If you're like me, you believe in creating your own reality. And yet you find yourself sitting in silence, trying to figure out how to make that reality, well, real.
If you're like me, you've visualized and believed and practiced and been passionate, and yet you're STILL sitting, staring out the window, reviewing your actions and wondering where your happiness is.
If you're like me, you've done the books and the webinars and it feels like you have all the knowledge you need, but you just can't seem to build the bridge from desire to reality.
Happily, I just found another paving stone.
For years (yes, literally - since I was a teen) I have been practicing visualization. Seeing myself in this situation or that, winning scholarships, getting parts in plays, having book signings and going to dances. And for years my dreams have failed to manifest.
And yeah, I have given up time and time again.
And started up time and time again.
As a writer, and a believer in everything, my imagination is well honed. I can create marvelous scenarios in my mind. I can infuse them with a feeling of actuality. Characters in books are more real to me than people on the news.
And yet, here I still am, wondering what I have done wrong, wondering why I am "Undeserving" of the lifestyles I would like to try. Am I afraid? Is it not time, yet? Am I lazy? Am I really not that passionate about it?
Today's truth is, I haven't actually been visualizing myself where I want to be.
I haven't been visualizing MY SELF.
I haven't been seeing, feeling, being me.
In these grandiose dreams I have had for the future (travelling and writing and speaking and serving and being so very happy) the person playing the lead has been some bright, shiny witty soul with great hair and compassion for every being. Okay, yes, that could be me. But the tailored look, the dainty table manners, the soprano voice, the willowy figure moving easily and neatly through airport crowds... those are not me.
At all.
I like my sleeves to be pushed up, leaving my forearms bare.
I like my pants or skirts to be loose and at least a little flowy.
I rarely remember to iron.
I talk with my hands. I say "Um."
I often have to dig around in my bag, which I tend to overstuff.
I have a bawdy laugh, and I occupy space, even when I'm trying to give other people theirs.
If I'm going to see myself travelling, I need to really see MYSELF, with the inelegant flopping down into seats, dropping something onto the floor, feeling like everyone is staring at me because I'm taking too long to get my stuff onto the conveyor belt for the security check.
If I've going to see myself doing book signings, I need to see myself having those awkward moments where I and the store rep are trying to put each other at ease. And making the decision whether to write the same thing in everyone's book, or struggle to find something new. And drawing on my hand, accidentally. And being grateful to get back to the motel because sometimes it's difficult to be out among strange people.
If I'm going to see myself as a coach, I need to see the initial conversations with strangers, as we try to figure out if we're going to have a successful relationship. I need to see myself talking about the work I can do. I need to feel the way I fiddle with clothes, with hair. I need to acknowledge the pacing, and the way I sometimes stare intensely at people, because looking equals listening.
Instead of visualizing, I want to envision. Ha, or INvision. See myself, as I truly am, right now. Not some perfect action figure; not a character in a book titled "The Awesome Life of Lila." Me.
Glasses and wrinkled shirt and untamed hair and skin tags and laugh and hugs and enthusiasm and all.
If you're like me, it's time to put yourself, your real self, into the vision. Because the reality isn't in the perfect moment, it's in all the slow, uncertain steps it takes to get there.
I hope you're having a great day!
-Lila
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