Though we all had the same pragmatic Episcopal upbringing, I realized that I have become the family Woo…you know that cooky aunt who talks to spirits, hangs crystals on the windows and wears a lot of purple. I think there is one in every family and in my family it’s me.
Around 2006 I started going to this place called the Center
for Spiritual Living. This was my first introduction to Religious Science. If
you’ve ever watched Oprah…and well hasn’t everyone watched Oprah…she talks
about the law of attraction and manifesting your dreams. That’s know as “new
thought” which is actually a misnomer because when you get more into it, these
thoughts are ancient and intuitive. I have always intrinsically known without a
doubt that there was a God…my questions, curiosity and doubts have been based
mostly on me not fully believing in what other fallible human beings have said
about God. I mean am I really going to go to hell for eating pork or wearing
pants? Is there even a hell to go to that isn’t already right here on earth? I
don’t know for sure, but let’s just say a lot of traditional beliefs have left
me skeptical.
I digress. Through my adventures in spirituality I completed
a two year course of study and become a practitioner of Religious Science which
is a fancy way of saying that I am a professional prayer who sometimes leads
meditations or teaches workshops on visioning.
To that end my mom asked me to lead a mini visioning
workshop. We had our first session on Christmas after dinner, just me, her, and
her new man-friend. They had both done some visioning before so we weren’t
starting from scratch. In fact my mom pulled up her board and we did some
sifting through magazines to start supplementing her current collage.
A few days later my aunt and uncle arrived from out of town
and mom set her intention that I would lead us in some more visioning. Of
course then we got sidetracked by taking long walks, playing the slot machines
at the Casino, going to the movies, and in general having a really fun and different
holiday for us.
So it wasn’t until literally 20 minutes before I had to go
the airport that we gathered together in the kitchen so I could explain this
whole visioning thing and give the cliff’s notes version of the workshops I’ve
hosted. Since I had such little time I wanted to use this post as a supplement,
but whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth, I hope this might be of use
as you begin 2016.
What is visioning?
Visioning is a creative brainstorm…and when I say creative I
mean it in the truest sense of the word. You are using your imagination to
create a clear understanding of what you want to see in your life. This can be done in lots of ways, but an easy
and fun way to start is with a vision board, which is a collage of how you want
your life to be. So get out your paints, crayons, magazines, scissors, and glue
sticks…whatever you have that you want to use. I like to start with a picture
of myself really happy as the center of my vision because ultimately my
happiness is central to everything else. What is the point of being rich, thin,
and married to the Rock if it doesn’t make you happy?
Whether you know it or not, you are using your imagination
all of the time. The worst possible scenario often dances through my mind. Oh
shit, I’m leaving 15 minutes late to work. I 90 is going to be a parking lot,
then when I finally hit the 405 I’m going to be so late I’ll have to speed,
then I’ll get pulled over for a speeding ticket. I don’t have time to go to
traffic court. What if the cop is racist
and I end up like Sandra Bland? And so on so forth. Where did that come from?
Have I ever experienced shitty traffic or racist cops
before? Sure. But I have also found myself miraculously falling in love with
the gorgeousness of the pacific northwest while crossing the floating bridge,
sailing through smooth traffic to arrive 20 minutes early to work even after
leaving at the same time as the previous day.
Why is it that my mind most frequently gravitates toward the
negative point of attraction? I don’t know, but just like a dog that leaps out
at every stranger that passes through the door, these wild and savage negative
fantasies can be trained. It is my mind after all. I’m in the metaphorical
driver’s seat.
So what would happen if you started to have positive
daydreams? What would happen if you started to set intentions? For example
instead of waking up in a panic I could wake up and think: I’m going to have an
awesome day today. I’m going to get to work early and find that my boss has
made cookies and that we’ve exceeded our fundraising goal and are exceptionally
well positioned to start our fiscal year. Maybe that’s what happens, maybe it isn’t.
What actually happens is that when I prepare myself for good
things to happen, I start noticing good things happening. Maybe those things were
already happening. Who knows? But the point is that in shifting my mind set I
am now more predisposed to noticing the good. Which brings me to something of
vital importance when it comes to visioning. Gratitude.
The Importance of
Gratitude
When I was a kid my mom used to make me write thank you
notes any time I received a gift…often before I was even able to use the gift.
Did your godmother send that to you? Did you send her a thank you note? These
were common refrains. To that end it has been instilled in me that if you like
something and you want it to continue it only makes sense to thank the
Universe. You got a new job? Thanks Universe! You got a raise? Thanks Universe!
You met some really awesome person who might just be your new boo or your new
best friend? Yes. Thank You. I’ll take some more of that.
So you can vision all you want, but if you can’t look around
and begin to be thankful for what you already have, how can you expect the
Universe to give you more? So even if you are really in a shitty stage of life.
You hate your job, you’re broke, friendless, and alone, in poor health or
whatever else, look around and find something to be grateful for. Because as
your gratitude begins to grow you will notice that your experiences of things
you can be grateful for will grow to match. It works. Seriously. If you don’t
believe me, take it for a test drive. Spend a week writing down 3 things you’re
grateful for every day and by the end of the week 3 will begin to seem
limiting.
Advanced Gratitude:
Something I started doing this year was being grateful even for shitty things.
That’s right. I actually had a gratitude partner and I would write her an email
at the end of the day: I’m grateful for the asshole who put a dent in my car
and didn’t leave a note. I’m grateful for feeling fat in all my clothes. I’m
grateful for having a job I love.
This felt weird at first. I was afraid that bring thankful
for the “bad” things would bring more bad things to me, but instead what it did
was it cultivated a feeling of non-attachment.
I began to just feel grateful for life. Shit happens, so do miracles…and
as an excitable person I’ve been surfing these highs and lows all my life.
Something good happens…my life is so wonderful! Something bad happens…why does
God hate me? It’s not personal, I just take it personally. So what happens if
what happens is just what happens…it’s not a result of me being naughty or
nice. The Universe may be all seeing but it’s not Santa.
As I first became more aware of and then detached from this
internalized understanding of my life as a meritocracy, I felt freer to vision.
Because if no one is out there punishing or blessing me, then maybe no one
outside of me is pulling the puppet strings that control my life. Maybe I can
control my life…or even better, I can create for myself what I want to see in
my life. Maybe I have actually created everything in my life, the good the bad
and the ugly…and from that place of accepting my own power I realized I create
something different. This is the kind of gratitude that comes with
responsibility, but it’s the best kind of responsibility because even if you
aren’t where you want to be, you can make different decisions.
Mental equivalent
In my mini-visioning workshop with my family my goal was not
to complete anything, but rather get them started. To that end I gave them the
homework of building a success resume. A
success resume is a list of the times in your life when you felt the most
successful or when you succeeded in feeling the happiest or most fulfilled.
These can be big moments or small…waking up in the morning next to the person
you’re in love with, graduating from school, getting promoted at work, winning
an award, or simply feeling great in your body. Whatever does it for you…makes
your heart sing, makes your soul shout yes. I swear you have had at the very
least one of these moments. In fact if you really think about it, your life is
riddled with greatness, evidence that you are absolutely capable of embodying
joy and accomplishing the work of having your dreams come true.
The point of creating a success resume is to establish your
mental equivalent. That’s a fancy way of saying what you believe. For example I
have discovered that in my mind I have a belief that getting a job is
easy. That’s right. I’ve been working
since I was 15. People love paying me to do stuff. So when I became unemployed
it was not as stressful as it could have been because I knew that I would find
work when I needed to and I did. In that
area of my life I have confidence and ease. That is the sign of a healthy
mental equivalent, a belief that is serving me well.
In other areas of my life, for example with dating, I do not
have the same mental equivalent. Even though I have fallen in love and had
relationships before, they have not all been what I would call successful. I’m
at an age where I have gone through several waves of my friends falling in
love, then getting married and now having babies. And from the outside it all
looked so effortless, like figure skating. But when I tried it, well it was a
like if I were to try a double axel…medical traumatizing. To that end I have
realized that I have inadvertently started cultivating some negative beliefs
that are not serving me well.
When a relationship ends I am filled with feelings of I
fucked it up again (even when I really didn’t) and oh God I’m never going to
find the guy I want (which I know is absolutely not true). Whereas when a job
ends (even if it doesn’t end well…which for me, it usually does) I am usually
relieved and excited for the next challenge and to make more money. I’m not
stuck or holding onto why it didn’t work. I’m already in the flow.
I’m not telling you this to be self-deprecating, but to let
you know that just because you are strong in one area of your life does not
mean that you are strong in all areas of your life and that is okay.
Start where you are. Acknowledge which of your beliefs are working for you (and
which ones are not) and see if you can allow this to help boost your
confidence. Your strengths are transferrable assets.
For example, if you are awesome with friendships and have
deep meaningful fulfilling relationships with ease, but you are a disaster with
money and perpetually broke, use your strength to set your new mental
equivalent. Take the feeling of ease and prosperity that you experience in your
relationships and apply it to start envisioning a new vitality in your
relationship with your money. Make money your friend. Sound easy? Sometimes it
is and sometimes it’s not, but every time I’ve been successful in upleveling my
mental equivalent I’ve been thrilled with the result.
How do you know when
you’ve upleveled?
Your vision will begin to manifest. For example, I was born
premature and was often sick as a child. In fact I missed 6 whole months of my
Sophmore year of high school because I was ill. My parent often said things
like “you can’t take Reagan to the corner without her getting sick.” This
became my belief. Then one year I had this incredible revelation that my
physical health was interrelated with my mental health. I began to notice that
when I got sick it was usually because I was tired and overwhelmed. It was like
my body’s way of saying sit down and be quiet.
My mind and body had probably sent me this message multiple
times, but I wasn’t really listening. When I got sick, I had no choice but to
listen. That is a very different story than me just being a sickly kid. That is
a story where I have the power to change the outcome. And so I began to make
the choice
Do I still get sick? Sometimes, but not like before. I used
to get strep throat and bronchitis at least once a year. I thought it was
normal. It’s not. Just recently I got a letter for my doctor saying she hasn’t
seen me for 17 months. Yes I’m overdue for my well woman check up, but WOW I
haven’t been sick and needed to see a doctor since 2013. For me that’s
upleveling.
So I make a vision
board and then what?
So you’ve made your success resume and put together this
awesome collage of what you want your life to look like. Now what? There is no
wrong way to proceed. Some people put it away and then look at in 6 months like
a time capsule. Some look at it everyday. I’m in the look at it every day
school of thought. I put my vision board in a place where I see it every time I
wake up. I like to meditate with it as a focal point, but that being said, the
point is not the board, it’s the vision.
Just through going through the process of thinking deeply
about what you want often helps clear out the cobwebs of what you don’t want or
at least provides you with a sense of clarity about where you are and where you
want to be. To that end, don’t be surprised if your vision changes. Sometimes
what you think you want changes.
The power of emotion
In Hawaii there is a word that they use to describe
non-native Hawaiians – Haole. It translates to without breath, because when
many foreigners arrived in Hawaii they didn’t know how to conduct the native
greeting which involved touching noses and breathing in each other’s
essence. Though it’s commonly used when
you think about it, the insult is severe, saying you have no breath, no
essence, is like saying you are soulless.
Many people are Hoale about visioning. They cut out some
pretty pictures. Oh here’s a nice car. Oh I like the picture of that couple
kissing. Oh let me cut out this check for a million dollars. But they don’t
really believe in their vision. It’s just some magazine clippings. When they
look it, there is no spark, no life. When you finish your vision board you’ll
know you’re done when you look at it and every part of you says YES! If you
aren’t able to feel that either you need to revise your board until you do or
you need to cultivate a sense of excitement. If you knew that everything you put
on your board would come true, wouldn’t you be excited about it? Wouldn’t you
go to bed like it was the night before the best Christmas ever?
Well it’s up to you to make it true and if that feels like
too much pressure then at the very least indulge yourself in a little make
believe.
Make-believe
Did you ever have an imaginary friend? I had whole imaginary
worlds. Now-a-days people might diagnose it as something bad, but when I was
growing up as an only child, this was called being self entertained (it’s a
life skill!). Give me a my little pony, some tinker toys, and Legos and that
was enough to keep me busy for hours. I also think it was the start of my
obsession with fiction writing.
Fast forward I have begun to tap back into my childhood
creativity to give my visioning a jump-start. Recently I became the teaching
assistant for a Live Your Dreams class through the Amazing Grace Spiritual
Center. It’s 40 weeks and everyone in the class supports one another to realize
our dreams. Something my small group and I have done that’s been super juicy is
that we began sending one another “act as if” emails where we wrote to one
another from the future in which all our dreams had come true. I got letters
from Paris where people were on vacation. I got letters talking about the
incredible things they had achieved. One week I wrote an email every day and at
the end of it one of the women in my group sent me one back asking if we were
still playing or if these things had happened because what I wrote was so real!
That’s not hoale. That is breathing life into your vision.
The Recap
- · Get clear on what you want.
- · Feel grateful for what you have.
- · Cultivate your own sense of worthiness.
- · Create new beliefs that support you in getting what you want.
- · Breathe life into your vision.
Now watch your life bloom into it’s best possible version
and enjoy the ride! Feel free to post any questions or responses in the comment
section below.
