Fred on a chair this morning
There hasn’t been any movement (on the outside) regarding the house we want to buy. The sellers have someone who wants to rent the home and they are going to give them an answer (yes or no) by Friday the 17th. This is a situation that I would have found unacceptable a few years ago. Even though I’ve always known (intellectually) that I couldn’t lose anything that was meant to be mine, I remember feeling almost unbearable longing (and unhappiness, tension, grief, anger) when I thought I was about to miss an opportunity. But this is not how I feel. I feel hope and happiness and freedom.
What has changed?
Right from the moment that I stopped sobbing (after initially seeing the house and feeling like it was ours), I started saying out loud (and often) “This house is a blessing, and only blessings will come from it”. Day and night, I’ve said that…even when I started to feel anxious. Especially when I started to feel anxious.
The past 15 days have been incredibly powerful for me. I’ve watched myself start to build unhappy scenarios in my mind. I’ve observed the effect in my emotions and body when I started to feel desperate for a specific thing to turn out a specific way, and I’ve used all of my focus to bring myself back to my mantra: This house is a blessing, and only blessings will come from it.
I was listening to a Byron Katie CD the other day and she was telling a story about going into a maximum security prison to do “The Work” (the name she gives to the process of questioning our unhappy thoughts) with some inmates. As she was walking through a corridor, she heard a man begin to scream and scream. She went on to say, “He is screaming because he is locked up with his thoughts…”
I could identify with the screaming man’s mind. Thoughts that tell me how wrong my life is, make me feel like I am in hell with no power to escape. When I believe that I can’t be happy unless I move, lose 20 lbs, publish a book, get a lot of money in the bank, have children who want to talk about the mystical universe with me, have parents that appreciate me, find the ring that I’ve lost, see someone I love recover from an illness, get a job, find my life’s purpose,….when I believe that something, anything, is unfair and wrong, and when I believe that I cannot feel at peace until it changes, I am living in hell.
The little house in Middlebury is a blessing. It doesn’t mean that I’ll own it. It doesn’t mean that I’ll ever step foot in it again. It has helped me see myself and my world through clearer eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I would be absolutely delighted to own that home….I can imagine writing a post, telling you how it came about. But I will tell you my story anyway and it will unfold perfectly with blessing after blessing being revealed.
How can you love your life right now? Just the way it is? You can start saying, “I love my life (which may include illness, debt, unemployment, unhappy children, no children, …whatever thing is feeling like a burden, or “wrong”). You can decide only to love everything. You can claim, “This is a blessing, and only blessings will come from it.” You can try this, even if it doesn’t make sense. It might be difficult, but you do have the power to believe a new story (one that feels better) and if you do, you will be amazed at what happens…to you. The Truth is that my life is being Divinely guided. The Truth is that all is well..and this is the Truth for us all.
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Soren Kierkegaard (quote taken from page 129 , Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, M. D.)
