Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you are right.~Henry Ford
And why do I care? Let's talk about thinking - believing - working.
There are motivational speakers who claim that if you "visualize" something happening, it will happen. Others say that if we set our plans out and sharply define each goal, we can achieve anything. Some call it Kharma or God's will or the energies of the universe coming together to help ("What energies you put out into the universe comes back to you").
Whatever you call it, or however you believe, this stuff works. Let me give you a little example.
For the past year I have been working on my, let's call it "peace of mind status". This is basically learning to accept the things that I cannot change. I have been a "fixer" for a very long time; if someone presents a problem, I need to find a way to fix it - whether I can or not. Sometimes I forget that there are things that cannot be fixed and that people don't always confide in other people because they are looking for a solution, sometimes they just need someone to vent to; to tell their story to. (Sorry, got off subject - ooo look! shiny!)
My peace of mind status: I have been working very hard on realizing that there are things that I have no control over, things that simply cannot be changed (at least by me) and that it is ok for these things to exist - I can still be happy and have peace in my mind.
I am NOT responsible.
That being said. I've been reading a lot about different belief structures, both in religion and in other emotional practices. (Woah, before you jump down my throat that religion is not an emotional practice, let's just move on from there, ok? OK.) In all of this reading and listening I have been hearing a lot of similarities. One that stands out in my mind is simply the power of belief.
Believing in something, whether it be God or other supreme being or simply that you CAN learn that new skill you've been trying to master, can be a very powerful feeling. Believing - really believing in something - can change your life. Sometimes good, sometimes bad but it can be a changing force nonetheless.
Let's take a simple example of why I say this works.
A couple of months ago, I came to the realization that I was going to be moving soon. I didn't have the money at the time, but I knew that given a few months and some careful budgeting, I would be able to get the money saved up and venture out into a new place. Now there was a lot of things that had to be done in the meantime and I was stressing every single one of them. I was stressing things that were my responsibility AND things that were not - it didn't matter, in my mind I was responsible for the whole "shebang", and I worked myself up into quite a little frenzy.
So, I took a step back and thought, "Hold on a moment. What REALLY is my responsibility?" and I reassessed everything. First of all: I was my responsibility. My health, my welfare and my security. OK. Then I proceeded to make a list of all of the things that I was responsible for. Then I took that list and over the next day or so, I eliminated one item here, one item there letting go of things that I really had no control over.
Then came the hard part. Assessing that list again. There were things on there that I possibly COULD have taken care of, given enough time, money and manpower but many of those things would have caused me to be overworked, over-stressed and overly stretched thin. They had to go. This was hard - these were the types of things that I normally took care of; things that other people started and left abandoned - normally it would be me that would run around cleaning up these things. But no, this time things had to be different. So I let them go too - one at a time - and as I did, I could feel the tension slowly working its way out of my body. I began, again, to appreciate the things that I had and the things that I had to look forward to and to really gain an optimistic attitude about my future. I began to believe that this was truly going to be the perfect time to get the perfect start to my "new life."
During this time I did a lot of research online about local apartments. I checked pricing, amenities, location, etc. trying to find just the perfect place. I made a list of things I HAD to have and things that I would just LIKE to have and checked off each place in my mind according to how they stacked up to my expectations. I even made a few lists and checklists.
Through all of this though; budget making, list checking and comparison shopping I truly believed that when the time was right and I had saved enough money and was ready to move, the PERFECT place would come available. I knew it. That was the one thing I was sure of - of course that didn't stop me from running and researching and checking and fretting over details, "just in case."
During my running around, and researching I pulled up a map online and started looking at where I wanted to live: not too far from work and not too far from my kids, so .... somewhere in this circle. Ok, now, I can't afford to live in THAT neighborhood and I don't WANT to live in that neighborhood, so that narrows it down a bit. Then I started looking at places along direct routes to work and just generally narrowed down my search to a few areas that really fit well into my plans. I looked at apartment complexes in my price range (keeping my budget low since I didn't want to struggle to pay my bills - this was going to be a new era in my life and there were certain things that I really wanted for myself in my new life; being able to support myself without a lot of stress was definitely one of them.) I looked in local want ads for places that were renting to see what kind of things were available, etc.
Long story short: (too late) I really set out in my mind exactly what I was looking for with details and "must haves", "would likes" and "don't needs" all set out. I mostly did all of this to occupy my mind during the saving up process, but it was really feeling useful at the same time.
During this process I remembered about an area of town that I had driven through a couple of times and really liked. I drove through there on the way home from work one day to see if anything was available and sure enough, nothing jumped out at me. I drove around into other areas exploring them, doing the same thing, but nothing jumped out at me there either. As I drove around I kept saying things like, "OK, this is where I'd like to be - I need to find a little house that I can afford along this street, on one of these lakes, similar to that one right there" or other similar "I want" sayings, trying to be specific in exactly what I was looking for.
Of course, nothing jumped out at me.
A couple of weeks later, I got a call from one of the apartment complexes I had viewed and they were letting me know that at the end of the week, the rates were going to change so if I wanted to lock in that rate, I'd need to put in my application before that. (Yes, typical sales speech, but effective nonetheless.) The next day I sped up my search and toured two more complexes, then the day after that I viewed a couple more. The first one was pretty much perfect (I mean I REALLY wanted a little house on a lake on that street I was talking about but this apartment had a great little porch that overlooked a nice little pond and the neighborhood seemed pretty good.) The next day I was going to get the money order for the application fee and give them my application to get this process started.
The next day my income tax refund came in.
Immediately after work I checked the local want ads again, just to make sure I didn't miss anything before I brought my deposit to the apartment manager. I glanced over the ads and nothing jumped out at me. Then I got the idea to put the name of that street (where the perfect little house was going to be) into the search engine and up popped an ad. It was one of those ads that I had ignored because it said it was in city X, which was not where I wanted to be. As it turns out, it was for a little lake house, on that very road, in that very area that I had been saying I wanted to live, that was perfectly in my price range with very little security deposit and utilities included so there was no need to come up with utility deposits either. As it also turns out, the money that I needed to give the landlord was darned near exactly the amount of money I had between what was saved and what came in with my income tax. AND as it also turned out, this place had CHARM!
Charm? Right here in an area that was built up so quickly that no builders even considered "charm" or interior aesthetics when building? A loft for my art studio? On a lake? Cute? Little? Easy to maintain? Easily within my budget? My own place, but close enough to neighbors to feel like if I really needed help I could yell and someone would hear me? My landlord MOWS MY GRASS? My landlord takes my trash to the road???
And the kicker? The sun rises over one lake outside my dining room window and sets over another lake at the end of my driveway. I would definitely call this the "perfect little place" that arrived at the perfect time.
Ok, so now that I've found THE place! I am excited and life is GOOD! I am really appreciating my life an all of the blessings in it!
Now I need to furnish it.
So I start stressing again. (because it's what I do - hey look, I said I was "working on" my peace of mind, not "mastering" it.)
I went through the same process when looking for a bed. However, to make this story long (instead of exasperatingly long), several months ago, I had stayed over a friend's house and slept in a bed that was so comfortable I had to ask if I could peel back the sheet to find out exactly what kind (brand, etc) it was because "my next bed is going to be THAT brand".
I looked for that bed everywhere for a week prior to getting the money to buy it. (No, I didn't want to buy it new because that would have put stress on my budget plans and I couldn't take that chance.) But I said to myself that when the time was right I was going to find that bed - it would be listed at exactly the right moment for me to buy it. Of course it isn't in the want ads now, because I'm not ready to buy it, but when I AM ready it will be there.
So as the time approached when I was just about ready to buy the bed none was to be found and I needed something soon, so I began to stress again. "Well, here's one that will be fine," I said and I called a "cheap bed" dealer who had probably 20 ads in the want ads. After work, as I was in the middle of buying just "a" bed instead of the one I really wanted - texting the dealer about money and delivery details - I checked (one more time) the want ads online and what did I discover had been JUST listed? MY bed!
I called. The lister was just leaving work on his way home. His house was just about in the middle of where I was and where he was and it was on my way home. I went there and bought my exactly perfectly soft, squishy-yet-firm bed that I had believed I would find for exactly the amount of money that I had hoped it would be.
So on the way home, I acknowledged how blessed I was. Yes, it's probably silly getting all excited about a bed. But it was so much more than that. This experience showed me that when I stopped and appreciated what I had, stopped worrying about the little things, really planned out exactly what I wanted and truly believed that I would be able to get it, things would make themselves available. Of course, I had to do some work. I had to work my budget to allow me to save up what I needed to do these things, I had to look for them, plan for them - I mean it wasn't like someone called me up and said, "hey I have this for you, I'll bring it over" there was a little bit of mental and physical work involved, but that is really part of the point.
I did this ... on my own, and I did it believing the entire time that these two specific things were going to happen. I covered my arse "just in case" by being flexible and having a back-up plan, but the things that I really believed were going to happen ... did.
And that is just another testament to the power of belief. I don't know if it was God, Kharma or just the forces of the universe gathering momentum, but I sure do appreciate the help!
Have you ever experienced something like this? I would love to hear other stories. I think belief is something that the world could use more of right now.
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