“I just want to know the future. If I knew the future and what will happen then I can relax and enjoy the here and now.” I’ve been hearing this from other people all week, mainly former coworkers looking for a steady job, feeling anxious because they are currently unemployed. I feel this way too sometimes. A part of me wants to know whether I’ll be laid off come October when the next quarter ends. Or what my life will look like two months from now. And can I just say it sucks?
It sucks to be in a place where I’m worrying about the future, where I’m agonizing over what’s next instead of living my life. The over-used phrase, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” comes to mind.
I know for me when I start worrying about the future it’s because I’m not trusting in the process of life. I’m not trusting in my Creator and my Creator’s plan for me. It taps into my need for feeling safe and secure because somehow I think by knowing the future I’ll realize I’m taken care of. Somewhere along the way I picked up the idea I need to know what’s ahead in order to feel safe.
I think about something my friend Heather said to me about the future, safety and security: “Are you any more secure and stable now that you’re employed full time and have your own apartment? Or is it all an illusion?”
She’s right. Tomorrow I could walk into work and find out I’ve been laid off. In the next 15 seconds my apartment could flood or catch on fire or get hit with an asteroid. So no, I’m not any more secure and stable now than when I kept moving from place to place, it only feels that way. It only feels that way because I’ve quieted my mental chatter and I’ve allowed myself to believe I’ll still be employed tomorrow and I’ll still have a place to live tonight.
The place where I’d like to be is recognizing I am safe, secure and protected at all times. Since I recognize safety, security and stability is a state of mind, I’d like to change my mental patterns to reflect that. I’d like my safety, security and stability to come from within as opposed to external situations. I’d like to feel like no matter what happens I will be taken care of.
Once again I plumb the depths of my mind, I go internally and recognize the point of power is in the here and now, is within me at all times. I start affirming for myself I am safe, secure and protected no matter the circumstances.
Sometimes though it’s not so easy to say those affirmations and to believe them. I know that too. I know sometimes we cling tightly to an idea, to a need to know the future, for a certain situation to work out, for a certain person to be in our lives, for a certain job to drop in our laps. I know sometimes it’s hard to let go.
For me, before I can get to the places I want to be, before I can start believing the affirmations I say to myself, there’s a precursor affirmation: “I am willing to release my need for X.”
I usually fill in X with something I want to get rid of, like, “I’m willing to release my need for fear,” or “I’m willing to release my need for this condition.” Something that is not serving me and only holds me back.
Why did I title this post “Be Here, Now?” Mostly because the point of power resides in this moment. Because the present is all we have. Because the future is really just a concept, always changing, ever-new. I spent far too much of my life worrying about what’s next, missing out on what lay before me, lamenting would could be as opposed to enjoying what is. I want my life to be light and easy and joyful and that comes by trusting in God, changing my mental patterns, and feeling gratitude.
I dream of a world where we release our need to know the future. I dream of a world where we live in the moment, enjoying what is. Where we all feel safe and secure and protected at all times. Where the future is something we accept, but we also laugh because we realize there is only now. I dream of a world where we recognize the power of our minds to change our lives and our world. Where we live life in real time.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Oftentimes I feel like what happens in my life is beyond my control. Getting a job, a boyfriend, an apartment, whatever, seems like it rests completely in God’s hands. I feel like all of it is outside of me and I’m at the mercy of someone else. What I’m inching toward is recognizing the power of my mind and how life is what I make it. How the things that happen in my life are because of my thought projections, whether they’re conscious or not.
This week I started being even more conscious. I’ve been feeling like there are blocks and hindrances in my life. That I can’t move forward because God doesn’t deem it so. That I’m stuck in a certain place and a certain situation and there is nothing I can do about it. What I realized this week is that’s completely not true. I am not a puppet at the mercy of a puppeteer. But neither am I a ring leader at the circus. My life and what I experience is more like a boat on a river – I’m paddling my little heart out, going in a certain direction but the current also has a say in the matter. What I realized, beyond the fact I have some say in my life, is the reason I don’t have what I want is because of me.
I place the blocks in my life, I place the obstacles in my way, I’m keeping myself from my heart’s desires, to an extent anyway. What I mean is, as soon as I’m ready for something it happens. And until I’m ready, truly ready, nothing will manifest. I think about my experience last year, how I kept saying I wanted a job and a place to live because logically I did. Intellectually, I wanted to get a steady income and settle down. In my heart though I wanted to be a vagabond, I wanted to be free to do whatever the heck I wanted. I wanted to flit from place to place experiencing anything and everything without any restrictions. I wanted to feel free and easy and independent.
Those of you who know me well and experienced last year with me know how I oscillated from feeling fine to feeling pressured to make money. I felt such angst and frustration because I felt like I should get a job, I should be employed because that’s what people do! In my heart I wanted something else.
The truth of the matter is, it wasn’t until my heart decided I wanted to settle down and get a job that I did. It wasn’t until my heart decided I wanted to work at an office that my future employer called me for an interview. I applied for positions for a full year, getting interview after interview with nothing panning out. When I made the decision, “Yes, I’m ready to go back to the daily grind, to working in an office,” my job came along. Almost immediately actually. And when I found my job, three days later I found my apartment. Because I was ready! Because I was in a mental space for it!
The reason I bring this up because today I am laughing. I may think I want certain things, but until I’m in the proper heart space it ain’t gonna happen. It just won’t. And so where I am today is I’m trying to enjoy my life, to accept where I am, knowing and trusting that when I’m ready, when my heart and mind sync up, God will grant my wishes. I’m trying to feel gratitude about where I am, about what I’m doing. I’m trying to live in the moment, enjoying things just as they are because my heart cannot be reasoned with – it wants what it wants when it wants it. When my heart desires something it will manifest. That’s what the law of attraction is all about.
And instead of wasting precious time feeling frustrated and angst-y that I don’t have what I want, I laugh and feel free and easy. I finally realize the only barrier to anything in my life is my own mind. I keep myself from having certain things – now I’m in a place where I realize more consciously the role I play. So I relax, let myself be, and know I can have what I want. Life is open and free and uninhibited.
I dream of a world where we see how powerful we really are. I dream of a world where we’re all more conscious of our minds and our lives and the parts we play. I dream of a world where we live awake, recognizing we decide how we live. I dream of a world where we are relaxed, where we enjoy what’s before us, where we feel gratitude for our lives. Where we know when our heart has a desire God will rearrange heaven and earth and give it to us.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
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