Monday, July 7, 2008

The Miracle

What began as a 30 day experiment I started last June 24, 2007, turned out to be the first steps onto a path that would lead me in changing my life in every possible way…for the better.

There are days much like today when I look around at the life I live and wonder how I ended up living the exact life I said I wanted to live.

Is it all just a coincidence?
Was it just the way that my life was to unfold anyway?
Or was it more.

I believe it was more then any of those things.

What began as a huge leap of faith across the canyon of my mind, transformed all the aspects of my life in every possible way allowing me to start believing in the magic of life once again. At the beginning of the experiment…

I was contemplating suicide.
I was jobless.
I had no money to feed myself.
I had no type of social life.
I had to leave my home within 30 days or less.
I felt powerless in the grand scheme of all things.

These things were nothing that I wanted my life to be, I wanted more; but I had no idea how to get out of the cycles of thinking and behaviors that kept me trapped within them. In the midst of all the outer chaos of my life at the time, something happened that made me start to fight for the last pieces of myself that told me life was more then the events and circumstances of the present moment.

It wasn’t anything spectacular.
There was no parting of the clouds above.

It was more of a gentle nudge from within that let me know that the equation for life that I had been desperately trying to live by, would never, ever, ever offer me the results I believed they would. I woke up one morning seeing my life for exactly what it was and decided that if my life was going to change…

It was all on me…I had to change in order for my life to change.

I can see now that everything that was happening and the way that it was happening was all occurring for one reason and one reason only. It was an opportunity for me to change the dynamics of my life; I had to take full responsibility for myself and for the way that my life would be from that moment on.

I had no understanding of what would happen as a result of me diving within myself to re-wire the way that I thought and felt, but I did know that if they way that I believed changed then eventually the way thay I experienced the world around me would change along with the new beliefs.

I traveled into my past, present and future to re-define the way that I felt about events, circumstances and situations. I had to, or I would never free myself from the external prison they had become. It seemed like each day or the experiment revealed something new to me and allowed me to re-examine aspects of my life that had wounded me spiritually; and to find a lesson of growth and gratitude for what had already occurred what was occurring and for what would occur.

As the way that I thought and felt about my life changed….everything around me began to change as well.

Throughout the journey there was a lot of things that came up.

Painful stuff.
Scary stuff.
Exhilarating stuff.
And just stuff.

There were moments I felt like giving up, finding another job, settling back in the limits of the life that I knew…but something wouldn’t let me. Throughout the experiment, even in the greatest moments of uncertainty, something within me kept nudging me forward, even when I felt I didn’t have the strength to take another step.

That something was hope.
That something was my inner spirit.
That something was me.

I have allowed who I was at the core of my being to be shoved, shaped and molded into someone I thought I should be, never for a moment realizing it was never who I was meant to be. I believe we all have those aspects of ourselves with us at all times. Some of us, like myself struggle with allowing this part of ourselves to shine forth, while there are others who willing embrace this aspect of themselves.

I never embraced who I was.
I didn’t know I could.

And then one day, it was time for me to be who I was…and I embraced the challenge head on.

At the beginning of the experiment I knew what I didn’t want from life…

I didn’t want to trade my time for a job that would never adequately be able to compensate me for the actual value of time.
I didn’t want to miss out on my family anymore.
I didn’t want my life to be nothing more then work, sleep, work, sleep.
I didn’t want struggle and sacrifice to taint another moment of my life.

I knew what I didn’t want, because it was all around me and I was miserable. So I had to start dreaming and thinking about what I did want. Initially to venture forth into what I did want was a challenge; allowing myself to begin thinking about what I did want presented me with the many roadblocks in my thinking that had kept me from wanting anything more for a long time.

I had to dream about what I wanted.
I had to think about what I wanted.
I had to understand anything I wanted was possible.

I couldn’t allow myself to get caught up in the obvious distraction of “how” I would begin to experience and receive the life I wanted, I had to just see it as if it I was already having and living the life that I wanted. The “how” of the equation would only serve to lead me back to the limited thinking that had produced the results of the live I had already lived.

I wanted to live in my own home.
i wanted a beautiful garden filled with a rainbow of flowers.
I wanted to fall in love with someone who who loved me as much as I loved them.
I wanted to write for a living.
I wanted to help other people.

I just wanted to be happy.

It’s just a little over a year since the experiment began and this is the very life I am in living. Halfway through the experiment I made the decision to move back to Long island to stay with my parents for a little while….a month or two later I crossed paths with the man I am now madly in love with; and who loves me just as much.

I live with him in a beautiful home with my rainbow garden filled with flowers.
I help people like myself on a daily basis and let others know that the life I have is the life they can have if they choose to have it.
I have a wonderful network of friends and family that bursts the seams of my social calender.
I write for a living on my own website as well as several others and am in the process of finishing my first book.
I have not traded a moment of my time behind a desk working for someone else.
I have a beautiful magical life.
I am happy.

I started my experiment because I wanted to know if anything was truly possible and what I discovered on that journey was simply…the miracle of this life.

If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy the following……….

~The Process of Becoming
~The Spaces In-Between
~Love Falling
~Magic Shoes
~Simply Beautiful
~ It takes Courage

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so very much for writing, for giving hope. I am often thinking of changing the way my life goes, but I have never thought that it what makes the difference - is the way you think of your life, the way you thing of yourself...

Anonymous said...

Great article.I read it with pleasure because it calm me.

TSWINS said...

funny,people will help you in any way that they can,except when it comes to MONEY.Even the wealthy won't help with a loan.Suicide is the only way out.