Module 5 - Chapter 18...

Answering the question of what magnificent "far out there" desire I have is hard.  I want to compartmentalize my desires, separate them all but really they all affect my life.  Going with the idea of "what would blow my mind if I woke up and it was there right now" I would have to answer:

• a brand new car, that I owned with no car payment and great gas mileage
• 50 sales and half my stock bought up in my store Faith Works
• 10 to 15 more custom orders before the end of the year
• a nursing job that pays me 12.00/hour, gives me full time hours and benefits in a hospital setting close by
• getting the money for the training I want to be a yoga teacher, belly dance instructor, zumba instructor, herbalist...etc
• thousands of dollars saved up in the bank, all my bills caught up and up to date, eliminating all of my debt (because it's paid off)
• an honorable discharge from the military (for health reasons)

I think if I woke up tomorrow and had a letter/email/voicemail etc about these things I would flip...

Secret Sauce Writing Exercises:  Ask for what you need

I think the list above pretty much covers it, but there are some additional details.  Along with the car I need my driver's license back, and the 500.00 fee waived so it only costs 150.00.  Then I need affordable insurance.  For the sales, I need these sales to be before December 15th (for those who want Xmas presents) and otherwise before the end of the year.  I also need these to be of my current stock.  The custom orders I need understanding customers who realize that these things take time and money.  I have a few job offers in the works right now, I need one of them to come through and before the end of the month.  I am okay with starting out with less money but it's my goal to do good work and stay with them long enough to make more and then progress in my training and promotions.  For my additional training I need the money as soon as possible, but more important at the time when I am ready to pursue each training segment and can afford it in other ways (like being able to travel, etc).  However I can put money away in the bank I want to, be it from my businesses, gifts from relatives, through my "day job", or just winning the lottery.  The process of being honorably discharged I want to speed up.  I've already had the process started to put chaptered out for health reasons, but they need a kick in the pants so to speak.

What intentions do you wish to set?

• Within one year...I have all the training I wish to have for my healing center, updated to Eminent Reiki, finishing up my yoga teacher training, done with my herbalist training, and having my zumba & bellydance instructor training underway.  My credit is fixed, I'm engaged to be married.
• By the end of this year...I have sold half of my online stock, have custom orders pouring in and get tons of good feedback.  We have moved into a better place with our own space and plenty of room - including a bedroom for us and the baby, an office, a nice yard with a fence, and room to grow!  I am discharged from the military honorably and it is pleasantly behind me!
• Before the end of this year...I have paid Etsy and re-opened my store, paid T-Mobile and upgraded my account.  I have a car that is safe and reliable and good on gas.
• By the end of this month...I have a job working in the hospital in nursing, I'm getting boocoo bucks.

Watching the video and imagining a typical Wednesday five years from now....

I wake up bright and early at 6 am, slowly getting out of bed so as not to wake my husband (though I sneak in and steal a kiss and get pulled into bed for thirty minutes to nuzzle).  I get up and go into our bright, open kitchen and make sure coffee has started.  (I program it night before for 6:30 am).  As coffee brews I tip toe to check on my son, now five, who is still asleep in his bed and check on my daughter, now almost three, who is also still asleep.  As coffee finishes brewing I prepare a nice breakfast and grab my laptop having everything on the stove keeping warm but not cooking, and check my business emails.  I note that I have 5 orders to send out this morning from the day before and another 10 to process.  My healing center has 2 clients booked for this afternoon, each for an hour and both in a series of sessions.  I have a meeting with my other healers and an email to send out to my other healing coordinator contacts about some updates.  I have today off from the hospital, but some school work to do so when the little ones take their midday nap I'll be working on homework that is due tomorrow.  I smile as I look up and see Ryan, my husband, entering the kitchen.  I greet him with a smile, kiss, and a cup of steaming hot coffee which he puts down to pin me against the fridge for a passionate kiss.  We part as I feel the kicking of our third and fourth children, who are due in early November, both Scorpios.  With him up and breakfast served I step in to wake our son and daughter and bring them to the table for a nice family breakfast.  I let Aggie out to romp in the yard and do her businesses, then bring her in to eat as well.  Feeding our cat Ceasar too...The remainder of the day is routine.  I get through all my emails, pack up the kiddos for a trip to run errands to the post office and some light shopping for some fun projects for them.  Ryan watches the children and takes them to the park in the afternoon while I have my 2 healing clients who both pay and tip me graciously, setting their next appointments.

A gift from my future self:  a golden quill feather...(to write out intentions? my prose/poetry?)


I just put out some of my desires on the group, and have decided to either speak my need or imagine what I will have in a month, or visualize my perfect day every chance I get!



Embracing my dreams one day at a time!

Module 5 - Chapter 17...

I think I found another reason why my leap hasn't quite come on yet.  I recognize that where I am isn't great, I have been inching forward, but I can't say I've leapt.  I question the safety and sanity of such a gesture deep down inside.  Not necessarily because I'm happy with where I am, because I'm not, but because I'm not sure it will be any better.

It has also taken me a long time to see how not happy I am with how things have been.  That might be the other hindrance, it's not been a sudden catalyst of "wow this sucks", so much as a slow realization that this is not what I dreamed of when I was five.

I want to take stock of my life and do all the things it says to do to live your life ...

I have been thinking lately that there must be something deeper going on to explain why as much as I try I can't seem to get a job.  While I hate to be suspicious of everything it just seems like it shouldn't be this hard.  But the thought crosses my mind that I am in some way blocking myself, that I won't get any kind of sustenance until I change my views/thoughts and really work towards my goal.  That it's not bad for me to survive, but I can't lost sight of the final goal.

I think now that my catalyst was my mother's death.  But I didn't recognize it.  I can't say I was faced with my own mortality when I lost her, so much as a release.  The chains of expectation she had placed on me that I had accepted were a weight lifted.  It didn't matter what I did or didn't know, she wasn't there to nod disapprovingly or hug me when I was down - it was all me, just me, only me.  In a sense it was freeing, in another it was bewildering.  I hadn't realized till then how much those expectations weighed me down.  I was so used to sinking that I didn't know how to float.  That was 2005, it's now 2011, nearing the end and it's taken me all these years in between to slowly get to the point where I am now.  And I still can't say I'm there yet.  I knew that I didn't want to be where I was, so I piddled away 05, lamenting then becoming an exotic dancer, still trying to go to school while my grades slipped painfully low.  I battled depression, and I left a lot of things in my wake as I wandered through life.  In 06 I realized what I was doing wasn't cutting it...crisis #2 happened - I couldn't go to school because of a technicality (well rather a second technicality) so I just up and joined the military, thinking they could help and it was better than just working day to day.  Then I got married that December.  Then divorced in 08 after dodging arrest and threats, flirting and sleeping around at the end, dealing with more depression, deeper this time and even emotional/mental blackouts. In 08 I also met another man who ate two years of my life and held me back, causing a lot of strain and drain, it took me being physically apart from him to realize the affect he was having on my life.  I'd done some things here and there to pursue some parts of my dreams, but all those efforts had been limited by that relationship.  I slept around again, met someone much better this time, but the last negative experience has led this one off tainted, couple that with not officially working for two years, becoming pregnant, a psycho ex, trying to get discharged, not finding work and just plain old hardship...

This sounds like my own perfect storm, only it has been a lurking quietness, it's not been a grand explosion but a quiet darkness that has slowly engulfed my life, blotting out the sun slowly under my notice...then I looked around and realized just how dark it was...I went from one person controlling my life to another...I just didn't realize it.

I kind of wonder too if my slow seeming "non progress" has been my own "waiting & becoming" time.  While I leapt some time ago things haven't taken off like I'd hoped.

Letting go (detaching from my outcome - eg goals being accomplished) is definitely hard for me.  But I also think that doing that is integral to my own success to a major point.  Overthinking and analyzing and trying to problem solve for the Universe is a bad idea.

What am I not willing to risk?  My family, "who" I am.  What do you want?  The freedom to exist, to embrace what I love, to live my creativity every second of the day.

Talking about my spiritual place I know where that is for me.  My faith bridges gaps in life but evolves too.  Some things I'm clearer on in my faith than I was before, but faith is still the bottom line.  And I am comfortable with that.

The next article touches on a point that very clearly to me an issue defining clearly what I want.  Years ago I had an idea, but it was based on the expectations of others.  Then my own traumatic change happened and made me realize, in its way, how I was living life for someone else.  How I was not myself.  But even with realizing this I didn't see where it was I needed to be or what I wanted.  I just never learned to connect with the feeling, that energy and so even today I struggle with it.  But it's getting easier.  With this course I have definitely solidified many things about my dream and even in the cases where I haven't I realize just how vague some of my "pictures" are (which makes sense why they are just that rather than manifesting).  ***I also suddenly get the idea that I need to make this big "multimedia" art piece, paint, collage, drawing, etc of my perfect life/career/love etc.  That is an idea to manifesting I can really connect with I think.***

Gods...my dream life...a day in my dream life...

It's a Friday, I've had a nice productive week.  I'm preparing for the weekend and taking it off, I have some family engagement/date with friends/personal meditation time/sabbat/esbat planned where my whole focus will be some fun even and taking it easy, work optional.  I reflect back on my week, making light notes:  Monday I gathered my Friday notes from the week before and any I thought of over the weekend and prioritized for the day/week/month.  For the rest of the week - (till Friday) I go through this list from Monday, work, take regular breaks etc.  My work consists of seeing clients for healing, having project time, running both business, sending out orders, taking on a custom order or two, housework, time with friends and family, and just me time.  Not to mention of course having spiritual & healing time just for me every day.  I smile happily at my "full yet satisfying" week.  It's not overly full but I got a lot done as I did before and as I will the next week.  I think of my weekend and the fun I have planned, the fun I had last weekend and smile again.  After I've done my morning reflection I start the real "meat" of my day - I have breakfast with my family, spend some mommy time with my little one, do some housework (which I've split with my husband) and get to "work".  Around lunchtime I take an hour break spending time reading/with the family/watching a movie or tv then resume work in the afternoon till I'm "off" in the evening.  I make a final nod to my checklist, setting it up for Monday on my desk poised for any notes that comes to me after until Monday morning and enjoy a nice homecooked meal with my family and have a lovely night's rest.

So I dreamed a bit bigger than the exercise but that's perfectly fine.  Some parts are vague - like what exact work I'm doing when (I think I need to work that out because some parts are still super fuzzy) but it's definitely clearer than it has been before.

I love Lissa's fairy tale and it reminds me of my own.  I have always loved fairy tales yet never bothered writing my own...I think tonight I will dream of my own.

Reading her second part to the creation story she hits on the flaws in The Secret.  While I support the LOA I too feel the philosophy behind The Secret is lacking.  It expects that you're going to dream up a bunch of material things and poof there they are without regard to your place and what you might truly want.



Embracing my dreams one day at a time!

Module 4 - Chapter 16...

I know I don't want to be average for sure - that's just not who I am.

I'm a traditional non-conformist, a strange bird by my account.  I appreciate tradition, some that is, but I value thinking out of the box and doing something that works.

Secret Sauce Writing Exercises:  What's Your Risk Tolerance?

• How risk-averse do you consider yourself?

I will say that I will definitely think twice about doing something, including being authentic, if there is a chance of some sort of punishment.  Eg I will lose something/one.  Job, relationship, etc.

• Do you want to be this way?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

I in point of fact do not want to live in constant fear of losing out and therefore missing out on being me if nothing else.

• How might you exercise your risk muscle?  What would push your comfort zone without freaking you out?

Letting go for a day.  Just doing "me" and not caring if I upset or offended anyone.  Doing just what I wanted to do.

I feel good that she mentions that it's okay to play it a little safe and have a safety net.  For me I think the safety net will be accepting work I'm trained to do while I get the training I want, build my businesses, and fully shape my dream.  It's not to say that by accepting this work I'm giving up or putting it off "yet again" but said, to help myself (and my family out) now I'll do this while I do these other things.

I see that I am self-sabotaging myself.  I know I have a lot of paperwork to do to get my business legal, entering receipts, writing up my business plans, doing all that "boring, math" stuff.  So I have put off doing it choosing to be diverted with projects only.  There isn't anything wrong with being creative, but it's no good to the detriment of laying a good foundation which will afford me time to be 100% creative all the time and only minimally have to do the "boring" stuff.

Stop procrastinating, cultivate "stick to itiveness", and letting go of baggage all strike me.  As I've just said I know I'm procrastinating doing some work I need to because it's not "fun".  I also feel scattered and want to do a million things so my energy is stretched to thin to focus properly.  I also have put off things for years, and had many a loved one convince me that my dreams were a waste of time.

As I read the article about getting out of your own way I have a thought.  I think part of the problem I was having is that I was viewing my work/job all wrong.  The view I held has had my job as interfering with my life's work.  Now in reality it really was doing that, but I never did anything to give myself a break either so it continued to do that even when it didn't have to.  I could have worked a different span of time, different days or hours.  Instead I just accepted what I was given without asking for what I needed.

The bottom line though is that dreams aside (yes I hate to say that but listen with me for a moment) I have to survive.  I have bills to pay, debts to get paid, and things I want now and in the future.  I don't have any money in the bank or any saved or stashed anywhere so there is no option to just do nothing but what I want (with it paying as little and as infrequently as it is right now).  As Tama mentions in her book, it's okay to work in the meantime to survive, just as long as you keep working towards your dream.

I definitely need to identify my limiting beliefs.  I think right now some of the excuses are that I don't have the money to do what I need/want to do and I don't have the time.  I don't have the money because I haven't been attracting it - by not working and by having thoughts of lack.  I don't have the time because while I do work doggedly on some things I also get into ruts and put things off, losing several days (= several hours) of work time on many things, I put more on my plate than can be achieved in a short period of time, and I am not in touch with my time like I could be.  I know that as soon as I finish this e-course (or maybe before) I need to get to reading the Excuses Begone book finally.  I have had it for years now, know it will help, and yet...keep procrastinating, as though I don't want to dissolve these excuses/limiting beliefs.

Acknowledgement and compassion with oneself about things is vital.  Recognize your fears and what is holding you back, how you may be making things harder and then correct it on the spot with a positive thought/affirmation/action.

Reading Lissa's article about getting out of your own way gives me hope.  I can really hear her sitting with me telling me that I can do this, that I can make this happen.  It's encouraging and heartwarming.

Tama's article about risk hits to the point.  There is no life without any risk.  To just do what you're told ends you up with the risk that you lived an unfulfilled life, then what?

I know for sure if I don't pursue my dreams I'll die a little inside everyday.  I'd kick myself everyday too for listening to all those Gremlins.  I'd feel I wasted so much of my life because I started something I didn't finish.  I'd hate myself for it.

What might happen...I might have to work a job I hate in the meantime (but to be able to put it aside for my real dreams and calling is worth the small inconvenience of dealing with it now).  I might have to take less than I deserve in order to make sure the necessary things are taken care of.  But I can survive this way, I can keep my creativity and dreams alive.

I seriously echo Lissa's sentiment in the last article about wishing I hadn't taken so long to get here...


Embracing my dreams one day at a time!