After talking to a friend who is doing her own little personal growth and spirituality “rehab,” I was reminded of some notes I jotted down one night after meditating.  It was late, probably close to 1 am and I needed to do a download and gain some clarity.  But what I received instead of the calm was an equally welcomed tidal wave of blog ideas and possible posts.  I scribbled down as much as I could as fast as I could and then I crashed.  Now, for anyone who knows me, they know I have horrible handwriting.  Like illegible doctor bad.  And what’s worse, I can’t even read my own handwriting.  Worse still, I actually prefer to write with pen in hand intend of pecking away on a keyboard.  And so I do.  All the time, and I like it.

But back to my friend and our conversation and then my point.  Talking to Kim made me get up and search my chicken scratch for an idea that was bouncing around in my head weeks ago but was abandoned for above mentioned reasons.   And the idea was this, why do we surround ourselves with positive affirmations if we don’t believe them?  And you know which ones I’m talking about, the ones we paste on our laptops, hang on our walls and decorate our lives with.  Because they are pretty?  Because it’s trendy?  Because it’s art?  All good reasons, all good reasons…no judging.  Just questioning.

 

And whatever the reason, I don’t necessarily want you to think about why you put it up in your office in the first place or why it’s the focus of your kid’s gallery wall, I want you to ask yourself if you believe it?  I want to know if you truly believe whatever you were trying to tell yourself or simpler still, whatever it says, period.  I’m guessing an honest answer would turn up more than a few no’s.

And this is why, as adults we lose our ability to believe in the unseen and we start believing in our experience instead of our dreams.  We shape our realities with beliefs that come from our day to day lives and in turn, we only believe what we can see and prove.  And this my friends is our single greatest mistake, repeated over and over, day in and day out.  The more we focus on our “here and now,” the more of our “here and now” we will get stuck in.  And this is a really zinger because the only way to stop chasing our tails and elevate our lives is to elevate our thoughts and to believe in the unseen, to consciously stop creating our reality with the “real” drama we perceive in our lives and create a new one with our hearts and minds.

We have to trust before we have reason to and know without a shadow of a doubt the reasons will follow.

We need to actually believe all those fancy art prints and positive affirmations being liked on Instagram and re-pinned on Pinterest and take a pause.  These words aren’t meaningless, they have been passed down for decades and even centuries — and for good reason, THEY ARE TRUE!  Somewhere, somehow we just stop believing that we can actually “achieve anything we set our minds to” because society as a whole laughs and tells us that’s silly.  And it values hard (often meaningless) work more than passionate determination with a kick-ass shot of gumption.   And forget about possessing gusto or tenacity, especially if you’re female, because society’s not too interested in those twins, they’re relentless!  It wants you to fall in line and fall victim to the “you’ve got to see it to believe it” mentality that is quite simply, comfortable and manageable for the herd.

So sadly this is where we get stuck, basing our thoughts on what is “real” because it is our “proof” that this is how life is.  Yet this cycle of believing what is “real or present” is literally doing us in, setting us up to make this same mistake again and again and again.  But it doesn’t have to be our downfall, not once we recognize and accept the forces at work in our lives.   We can get off the hamster wheel and choose better.  It is within our power to live a happier life full of all that we desire, we just have to stop demanding proof up front and believe the life we want is up for grabs.  And the best part — we don’t even need to know how to achieve it.  That’s The Universe’s job!  We just need to believe it and  feel it and set our energy to attract the life we’re searching for.  The rest will unfold if we can believe in all that is possible instead of only what meets the eye.

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to.”  — Epictetus

Now, if you’re not quite ready to believe your thinking is the key to your success, and you still need some “proof,” simply stop and think about the successful people in your life or in the media.   What do they all have in common?  If you read their bios or simply do a minimal amount of research you will ultimately discover they all share an unwavering belief in the unseen, and that they don’t need the proof before the pudding.  They have faith in The Universe, God, Source Energy, or whatever name it goes by for them.  And at some point, either early on in their lives or maybe later, they surrendered and believed in the undocumented, and from there on out, their realities were shaped by a trust that The Universe is listening and will answer in kind.

It comes in different forms and different names, but the basic law is universal and it’s being mastered by those people who we dream to be.  Our thoughts become things and these things drive our reality.  So dare to dream and believe, and then watch little shifts in your life turn into bigger ones until you too believe in yourself and your dreams more than your current experience.  Stop making the same mistake every day and only choosing what is right in front of you, give yourself some credit and dig deep, just get the ball rolling because once it does, your perception of what to trust will be The Universe and your source of guidance will be your intuition.

“When you know better, you do better.” — Maya Angelou

And this is exactly where my friend just arrived, the place where the ball is rolling.  So let the fun begin, because the hard part is over.  It’s a lot easier to keep believing once the thrill of it all sets in and new experiences, ones grounded in an unseen faith, fueled by exuberance, become your life as you live it.