Ignore Your Reality

Today's practice: read today's message and reflect upon it as you go about your day.

For a long time, I thought the way to change my life was to fix everything that was wrong with it.

If I wasn't making enough money, I needed to figure out how to make more. If something wasn't working in my relationships, I needed to fix it. And if I wasn't happy with where I was in life, I needed to work harder to get somewhere else.

It all seemed perfectly reasonable.

But somewhere along the way, I began to realize how much of my attention was going toward the very things I wanted to change.

I was constantly thinking about my problems. Talking about them. Trying to figure them out. And sometimes, without even realizing it, complaining about them to anyone who would listen.

I could spend an entire day thinking about the life I didn't want and barely a few minutes imagining the one I did.

There's a wonderful teaching from Florence Scovel Shinn that says, “Your word is your wand.” The idea is that our words have creative power. And the more I began paying attention to what I was saying, the more I understood what she meant.

My words were revealing what I believed.

When I said things like “I can never seem to get ahead” or “Nothing ever works out the way I want,” I wasn't just describing my circumstances. I was reinforcing the very beliefs that influenced how I thought, felt, and behaved.

And then I'd look at my circumstances as proof that those beliefs were true.

It was a pretty convincing cycle.

What I've come to understand is that my current reality is, in many ways, a reflection of how I've been thinking, feeling, and living up until now. It's old news.

And while I still have responsibilities to take care of and problems that need my attention, I don't have to spend the rest of my day rehearsing everything that's wrong. I can give my dreams some airtime.

I can begin thinking, speaking, and making decisions from the perspective of the person I'm becoming, even before my circumstances give me a reason to.

Because the life I see today doesn't have to be the life I keep creating tomorrow.

And maybe the most important thing I can do is stop giving so much attention to what I'm trying to leave behind and start giving more of it to where I want to go.