Michelle Conaway

A couple of years ago I decided to start a list of likes and dislikes. My reasoning behind this was to begin being conscious of the things in my life that didn’t serve me. So I opened up an excel spreadsheet, created two columns headed “Likes” and “Dislikes” and went about the business of writing down what I enjoyed and what I didn’t. The list was ongoing. When I was doing something I didn’t like, I would record it. Likewise for things I enjoyed.

The act of writing this list made me more conscious of what I was doing in each moment. I learned that if I could not at least accept the fact that something had to be done, it went on the dislikes list. If I could accept, enjoy, or even better be enthusiastic about something, it went on the likes list.

Over time I started noticing that the things I disliked began falling by the wayside. I either stopped doing them all together or they were removed from my life completely by some other means. I’ve put my focus on filling my life with the things that I like. I still have to do some things only because I accept that they need to be done, but I’m not fighting them anymore. And I absolutely don’t do the things I dislike.

It’s such a simple thing.Writing this list helped me become aware of how much time I spent on things I flat out didn’t like doing. Awareness is the first step towards change. When we are aware we suddenly know what needs to change and we can take the necessary steps to change it.

This new awareness not only benefits me but everyone that comes into contact with me.  When I’m happy it seems to be contagious.  And by giving myself permission to do the things I like, I am in a better position to allow others to do what they like as well. Happiness is an inside job. I’ve made it my business to get happy.  This list helped me get clear about how to allow happiness to manifest in my daily life.

I learned recently that I have been living and breathing for approximately one and a half billion seconds.

It sounds like a lot but it has taken me :

* 15 seconds to write these first three lines.

* 1 second to blink (thats about 20 blinks to write this so far)

* 60 seconds to get comfortable in my chair.

*  300 seconds to have a short conversation with one of my   kids

*  86,400 seconds to sleep, wake and do everything in   between.

Only 86,400 seconds in a day!  When you stop and think that blinking spends 1 of those seconds, 86,400 doesn’t sound like a lot.  It adds up.

I learned that I had been on this earth for one and a half billion seconds after my youngest son told me he wanted to figure out how many seconds he had been alive.  We sat down with the calculator and figured it up.  I was astonished!  I had never thought of my life as mere seconds adding up to a lifetime.

I had always thought of my life in chunks or by events or stages. Childhood, school days, marriage, children, vacations. Not in terms of seconds that made up each of those events.

It got me to thinking about how I spend my seconds here on earth.

I am either:

worrying, angry, fearful and anxiety ridden.

Or

joyful, happy and finding the beauty right under my nose.

I realized that this short life is made up of very brief moments and when we spend one, it is gone forever.  These seconds do not renew themselves.  Yes, we can choose differently in THIS moment but the second spent is already gone.  Enjoying the small things that lead up to big things is just as important as experiencing the big ones. ALL of it equals a lifetime.

How often have I spent those seconds in my head trying to analyse the world?  How many of those seconds have I spent on judging others?  How many moments have been spent trying to get to the next second?  A lot I am afraid, but I don’t feel regretful for that.  Those seconds have led to this moment, where I am free to choose again. With each blink of an eye I have a choice.

Do I see the world as a problem?  Each moment being a means to an end?

Or

Do I find all of the gifts in front of me to behold, taking in the miracle of it all?

It all comes down to the question of whether I live in fear or in joy.  With each blink, I get to choose.  We all do.

What Freedom!

I have made a new commitment to writing.  I realize with such clarity that in order to be a successful writer, writing must become a top priority to me, to my family and to my friends.  I realized that I was withholding my dream from others because of fear of failure.  What if everyone knows I am writing everyday, hoping to be published and it doesn’t happen?  I had to be with that question for some time before realizing that I have to be willing to fail.  I have to be willing to suck as a writer, to be wasting two to three hours every day on it and have it never amount to anything.  I have to be publicly going for my dream, allowing myself to be vulnerable and willing to be rejected.

When I realized my biggest fear around writing was being rejected or judged silently by my friends and family, it felt as if a light had been turned on in a very dark room.  There it was, the rejection, the failure, the ridicule — hiding in the darkness of my mind.  But bringing it into the foreground, looking at it, acknowledging that it was there, brought it into the light of my consciousness.  No longer could it lurk in the dark like a childhood monster, scaring me.  It’s power was deflated  just by seeing it.

Now the fear can be there but it can’t hide from me any longer.  I can see that I projected this fear onto everyone I knew, just knowing they would judge my writing.  But it was me that was holding back out of fear.  It was me that was afraid of my own mind.  As soon as I revealed this, made a stand for the dream that I have to become a published author, my friends and family rallied around me.  I was the one holding the support at arms length.  I was the one making it impossible to write.  And excuses to not write exploded as disguises for the fear.

The fear of rejection and failure can no longer rule my actions or in-actions.  Are they still there?  Sure.  But they are illuminated by the light of consciousness and can just become a part of me that I understand and love.  They have tried to protect me but my resistance to them just made them stronger.  Now, I just ask them to pull up a chair as I write.  And usually my acceptance of them makes them all but disappear.

I woke up in a mood yesterday.  The kind of mood where nothing was quite right and everything was irritating.  I wasn’t sure where this was coming from but I knew that it was useless to try to change it.  Everything I did to try and change it – meditate, read spiritual text and such – was not helping.  When that didn’t work, I caught myself lashing out – at the kids, the dog or anything that came within a foot of my path.  It was then that I remembered a library book that needed to be returned and I promptly got in the car, by myself, and drove to the library.

On the drive I was cursing in my mind all of the outer things that I felt were not right.  I then remembered that when the circumstances begin to be the problem in my mind that I must look deeper to see what is going on within.  I know that the circumstances can never dictate my mood and that if my mood was rotten something was rotting inside, namely, a thought I had not yet identified and worked on.

I didn’t see it right away.  I just had thoughts about finances, kids school work, the dog needing a bath, the infinite things that I felt I needed to do, but I couldn’t quite identify why I was in blame mode.  I decided to allow myself a bad day.  To just be in a bad mood, but the catch was to be the observer of that bad mood and be very alert to the self talk that was going on.

I started seeing the self sabotage underneath all of the outer condemnation of my circumstances.  I started seeing that I was feeling as though I couldn’t keep up and I couldn’t do all of the things I need to do.  My son had moaned and groaned about his school work and I felt that I wasn’t presenting it in an interesting enough way.  The dog was stinky and I felt that I just didn’t have time to deal with it.  The house was a mess and hadn’t I just cleaned it a couple of days ago? The kids are in their “hungry every minute of the day” faze and I just couldn’t seem to keep enough groceries in stock with the budget that we have and still feed them healthy meals and snacks.  I started seeing a thread of I’M Not Good Enough stringing through my every thought.  I allowed it.  I asked it to pull up a seat and stay for a while.  I know that if I can’t do this, if I can’t feel these darts of self doubt and own them and claim them as my own, I begin forcing it outward.  And when I force it outward and stuff the internal feelings that are going on, I’m doomed and I stay in that state for a while, creating messes to clean up later.

Allowing the feelings of not good enough, without trying to counter them, just allowing them to stab me with their insistence, I was able to see that I was JUDGING myself.  I wouldn’t talk to my dog the way that  internal voice was talking to me.  I began to see that it was an illusion.  Just an old tape recording and the play button had been pushed.  I watched it play out until it stopped.  I realized there is NO SUCH THING as a not good enough.  We do what we do, we are who we are and any judgement about that is relative.  Relative to what?  To the never ending imaginary scale that I always try to put myself on.  Am I living up here?  Am I as good as so and so there?  It is a never ending movement from one end of the scale to the other, until we can take ourselves off and just be.

So, I started being and letting go of the illusion that there is even such a thing as good enough.  I was able to move from activity to activity without a lot of expectation or attachment to what came of it.  And I saw my energy soar and my creativity blossom – I was alive again.  I was back to the reality that there is no scale to put myself upon, there is nothing to live up to, no one to live up to and that my life is just my life.  What freedom!

One of the great benefits to this is watching others around me and seeing how their energy changes with mine.  Everyone relaxes.  It seems that when I take myself off of that dreaded scale that we all pull out sometimes, everyone else can do the same.  I can give them the space to be who they are and they feel it. Resistance stops and love can flourish.

So, I am happy within again and not having to lash out at the dog, the kids or my husband.  I can just be who I am without trying to be the “best”‘ or even close.  I AM.  That is all that is necessary.

I was thinking this morning about the gifts that lie hidden within the depths of our being, that we so many times want to hide from the world.  Those creative gifts that we were told so many times as children and young adults were great pass times, when we weren’t busy doing something “productive”, but that were not really to be given much attention.  Heaven forbid we think we might could sustain ourselves in life using these beautiful talents.   I see in my own life the creative energy that has stayed dormant for so much of my life in pursuit of things that really “mattered” instead.  Those beautiful hidden talents that have been choked out of my life, pushed down and hidden.

I come from a generation that was all about pursing something that we thought would bring joy and success but instead brought a crippled version of self.  The career, the money, the big houses, cars and prestige.   The life the world thought was valuable, and all the while our  true authentic selves being plunged to the bottom of our existence.  I have seen it not only in myself but in others around me.  The “giving up” of our dreams in pursuit of something that “looked” more promising.  There is nothing wrong with pursuing a career and all of the physical things that go with it, but if it is at the expense of allowing our true selves to emerge, is that really success?

I read a story today that a friend of mine started.  She LOVES to write, as do I.  But that skill has been banished from the forefront of her mind for so long and not only that, been abused by those haunting voices from the past.  “You’re not good enough.”  “Only the best sustain themselves with their creative talents.” YOU can’t do that!”  “Who are YOU to think that YOU could have anything to offer the world, other than HARD work and putting nose to the grindstone.”

When I read the beginning of my friend’s story, I thought, My God, this girl has talent!  Why isn’t she writing books and getting published?  I see that I need to turn this question on myself as well.   I need to ask the question daily, “Why am I not at least trying to get published?  Why do I withhold what is within me to express?”

I am starting to see that it all comes down to facing the dreaded fears that we have about our talents. When we can allow ANYTHING to happen in our existence on this great planet, including failure, rejection, and looking stupid, we can step more fully into who we are.  When I am not avoiding failure, failure is not so threatening.  I then give myself and others permission to see the REAL me and have whatever reaction they have.  And it is usually so sweet and beautiful and not near the harsh reaction that I was afraid of.

I am getting on a cellular level how precious our talents and voices are.   The voice of the divine speaks to us within our talents and to withhold it is a transgression against not only ourselves but the world.  For it is that which lies deep within ourselves that is our gift.  When withheld, we are withholding all of the good that life has to offer and we close ourselves off from receiving back from the world what it so much wants to give us.

Failure is a dreaded illusion of the mind.  When we bury the voice that is within us, wanting to be spoken, we are lost.  So as I face failure, look it dead in the eye and ALLOW it to surface, what I find is success.  When we are living authentically, there is no such thing as failure.  Only lessons and life itself.

So to my friend the writer I say, GO FOR IT!  To myself I say the same.  The gifts that we behold and that were planted into our very being are aching to be released into the Universe and it is our responsibility to voice them and allow them to flow where they may, without attachment to where they go, what anyone thinks about it or how it ultimately turns out.  I suspect that whatever happens when we do this, it is always good.  There is a gift in it somewhere if we only dare to look for it.