So many decisions. Some people hate to have to make any kind decision at all.
“Is that your final answer?” Well, shit. I don’t friggin’ know, maybe? I guess? Are there do-overs?
We have some amazing tools that allow us to tune in, check our guts, feel into the situation, but most of us are never taught to use them. And to a point, that’s a good thing. If we always know what to do, how do we make the mistakes that allow us to grow?
But there are mistakes, and then there are oh-shits. Mistakes are things that allow us to learn something and adjust course so we are heading in a healthier, happier direction. Oh-shits are mistakes on meth, that set us back, cause us grief, take us down a long, dark rabbit hole to hell and keep us stuck.
So learning to trust your gut, learning to tune in to your intuition (inner-teacher, in-tuition) early and often is essential. If you have a particular mission in life, it’s that much more essential. We want you learning, adjusting, growing, and making progress – and to hell with perfection. Perfection is a moving target that shifts every time somebody slows down enough to take a real breath.
Perfection is just another way of staying stuck. It’s a lie we tell ourselves so we can put off acting on anything.
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I’ve been studying and practicing and working hard, learning and reaching and growing into being an ever-learning sound healer. I’m getting so close to certification that I can taste it now [Ed. Certified Sound Healing Practitioner in July 2018]. And so I have to start thinking about how I want to launch and develop my business and my practice. Do I want to get an office, or continue to work from home? Do I want to bring my music students into my current space, or my new space, and consolidate everything I do into one location? Do I want to go into partnership with another sound healer or healers, and share the space and the financial risk?
Not one of these options is “perfect.” But I am going to think my way through them and all the other options I have, gently and easily, and find the combination of options that brings me the most joy. Because Joy is the point I have called North on my personal compass.
If I follow the Path of Joy, I will always end up exactly where I need to be.
That’s a realization that I came to many many years ago, and it stuck with me. Every time I have reminded myself of that, every time that I have made a decision based on what is going to bring me the most joy, it has been the right choice.
But Joy doesn’t mean, “Yay! I get what I want all the time!” Joy can be hard. Joy can mean I don’t get what I think I want, and instead, somebody else gets what they want, because that’s the right damn thing to do. Delaying instant gratification in favor of long-term, hard won Joy is a no-brainer.
I also have to decide how I want to market myself. What parts of this story do I want to tell? How do I want people to feel when they encounter my message? How do I want to be perceived? Because I could go so many ways with it. Messages and images need to be consistent and instantly recognizable. What I share needs to develop slowly, like a long, easy cruise through a rainbow, each band connected to all the others clearly, but offering a unique part of the whole vibration, evolving by shades over time. So where do I start? How do I portray this facet and that? How do I unify the whole, yet ensure all my aspects are represented? Let’s face it, I do a lot of stuff, and I love all the stuff I do and want to do all of it. It all brings me Joy.
Rainbows don’t require you to make a choice. You can embrace all the colors, because they all add up to make One Light.
Rainbows are created through prismatic effects of light through raindrops, or through a prism. Our beautiful Chakra system is a perfect representation of this – imagine your Crown chakra as the prism, and each chakra below is a band in that rainbow. Source’s Light hits your Crown Prism and separates into the bands that make you who you are. That kinda fills me with Joy; what about you?
So how do we do it? How do we get past the second-guessing (and the third-guessing) and the perfection-mongering and the analysis paralysis to the clear knowing?
If it’s supposed to be so easy, why the hell is it so hard?
Faith is hard work – at first. Believing that everything is going to work out, that we’re here for a purpose and the more joy we experience the more aligned we are with our purpose, is hard work. Remembering to believe in ourselves takes practice and so many sticky notes. “Yes you are all that!” “You have to believe in what you’re doing first; then other people will believe in you, too.” “Believe! Why else are you doing this?” Feel free to steal any of those for your own sticky note collection.
I have a journal that I write in every morning to record dreams, thoughts, events of the previous day, ideas, and plans for the current day. I frequently refer back to earlier journals or pages to witness the journey I am on, and to remind myself of thoughts or ideas I had, that I totally forgot about weeks or months later. It’s a valuable practice, because I can clearly see the progress I make on things I’m working for, and see what kinds of things are important enough to me to get worked on, and that makes it easier for me to believe in what I am doing.
It also helps me have faith that everything is gonna work out and be alright. Most things are gonna work out for the best–look, that one did, and so did that one. And most stuff is gonna be either good or great–see, I knew it all the way back in March that this was gonna be fantastic. I’m a great proponent of journaling, because it works. For pretty much whatever you need. Do it.
A journal will also help you find, if you don’t know it already, what your own internal compass is set to. Doesn’t have to be joy. Look at what makes you really happy, what gets you excited. Is there something that unifies those things? That is a good candidate for an internal compass. Can you make a decision by it? “Which of these options is going to allow me to feel the most _______?” There ya go.
You have to trust yourself.
And that can be so hard. We know our own weaknesses, or at least some of them. We can list every time we have failed at something, in chronological order, and probably tell you what we were wearing at the time. We can relive those failures at the drop of a hat, and it’s just so easy to wallow in it. But we have succeeded, too. We have had plenty of times when we actually made magic happen, but do we dwell on those? Hell no.
Building trust requires us to witness our successes. We don’t need to deny or forget or try to erase our failures, because they are valuable teachers. Marie Forleo says, “I win or I learn, but I never lose.” I have that statement on a sticky note right here where I can see it every day. It is so important to celebrate our successes, and document them so we can build trust with ourselves.
There’s another powerful statement that I have on a sticky note, and I refer to it often as I work on creating the world I want to live in. It was developed by a psychiatrist and I cannot remember his name, but it is one of the most powerful ways I have ever encountered to build trust with yourself by rewriting the internal conversations you have with yourself. It’s a simple statement: “I used to believe that I had _______. I am only subject to what I hold in my mind. I am no longer subject to _______.” Try it. “I used to believe that I couldn’t finish a project. I am only subject to what I hold in my mind. I no longer leave things unfinished.” Write it on a sticky and insert relevant negative belief daily, lather, rinse, repeat.
You can trust yourself to make the right decisions and get things done. It takes practice, faith and belief, and a willingness to give up negative self-image habits that keep you stuck. I know you can do it, because you are only subject to what you hold in your mind. Believe you are fantastic and be fantastic.