Conscious Living—Spring, 2006

Life can be a puzzle. How many times have you asked yourself the questions: how did this happen? What am I doing here? What is wrong with me? Why do I feel so stuck? A number of clients express this confusion about their lives, a kind of “out of sync” feeling with their day-to-day existence. By all accounts their lives appear to be fine, stable and on track, and yet there is this nagging sense of “what’s wrong with this picture?” whenever they examine things a bit closer.

When you look at your life, you are looking at the sum and total of the thoughts and ideas you have held in the past and are still holding now—ideas about who you are and what you deserve and what is possible. This is not to say you are doing something wrong and are to blame for the situation you are in. It is more to say that you are capable of consciously changing things if you so desire. It is not so much what you’ve done to create where you are; it’s more what you haven’t done to create something different.

Generally, we live life somewhat unconsciously. We have desires and dreams but we oftentimes lack the conviction required to manifest them. Energetically, life works this way: idea + conviction = manifestation. Conviction is the fuel. It is nice to have a dream and work at it and hope that it will come true. But hope can be a passive and unreliable fuel. Hope can imply “maybe.” “Maybe” this will be so. Hope suggests that there is only a chance of manifestation. Hope is what you have left when conviction takes a walk.

Suppose you wish to become a dancer. You have the desire. You put in the work and undergo the training. You focus on the goal. But when you are around other dancers, you gauge your worth against theirs. This one is better at jumps. That one is more limber. This one is prettier. That one has connections and will have more success at finding work. And so on.

In time you may become soured by rejection and a lack of recognition. Perhaps you internalize the criticism you’ve been given. Perhaps you begrudge others the success they have found. (As if it had something to do with you.)

But dreams can be delicate things in their formative stages, and they require protection from the storms of doubt and resentment. Dreams are sacred. They require a kind of reverence and nourishment. If it is your dream, you must own it fully, not give over the power of your conviction to someone else’s talent or criticism or success.

In spring, the planting season, it is worth stopping to ask yourself as you look at your life: what is it I wish to harvest? This is what I mean by conscious living. Not what’s wrong with this picture, but what do I want this picture to look like?

I think about this parable I heard as a child, the one Jesus told about the man who sows his seeds, flinging them here and there, leaving their germination and growth to chance: will they fall on fertile ground or rocky? Will the birds and wind carry them away or will they take root? Will they grow in an area rife with weeds, only to be choked out? In this story, as a result of misfortune or chance, many of the seeds are squandered—only a few flourish.

What happens when we live our lives like the sower in the parable? We leave things to chance. As we toss our dreams to the world, we say: “maybe” this will flourish, I can only hope. But hope is not the only thing we can do to create the life we want.

What if we were to rewrite the formula above to match the planting analogy: seeds (ideas) + nurturance (conviction) = harvest (manifestation)? Now let’s apply it:

Seeds: What are your ideas or dreams for the future? What inspires you? What is your highest intention regarding your work, your relationships, your lifestyle, your health? Build it out in detail, as a gardener would list everything she intends to grow: so much corn here, so many squash there, so many cabbages, beans, lettuce, etc. Sit down with a pen and paper and map it all out. Feel free to go back and revise. (Maybe the beans need to be transplanted to another part of the garden.) These intentions should be comprised of positive statements about what you want to build, not what you don’t want. There should be no judgment in these statements. (e.g., I want a loving partner, not, I don’t want my partner to level his anger at me.)

Nurturance: A farmer strives to find the most suitable spot and soil for his crops. He protects them against frost and vermin, disease and weeds. He may put up a fence or netting. He may add nutrients to the soil. He will make certain to irrigate the soil properly. Examine the integrity of your intentions. Is there any intent to harm someone else? Do the intentions truly serve you and your dreams or do they serve someone else’s?

How can we nurture our dreams? In any given moment we have the option to choose either a life-affirming thought or a life-rejecting one. One has the power to manifest the dream, the other the power to de-form it. “I am thankful to have a loving relationship with my partner” is more life-affirming than “I hope I have the strength to see this relationship through.” It does not matter if the marriage is troubled. If your intention is to have a loving relationship, then you can fuel the manifestation of that dream (nourish it) with the conviction that it will manifest, i.e., I am thankful for a loving relationship. When, conversely, you express a desire to “see the relationship through” you are only prolonging the discontent and de-forming your dream of domestic happiness.

Don’t allow obstacles to remove your focus or lessen your conviction. Maybe you have an argument with your partner. It’s tempting to give in to: “I knew this wouldn’t work”, but it is not affirming and it does not nurture your dream. If the preponderance of thought is negative, you are sucking air out of whatever it is you intend for your life, whatever it is you wish to manifest. It is like watering your weeds and allowing your vegetables to go dry.

Thought is powerful. It is the energy that fuels every cell of our bodies and every aspect of our lives. If you have the power to think whatever you like, what will you choose those thoughts to be?

Harvest: Early civilizations always took time to celebrate the fruits of their labors. They gathered whatever they had manifested about them, regardless of how rich the quality or quantity of the crop, and they gave thanks. Gratitude is never misplaced. Even if the crop is not a bumper one, expressing gratitude for whatever you have reaped for your efforts ensures that the experience is a beneficial one. It is a powerful acknowledgement of your relationship with the powers that be. You give, you receive, you give, you receive—a perfect universal rhythm and balance. An unending source with which you align yourself through gratitude.

Give nourishment to your own dreams. Never stop doing that. There is such an urge to grow inside them, like the will within the acorn to become an oak. It doesn’t matter that they are just the dreams of your one small life. You never dream just for you; the fruition of your dreams touches everyone.

In one stanza of “Flare,” poet Mary Oliver says it this way:

The poem is not the world.
It isn’t even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,
Like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.

Pleasant dreams to all of you,

Jane