!

The words must be written twice!

I love it. I hate it. I mourn that its going to melt even though we are months away from the threat of higher temperatures.

I worked to make the patterns (you already read that post). I had SO much help from my husband and kids (same post) and now the beautiful pattern sits there. Because I have more to do in the world than simply walk the labyrinth and write about the insights I have gained from it, I often am required to just walk past it. I am leaving to go to work. I walk past it when I come home feeling world-weary. I rush past it to run an errand and home again with my arms full.

It, the labyrinth, simply stays put.... and looks at me. Observing me as I am meant to observe it. I want to yell: Stop looking at me!!

It simply stays. Lit up beautifully (now) with lights all over- except one part of one outer loop. It's perfect the way it is. I love it. A perfect spiritual path just staying there. Waiting. Looking. Mocking, almost. 


What a metaphor! Or as I like to call them now: effin-metaphors!

My spiritual path lies in wait for my own body and mind to settle in to it's direction. No judgement (Yeah, okay I'll admit it: the judgement is mostly all mine and not the labyrinth's per se.) And as I am busy in the to-and-fro of life, spirit stays steadfast and waiting until it is called upon.

I LOVE my labyrinth. I love, adore, honor and cherish it. I have developed a strange attachment to something that is made out of small snow mountains and Christmas lights. I check on it before bed. I relish, with a warmth in my chest, when I look out at it from the bedroom window. I love it because it stays. Like a dog waiting with a wagging tail. It's there for me when I am coming and going. (The loyalty of spirit should not be compared to a snow path or a dog, but there it is.)

I HATE my labyrinth. It is mocking me. Calling me. Telling me how inadequate my attention to spirit and inward reflection really is. It shows me every day that I'm out of balance and how ridiculous I am for not simply choosing... simply choosing... to step on to the spiritual track and allow myself to breathe out my anxiety and breathe in my calm knowing my self and self worth. What's it take? 10-15 minutes? I can't find those few minutes to reorient to spirit and my authentic/ aligned self?

I HATE the way it simple sits there like it knows it all.Sometimes I want to stick my tongue out at the dummy-know-it-all-labyrinth. 



10:30 pm.

I walk my labyrinth. I'm putting on my boots near the back door and I'm mumbling under my breath: "Well, I guess I better walk the stupid thing." and I'm out the door with my ear buds in and my phone in my coat pocket. The music helps set a calming tone and drown out the naysayer doubts in my head.


I walk in: "I'll find spiritual comfort in 15 minutes and head back inside. Here we go. Let's do this thing."

I keep walking. "Ahh... breathing. Letting go. Easing in. Leaning in. I really *do* love my labyrinth. Forgive me for all my negative thoughts."

I finally reach the centre.

The neighborhood dogs stop barking. The music, with the labyrinth, have been talking on their own. They tell me a forgotten story about love and unconditional value and connections with all things on earth and in the stars. I remember. Did you think I could have forgotten?! (I had forgotten, but I won't admit it.)

I inhale and face South. Inhale- West. Again-inhale- north. Inhale.... East. I stand again toward the North and remind my self that this forgotten story is not that old nor that forgotten. This is the place of my own self--- truly "MY divinity in MY own backyard". How on earth or in heaven can you forget your own divinity in your own backyard? And yet I do. Multiple times. Over and over again. 

(Gawd damn effin' labyrinth.)


I walk out. I let go some more. I feel my shoulders come down from their place of standing guard around my ears. I know I am loved. I know (even more so) I am loveable.

I keep walking out. " Ahh...breathing. Letting go. Easing within. Allowing." I know this place: I love you. I love me. I could write a book about the heavens and the stars and our place on earth and the meaning of love and truth and light. Why would I ever doubt it? Why don't I stay home and walk this labyrinth all the time- like three times a day? And write the book because I know it all. I understand the all the answers to all the big questions.

I reach the exit. I turn and face the labyrinth. I stand in awe at my own transformation.

Again.

I bow my head and whisper: thank-you. thank-you.

I don't know exactly to whom I say thank-you: my spirit guides and friends? Yes. My own self? It's my creation. My family? Because without them I wouldn't know how wonderful it could truly be?

Yes. That's who. All of them and me.


I miss my labyrinth.

I mourn you already. I'll miss you when the sun is warmer and the snow walls are melting. I'll have rings of Christmas lights in the brown grass before I give you up.

I'll find you in other places, I know. Spirit is not only in this snow-path and only right here. But right now I feel like a child who knows the vacation days are numbered. I need to eke out of you all the wonder that I can.

Winters are long, but this year won't be quite long enough for me.

Let me take that as a metaphor for this life and eke out of it-- my 80 years or more, I hope-- all the wonder that I can. Let me remember, that somewhere inside of me, I know love and spirit so well that I could write a book. Let me remember that all of this is as close as my own 'backyard'. It's all right there and waiting for me to choose to reorient to that place.

This is the gift of my labyrinth.

Oh this labyrinth!

:-) With a knowing love,
Heather. 

Labyrinths

I haven't posted in a long time. Earlier this month I had the chance to go to Maui. While I was there, I and 18 colleagues- admin staff, social workers and nurses- visited The Sacred Garden owned and operated by Eve Hogan, author of The Way of the Winding Path. What a treat!

We listened to Eve talk about the labyrinth as a metaphor for the way we lived our life and few other metaphorical stories to capture our imaginations and allow us to think in new ways. While we were there, we had a chance to walk her 11-circut labyrinth modeled after the Chartres Cathedral in France.

It was a pleasure to walk it with my fellow co-workers and it did indeed reflect a lot of what I have been feeling about my role at the clinic and allowed for an opportunity to pause in time and place and reflect.

What I want to talk about now though is the labyrinth I have busily been working on for the last several days.

 

I came home and within days went to work on a snow labyrinth in my backyard. Well if walking a labyrinth is a metaphor for how we live in the real world, I can tell you that much more so is the making of a labyrinth. 

I started out with the idea and then told Steve, my wonderful husband. He had lots of input, but wasn't rushing to make it for me. I decided it *needed* to be built and headed outside on a mild Sunday morning. I was trying to make it while being followed around by my 9-year-old twins. I love them dearly, but in a middle of this project all I could say was: "This isn't relaxing yet. This is very stressful, you need to stop talking. I'm trying to do math!" I was being completely ignored by my 11 1/2 year-old daughter. 

I marked out the pattern of where the walls would go by walking the diagram in my hand. No problem. Then I tried to invert it. I needed to make the part that was my foot tracks into walls the parts that were currently raised into paths! This might not be my thing. Did I mention that I *needed* to build the labyrinth? The design wasn't complicated, (classic 7-circuit design), but the inversion was tricky. Was I supposed to put a little wall of snow here or there? Where were the lines and where was the path going to be?

Steve sat quietly out of the way in his office until I called into the back hall and down the stairs (while the 9-year-olds were giving me advice about it all). I couldn't come in to the house too far since I was covered with snow... and determined! Steve came out and followed the drawing like a puzzle to assist me in where the walls would be. You can't tell from the picture here, but when Steve came out, I had the first wide ring of lights; then a ring of a rope; a ring of the garden hose that might have a leak; then a ring of lights that don't seem to work; then a ring of the lights that do work, but aren't plugged in.... all in an attempt to figure out where to stomp down the snow to make a path. Oh, and there were some weird blue lines in the snow made by a spray bottle with blue dye. It kept the twins busy, but I have one sink permanently stained blue.

Steve came out and helped with the end part. He solved the puzzle! It was just about a project that would have no ending (literally, since the labyrinth pattern was wrong and kept going in a never-ending circle!) Just when I thought it couldn't be built, Steve came out and declared it a working labyrinth. It all came together! I took this picture and put it on FB, declaring a success!

*****************************

Then it snowed. Then I went to walk it. 

I had made a goat path! How could I have invited people over to walk it? I could barely put one foot in front of the other in some places. It might be the most lame labyrinth of the entire arctic wintery history! This is terrible. 

*******************************

Finally a few days later I had a day off. I went out with a spade, an edger (think: for sod) and a kids size shovel (the perfect width, but a short handle). I spent two hours carving the snow and increasing the width of the paths! What a life reflection! 

First I started around the wide outside edges. No problem. Man! Am I good! People are going to come to this labyrinth walk and think I'm great. They are going to LOVE it! This is wonderful! I am wonderful! 

Then I got tired. I was really sweating under all my fleece at -15 C! What was I thinking? I shouldn't have people over. They are going to judge this, but tell me it's fine. Its not fine!

Okay, I can do this. Its hard, but really love what I'm doing. I'm SO happy to have a labyrinth in my backyard. Who cares what people think? This is fantastic. I am literally carving out my spiritual journey. I need that. My clients need that-- carving out time and space for oneself. This is important (but really hard) work that I am doing. Its so pertinent to personal development. I'm on a roll! 

I started to get REALLY tired, but I was getting closer to the middle- only three more circuits to go. I can't believe that the paths are this narrow. What was I thinking when I made this? Why would I have done such a terrible job? People won't be able to pass on this walkway. I'll do it better next year. Who am I kidding? I won't make this again. This is way too hard. I should give up now. I can't keep shoveling out these paths. They are too narrow and the snow is too powdery to stay up on the little walls. I should just go in and forget about it. 

Then I cleaned out the snow in the centre. 

I can do this. Look where I am. Who else can say that they physically created a spiritual path? Really! I HAVE A LABYRINTH! This should make the news. This is great! This is the best thing of the year! I actually did it! Do I have enough pictures? One picture won't be enough. I should take more. I wonder how I could get more lights. (ie: 'not enough' thinking- even though I had a lot!).

*******************************

Then I walked the labyrinth. I went inside first actually. I took a shower, changed and ate lunch. I felt rejuvenated. I went out to visit my new-and-improved-paths. I walked along the outside edges and I walked along the inside edges listening to mediation music on my phone. I felt satisfied. I kept thinking about who else would come and walk this labyrinth before it melted? How much joy could the labyrinth mete out before it was gone and the girls' trampoline was in its place? Nothing lasts forever, but I will enjoy this while I can. Holy cow! I am SO lucky!

I came to the middle of the labyrinth and paused with a deep breath. I felt the brightness of the sun on my face. And I felt the cold wind on my cheeks. It was still -15 and now it felt like it. 

"I have arrived!",  I thought.

"I am surrounded by the warmth and beauty of my family and my home and my yard."

"I am grateful for all that I have."

"I am enough. 

I have enough.

I do enough."

Ahhh.... Enough. Is there a better word in the English language? 

Now its time to go in and make supper. 

No pretense. No self-doubt. No judgement. Just living to live. Just walking the sacred path because it is carved. Feeling satisfied. It is carved because I chose it to be. How lucky am I? SO lucky! This will only stay a short while and I will appreciate every minute of it. I promise. :-)

With love,

Heather.

The dark passage of grace

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb
softens from the pain of labour
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart,
it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones,

like trusted midwives are saying,
'welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace.
~Rumi

 

The truth of this quote is ancient. It is the first step on the path of enlightenment; it is the foundation of therapy; it is the key to happiness!

We all do it. We see the pain. We smell the pain. We have a bit of a sense of the pain and we walk away in the other direction. We keep ourselves busy and distracted. We avoid. We numb. We complain. We do anything we can to avoid taking the first step. That is the step into and *through* the pain. 

The mistake we make is in falsely believing that if we feel the feelings of the pain we will never return. We falsely believe that if we move into the pain we will either break in a way that we can't be fixed or be lost in a way that we can't be found. 

Imagine this: (I wish I could draw on a blog).

Numb/ Avoid          <-----    YOU ------> PAIN    ------->     Everything you dreamed possible.

Misery                                                        

2 x 4 over the head

 

We go in the opposite direction of the pain.  We are not happy. We might even be miserable, but it is a misery with which we are familiar and so we keep at it. 

In the numbing and avoiding we are living our lives, but are not happy. We feel stressed, rushed, in survival mode, unable to keep up. We are spinning our wheels in obligation. Trying to get by. We feel alone and depressed or angry and resentful. We have no time for self-care: eating well, exercising, self-reflection and self-love.


We won't take time to stop and when we do stop, we numb.

I think of hitting oneself over the head with a 2 x 4. We keep doing what we have always done because we are so afraid to put down the 2 x 4. Even though what we are doing hurts us we don't know what we would do if we weren't doing this. We are afraid of the PAIN and we are afraid of what is on the other side of it. The void on the other side is a fear only second to the PAIN.

*********

This is the first step- put down the avoiding/ numbing/complaining behaviors. Dare to walk away from the misery. 

Then you will have to see the PAIN. You will have to admit to the whiff in the air of the thing you are trying to avoid. Each person's pain carries it's own name, but after exploring you will call it worthlessness. You will see that the misery comes from avoiding the feeling that without the misery you feel worthless. This is the reason for the fear of the pain. This is the core of the pain for each of us. It is a part of the human condition.

The recognition of this is the pain akin to labor in childbirth. This is the pain you are avoiding. And it is in moving through this pain that you will find grace. 

*********

Grace = Exhale. (Take a big breath right now. Allow an exhale. Try it.) 

This is the place of redemption. It is in this grace that you will find the gift of self-forgiveness. You will pay-off the debt: the price you have been paying in misery.

You will be free to feel the love of which you are apart. The greater love of the world- the stuff that is the binding force of connection between us all.

This is the place of worthiness. Of knowing: your value is demonstrated in simply being. There is nothing you need to do to be of value. You simply are. And that is enough.

This is a place of self-realization or divine love. By all names it is the same place and it is waiting for you.

********

It is in this grace that you will find that all of your dreams are possible. You belive this will be a scary place to go. You are afraid of what you will find when you see the treasure of your heart and the vastness of this love.

 I will tell you the name of this place: it is a life of ease. A place where you can create the life you can't yet imagine. It is a place where there is no striving to keep up and survive; no need to struggle to prove your worth. In this place you can be who you are and live without fear of the PAIN.  You no longer need to avoid/ numb/ complain. You can create the life of your dreams.

********

I invite you to explore this place (even though you may not think it applies to you). You may accept and yet spend many hours outside the door of PAIN examining the edges and thinking about the frame's construction. Vacuuming the rug you imagine to be right outside this door. I know. I have been there. I have thought the door would not be worthwhile. 

I urge you to know that it is simply by walking through and facing the truth of this PAIN that you will move through into the place of your dreams- a place where you discover the treasure within your heart and the vastness of great love.

It is with great love that I leave you with these thoughts. 

Heather. 

One more time...

Many of my FB friends and anyone who has read more than the intro page of my website will know that I lost 100 lbs over 3 years. (Yay me!) I did it with a lot of hard work and the support of Weight Watchers. They are a great group for on-going support for healthy living. I had a lot of cheering friends and family as well, but mostly I had my own inner determination. Weight loss was a mountain I was going to climb! And I did. At my peak fitness I ran a 10k race in 63 minutes.

Well, like 97% (!!) of people who lose weight I gained some of mine back. It's been 2 years since I made my weight loss goal and I have gained back 30lbs. :-(

I like to think that I know one or two things and so I should be able to keep my weight off. I know that I dealt with the underlying issues for why I protected myself behind excess fat. I know that my intensive years of spiritual work let me shed old skins and move in to new ways of being. I know that I am not the same person I was 7 years ago. So how on earth did I slip right back into old patterns?!

I have lots of excuses. When I have listed my reasons in confession to confidants I hear that they are good reasons (ya gotta love the people who love you!). And they are good-enough excuses: DIY renovations, a sick family member, an intense University course etc. But the real reason is a layer or two deeper than that.

It's about the gravity of habit (As I learned from Ellie Hernon). For all the changes we can go through, we still have a comfortable baseline that we fall back on. We rely on the comfort of the place that is familiar. We do work on the Self and there is an elevation. From this place, we understand a bigger picture and we cultivate and create energy to move into another place. However, there is always the other pull. The weight of gravity that pulls us to the earth and to our comfortable habit and way of being.

For me, it's about accepting food in social gatherings big and small because I am enjoying the love. Its about confusing self-indulgence with self-care as I get a quiet moment to myself. It's about missing work-outs and long runs because I am a Very Very Busy Person and I don't have time for those. It's a place I lived for a lot of years and it's a familiar repetitive pattern: the worse I feel, the more I eat. The more I eat, the less I move. The less I move, the worse I feel. It feels like the Rock of Gibraltar. It's not pleasant over the long term, but it is a place I know well.

Deeper than that, it's about falling into a pattern of putting other peoples' needs ahead of my own. (Ouch, that hurts!) It's true. I am a middle child/ mother/ helping professional and my default is to help others before taking care of myself. In fact, in the moment, I can even feel a little noble about sacrificing my own needs. I will also do it with one area of my life over another. I will choose to focus so greatly on renovations or volunteer work or something else that I will neglect my own personal needs. The sacrifice becomes the excuse for the treat or the missed work out. As I write this now, that sounds weird and wrong to me, but I know it's part of my Rock that when left unchecked, I will just keep rolling up the hill.

You know what though? It doesn't work. I felt like crap. Over the last 6 months in particular, my mental state went from feeling my life was a fantastic gift full of joy and love to feeling like I couldn't handle things. And the more I felt like things were hard, the more I turned to the familiar comfort of sacrificing, eating and sitting.

I am happy to say that I this is recently past tense. After a particularly crazy summer and fall (and who am I kidding- winter, too) I am on the upswing. I am back to working out, running and yoga. I can feel the difference. I sleep better. I eat better. I enjoy my family more. I am happier!

Sure there is still the reality that when I was losing weight, it was like a part-time job. I spent a fair amount time dealing with my food and working out. I don't want to have a life where I have to spend that much time and be that focused, but I do want to do it better.

Instead of climbing Weight Loss Mountain (and apparently rolling down it again!), I want to make a new comfortable home on the mountain. I want to find the place that isn't at the pinnacle of fitness or the apex of professional achievement or even (gasp) the peak of spiritual enlightenment. I want to live on that part of the mountain that offers an integration of all these things- spirit, body and mind. I want to live in all of these aspects of my life everyday.

Here is what I think the secret to this particular spot on the mountain might be; the simplest lesson of them all: take care of your self.

Eat properly. Drink water. Get enough rest. Move your body. Have quiet time alone in your head. Have time with loved ones. Let your own needs be met. Allow yourself to care and nurture your Self- everyday.

It seems too easy to be true, doesn't it? It even feels a little disappointing to think that's it. Well, I think its one of those life truths that is easy to espouse, but remarkably difficult to achieve:

Put the rock down and walk away.

Dare to meet your needs.

Whoa!

Thanks for reading.

Heather.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. ~ Gothe

I have been talking to people lately about how they are planning for their next steps: their FUTURE. Most people work out logical plans for steps to take to get to what they want. It's a planning process that looks like this:

My goal is to have a summer home on Vancouver Island.

First step: go back to school.
Second step: get a job where I make more money.
Third step: get money to buy summer home.

So, when you ask this person: "What do you want?" Their answer is: "I want to go back to school?"

Really?

No.

What they really want is the summer home on the Island. So, why not start there? Why take these long routes around?

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
~Gothe

This is the difference between planning and manifesting. Planning has a goal and steps. Its path is seen from Point A to Point B to Point C and so on. There is no room to maneuver and wiggle and change.

Manifesting isn't a series of concrete steps. To manifest something, you hold the focus of your intent in an elevated state of consciousness (1) and then you simply let it go. That isn't to say that you do nothing toward your goal. Of course you do, but you don't hold it tight in your fist.

Imagine a child holding a beautiful butterfly. To love it intensely and try to possess it, is to kill it. To release it, is to love it with grace. This is the way to love your dream.

Here is an example from my life. I used to weigh more than 250 lbs and smoke. (Oh, so unhealthy!) I was about 18 months into doing circle work (1) and I reached a place where I was able to hold "health". What I mean by that is, I had both the state of consciousness and the focus to be a healthy person right now.

But, I was still overweight and smoked. I didn't appear any different from the outside. What had changed is that I was no longer: "the smoker" or "the fat girl." Like taking off a coat, I was able to shed those identities. Now I wore the identity of "healthy person."

I was able to shed those identities because I was living with a different state of consciousness. I was able to gather the multitude of fractured intentions within my self and hold a singular focus. From this place I was the new person: "healthy person" and from here it wasn't nearly as difficult to take that weight off. Healthy people rarely weigh that much so I didn't need all that extra padding on me now.

That was 2007. Four years later I have long since given up smoking, lost 100 lbs and I run for fun. I could never have done that if I wasn't able to wear the identity of "healthy person."


Back to the example of the summer home. If that is what you want, are you able to be that person now? Can you hold the place of "I am a person who owns a summer home on the Island."

Does that sound pompous to you?
Do you hold a belief about people who have a lot of money?
Do you hold a belief about how you are able to come to such luxurious things?
Do all rewards have to be proceeded by hard work?

Hmmmm... if you think that rich is inherently bad and that only work will lead to good things (and even then, not too good, just moderately good), how will you ever be the person who owns a summer home on the Island? You will only ever be the person who struggles to be that wealthy.

So, take a moment and think about the thing you want. The thing you truly want. Are you a person who can hold that?

And if you are: begin it! Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.

And if you are struggling under the weight of that desire, come in. This is the work we can do together.

With love,
Heather.



(1) From A Mind for Mastery (unpublished manuscript) by Ellie Hernon.
Spiritual counesling information here: http://www.pointonthepath.com/

On risk taking

Well, it seems an appropriate title to my first blog. I used to hide what I did on-line and although Facebook has done a lot toward letting me be in the digital world openly, having a web site and now a blog are still challenges.

"Nobody move and nobody gets hurt."

It's a line from an old rap song (and every bank robbery scene in old movies), but it sort of summarizes the way I think lots of us are taught to be in the world.

"Do what you're told" "You don't need to make a fuss."

Isn't this what we heard as children in school and at home? Sure some of us may have had different messages, but by and large it is a message of conformity that we consider appropriate socialization and acculturation.

Of course the problem is that without risk, there is no passion. Without passion is there life? I mean a real life?

I realized recently that I often find myself in situations where I am second in command and miserable. I *like* being a leader, but I am afraid of the commitment that takes and of the risk! If I am the one in charge then I am the one responsible. What if I don't get it right? And even if I could get it right, how much work will it actually take? Maybe I am better off to just blend in and lay low.

When I was in my 20's I used to do stupid-ish kinds of risk-taking in order to keep myself from taking the big risks- like dropping out of University and driving around in my car. So instead, I jumped out of an airplane a couple of times; I went tandem hang-gliding; met strange people in strange places and probably did things that were strange and unsafe. A kind of risk-taking that is of limited value and more so: misdirected.

That's the kind of risk-taking I think lots of people do. People take stupid risks: drink too much; drive too fast; spend more than they can afford; fool around with birth control; don't wear their seat belts; are careless in the relationships with the people they love the most.

Why do people take these misdirected risks? I think most of it is an unconscious and unaware sense of life, but some of it is searching for a thrill or something that feels good for the moment. There are other ways to fulfill the need that these stupid risks temporarily fill.

One way: be real.

(Wow, what a risk!)

It's hard to be honest with our self and with those in our life. I don't mean brutal honesty, but how about brutal vulnerability? How about living from a place where you can appreciate the fragility of life and the value of relationships?

It is said best by Anais Nin:

And the day came when the risk to
remain tight in a bud was more painful
than the risk it took to blossom.

So what am I risking by writing out my thoughts and claiming myself as a spiritual counselor & teacher?

That who I am will be judged.

But that is a risk I am willing to take.

If you want to, here it is: a spot in the digital world where you can point and say: "Really? Is that what you think? That's so dumb!"

But if you want, this is a place you can come back to and read my thoughts about how to live a fulfilled and wonderful life. That's what I (dare I say it) teach!

Heather.