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Sometimes, actually quite often, changing one word could be the difference between living a life in quiet desperation and living a life in excitement and eagerness…
But what is the word? What is the word that makes the spirit that has been dormant in you open its eyes and say… let’s go? Let’s fly.
And the most interesting thing about that word is that unless it comes out of the dark sky like an unexpected lightning, it will have no thunder. It will be a whisper that will die without an echo. Without being heard.
We have spoken about context, we have spoken about backdrop. Blah blah blah… but context is an art. And it is context that makes the lightning light up the sky… or not.
In the hands of an amateur a paint brush will make a mess… In the hands of an artist a paint brush can cause the thunder.
A turning point. For your life.
Let’s look at your role in the drama:
Can you hear the thunder?
Or are you already too busy to protect your identity to even hear it? Too busy to get the significance of the life-altering flash?
- Put a masterpiece in front of someone boring and ordinary and they see themselves in it: boring and ordinary.
- Put the ordinary in front of a master, and they see the masterpiece in it.
Ultimately the difference between the two is one measure. To what degree the spirit is free to flap its wings… inside.
- If you are boring… no room for the spirit.
- If you are dull… no room for the spirit to stir.
As you read, so will you write, so will you speak.
Do you read unwittingly whispering under your breath: get to the point! How do I get rich?!
There is a meme I hate with all the fervor of a Wicked Witch. It was coined by blind and deaf Helen Keller… It is both hogwash and slop for the pigs;
The meme says: turn your face to the sun and the shadows disappear.
Only a blind person could say something so boring and stupid as that…
What gives life to light is the shadows… What gives life to joy is the contrast.
No contrast? No life.
Have you ever seen a man in the lifeless Southwest, the desert, lift their face to the sun? Hell no…
Everything is already burning, why add more burning? While a shooting star in the dark sky in August is hope eternal… full of meaning, full of yearning, full of spirit…
Yeah. If you are boring, none of what I can give you will be able to light up the sky…
,,,turn your life around… and open the curtains to the magical, the majestic, the phenomenal. You are the canvas and every color, every stroke of that paintbrush dies on you with a whimper.
What makes you so so so boring though? it is your desire to having… and your desire to avoid… They are the floor, the walls and the ceiling of your life… And the spirit is dying.
- In colorless even the rainbow disappears.
- In having-to eating a chocolate cake is a chore… hell no!
You are dead before your time… Because what you say and how you say it is important, You say it with your action, with where your eyes are going. What you say is important to you isn’t making you alive.
All your dreams and aspirations are dead and deadening. They are traps that keep you entrapped. They rob you of freedom, play and fun.
The spirit says every time I ask it, it says: I want to have fun. Excitement. Aliveness.
Some 15 years ago, in a course, I made a collage. The theme of the collage was: I am left out. I found a big picture of a garden party. Pretty people drinking fancy drinks, laughing. The sun reflected from an in-ground pool.. It looked like fun.
Then, I methodically put up thin black strips of paper in front of the party, separating me from all that ‘fun’.
Then and there I stopped hoping that one day some day I was going to be accepted by the in-crowd, the fun-crowd… That crowd was the ‘sun’ of Helen Keller. Then and there I successfully turned my face away from it. From the outer fun. From the mundane alcohol-fueled fun.
And started to have fun inside, serious fun. And I still do.
In the privacy of my own brain everything has a fun aspect and is entertaining. And everything flies the spirit.
- It is sweltering hot? Yeah, look at all that heat?
- My body is sticky of sweat? Enjoy the shower that washes it off.
- Afraid to go out on the deck for all those fleas haunting it? Enjoy the figuring out a way to water the plants without setting foot on the flea playground. And kill the fleas I brought inside, unwittingly,
And read. Notice, groove with sentences that jolt the spirit awake.
Experiment with words that turn boring into exciting… simple words…
Go from have-to to want-to. Go from have-to to get-to. And go from should to could… and feel what the spirit says…
Come out of the boring, the predictable, the colorless… and start living. Inside. Inside where it matters.
I suddenly understand the monks and nuns of different creeds… They trade the outside ‘fun’ for inside fun… at least, I guess, that is the idea. Can they? Can you?
Dancing without a dance floor for inner dancing… I love that.
I watch people. They force outer life… and have nothing inside.
They puzzle me… I am sure they wouldn’t even understand what I am talking about.
I am sure some of you will suddenly want to turn your face towards the inner sun… without ever exploring the shadows.
Forgive me, but trading one stupid things for another won’t make you happy.
What gives the joy is the contrast. You need to explore your inner shadows and allow them, graciously allow them to be.
Maybe it would be a better picture to paint that the shadows are the alligators in the swamp where you are standing. Raising your face to the sun is what you choose to do?
The alligators are crowding you because you were trying to avoid looking at them, dealing with them, doing what is yours to do.
Doing the same thing, over and over again, is the sure sign of insanity…
Address the alligators, one by one, and drain the swamp.
And consider addressing the alligators fun. It can be. It is entirely up to you what attitude you bring to it. Really.
- If you get to address the alligators? Privilege.
- You have to address the alligators? Huge resistance.
- And you want to address the alligators? Adventure…
You see, it is all up to you…
Do you think it will be easy? It is simple but not easy.
Your habitual attitude will want to take over…
It will take discipline and consistency to hold the rudder in your hand… and not allow the habitual to take it back. To take back the control, to take back your life to the boring existence it creates.
In the Moneyroots workshops we explore your shadows. That’s all we do.
And there are many. Many different shadows biting at your ankle.
To the degree you consider these shadows the truth, and to the degree you resist them, make them wrong, to the same degree you’ll continue the life you are now living.
But when you have what it takes to stare them down, and see them as shadows, not more substantial than that, not more valid than that, you’ll be able to chart a new path, inner path, to a life worth living.
Take a trip to the world of shadows
