You can't fall in love with your life -- you can't play the Hero -- if you don't first cast yourself in that role -- if you can't see that you -- and only you -- are PERFECT for the part.
I was asked to write a post listing the things I do every day to "Be a Success." I've found this to be too challenging; I don't feel comfortable or useful or helpful telling people how to be Something Bigger and Something More if they don't know Who they are -- if they don't already recognize themselves as the Stars of their own Stories. Questioning Success invokes more Questions than Answers:
- What is meant by Success?
- Successful at what, exactly, in what context?
It also raises the issues of Piety and Hypocrisy:
- Who am I to tell YOU how great I am and why I'm so great?
- Is your definition of success anything like mine anyway?
- Who died and made me an expert?
How can I TELL you what you NEED or what you SHOULD do? Beware anyone who begins sentences with "What you NEED is..." or "What you SHOULD do is..." If someone speaks to you in this manner, it should always be a Red Flag -- these kinds of statements indicate that the speaker is attempting to control you.
You can NOT be overpowered; power over you is something you must allow. You must agree to that power. Refuse to give that permission.
The concept of What I Do to Be Successful also raises the questions:
- Am I successful?
- When do I start BEING successful?
- Do I feel successful?
- When am I supposed to FEEL like I am?
- Successful compared to Whom?
- Successful at What?
I must recognize that I AM indeed successful -- according to my own definition -- but my personal idea of Success may be completely irrelevant to you. And should I congratulate myself in front of you? Will that make YOU feel successful, or is it an invitation to compare yourself to me, and perhaps feel LESS than All that You Are?
Who Gives Permission for Success? Most of the people who write to me -- for direction -- for Readings, informal or otherwise -- those who ask me for my assistance do so because they do NOT feel successful. They do NOT feel empowered. They feel like they've made it halfway, but they feel stuck. They know they're getting some things right, but they feel that something is missing.
I realize that telling a gardener how to harvest their abundance if they haven't even planted seeds yet -- if they haven't properly planted something to nurture -- is skipping too quickly to the end, and giving them only more useless information -- or worse -- the tools with which to judge themselves unfairly, and arrive at failure.
Telling you how to be a Success, if you're still stuck defining yourself as a Failure... It would only make your situation worse. And I'd be sitting here begging somebody to knock me off my self-important Pedestal.
If I jump to my end without sharing my beginning -- without sharing the critical, everyday steps along my Path -- I am not helping YOU find YOUR way. And so, I respectfully refuse the invitation to itemize my personal ideas of Success.
Preaching to the Choir You must realize by now that I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. If I relay the information I receive from my spirit guides -- or yours -- OURS -- I am only reinforcing the Messages of the heart. I do not have access to messages that are forbidden to you. I am called to act as interpreter -- I am asked to articulate.
For many years, I felt uncomfortable when people asked me for this Permission -- permission to believe what they will, permission to create the life they want to live, permission to love themselves, permission to be okay. I know where that permission comes from -- it comes from you -- who am I to play the provider of that authority?
I observe that most of the world's ills can be tracked back to the root of self-esteem, or lack of it. I see that empowerment and self-esteem come from the permission to love yourself.
Do you need me to tell you it's okay to fall in love with your life? Are you afraid to be the star in your own story? The alternative is to be a supporting character in someone else's life. Even if your story is a tragic one, claiming that starring role is still a first step in the right direction.
I always find myself asking my guides "Aren't I just re-stating what we all already know? Is it really necessary to keep on saying it?"
I asked them what to write here today, then I asked your guides what to say -- it was a bit like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I've tried to find a consensus, some way to distill the information. I'm always repackaging what your Heart has already heard. That's why it resonates.
You don't discover truth; you recognize it.
The only thing different between me and the Magician who pulls the coin from your hair -- my trick is not a slight-of-hand -- I don't have the truth hidden up my sleeve -- I really do pull it from you.
A little grace in your face...
Mirror, Mirror Your life purpose -- like mine -- is taken from you -- by those who require it of you. They ask you for what they need from you, and you reflect it.
15 Things You Can Do to Stop Feeling Like a Failure What I CAN offer are some suggestions -- tools for pulling the Weeds away from your Path. You can't grow anything without basic preparation and transformation of the mud you find yourself mired in -- that's the soil you gotta sift around in -- now, that's what I call grounded.
So, instead of the 10 Things I Do Every Day to Be a Success -- I offer you, like, 15 or More Things You Can Tell Yourself Every Day to Stop Feeling Like a Failure:
You are already everything you've ever wanted to become. You're not missing anything. There's nothing outside you to add.
You are imminently worthy; All Things Pass.
Stop Time Travelling. Past and Future are imaginative illusions, only the Present exists. Anxiety and regret are trips outside reality. When you worry about something that has not happened -- IS not happening to you right now -- you are investing in delusion.
Worry is like paying back interest on a debt you haven't even signed off on or benefitted from.
Joy only happens in the Present.
Stop Judging Yourself. You CAN'T fail at life. You fulfill your life purpose, already, with every breath you take.
Your life purpose is not a JOB; it is the part of you that comes through no matter what job you do. You don't invent a life purpose -- it is inevitable and it is pulled from you by other people. It's what other people get from you, not what you necessarily decide to give them.
Look at what others ask of you -- what advice do they want from you? What do they ask you to perform? What assignments do they give you? It is a pattern -- once you identify what it is, then you can simply do more of it. You can direct it with intention. You can perform it on a greater Scale.
Define Success. Who is the author of this definition -- you or someone else?
Stop perpetuating failure. Insanity is repeating the same patterns of actions and expecting the results to change.
Do things that you're good at.
Make a list of your personal heroes. Why are they your heroes? What do they do that you do too? What do they do that you think you can't? Find someone who's already doing what you want to do and adopt their expertise, their process. Copy them, as a starting point.
Define the Thing you want to manifest with as much detail and emotion as possible; do not define HOW it will happen.
Don't Make Sure. Proceed on faith. Intuition and integrity are instantly delivered by your consciousness. When your spirit guides advise you, it is immediate. Laboring over the truth unravels it, takes you away from it.
Put yourself on a Whine Diet. Pessimism is a bad habit. Start retraining your conscious mind to process challenge in a new context.
A Diary or Personal Journal is a particularly fertile breeding ground for manifesting negativity. There are two prescriptions that will, over time, cure pessimism and literally change your life - Gratitude and Challenge Renovation.
You hear about "changing your vibration" to accommodate the positive things you want to manifest more of in your daily life. You can do this by keeping a Gratitude Journal. Make whining and complaining totally OFF limits. You are only allowed to list what is good.
To Renovate Challenges, try this: whenever you find yourself wanting to write down What Sucks -- what problem has been thrown your way, what life has slapped you with -- express it in terms of what you could do about it.
For example: "I'm broke. I don't have enough money." Translate this when you record it into something like "I am going to address my financial problems by…" And list the way you're going to change it. Problems - Challenges - Life lessons always have built-in solutions.
Name the forces and powers and entities you interact with in your life -- personify them -- and start having relationships with them, as opposed to letting them be DONE to you. Start relating to your Problems as entities you have hired to tutor, teach, and coach you through the lessons they bring.
Transform who you are and what you love to do into a project with a mission by teaching someone else how to do it.
Change the scale on which you operate. If you can teach one person how to do something you love, you can potentially teach millions. Employ a new vehicle. Maybe YOU should be an author.
Surround yourself with kindred souls. Again, publishing a blog is an incredible means to bypass the limitations of physical space, reach other like-minded individuals, and act as mirrors for one another. Don't discount the very direct spiritual communication we perform for one another, as human beings, with human words, in human terms.
What are you placing on the Throne of Your Attention? Anything you give energy to -- positive or negative is irrelevant -- attention is energy, and like attracts like.
Instead of focusing on what you don't want or what you want to remove, focus on adding more of its opposite. If you stop doing something, you create a vacuum. You create a hole through abstinence -- simply NOT doing something is a misguided step in the right direction. Replace the old action with a new, more desirable one.
Prioritize. Fill your life with too many of the things you love -- if there IS such a thing. If you prioritize correctly, after completing the things you MUST do, you start on the things you love -- if you put enough things on the list, you'll simply never get around to the extra things you despise that you don't HAVE to do.
Here Comes the Hypocrisy I suppose having delivered all THAT about pessimism and positive manifestation, it's truly ironic that the only way I could explore Success was to invert it into Failure. (What does that say about MY self-esteem, my gratitude...?) But it is precisely the Shift that freed me. I attempted several different lists; I tried writing lists beneath specific definitions of success, in a variety of contexts -- they all failed.
Which brings me to another suggestion: Have you ever mistakenly pushed against a door that swings inward?
If something isn't working -- if you're throwing yourself against the front door, and none of the keys on the ring will unlock it -- STOP. Leave and come back. Find a window to slither through, or break in the back door.
Or wait for someone else to come along and let you in. Something's gotta give -- and maybe it's you giving up on the WRONG strategy... Real solutions are never complicated.
I'm not passing judgement on anyone who attempted this exercise. I thank Damian for passing the talking stick to me, because it reminded me of a lesson that I always find myself repeating -- as nice as it might be to participate in the conversation, to go along with the crowd, usually the only uniquely worthy contribution I can make is to be the one who says the thing that we've all heard before, that we all seem to know, but that no one else is saying.
Once you speak your truth, you realize that no one else CAN say it -- or ever will -- because maybe it really is the piece that only you can bring.
Maybe the thing you most need to hear -- that you most need said -- will simply come out of your mouth. Maybe the Universe you're waiting on is actually waiting on you.
Seek Wisdom -- Practice Love