My Secret

I was going to title this post The Secret, until I realized that everyone would think I was going to talk about vision boards, affirmations, visualization, etc, etc. All of which I have somehow neglected to check off my to do list. This is not that Secret.

This is my Secret. It is both easier and harder than Rhonda Byrne’s metaphysics manifesto. Easier because you don’t have to make time for all the manifesting exercises. Harder because it demands that you surrender to life as it is.

I’m writing this post for Brandon, a friend who spent the last year in the worst Hell on Earth, literally wresting his life back from the colon cancer determined to take it in as painful a way as possible. Brandon finally underwent his last surgery and is now cancer free. It only took scooping out his entrails like an Egyptian mummy. Knowing Brandon, I bet he asked his nurses if they would pack the goods in canopic jars for him. I am too polite to ask him if his abdominal cavity is now stuffed full of linen.

Brandon is now cancer free. The war is over. The band has packed up and gone home. Now that the excitement is over, Brandon is left with a long recovery while he wonders what kind of life is left for him. Today he was mourning past summers and all the things he will no longer be able to do.

I can relate. I had my own life changing collision with a Ford Taurus in 2001. A guy named Fred was too busy trying to change lanes to look ahead and smashed into my bike. My head returned the favor by smashing into his windshield. Two seconds of inattention by the driver has left me with mild traumatic brain injury, so-called “mild” because there was no obvious head wound. I won’t bore you with all the ways it affects me, or the struggles I’ve endured to find a way to be “Me” in this new normal. I will just say this:

Today I am living a simple and satisfying life as an author and painter, and my head injury helped me get here. I still have my disability, and I’m happier than at any time in my life.

My Secret: Embrace your circumstances as a gift from the universe (or God, Allah, or even Moe at the neighborhood transmission shop) designed to give you what you need to get where you want. Dive into your circumstances as if there’s a pony buried in the manure—because there is. Master the challenges your circumstances present, whether it means learning how to ask for and accept help or finding a way to ask your neighbor to please not cut the grass at 6 am on Sunday. Become so good at being where you are that you never want it to change.

Practice gratitude for the challenges life presents you, then go out and tackle them. It will be a mental exercise at first, then it will become real. That’s when miracles will happen.

Metaphysics of Gratitude

It’s Thanksgiving. Count your blessings. What are you grateful for?

We’ve heard it all our lives. When I was younger, I thought it was just a way to make yourself feel better. It’s more than that. There’s magic in the phrase “thank you.”

Masaru Emoto photographs water crystals formed after water is exposed to different words, pictures, music and conditions. His most beautiful crystals  occur after exposure to the words, “thank you.” To my mind, that makes “thank you” the most important words you can say. If you are not familiar with Emoto, check out his work. I’s awe-inspiring.

Gratitude is transformative. Many years ago, I read one of those “how to be a real woman and manipulate your husband into giving you everything you want” books. I forget which one. And I was only reading it for my personal amusement. Honest!

The author said that you should thank your husband for every gift he gives you, even if you don’t like it. Why? Because if you make him feel successful at gifting you, he will do more of it. and if you criticize his effort, he won’t want to try again. Praise gets you more and better stuff.

I’m not going to share my feelings about this as marital advice. But it works on a cosmic level. The catch? You have to mean it.

What ever life hands you, find the gift in it and give thanks. It may come wrapped in newspaper and duct tape, but don’t be fooled. There are blessings inside. Honoring those blessings will make them multiply.

Master your situation and find happiness in it. The irony in this is, when you find that mastery and happiness and are perfectly willing to keep your situation, the Universe will decide you are ready for more of its special brand of blessings and propel you into a new one.

Catch number 2: Many of these situations involve lessons. To master the situation, you need to grow in a way specific to your situation. Mastering it may mean to come to love it. But it may also mean to see it for what it is and reject it, as in toxic relationships. The trick is in telling the difference.

How can you be grateful for a toxic situation? For my no-longer co-dependent self, I was grateful for the opportunity to re-experience childhood dynamics as an adult. It gave me the opportunity to see those relationships for what they were, change my behavior and let go. It freed me from the past.

That’s just one item on my gratitude list. I’ll publish more later this week. Until then, peek under the duct tape in your life. What blessings in disguise are lurking there?