Ah-Ha Moments

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

The above quote happens to be one of my favorites, but you know how it is, you can love an adage but not fully understand it. This week I had an ah-ha moment which, helped me understand this quote more fully.

But first let me tell you this story. I know someone who refuses to eat chocolate in protest for, or maybe in support of all those people in the world who are too poor to be able to buy it for themselves. When I first heard this person state their reason for depriving themselves of chocolate I thought, “Okay, that makes about as much sense as telling a child to clean up their plate because there are starving children in China.” How does my depriving myself of chocolate, or eating everything on my plate help the starving people of the world? I could not see the correlation.

This week as I finished my 21 day meditation with Oprah and Deepak, he said something that made all my work on loving myself make a new piece of my life puzzle click into place. Deepak said, “You are not in the world, the world is in you. Therefore when you evolve inside, the world is being encouraged to evolve. Act out of love and your best intentions will go viral.” And that was it! I got what Marianne Williamson was trying to get me to understand. As I work on loving myself that spreads to others and when we get to critical mass, the world changes. And this goes along with what I had intended to write for today’s post. 

I’ve been contemplating suffering quite a bit lately. I have some aches and pains which could probably be addressed so I don’t suffer, but with COVID and my own stubbornness, I haven’t done anything about it. So I’ve been thinking a lot about why we torture ourselves? 

Barry and I have been binge watching Agents of Shield thanks to our nephew’s love of all things superhero. In one episode, one of the characters was torturing herself because she believed she should have died in the place of the man she loved, who died for her. As the episode ended I said to Barry, “Why do we make ourselves suffer?” A day or two later, I got my ah-ha from Deepak’s words.

As a result I took an even closer look at my life and realized that I’ve made myself suffer in other ways most decidedly, financially. 

I quit my full-time teaching job thirteen years ago so I could become a writer. I wanted to sell my work. But in the back of my mind, I didn’t feel worthy of making money selling my books. I made all kinds of excuses for why it wasn’t selling; I wasn’t good at marketing, I self-published and didn’t have the help of a big marketing department … and so on.

Then in 2013 I started this blog. I had low expectations of the number of people who would read it. I now have about 340 followers. I wish I had more followers, but I haven’t taken the time to promote it, or to build relationships with those of you who do follow it.

And now I’ve created my Story~Power podcast and again, I thought it would take a year or two to gain a lot of followers and get sponsors and finally make some money to compensate the time it takes me to do it. 

Now I know that’s all bull hockey. I want to make money doing what I love, but I never told the Universe what I wanted in a clear manner. I never stated it, and then asked for help in accomplishing it. I never expected the miracle to happen for me. Part of me felt like I should offer my creative talents on a sacrificial level. That whole idea of the starving artist thing has been a part of my consciousness for a long time. But Deepak’s words slammed home to me that that is just like depriving myself of chocolate, or finishing all the food on my plate because there are starving people in the world. I’m not helping anyone by expecting all my hard work to go uncompensated, or to have a small impact on the world. 

I’m determined to change my thinking and my actions right now. I can’t be the introverted wall flower forever so I plan to develop more relationships and support the work of others I admire. After all, life is about relationships. This will be a stretch for me. But there will be plenty of quiet time to recharge my batteries so I can go out and meet more creative people. 

I’m sure I’ll backslide. I’ll forget to shine as children do. It’s hard to break out of old programing. But for the first time in my life, I feel like I deserve to earn money doing what I love to create.

Thank you for supporting my work by following, reading, liking and occasionally commenting.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2021

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards.

Have you ever experienced life shattering events? Yeah, most of us have. In The Space Between Time, Jenna Holden gets slammed by her fiancé walking out, her mother’s untimely death, and losing her job all in one week. But she receives unexpected help when she finds her three-times great-grandmother’s journals and begins the adventure of a lifetime.

The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and for Kindle at Amazon, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news when the audiobook version is published.

Lucinda is also the host of Story-Power a new podcast where she and her guests discuss the stories in all formats that have changed their lives. It’s available here on Sage Woman Chronicles and on Apple, Google, and Spotify podcast apps. Please rate and leave a review. It helps people find me.