Look What I Made

I’m thinking about ways that we create experiences in our lives and then fear or misinterpret what we’ve created.

A few years ago a friend of mine was saying over and over that he wanted a year off work. As the office went through changes and became unbearable, he talked about quitting before he got laid off … no, he’d let them lay him off so he’d get severance pay and unemployment.

He was laid off, a week or two before he had expected it, and it was done in what he considered to be a scene lacking in respect and integrity. He felt angry, hurt and humiliated …

It took him just over a year to find another job in his field. During that time, he wasn’t able to fully relax and enjoy his time off. He was worried all the time, scared that he wouldn’t find another job and would lose his house, et cetera.

This man’s perspective – that he was not in control of what happened to him – made him feel worried and scared.

With a different perspective, he might have felt excited, amazed and empowered by seeing that what he had talked about and imagined had in fact worked – it had manifested. Perhaps not in every detail, but the big goals were all met.

He had created time off with severance pay and unemployment … if he had noticed that and thought about its implications, perhaps that time off would have been perceived as a miracle, a validation, a chance to really relax and have fun, and an opportunity do a leisurely creation of the new job about one year later.

I’ve done the same sort of thinking many times, missing my own power within a situation that I’ve created. I suspect that we’ve all done it, since we’re within a culture or cultures that maintain a mistaken concept of who we are, what we’re capable of, and what reality is. Constant exposure to this thinking Is like a slow, relentless pollutant.

Sometimes I like to look back on my past and re-shape my perceptions of events in light of what I know now. It’s an exercise that has the power to change the past and present. A shift in perspective changes emotions, releasing old fear … which can free me from that internal nagging as well as solidifying the new perspective in this present moment – practicing in this way helps my busy little conscious mind understand that this perspective is in fact true and real.

I think that when we begin to re-imagine our experiences in a new perspective that acknowledges our own responsibility and validates our own humble power, everything within us has a chance of shifting toward curiosity, amazement, amusement, and even joy.