good morning. there are many full and empty things. there are squash and ovens and hair. there are spoons catching glimpses of sunlight. There's a road split and fractured and endlessly joined. There are guitars hanging on the wall and little girls with eyes wide open and many people still asleep.
good morning, pleasant chill.
good morning, steaming breath.
good morning, holding, held, and longing.
Hallelujah, for all.
***
I used to think the flashlight of education was the trick. Shine the light, and problems will be solved. Nobody had taught me magic yet.
the magic that says, focus on it, and you’ll have more.
I learned this magic in my aunt’s backyard in Israel, at her outdoor table, near a small, burbling fountain. She laid it out for me: the universe doesn’t understand the word “No.” Think “No more of this” and it hears “more of this”. One must focus upon what is wanted.
And actually, the universe isn’t responding so much to our languaged thoughts, as our feelings. I feel this way, and experiences will unfold that cause me to feel more of this. So, joking about “what if ____” and laughing, will usually bring about more laughter. Worrying while saying I want more ____ will bring about more worry.
But, this isn’t to say only try to feel positive feelings. Negative feelings, or uncomfortable feelings, in my experience, get louder and louder till they have their say.
It’s a dance of positioning oneself toward gratitude, appreciation, love, and joy --- with gratitude lists, gridding, and looking for what’s beautiful. And also, when tears come, holding oneself with love in it. Let it flow and flow. Heartbreak is like a liquid that pours and pours.
I know some things. Not nearly every thing, but a whole frickin lot. I know there’s magic and I’ve seen it work, and sometimes, I can’t get out of my own way enough for it to work, meaning I stay secretly worried, and so I get more to worry about.
The best thing for secret worries is to air them out, and then do a focus wheel, also known as making it rain.
So, here are some of my secret worries, and a focus wheel:
I’m worried we messed up our budgeting. I hate being so low on money. I hate that I feel that I can’t get Ruby the doll she wants. I’m sad about it too.
To start the focus wheel, I put my uncomfortable feelings in a rain cloud at the top of a page. I get very honest, willing to name the discomfort. Usually, underneath one layer is another, more powerful layer...like in this one, once I wrote “impatient” and “annoyed”, I found “ashamed”. Which is AWESOME!
It’s awesome because, at the bottom of the page, in a field of flowers, I write all the opposite feelings...the feelings I wish all these uncomfortable feelings would turn into. And since I got honest about feeling ashamed, I can honestly wish for it’s opposite...feeling proud and confident. Hoo boy, wouldn’t that be nice?
My raincloud:
I feel sad and slow to catch up to the financial success of my friends and family. Impatient. Eager. Annoyed. Ashamed.
My field of flowers:
happy, joyful, at peace, confident, proud, successful, on track, relaxed, trusting
And then I draw 10 or so big raindrops, big enough to fit a sentence or so in tiny writing. These will be filled with true-feeling statements that feed the feelings written in the flower field. It’s often hard to get started. It’s very important that each statement feels true, that they resonate with you, and that they are on the topic you are focus wheeling on, and support the feelings on the bottom of the page, not the top. It’s fine to say the same thing in different ways, because each different way of saying it is creating a neural pathway towards what you’re wanting, and that’s the whole point of this anyways...building neural pathways towards, familiarizing with the vibration of, how you prefer to feel.
My rain drops:
1. I’m proud that we are budgeting and accounting for food and whatnot
(we haven’t always included food in our budgeting, since we used to have food stamps and relied on that until it ran out and then were surprised when we had to pay for food)
2. I appreciate Nick’s holiday gift and how my family’s abundance enriches my life
(helps me feel on track and joyful)
3. I love that Coop and I both have steady jobs we enjoy and are great at and we can actually budget now
(we used to have really unreliable work schedules that made it pretty impossible to know how much income we would have. recognizing this growth helps me feel on track, successful, relaxed)
4. I LOVE that we have enough money to pay all our bills and be working ourselves out of debt
( as I’m writing these, I keep looking down at the field of flowers, re-reading the feelings I am wishing for. Re-reading them brings me new thoughts of what I could write in the next raindrop)
5. I trust that my life is evoking in me all the skills I need to rock out!
(trusting, on track, relaxed)
6. I feel so rich in my friends and supported and joined in my growth
(this is nicely transforming feelings of jealousy, which I didn’t even see clearly enough to name in the beginning, into feeling joined and made richer by my friends’ success and closeness)
7. I feel proud of our home and proud of the food we eat and how we spend our money
(after #6 I realized I wanted to activate more the feeling of pride in myself and what I have…#7 helps me activate pride in myself)
8. I feel successful in new ways: dancing with work, family, partnership, and a strong art practice
(This really helps me feel successful..acknowledging what success means to me, which includes having a strong art practice, and is something I’ve grown much stronger in in the past year and I feel real on track, proud, and confident in this area of my life!)
9. I love knowing that more money is always coming in
(relaxing, trusting)
10.I love that I feel Coop’s potential for growth as much as my own
(proud, growth, joined, joyful)
11. I love the brilliant friends I have. Seeing myself in their company makes me feel so proud and on track.
(acknowledging that my friends demonstrate characteristics I admire so much, and when I see it in them, I also can see it in myself)
Wow! Now when I look at the top of the page, the raincloud, all those feelings, which felt very true and close before, feel distant. Like what? Why would I be impatient? How could I feel ashamed? And the feelings on the bottom of the page, in the field of flowers, are all activated and happily buzzing around within me.
This inspires me to write a new story from this new vantage point. A story of my success:
I am currently in the middle of a grand deepening of my skills on many fronts: I am learning how to have a reliable job while prioritizing my art practice, my partner, my daughter, and my friendships. My partner and I are learning how to budget together in a fun and practical way, and we are getting better and better at it! I am successfully showing up for my job, my art work, and my relationships, and it’s all working out! Bills are paid and gifts are flowing in. We are living in a gorgeous house close to incredible friends who love to collaborate with us. We are planning a gallery show for next summer! I feel so nourished in many different ways, and deeply happy, proud, successful, and on track. I know more is coming and it will keep getting better, and I feel relaxed and enjoying my now as well. It’s all good. I love it!
P.S. A few days later, relaxed about money, feeling on-track and artistic as I was drawing an invitation for a gathering, and I got a call that I had won a raffle that I entered, which gave me $100 to spend towards any downtown plaza store. I was able to buy the doll for my daughter, the doll that I thought I couldn't afford and was so sad about, which had inspired the focus wheel. With the raffle money, I also bought beeswax that I used to make candles with friends. It's easy to see how the person who feels the feelings in the field of flowers gets these kinds of easy, fun gifts from life. And rather than feeling selfish-in-a-bad-way for wanting what I want, letting what I want enrich my real-deal dreams, which inevitably corresponds with wellness for all of my beloveds and beyond.