In the last blog post, I wrote about the connection between the Law of Attraction and what I called the ‘context’ we’re living in – one that can, without too much exaggeration, be called a ‘Prison Planet’.
I talked about how, while the Law of Attraction (LOA) is as real as gravity, most people can’t seem to make it work for them, and then beat themselves up over it. I talked about how it’s time for us to wake up to what’s really going on here on Planet Earth, and that we have to leverage the LOA in a bigger context, by visioning an entirely new world …
What I didn’t talk about is the way all of this has impacted and influenced my own life. This is because I wanted to give the broad view first, and though I was elaborating on some very harsh aspects of our current ‘reality’, I feel it was important.
But there’s more to this conversation …
Honesty & Intensity
I’ve been ‘accused’ (most lovingly) of being brutally honest and intense at times. Today, I want to be honest and a bit intense with you. I do this not to “bore you with my ‘story'”, but in the hope that by sharing it, I offer a way for you to feel more loving kindness for yourself.
So here goes …
My life isn’t a wild success. There, I said it. I’m not rich, I’ve not yet achieved some very important personal goals, I feel I’m growing old before my time, and I’ve been a massive disappointment to my parents …
For years, both consciously and sub-consciously, I’ve criticized and berated myself for things like: How financially unsuccessful I’ve been; how little impact I’ve had on the world; how many mistakes I’ve made as a child, a parent and a spouse; how many things I still want to Be, Do and Have that feel impossibly FAR AWAY. I’ve beaten myself up for so long that today, when I look in the mirror, I see the face of a woman much older than her years. It’s a harsh reality for me, especially because I was so beautiful in my youth.
But something ‘dawned’ on me this morning, thanks to a convergence of factors, about my life and these supposed ‘failures’. ….
Context & Expectation (Revisited)
In my last blog post I wrote: “It’s not about the LOA, it’s about context and expectation.” As I wrote it, I realized that all of my disappointed expectations for myself, in the context of a world of worker-bee ‘slaves’, are completely bass-ackwards!
The Opt-Out
You see, a long time ago, I OPTED-OUT. Maybe it was the first time I smoked dope. Maybe it was sooner than that. Maybe I came in never intending to be a slave to the system, working in mediocrity for a lifetime, living for my weekends and retirement pension before I or my husband dropped dead from exhaustion.
So instead of conformity, I got hassled for being a ‘hippie’ and an outsider in my youth, became a poor, single mom at 18, took up a course of study at University (Women’s Studies & Literary Criticism) that would never get me a ‘decent’ job, spent a dozen years doing a ‘career’ that put nothing in my retirement account (the martial arts), left it all behind and started over at 38. Yikes! NOT a formula for success … or is it?
Formula for Success?
What exactly IS ‘success’ anyway? Is it all the ‘big’ stuff – you know: money, cars, houses, stuff. Is it making a huge impact in the world for the better? Is it getting your a** safely to retirement with a few good years to spare for winters in Florida or to watch your grandbabies grow up?
I’m going to propose something different. I’m going to propose that ‘success’ is all about happiness and authenticity. And for me, personally, this has meant things like: Variety, Travel, Self-Expression, Beauty and Love.
I knew from very early on that I couldn’t be a 9-5er, even though, given my socio-economic class, that’s what was most likely my lot. I’ve even regretted this from time to time, seeing how some folks’ lives are so clear and uncomplicated compared to my own. But I just couldn’t do it. And for years, therefor, I’ve seen myself as ‘paying the price’ of this non-conformity by being broke a lot, having a ‘broken’ marriage and not being able to pay the big expense things for my son – his first car, his college education, his wedding. But today, I’m looking at all of this in a different way …
A New Look at an Old Story
Today, here’s what I see. When I look at my life, I see someone whose traveled to 22 different countries, communicates in several different languages, knows more about the arts of Asia through direct experience than most people on the planet. I see someone who, at 46, can up and travel just about anywhere with no fear. Someone whose experienced wild and incredible love, has friends from all around the world, sets her own work hours, lives in a magnificently beautiful mountain town, has a crazy, eclectic, gorgeous house, a beloved and adoring partner, and a son who can take care of himself.
Not so Bad
Not only is this “not so bad”, for someone whose never conformed to society’s expectations and demands, it’s pretty darn good!
But here’s the thing – and it’s an important one! My life could be even better if I would just stop beating myself up for what I haven’t achieved, what I don’t seem to be able to ‘manifest’ and what I can’t seem to figure out.
Getting to Happiness
For as long as we all live in a system that’s broken – one based on hierarchy and oppression – just getting to happiness is an impressive feat.
So I want to invite you to do the same. I want you to look at your life in the bigger context of a broken system. I want you to see yourself as essentially a great and divine spirit whose been (temporarily) squeezed into a world that’s structured to keep you small and yes, enslaved. See yourself in this context, and then have a look at all you ARE, all you’ve DONE and all you’ve managed to HAVE – despite the massive forces working against you.
Who do You See Now?
I see magnificence! I see it, right now, in you, and I see it in me. And I do believe that as more and more of us see our greatness, our beauty, our authenticity in the face of a (temporarily) grim context, we WILL transform our own lives – and our very world.
Yes, the LOA ‘works’. But for us to leverage it successfully at this point in our human evolution, we need to see it in context – and then see our own GREATNESS, despite the world as it has been.
Thanks Onjoy for your beautiful, insightful comment.
Yes, listening within, authenticity and personal responsibility are a major part of what’s needed right now. For too long the majority of folks have looked outside for big-daddy government or whatever to take care of us, cultivating a degree of depressive (or sometimes anxious) passivity that leads to hopelessness.
People raise their kids this way and, over time, most don’t even understand that they CAN be free. And herein lies the dilemma – once you’ve got a good % of the population who are this damn passive, they don’t even KNOW who they are, what they want, what kind of dreams or expectations they have.
Why? Because they won’t even allow themselves to dream big enough. I’ve faced this many times (inside myself and with others) as I cultivated the ‘muscles’ of the LOA. Seeing it right now in ‘kin’ who can’t even make the simplest of decisions when it’s about what they WANT, just because they WANT it!!
I’m not sure what to say when I encounter this to give a spark of insight to loved ones – to trigger their ability to take responsibility simply for something FUN – simply for HAPPINESS. Saying, “Ask for anything you want, as if there were no blocks at all” doesn’t seem to do it. Your thoughts? xoxo
Well, try ‘why’…why don’t you want thus and so….then who….is that YOU speaking from your heart or is it something you’ve been told (ie, parents, boss, etc.). Try to get them down to the very basics of who they believe THEY are and from there, what do THEY want. It’s kind of like taking personal responsibility…nobody want to do because they never had to and got away with it.
Be gentle but persistent. If they get angry, just stop. It will give them something to think about anyway. We can’t save everyone …. but one is enough. 🙂
Hey, any time you want to dialogue…I think you have my email. I am also the old Indian from CT on FB.
I was going to reply to yesterday’s post by bringing up personal responsibility, how we so often abdicate it in favor of “the norm” and complain about the that “norm”. Well, that’s part of it….so is examining expectations, what ours are and WHY we have them. Are out expectations for ourselves real or reasonable?
The first step in personal responsibility is to know who we are…..who am I…..what kind of person am I….what do I want….what are the things that I live by. And being true to myself, my own honor, my own nature.
It takes a long time to know all these things and we are always learning. That’s ok.
Like you I made mis-steps and tried to do what ‘society’ told me, what was expected of me by others. I’m not a 9-5er either but I tried to be. I didn’t exactly fail at those things but they brought me no inner satisfaction, no true happiness. I’m most at peace and happy being myself. Like you, when I really look at myself I have accomplished much. So what if I’m ‘different’ from the expected norm? I’m happy. So many people are not. They are at best confused, at worst destructive. I have no wish to be either of those. Neither do I wish to ignore all those people. I put my truth out there but it is not up to me to force anyone to think as I do. That is their choice, their personal responsibility. Mine is to be me.
Obviously, there is more to it and lots of back and forth we could do but I think that’s the essence. Be yourself. Fulfill your own expectations, after you are sure they are yours.