It so often happens that we’re born into situations where embracing our true desires would mean betraying the wishes of loved ones and the values held dearly by them.
Think of the recent satirical biopic – Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The film is only loosely based on Al’s life story, but it features a trope we all know so well. A young Al discovers his passion for the accordion but must keep it a secret from his father. Of course, he is later discovered, and his father smashes Al’s accordion to pieces.
It’s a trope for a reason. Plenty of people have this experience or something like it.
Ironically, areas where we’re wounded most often hold the key to our desires and identify. We would not be hurt over something that did not matter to us. It’s because it matters so deeply to us that we are so vulnerable to anything opposing or attacking our desires.
The prevailing statement I’ve heard from my friends is “I thought there was something wrong with me.”
I felt the same way. In my 20s, I valued my autonomy and freedom so much that when presented with a possible job opportunity, I would take months thinking about it before ever acting on it. And by that time, it was usually too late.
As it turns out, I’ve always valued autonomy and freedom, to the point where most decisions I make are in total alignment with this value.
When we’re out of alignment with our desires, we only hold ourselves apart from what we want. We may experience a personal hell of sorts, because we try to change, or conform, or become more of what we deem acceptable by family, friends, and society at large, all the while sacrificing the essence of who we are.
You’ve got to admit to your desires. The universe is already moving that way. When you start moving that way, too, you experience flow. So much time spent not getting what we want is simply us holding ourselves apart from what we want, because we’re not willing to admit our desires.
It’s all right there for you, isn’t it? You probably don’t even need to think about it.
It’s only human nature, but we tend to give these areas of our lives undue attention. And sadly, focusing on them tends not to make the situation any better.
Whether you want to lose weight, get into a relationship, or succeed in business, your excessive focus on getting what you want only seems to push it further away.
Focusing on what you don’t have only attracts more of not having.
Does that mean we should not be in action?
No, but it would be wise to focus on the action itself – not on the results you’re trying to produce.
It means releasing, letting go, and surrendering outcomes and instead being in the present moment.
I’ve seen results in my life when I’ve stopped obsessing over something that I’ve put a lot of effort and time into, without much headway.
What could you release?
Where could you let go?
How would it feel to surrender?
What you desire could be on the other side of full acceptance.
What is the mirror principle? How does it work? How does it affect our lives?
In any given moment, our external world reflects our internal world. But we can easily lose sight of this and assume bad things happen because of “bad luck” or “karma.”
So, how can we keep our heads in challenging situations? And how can we become more aware of our internal world?
Transcription:
The mirror principle is simply this, that whatever is happening in your internal world is reflected in your external world.
It’s kind of like this. If you were wearing a pair of glasses with red lenses, then the whole world would seem red to you. You wouldn’t be able to see it any other way. But if you took the glasses off, then you would see that it’s not a red world at all. There are all kinds of colors.
What’s true about being human is that we will always want things.
You will never not want something in your life. And when you want something, you launch a rocket of desire. When you launch a rocket of desire, the universe seeks to bring that thing to you in the quickest manner possible.
Have you ever been in your car and you had the GPS on, and it told you that “this is the quickest route possible even though traffic is heavier than normal?” Well, it’s kind of like that.
The path you take to get to what you want may contain traffic. It might contain obstacles. There might be construction. Maybe there’s a police stop.
But just because those obstacles are there doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not the quickest way to get to what you want.
But when it comes to matters off desire – things we want – which is fundamental to being human, we often look at those obstacles and say:
“Oh well. I tried. Things didn’t work out.”
So, we add resistance to it. We don’t want those obstacles to be there. Even though it’s the quickest route. The GPS just told you it’s the quickest route!
Yet when those obstacles show up, we give up. We add resistances to it. We say, “forget it.”
So, then our journey starts all over again at square one.
Which is to say the outcome of what you want doesn’t matter, because the journey is going to look much the same.
If you can gently acknowledge those obstacles, be with those obstacles, even love those obstacles, that moment will pass, and the traffic will start moving again.
So, when people say, “I was on my way to getting something, but something went wrong.” That’s not quite true. Something didn’t go wrong. There just happened to be obstacles on that journey, which is perfectly normal.
But instead of acknowledging it, and being with it, people instead post to Facebook and say:
“Well, I had my keys stolen this week.”
And then they say:
“Now I had my passport and money stolen. And now I have to replace my phone, because that broke. And because it broke, it cost me more to replace the phone, even though I have insurance on it.”
Then they post to Facebook again. And then they repeat that cycle.
So, their internal world is all about:
“Things are going bad. Things are going bad. Things are going bad.”
And then their external world reflects it to them, showing them that things are going bad.
But in any moment, you can turn that around and have your internal world be:
“Things are great. I love being here. I’m enjoying this experience. This is a fun roller-coaster ride.”
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
Because the moment we see something isn’t going well, we tend to think everything is going awry.
If you were to assume, just for a moment, that the universe is taking you on the shortest, most direct path to your desire…
And if you were to assume that path wasn’t free of complication…
Wouldn’t you begin to embrace the roller-coaster ride you’re on?
You wanted this experience. Desired it.
Somewhere along the line, you forgot that a journey, an adventure, is exactly what you wanted.
So, when we embrace the path, regardless of how it looks, we stop adding resistance to it.
Letting go of that resistance helps us rise to the next level. It takes us to the next step in our journey.
When we focus on the problem, we can end up back at square one.
It’s more enjoyable to stay on the ride than to have to start the process all over again.
You don’t need more secrets. You just need to follow your bliss!
Transcription:
The bottom line is you follow your bliss, you follow what you’re excited about, you keep at it. You enjoy the process. You allow things to unfold. You don’t resist the “bad things” that come up. You rise to the challenge and then you make it to the next level.
Shh… Don’t tell anyone. Only the cool kids are talking about it.
