Wednesday, June 6, 2012

6/7/12—Leaving Bag End

Today's Draw: The Fool from the Hobbit Tarot. Are you ready for a sudden change? What is holding you back from creating something new in your life? And when you truly examine your answer to that, is it even a valid excuse?

Have you ever been suddenly struck with a motivation to change? One day you're your normal self and the next day you're headed in a direction that never really occurred to you before? I have. In one way or another I feel like I've done it many times. 

My most notable example is probably becoming a self-employed writer. I had always worked for others before. I had never really considered being a freelancer before. But within three weeks of having that thought for the first time, I was one. And that includes the research I put in and my two weeks notice. Once I had the actual thought, it was pretty much immediate that I knew I was going to do it. And it's not like that's a small change, either. I had nothing really to fall back on. It was succeed or die. But something in me knew I'd succeed.

Bilbo Baggins is in the same situation in the Hobbit. One day he's happy living in Bag End and the next he leaves on an adventure he could have never imagined the day before. It's not like he doesn't have his doubts. But he does it anyway. It's as if he can't NOT do it. Something within him tells him it's the right thing to do. And as his journey progresses, he finds that life was preparing him for this all along. 

Sometimes life hands us these sudden happenings. But it's important to note that we can make these sudden changes for ourselves. Life hands us that opportunity once a second for every minute of the day. 

We've talked a bit about manifestation this week and one of the keys to that is watching our thoughts and words. Everything from self berating words to negative thoughts can get in between us and the things we want. 

One of the neat tricks I've learned to combat that is from a spiritual teacher named Iyanla Van Sant. She suggests you get in the habit of merely injecting "until today" into your thoughts. So "I suck at math" becomes, "Until today, I sucked at math." And "I feel like nobody loves me" becomes "until today, I felt like nobody loved me."

Each "today"...each minute...each second...brings the possibility for sudden change that can make those statements true. In fact, many of these statements are usually feelings based on our baggage and have no real basis in fact. Maybe you don't suck at math, you just suck at Geometry. And the feeling of being unloved is just a feeling. Like we talked about a couple of days ago just changing your thoughts can change your life. And "until today" is one of the tools you now have in your arsenal. 

Another tool is examining your excuses for why you can't change. Are they really valid? A lawyer who wants to become a landscape architect may say "I can't do that because I have children to support and I won't earn as much." First, some landscape architects do earn as much. And second, what are you teaching your children by staying in a job that doesn't fulfill you for the sake money? You could probably stand to downsize your life anyway. And you can't convincingly tell your children to pursue their passions in life if you don't have the balls to do it yourself. There's always another side to the argument. So look for that other side and see how valid your excuses are in that different light.

Until today, Bilbo was an ordinary hobbit, comfortable in Bag End, doing and thinking the same things, day after day. He could never be a hero because he was a little bumbling and, besides, he was past his prime. Then his excuses fell away, he had a new thought and a side of him that had gone underutilized all his life came to the fore. And he became a hero. His world became bigger. And his life became bigger. 

It all started by having a different thought. Then it took a leap of faith. Then it took on a life of its own. 

That's how change happens. One of the gifts of life is that there are no wrong turns. Everything path leads to a lesson. And every moment contains the potential for a new thought that can change things again. In this way, we live in an endless stream of magic and creation. What will that inspire in you?

2 comments:

  1. Absolutely loved this post! Really resonated with me......AND I am both a Hobbit and an Iyanla Van Sant fan. Nice way to start my day. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha! I'm glad I could do that for you! The deck is very nicely illustrated. I'm not sure how well it follows the Hobbit, because it's been a long time since I read the book. But it seems to be very detailed. It was a substantial companion book for being just a lwb (little white book...the kind of book that comes in a standard tuck box).

    ReplyDelete