Finding the Wind
Or How to ACTUALLY Move Forward
Earlier today, a very dedicated man drove all the way from Franschoek
to Constantia for a reading. He later admitted to me that, on the way
there, he had been firmly instructing the powers-that-be to tell him
exactly what to do in various areas of his life in order to move
forward. ‘I just need you to tell me what to do, and I’ll do it’, he
bargained with an unseen (but hopefully not un-hearing) force.
In the typically clear-cutting and humorous manner of the readings, the
very first sentence uttered was this: ‘we are not going to tell you what
to do to move forward; instead we are going to give you the conditions
for forward movement’. Frustratingly hard to argue with that! The
analogy given in the reading was of a man trying to sail a boat. Even if
he had excellent instructions, worked very, very hard at doing the right
thing and willed the boat to move, he would not make any real progress
unless the wind came up. In other words, the conditions for moving
forward are more important, or at the very least as important, as
knowing what to do and working hard at it.
I asked Jim if I could share these three conditions here and I’m
grateful to him for making them available to all of us (or maybe he
thinks that appeasing his guides will get him more direct answers than
instructing them ;)
First Condition for Moving Forward:
1. Be sufficiently aware that you are loved
Oh yes, this one sounds a bit old-hat and soppy, but just watch in yourself and others what happens when you don’t feel sufficiently loved – everything you do, consciously or not, becomes a secret or not-so-secret way of getting love (or a counterfeit of love like appreciation, recognition, thanks, approval). Note that it is not important how much love is actually coming your way; it is how AWARE you are of being loved, i.e. to what degree you allow yourself to feel it. There are some people (perhaps you know one) who seem to be popular, appreciated, cherished but don’t act as if they are loveable at all, and there are others whose lives look painfully absent of love to outsiders but who manage high self-worth regardless. The truth is that you can allow anything to love you – a sunset, a salesperson, a peach – because whenever you engage fully with the essence of anything, or anyone, you will find love. Trying to move forward in your life, your career, your personal growth without being really sure that you are loved is a bit like taking a big breath and trying to blow some wind into the sails of a boat – you’ll work very hard for possibly a modicum of movement. Open your eyes, ears and heart to everything around you, drop your presumptions about in which form or from which person love should come and let yourself sink in to the memory of how loved you are by life itself. When you know that for sure you are free to make authentic choices - for the first time really - and you can actually move ahead.
Second Condition for Moving Forward:
2. Navigate by desire, not outcome
It is very normal in our culture at this time to be outcomes-based,
so to speak. We need visions and missions and ten-year plans before we
even move off the starting block. Even in our personal lives, we’d like
to know what our purpose is, thank you very much, before we commit to a
vacation let alone a vocation. In my humble opinion, the major effect of
this need to know the outcome before the start is: paralysis,
immobility, procrastination, indecision (sound familiar?). In short, and
perhaps paradoxically, it is often very difficult to move forward if you
need to either know or control the outcome first.
Navigation by desire, on the other hand, allows you simply to move
toward whatever in this moment would bring you most joy (resting,
singing aloud with your child, immersing yourself in a project, saying
no or saying yes). It means you don’t have to find THE way, you just
have to find A way, here and now. It is much easier to get moving this
way.
If it’s a little tricky to distinguish between desire and outcome,
here are some clear differences between them:
• Desire is a feeling and an outcome is a thought
• Desire is fluid and an outcome is fixed
• Desire is focused on your own joy and outcome is usually about a
hoped-for response from the world
Which brings us to our Third Condition for Moving Forward:
3. Detach from the world’s response to you
If the aim of your life is to be famous or to win a Nobel Prize, then
uh, this one is going to be a bit tricky for you. The suggestion is to
avoid making your life about trying to get or to trying to avoid a
specific response from your family, or friends or the world at large.
This has implications in at least two areas: what you do with feedback
and what you choose to aim at.
If you are going to be eternally swayed by feedback from the world
(whether negative or positive) then you are never actually going to get
moving in the most powerful and unique way you can. This doesn’t mean
you totally dismiss or ignore people’s response to you – this is a
useful feedback mechanism to you from your higher self. But there’s a
difference between using feedback to enhance your joy, and allowing
feedback to replace or dominate your joy. Imagine if Van Gogh had been
painting in order to get a specific kind of feedback from the world
which, during his lifetime, was not forthcoming. We would have been
deprived of significant art. The same is true of whatever your genius
may be – if you are expressing yourself in the world in order to get a
certain kind of response, we are missing out on the truest and most
powerful version of you. Take note of the feedback you get from people,
use this to deeply test your own integrity and truth, and then move
forward.
Likewise if you state your purpose in life in terms of a specific
response from the world, then you are also navigating with other
people’s choices rather than your own. In my JoyMap workshop I don’t
allow someone to declare a joy if it is still being expressed in terms
of other people e.g. ‘I want to write a bestselling novel’ or ‘I want to
heal people’. These may sound like noble goals, but they are dependent
on what others choose (i.e. to buy your book in droves or to heal
themselves). How is this empowered or liberating? On the other hand,
declaring that you want to write at your most humorous, intelligent,
fulfilling best or that you want to master the intricacies of a healing
art, are things that you can do irrespective of the world’s response to
you at the time. If you take your focus off of the response you’ll get
and on to deepening your own fulfillment, you will get moving!
This month, I invite you to remember how loved you are, to navigate with
your desires rather than a long-term outcome and to be a little less
attached to what the world thinks. Go on, put some wind in your sails.
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