Scarcity Consciousness

Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want. - Mark Twain

I'm on day 38 of a 40 day Prosperity Plan. It was given to me by a Catholic nun, and involves meditating and journaling on a series of 10 different statements about abundance. If you miss a day, you have to start over again from day 1. So far, so good. Although I must admit, that meditating everyday has been a serious challenge. For some reason, it's difficult to find 15 minutes a day to fit this in. Like my friend Virginia used to say, "The tail wags the dog. Life gets in the way...what are you gonna do about it?"

Well, usually I try to go with the flow, but in this particular situation (since it has to happen), my solution is to try to squeeze it in right before I go to bed. This happens around 1:00 in the morning, and more often than not after a long day of working, yoga, classes and socializing. It's tough. You'd think finding 15 minutes a day would be a piece of cake, but somehow that Summerlicious reservation at Canoe or taiko drumming class or jewellery shopping in Kensington with Em or the All Out War trailer release party at SPIN or planning my trip to Italy takes priority. The tail wags the dog. Life happens, right?

Honestly, sometimes I fall asleep during the meditations. Nonetheless, I can feel things shifting. Not so much in terms of how much money I have, or how much money comes to me. I didn't win the lottery all of a sudden or anything! It's more in terms of how I view the world. Something in me is shifting, and that's potentially more profound and lasting than any extra cash I might gain. I'm patiently waiting for it to unfold.

Louise Hay wisely says that "Prosperity or lack of it is an outer expression of the ideas in your head." I know I've just scratched the surface of this notion, but I'm starting to understand it in a truly meaningful way. I'm starting to see how much of life is lived in scarcity consciousness, and how deeply embedded this way of thinking is in North American society. I have friends who live downtown, wear designer jeans, and drive nice cars, and all they do is complain about how broke they are. They never offer to pay for coffee or drinks or meals...and the gifts they receive (monetary or otherwise) are never enough. All of this stems from scarcity consciousness. Sadly, when you feel like you don't have enough, ultimately, you feel like you, the person, are not enough, and then you start TAKING, to try to feel secure. This feeling of "not enough" takes over your life. And money is never the answer, but somehow, when you live in scarcity consciousness, it seems like the only solution. If I only had more money, then I wouldn't be so sad, so lonely, so stressed, so _______ (fill in the blank).

Which leads me right back to Mark Twain. Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want. And I'm not there yet. Probably nowhere close. But I'm working on it.

Fixing Her Hair

An old favorite...and sadly, still relevant today. Sometimes, I look around and feel hopeless about the state of romantic relationships. There are so few that are truly healthy, strong, respectful and loving. Most are just replays of tired old patterns of behaviour - full of distrust, insecurity and stasis. Most don't allow emotional or spiritual growth. It seems like the real growth only happens at the end of relationships, through sadness, tragedy and turmoil. Is it that we have to feel pain to heal and evolve? Or is it possible to grow through a process of joy?

Fixing Her Hair - Ani DiFranco

she's looking in the mirror
she's fixing her hair
and I touch my head to feel
what isn't there
she's humming a melody
we learned in grade school
she's so happy
and I think
this is not cool
'cause I know the guy
she's been talking about
I have met him before
and I think
what is this beautiful beautiful woman
settling for?

she bends her breath
when she talks to him
I can see her features begin to blur
as she pours herself
into the mold he made for her
and for everything he does
she has a way to rationalize
she says he don't mean what he do
she tells me he called
to apologize

he says he loves her
he says he's changing
and he can keep her warm
and so she sits there like america
suffering through slow reform
but she'll never get back the time
and the years sneak by
one by one
she is still playing the martyr
I am still praying for revolution

and she still doesn't have what she deserves
but she wakes up smiling every day
she never really expected more
that's just not the way we are raised
and I say to her,
you know,
there's plenty of really great men out there
but she doesn't hear me
she's looking in the mirror
she's fixing her hair

I'm listening

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." - The Talmud

Can you hear it?

Voices

There are so many voices in my head.

There's one that lives in fear: Be afraid. Don't trust people. Don't give freely. There is danger all around.

One takes the easy way out: Stay in this place. Don't move. Don't grow. Don't evolve. Just stay here. In this safe little box. Stay locked in this pattern of behaviour. It's easier. It's safer. You will never be hurt if you stay here with me.

One lives in insecurity: You are not good enough. Why aren't you perfect? You should be prettier, smarter, faster, kinder, richer, better...your life would be different if you were just more...

Another says: Feel guilty. You have more than others do. Put other people's needs before yours. Bankrupt yourself. Put your life on hold. Isn't helping more important anyways?

Beneath this voice, is another, more insidious voice that says: You know better than they do. You are smarter, wiser, more experienced. And besides. When you tell others what to do, you feel better about yourself.

These are the voices of fear, and they are illusion. They do not serve my highest potential in any way. They do not come from love. They do not lead to gratitude, forgiveness, kindness or joy.

None of these voices are mine.

Simple

I attended a wedding this past weekend. After 11 years of dating, my friends Max and Jany finally tied the knot. It was a beautiful event, complete with a sunlit outdoor ceremony, filet mignon, creme brulee, dancing, flowers and a hilarious speech by the bride's father. Congrats Max & Jany! I'll miss you when you move to Texas.

I had a rare moment of total peace, watching the bride and groom dance to one of my all time favorite songs - Sade's By Your Side. This feeling hit me suddenly and instanteously, right in the heart, and my eyes filled with tears. I looked around the room filled with family and friends, love and connection, celebration and joy, and I felt blessed. I thought, this, now this is what life is about. This is all we need, and I felt impossibly FULL.

We tend to complicate life. We make things so complex. We worry and stress. We think that it is not enough. We think we should have more. Do more. Be more.

When really, it's so simple. Just look around. At all you already have. And watch the warmth spread.

Speak Your Truth

Every experience you have is a gift you've given yourself. - Anonymous

I was raised studying a fundamentalist religion. Despite my mother's hopes, it never stuck. I knew at a soul level that it wasn't for me. It simply didn't fit. Still, she tried. And tried. And tried. And I became so sick of having religion force-fed to me, that I turned my back on the Source completely. See! I still don't like to say "God." I prefer to say Universe or The Divine or The Source, though by now, I've learned that God is just another word for the same thing.

The problem, I guess, with turning my back on Spirit, is that essentially, I was turning my back on myself. Because we are all a part of the Divine - it is within each of us. I spent many years running away from this simple truth. I lost myself in self-destructive pursuits - numbing, medicating and fleeing haphazardly from the Spark within. I lived other people's lives, allowed myself to be caught up in endless victim dramas, their patterns stretching out to eternity. I followed someone else's dreams cuz, at the time, it seemed easier than following my own. I sabotaged myself. I prostituted myself. I victimized myself.

All this I did to run as far from myself as possible. I did not believe what my mother did, and because this was my only experience of Spirit, I felt that there was something terribly wrong with me. I locked a piece of myself away. Dis-integrated. Dis-connected. Ashamed. Alone in the dark. So I ran. And ran. And ran. But how do you snuff out that inherent Divine Spark?

It's impossible.

Today, I know that Spirit lives in me...just as it lives in everyone else.
Today, I know that when we act from a place of love, we are connected.
Today, I know that I am on my own journey, and always have been.
Today, I know that I can respect someone else's journey by letting go.
Today, I know that every experience I have was chosen by my soul.
Today, I am learning to release control and have faith.
Today, I go inside.
Today, I am still.
Today, I live in the moment.
Today, I know what gratitude is.

Today, I know there is much more to remember.

Self-Tests

I am totally and completely addicted to self-tests. I think maybe I have too much time on my hands at work. I am a government employeee after all! But really, I just love them. I think they're a lot of fun, and sometimes they're deadly accurate. I've done tons of them on Emode.com. There's fluff there, but also a bunch of Ph.D certified tests that are really interesting. Some examples:

According to the Inkblot Test, my unconscious mind is driven most by peace.
From the test: People who have peace as their unconscious drive tend to be independent thinkers who appreciate taking the time to get to know themselves well. If this is true for you, you're probably not one to shy away from life's big questions. You may even seek out chances to learn new things about yourself. By being willing to examine who you are and staying open to your environment, you foster a kind of fearlessness that can continually enrich your life.

The SuperIQ Test tells me that I'm an Imaginative Mastermind.
From the test: You're an extremely talented person, with skills across the board. There is next to nothing you can't do. Your creativity gives you the ability to make connections between different ideas and your many skills allow you to express those ideas in any way you see fit (whether it be through the spoken word, the written word, or a numerical equation). You also have a practical knowledge of how things work because you pay attention and are a quick study.

With your great imagination, you are able to extrapolate from one situation to the next. Sometimes you are able to imagine things that you have never seen before. You're always questioning your own assumptions, growing wiser all the time. That paired with your curiosity gives your intelligence a simultaneously youthful and wise quality. Young, because your perspective is fresh and your curiosity strong; wise, because you have learned so much in life, so quickly.

The ESP Test, says that my greatest psychic gift is Clairvoyance.
From the test: Having strong natural ability in clairvoyance makes you more able to see or know things in current time without receiving information through one of your five senses. It's been said that people who have extraordinary clairvoyant abilities can get information from "mindless objects." In other words, without picking up information or signals from other people, they simply know how things are. For instance, during a storm, a clairvoyant person might simply run into a woman walking down the street and know that strong winds have just knocked down a tree in that woman's yard — even if the woman doesn't know it yet herself.

SO! At Em's urging, I completed the Discovery Insights Profile. Some of it was on, some of it was off, but like Em, parts of it really made me laugh. The wording is just so funny in some places.

Key Strengths
- knows how to enjoy the journey as well as the destination
- compassionate to those around her
- often charming and persuasive
- strong sense of humour and fun
- investigative, interested and inventive

Possible Weaknesses
- does not enjoy working or being alone for long periods of time
- over optimistic about the abilities of others
- may open her mouth and fall in
- generally speaking, she is speaking generally!
- becomes impatient with routine and repetition

Strategies for communicating with Shelley:
- allow time for fun and socializing
- don't be too serious, dull or severe
- be personable and give sufficient time to "peripheral" matters

When communicating with Shelley, DO NOT:
- stick rigidly to business issues
- assume that her sunny disposition means that she agrees with everything you say
- inhibit or restrict "networking" opportunities

Essentially, I don't like working, and I talk and socialize too much! Ha Ha!

Inspiration

To be touched by the sacred also means to be touched by pain. It is part of the spiritual journey and is a question of how we respond. We cannot deal with pain unless we can deal with wonder, awe and joy. - Mathew Fox

What matters is that, whatever our fear, we make our way to the edge of the cliff and looking beyond dare to jump. For that is the action that calls forth wings. They do not sprout until we have left the ground. - Jan Phillips

Transformation means that you need to continuously dissolve the old meaning of your life and create your life anew. You actually need to recognize the central meaning of your life to be the evolutionary process itself. - Yasuhiko Kimura

City Girls

By the time we finished with Starbucks and McDonald's on Friday night, it was already dusk. We drove out of the city and straight into the wilderness. We left civilization far behind. Or at least it felt like it. As we drove further and further from our last pit stop at the Tim Hortons in Lindsay, the safety of the streetlights deserted us. It got darker and darker and darker, until we were plunged into total blackness save the headlights of May's black Honda Civic.

She flicked on her high beams in a desperate attempt to see further ahead, but it didn't make much difference. Cars seemed to appear like apparitions in front of us. We turned onto a bumpy dirt road, and were surrounded on both sides by tall trees, their arms brushing eerily on the sides of the car as we sped by. The moon offered little reprieve, instead casting a spooky shadow through the clouds. In all honesty, I think we were all a bit freaked.

"OK, turn here." My directed.

"HERE!" the rest of us exclaimed, swiveling our heads to look at what appeared to be a black void.

We were driving straight into the evil forest. I am not exaggerating. There was no driveway to speak of, and certainly no cottage in sight. We bumped along for a few metres in the darkness, and breathed a sigh of relief when the cottage came into view. However, this relief was short-lived, as the glare of the headlights revealed millions of mosquitos and bugs between us and the safety of the cottage. We sat in the car for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to make it out of the car and into the cottage with a minimum of damage. When May turned off the headlights, we all screamed in terror (no kidding), until she flipped them back on. We dissolved into hysterics...and yes, we did manage to make it into the cottage. Eventually.

Such city girls! Sigh.

Happy Friday!

My friend May sent this picture to me yesterday, and I thought I'd post it, cuz it really made me smile. This poor puppy looks so unimpressed.

I'm off for a girls weekend of eating, swimming, laughing and bonding at the cottage, and it's a beautiful, sunny 30 degrees. Finally, the weather fairies are on my side!

Have a wonderful, peaceful weekend everybody!!

The Red Devils

22 million South Koreans watched the Korea-Togo soccer match on TV and in the streets yesterday. That's almost half the population of the entire country, and close to the population of the entire country of Canada. Of those 22 million, over 2 million watched the game on giant outdoor screens installed by the government and various corporations.

Having grown up in Canada, I can't say that I'm excessively nationalistic. I tend to prescribe to a "we're all citizens of the world" belief system. Still, I can't help but be swayed just a little, by the excitement and fervor of the Korean soccer fans, the Red Devils. I'm sure you all remember the images from the 2002 World Cup hosted by Japan and Korea. The stadiums full of red shirted fans, screaming at the top of their lungs, as Korea made it into the final four for the first time in history, taking down soccer giants, Italy and Spain in the process.

After one of Korea's victories back then, I took a rare trip down to Koreatown at Bloor and Christie, and was shocked by what I saw. The streets were filled with amateur fireworks, thronged with people dancing, drinking and partying, Korean flags and hooligans climbing on top of cars. Most cars were not allowed to pass without the indignity of being bounced up and down by a bunch of overzealous fans! It was pretty outrageous.

I think it's interesting how sport has the capacity to create subcultures and open doors. There is a growing "square culture" in Korea, that didn't exist before the 2002 World Cup, when millions of fans gathered spontaneously in the Seoul Plaza and other outdoor areas to cheer their team on together. This "street cheering" as it is called in Korea, is now a common and accepted part of popular culture.

Yesterday, exceptions to curfew were made so that prisoners at jails and detention houses could watch the match. Monks practicing asceticism were allowed to watch the Togo match as well. Given that these monks usually confine themselves to meditation and are not allowed any contact with the media, this is quite amazing. Even citizens of the Hermit Kingdom - the secretive and isolated North Korea - received delayed broadcasts of the game from South Korea with the permission of their government.

What is it about sport that allows us to break down barriers like this? Is it the beauty of the game? or in the case of the Red Devils, extreme patriotism? What do you think?

The Beautiful Game

World Cup started today, and Toronto is already electric. On my way to lunch today, we passed a sports bar filled with people watching the Germany vs. Costa Rica match on TV. People of all different races and cultures were bunched up on the sidewalk outside the windows, craning their necks, and trying to get a glimpse of the score. 4-2 Germany, last time we looked. Cars sped by with various country's flags, waving joyously in the wind. Trinidad & Tobago! Brazil! A couple of Brits walked by, kicking an imaginary soccer ball and slagging the German team. I love this energy. It's one of the most beautiful things about living in a city as multicultural as Toronto.

I must admit though, that I don't know much about the game itself, outside of what I learned in my Sociology of Sport class in university. Sport is class based, race based, and soccer is an arena where class and race biases are played out all over the world...blah blah blah. I'm not sure if this is still true, but back then, seating arrangements in poorer South American countries mirrored class distinctions. "Higher" class people would get the best seats, closest to the field, and "lower" class people would get the seats further away. They would proceed to piss on the people below them. What better example of sociological dialogue in action through sport than that?!

Aside from those little tidbits, my exposure to soccer is limited to watching Bend It Like Beckham, and listening to my dad yelling and screaming over the phone, during the last World Cup in South Korea. I must admit, that my heart was racing right along with my dad's! But mostly because I was worried about my dad's high blood pressure. He gets so excited, his face turning red, jumping around like he has ants in his pants. I did not want him to explode!

I've entered a Soccer Pool here at work, and based my picks on gut instinct. I know. I should hang my head in shame. Of course, I had to put South Korea in (don't laugh) somewhere. I've got to support my own people, but ultimately I chose Brazil, Portugal, and Italy. Will someone who knows something about soccer please tell me how I did?