“Studies have shown that 90% of error in thinking is due to error in perception. If you can change your perception, you can change your emotion and this can lead to new ideas. –Edward de Bono
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. –William Blake
“There is no truth. There is only perception.” –Gustave Flaubert
Do you do what I do? Do you get ideas in your head about your circumstances and think they’re written in stone, that they can’t change? I do that all the time.
Recently a wisp of an idea flittered through my head during my meditation. It was fleeting like smoke, but tendrils of it remained. The next day more tendrils stuck and after a few days of this, I understood the full blown idea. I’d been holding on to thoughts about my life circumstances that weren’t true.
Wow. What an idea. In my mind I’d accepted certain “truths” about my life, my talents, and my chances for success. I’d done it so much that the realization was a little bit like a splash of cold water in the face.
My husband and I have been discussing a move to another state for quite some time. In my mind certain steps had to take place before we could even consider making such a move. But on that particular morning when all the tendrils coalesced, I knew that the “truth” was that I was the thing blocking the fulfillment of that dream. We could have been living in our new home long ago, if I hadn’t put a kibosh on it by thinking that there were obstacles in the way.
Let me put it another way. If I’d kept the picture of what I wanted in my mind, and not thought of anything else, the Universe would have conspired for me and we’d be living in our new home by now.
I’m reminded of a story about Walt Disney. He saw Disneyland completed in his head long before the first shovel hit the ground. As he was struggling to make his dream come true, someone said to him something like, “Since it’s so hard, why don’t you give up. Maybe it’s not meant to be”, to which he said. “It already exists in my mind.” He also said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” As we all know, not only Disneyland, but Disney World both exist and millions of people have fun with their families every year.
So, I’ve decided that I’ve got to change my mind about limitations, and believe that I can do what someone else might call impossible.
This applies not only to the move my husband and I want to make, but to other things as well. Like finding an audience for my books. Other artists have done it. They wanted to be writers, painters, dancers and just kept dreaming that they would be able to do what they loved and make a success of it. They dreamed they’d find people who believed in them. Little by little it happened. In the end, they got to live the life they wanted. Those are the people we look up to, and want to emulate.
One of my greatest inspirations in this regard, is my youngest niece. Since the age of three, she’s wanted to be a ballet dancer. That’s not an easy profession. It takes years of hard work and training with no guarantee that you’ll be able to get hired. She not only wants to be a ballet dancer, she wants to do it in Paris!
Her parents are very supportive and never tell her to make a back-up plan. In fact they moved the family to a city where she can get the best training, and possibilities for auditions. Every once in a while when she complains about missing something else that might be fun, my sister will say to her, “Are you sure this is what you want to do? Because if you don’t, you can stop and do something else.” So far after nine years, she still loves dancing more than anything else. To help her improve the vision of her dreams, she has posters of Paris on her walls, she’s taking French in school; she’s going all out to think only of seeing the life she wants to live.
Now that I’m breaking down some of those old walls in my thinking that have kept me from my dreams, I’m visualizing the life I want to live. And one of the things I’m visualizing is going to Paris to watch my niece dance and while I’m there having book signings and speaking engagements about my writing process.
What dreams are you blocking?
Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2014
Sage Woman Chronicles 