For months, I’ve been clearing out my house. The hubz and I both like empty closets and drawers. It is a big house….built in 1852 by a Carriage maker. We have one storage room that we clear out every couple of years so that we are not storing old energy, old stuff, past plans.
The problem? It gets hauled to the garage and there it sits. For months, I’ve been stepping around the pile. The boxes and totes are filled with some good stuff. Stuff that if I put it on ebay would make me a nice pile of coffee money. But I don’t have an interest in using my time that way. So, I’m happy to offload at the Goodwill for someone to take it into their home or to do the work of selling and then making cash from it. Good for them.
Every time I stepped around the piles of outgoing energy, I was sending a message to myself and the Universe and all powers that make things happen, that I’m fine hanging on to the past. I’m fine moving half way into the future, part way into the next. Like going to London and never leaving the top of the tour bus.
So today, as I started stepping around the piles, I stopped. I looked at it all. And I put it in my Honda. You see, earlier this morning, I new I needed to take new physical action to keep my life flowing forward.
Emma Churchman and others call this energetic supportive action. It isn’t direct action for my goals, but it is physical action and that always supports the direct meeting of goals. The Quakers call it “way open”. The Quakers are speaking of that ineffable moment when what you thought was closed has now become open with opportunity. I think I’m talking about the same thing.
We are powerful creators of our own lives. We make choices every day. The life we are living today is the life we have each set in motion, by the people we have chosen or accepted to be around us, by the job we are in and possibly put up with, by the negative lifestyle choices we engage in over and over and over. I think there is a basic question about being a victim of anything. But I also completely believe that there is more empowerment in choosing the reality that I brought it all on and so I am powerful enough to change it. It is a mindset choice toward action.
A little exercise:
Take 2 full and deep breaths. Keep breathing while you think of a circumstance in your life that you believe is the outcome from someone doing something to you. Something you blame someone else for. Something that allows you to tag yourself as victim. Now, how does your body feel? What is the energy doing? What do you think you’ll accomplish with this energy?
Take 2 full and deep breaths. Keep breathing while you think of a circumstance in your life that you believe is the outcome of an external force. Now, breathe deep again and own it. Say “I chose this. I chose this from a host of previous choices and beliefs. I drew this to me. I own it. It is a powerful reality. That means I am equally powerful to change the outcome now.” How does your body feel? What do you think you’ll accomplish with this energy?
The body always expresses truth.
It is looking at consequences for a series of choices.
Do I date mean men because I watched my Mom in mean relationships and that is all I know?
Do I gain weight because I’ve turned to food for acceptance and love, as a balm for what I don’t have?
Am I stuck in a job for 30 years that still only pays me $9.50 an hour?
My life is the same every day and I hate it.
Move right on past self blame. It isn’t part of the equation here. Simply own your own beliefs and choices and work with your mindset, then say:
There are a wide variety of types of relationships and I am going to choose well so that my partner in love is good to me and has integrity.
Food is not conscious and is not capable of loving me. I am going to go to the library, coffee shop, movies…because I love myself enough to do something enjoyable. I love me.
I’m going to learn a new skill and get a different job.
I’m going to clean out all my closets and get rid of all the “some day” things and make room for what I want right now.
I’ve oversimplified my examples. But life can be that simple. If we get stuck stepping around our piles of blame and victimhood, leaving them anchored in the way of our life, we won’t move on. We won’t.
When we identify our piles, we can begin to get a sense of the container we need to move them. When we believe that we are the ones to bring the container and do the moving, then we can get going. Nobody is going to bring their dump truck to our garage, unless we at least call.
It is a long road. It is a hard road. And then you’ll know freedom.
Imagine what you need:
meditation
spiritual direction
vacation
therapy
divorce
new job or promotion
U-haul
new skillset
new mindset
In the end, what story do you want to tell? That you made your life happen or that the world was always against you?
I now can easily walk through the garage. I am no free of the past that is energetically held in each object. I felt the freedom immediately. I am now expecting a shift in my goals. That is how it works.
Let’s dig through the pile together.
Peace and Action,
Amy