Life has possibilities so be open
Setting intentions isn’t a popular thing to do anymore. To many it sounds like wishing on a star. You envision what you want, and then “set your intention” to get it. I think my daughter has had the same experience with this as others have. She envisioned a certain outcome in the future, that didn’t happen, and she felt angry for having believed in the whole silly thing. There were probably quite a few intentions set just recently on winning the Powerball.
I do believe there is something to be said for envisioning having your needs met. The Universe wants to do this for all of us. But having the Universe guide you to your highest good, and having a Magic Genie are two very different things. If you can become clear on what your needs are, and then be open to seeing how that may play out in your life, then you can start to see the magic happen. To do that begins with self-connection.
Self-connection means connecting with the Divine, the Universe. It means peace, joy, ease and security. We choose how we see the world. If we want to see the world with the most possibilities, we need to see the world while connected to the Divine, self-connection. It is very important that we are self-connected before we make decisions or take actions, if we want the greatest possibility of being in the Divine flow of life. This doesn’t mean positive self-talk. We can become self-connected by being authentic about what we are feeling in the present moment and what we need. When we get clear on that, and connect with that, we self-connect.
Needs are not what you don’t have, but what you want. In other words, if you are feeling anxious and want some peace and security, you don’t describe your need as wanting to feel less anxious, but wanting to feel more peace and security. For example, my husband needed to call social security about our son’s recent loss of employment. Our son gets social security and they have to be notified about these things.
My husband’s fear was that this new change would somehow cause him to lose his social security. He was really feeling anxious about this and needed to trust that our son was going to be okay. He really needed to trust that he wouldn’t “make a mistake” in communicating this information. He had so many fears about making this call.
If he had made that call in that place of fear and anxiety several things could happen. He wouldn’t be in a place to hear all possibilities. He would have been sending an energy with his communication that would be demanding the person on the other end of the phone “fix” his problem. That energy in itself would make it harder for the other person to actually be able to contribute to him. The whole conversation would be narrower and harder for both of them.
Instead, he identified his feelings and needs and became self-connected before the conversation. His strong desire was to be open to the Flow of life and trust that both he and our son were going to be just fine no matter what happened with the conversation. He entered the energy of connection, of trust, of longing to see what the Divine had in store for both of them. Then he made the call.
The woman at the other end then had the possibility of being able to contribute to my husband and by doing that, connecting with herself as well. None of the “scary” stories my husband had been telling himself before he made the call happened. The woman actually gave my husband some helpful advice about our son. It’s amazing how much different life can be when we can self-connect and open ourselves to the Flow of the Divine.
Steps to Being Open to Possibilities
- Take some time to feel your feelings. This may sounds simple but many of us have learned over a lifetime not to feel. Our society frowns on feelings. We describe people as “emotional”, “dramatic”, “wimpy”, and “crazy”, amongst other things. We are never really taught how to work with our feelings. Feelings are signposts to met or unmet needs. In this way they are very helpful. If you are having trouble identifying your feelings, go with the actual physical feelings you are having in your body, they will lead you to your emotions.
- Once you have identified your feelings you can now figure out what you need. Needs are universal to everyone. Again our society devalues needs. We even use the term “needy” in a derogatory way. People try to identify a difference between wanting and needing. They are the same thing. There is no such thing as “selfish”, just “self-full”.
- At this point in the process, you should feel a deep calm. Connecting with your feelings, and then identifying your needs, actually connects you to the Universe, the Divine. That is where that deep calm comes from. Just having done this may be all you need. Sometimes all we need is just some self-connection and that satisfies our needs. If not, you now have a clear picture of what you need. It won’t be a specific outcome or strategy. Strategies are what we use to get our needs met. There are many of those, and the beauty of this is there are more the Universe has in mind than we can see at present.
- Let the specific strategies go, and just focus on the need. Set your intention to be open to seeing any possibility of that strategy being met. The more open you can be, the more you will start to see magical “coincidences” happening in your life.
Top photo: The Mahabodhi Tree, by Ken Wieland for Wikipedia
Heather Schlessman, PhD is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner who has spent her career either working with or teaching about families. She is also a mother who, like so many other parents, spent years muddling her way raising 3 wonderfully different children, one who happens to be experiencing a disability. Fortunately she has a life partner who muddled along with her. Spending most of her time trying to be perfect, as that would be the safest way to live, she became aware of a desire to be able to see people in a more compassionate way. Little did she know that the person she needed the most compassion for was herself. There is a saying that when you are ready to learn a teacher will appear, and so it was for Dr. Schlessman. She was introduced to the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the developer of Nonviolent Communication, and her world completely changed. She learned a way to have an intimate connection with herself and others, a way to truly contribute. Her passion now is to help others find their way to a more compassionate life. You can find more of Dr. Schlessman’s empathic expressions along with her husband’s, Rev. Mark Schlessman on their website.