How do you measure success?

Yesterday I had tea with a friend who had recently had the occasion to chat with Kevin O’Leary of Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank. These are the advice bits he offered her: if you can’t articulate what your business is about in 90 seconds no one will invest in you; successful people have to be prepared to spend 18 hour days for some duration; spend your time not your money, and finally, know when to get out.

T queried me on the last point. How do you know when it’s time to call it a day; when you’ve spent enough money – when do you decide your great idea just isn’t going to fly? Of course, I had to confess that I was probably the wrong person to ask about that. I still believe in my business vision that I first diagrammed on a flip chart in my (then) web designers boardroom. That was five years ago. It showed overlapping circles (vesicas) depicting autonomous businesses collaborating to the greater good of all. The foundation of that business exists. It is the LightBeam wheel of websites. It echos a little – okay it echos a lot – because it’s waiting for the people to populate it. It’s innovative and a slightly different way to use the internet – and the internet itself is an ever changing mystery to many. More on this later.

After my afternoon meeting with T, I was off to meet my longtime friend J for dinner. As we walked around the block arm in arm over icy patches she asked about my sons – were they off on their European tour with the band this summer? Hmmm she was a little out of date. I had to explain that those plans had taken a side rail because the savvy and beautiful ‘Ms A’ promoter and manager par excellence just took a powder in the middle of the afternoon one day on the way to a meeting to discuss the imminent recording date. “Oh.” J said, “ Do you think they should do something else?” My immediate response was no! These young men are good musicians and they have a unique sound. When I envision them – I see them pressing against the membrane just about to break through.

Now – before you conclude that an innovator mother with unrealistic goals has spawned sons with unrealistic rock star aspirations, let me rush in and say this: I’m not stupid – and just like everyone else I get dragged down by ‘reality’. So on the way home – I was blue. Doubt was hanging about me like a pall. Fear comes rushing in because I am the sole supporter of my family and that scares me at times. And then – can self recrimination be far behind when I think that most parents would have ‘made’ their sons be realistic and get jobs – or go back to school?

So I stopped on my way out of town as I passed my Sweetheart’s door for a quick pick-me-up hug. “Everything is going to be okay – isn’t it?” I muffled into his shoulder. S held me at arm’s length, looked into my eyes and said, “Of course! And even if it isn’t okay – it will be okay.” Now it might seem that he was patronizing me and sending me off with a “Now. Now. There. There”, but the effect of his words ripped away the mask of ‘reality’ and I was once again looking at the meaning of life.

These reality shows are a true barometer of our times. They are a reflection of the distortion that we call life. In a way I wonder if they are the backlash of the times – most recent – when schools, parents, and sports leagues all decided that competition was somehow unfair. That failure discriminated unfairly, that success must be equilateral or shared. These shows are based on humiliation of the many and the aggrandizing of the one. The ‘one’ has to fit a very specific criteria and the ‘win’ is not based on excellence but in compliance.

It is the archetype of the worst father who beats or disinherits his child if they do not comply with the family way of excellence. It is social coercion at its most nihilistic. Fit the mold – or die in humiliation!

I’d be bleeding all over the stage if I presented my innovative business model on Dragon’s Den. My heart would be pounding to the clock ticking ninety seconds. BEEEEEEP! Times up – you’re fired! Oh – wrong show. My business is about holistic living. Body, mind and spirit and these dudes are so out of harmony with the natural and pleasurable aspects of life that they probably wouldn’t get my concept if I drew a thirty second Venn diagram. Its helpful to be able to sum up your business in a few phrases, but Life as reflected in our business is more than a few sound bites. And here’s why:

Our real business is not what we do for a living. It’s not what we exchange for money. Our real business is our own life – in all its complexity, troubles and pleasures. Our family, our work, our engagement with the world we live in is the playing field where we discover who we are. Our talents, our strengths, our weaknesses, our desires and our dreams and most of all our contribution to the evolution of this world. We are not here just to put in time as people – a general population – but as contributing energy to the direction the world will take – ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

When we focus too much on success for success’s sake we rush to results before we look to effects. When I was in the construction industry, it became evident through the nature of building how the culture of a region or country viewed their responsibility or accountability to the future. Our business was architectural entranceways. The banks of doors – including revolving or security doors for banks, hotels and condominiums. They were grand – you never get a second chance to make a first impression – in polished bronze or mirror stainless steel. Here’s a thumbnail of different perspectives- in very general terms:

The west coast – Canada and US had a ‘disposable’ perspective. They would not invest in a high quality because the architectural landscape – trends – changed so often that buildings would go up with a lifespan in mind. The emphasis was on glamour, flash and price. Some of these buildings are notorious – high profile with paper thin walls. Big hype for quick sales – high class, low fees – only to find in the fullness of time that the shortcuts taken in construction are in short order catching up with owners in gargantuan fee increases.

New York, Chicago, Toronto, London, cities of banks and investors chose elegant and stately designs and considered the front entrance as a cost percentage of the overall value of the property. The architect has a greater influence on quality products and consistency of durability than on the coasts where design built is more initial profit oriented.

Interestingly, in Asia companies we dealt with spoke in terms of generations (that’s about people). One company was over five hundred years old! The responsibility to the future was a guiding principle. Every aspect of a building was efficient, beautiful and resilient – constructed to last and be a tribute to those who created it.

When we create our own life – what are we placing in value? What is our unique contribution? What is our legacy. How are we accountable and how do we leave the world a better place?

My sons are musicians – that is what they are. So many ‘advise’ them and me that you really can’t make it in the music business – it’s a long shot to be a star. Maybe, some suggest, they should go on Canadian Idol. Now this is for sure – you can’t make it in the music business if you don’t make music your business. Since the disappearance of Ms A, the band has discovered that they really don’t need her. They have developed a business plan, designed the logo, nearly done the MySpace page – written an album worth of original music, are mastering a demo tape, created a ‘merch’ list – the T shirts are already in and selling like mad. In fact my youngest can claim – been there, done that – got the tat! The thing is the world of music – and everything else has become so sophisticated that an artist is expected to have the complete package that in the past a record label would provide.

In my mind, this change is for the better. My sons have strengthened in experience and competence in ways that a ‘real’ education couldn’t begin to offer. Secondly, they have by necessity and disappointment become knowledgeable and savvy developing traits that will stand them in strength in a business that is notorious for manipulation and exploitation. They have learned the value of creativity – in their case, music – to heal from loss and grief. They have, as brothers, come to ways of collaborating to use the best of each one’s talents – musically and business wise. They work with the two other musician members with a maturity, discipline and diplomacy that would do well in the largest corporation

So, as a mother, I am incredibly proud of their work, their accomplishments and the fact that they haven’t ‘made it’ yet is almost inconsequential to the point of who they have become and the stability they have gained that will help them ride the crazy world of excesses everyone loves to hate in that world!

As to me – my lack of ’success’ as reflected in my present bank account and credit rating – doesn’t begin to disclose my own path of fine tuning, learning, growing, resiliency, and courage. Yes, I can say that about myself – even though I was taught not to take too much credit for myself. These past five years included the illness and death of my husband, the embezzlement and fraud by my web design company, the erosion of all my capital, and realization that the world was not quite ready for what I offered.

My belief in the LightBeam vision kept me sane through the devastating grief of losing my husband and business partner and the dad of our two, still young, boys who adored him. In desperation I began to take courses on websites and internet marketing – just so I couldn’t be duped by my nefarious web designers. What started out as the fury and fear of walking away from tens of thousands of dollars in web design that never worked turned into my own competence and understanding of open source software platforms; out sourcing; internet marketing and the nature of the internet in general. Collaboration in the highest terms – by strangers for strangers! For free! Awesome!

Dreams are the vision of all that is possible. Without dreams there are no realities. Dreams hold us steady while all that is in the chaos of creation sorts itself. Like an epic voyage my adventure in fulfilling my vision has led me on a circuitous route to the centre of my own being. Opportunities are unfolding that I dreamed of years ago that are now coming forth because all the elements for real success had to evolve until the timing was right. And that time is now.

Eighteen hour days? Oh yeahhh. But when you are doing what you love they are not eighteen hour days of slugging or slavery when you work for someone else’s dream. They are inspired and inspiring days that often run into nights. Dreams can wake you up to most amazing solutions to a nagging problem. Often a solution that defies logic – and often a solution that you could never get from someone else’s opinion.

Spend you time not your money. I had to nearly exhaust my capital before I figured out that self proclaimed experts were rarely that. Especially in the internet world which changes in every heart beat. Being a trusting nature and deferring to an authority leads an entrepreneur on the downhill spiral of “an innocent and his money are soon parted!” Take the time to learn what your business connects to and relies on so that you can spot a scammer!

How do I measure success? I am happy, confident in my own abilities and have something to make the world a brighter place. I have gained knowledge and wisdom. When will I be rich? I am enriched in self-love and self-respect – can I ever be poor? Even if it’s not okay (by whatever standards I might set) it will be okay – it will be more of my own beautiful life unfolding! When do you give up on yourself? Never!

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How a simple reversal of perspective will give you the life you desire.

But first I have to share a word with you that is so significant to our health and happiness it is the only key to our personal joy and to the flourishing of the Earth and the Universe she rests in. So mystical is this word that it frightens us and wakes us in the night and causes war among brothers. So magical a word that when we say it with understanding we are liberated from all fears – forever. This word represents a gift of creation so powerful that it rivals the miracle of our birth. And that word is DEATH.

Birth and death are the parenthesis of our life on earth. And what transpires within those brackets – into the world and out – is our life. Life can be short and meaningful as a Japanese Haiku or fraught with the drama of a Greek Tragedy in multiple acts. Because we fear death more than revere it, we live our lives as if we might somehow avoid it altogether. Illness, accident or old age – the vehicles of death always seem to take us by surprise – as some sort of mistake in judgement or wrong turn. If only she hadn’t smoked, if only he had made a full stop, if only she had taken her vitamins. Death is, at once, the ultimate certainty and the ultimate mystery.

The fact is that as surely as you are reading this you were born and as surely as you were born you will die – sooner or later. The journey to that final door marked death is your true life purpose. Forget ‘What is my life purpose?’ You are living it even as you search. Forget, ‘When I have my own apartment, car, million, Cessna I’ll be okay. Forget, ‘When my children are grown, when I have enough money, when I retire, I will paint, write, garden. Replace the word ‘then’ with the word ‘now’. Take a deep breath. Exhale out loud and listen to that exhalation. That is you breathing. That is you alive.

When the stork dropped you, he dropped you with a sack of goodies. Rudimentary supplies to get you started. Girl, boy, black, white yellow. The soul of a poet, the mind of a mathematician. It is an intriguing mix of potentialities. Your mother’s eyes, your father’s walk – immediate stuff. But you also have a blend of their blend. Going back just two hundred years or ten generations to 1811, one thousand and twenty four people had to have intimate encounters for you to be here now. If you multiply 1,024 by the number of genes – both latent and dominant then you have a staggering complexity of possibilities in your makeup. To follow your line back to the beginning of time – well, you have to think in terms of stars and galaxies to grasp the limitless possibilities.

But that’s not all! Your baby sack got dropped into a garden, concrete jungle or war zone. And your family either thought it was a good thing or not a good thing that you were born and they cried, smiled or cussed the day you were born. Now imagine rising up at lightening speed above your crib until you are amongst the stars looking down and see all the living beings on the planet – nearly 7 billion – and how their thoughts and actions tilt the world mood and outcome like a teeter totter between Nirvana and Armageddon. Now you have a sense – kinda – of the potential influence of heredity and environment.

But heredity and environment is only what is in your bag. It is not YOU. Your body is the physical draping around the spark of Life that is your pure potential. The oak within the acorn. Your brain is the recorder and processor of information and your conscious mind – awareness – is your connection with all of Life. Consciousness is not a connection in the sense of a thread or umbilical attachment, but rather like cupping your hands under the water of the ocean. Your body is the physical envelope if you will, but the whole of the creative Life force fills you and surrounds you and ebbs and flows. It is in you and all around you at the same time. It is in you and every other person, mineral, plant or planet.

Your life began with a choice and is continually micro directed by every subsequent choice. The first choice was not the obvious one of ‘him’ and ‘her’ or all siblings would be identical. The first choice that defined you was this sperm and that egg. Now depending on how quickly you individuated and made your own conscious choices the sooner you took charge and shaped life according to your deepest desires. You might have been allowed to pair orange and purple as matched socks when you were little or your mother still picked out your shirt and tie for your first job interview. Whichever the case, your heart’s desires were either expressed or repressed.

If you have had a difficult life or are enduring a patch you don’t like, you might complain that you didn’t choose to be born. No person in their ‘right mind’ would choose to be born to a drug addict mother or some other unfortunate circumstance, but your mind didn’t do the choosing. In its desire for evolution and creation, Life chose to be born through you. The difference between an animal or rock and a human being is that the creative Life force called Nature continues to make the choices. You, the human being, on the other hand, have awareness that you are conscious and so have the will to move with and express Nature through your choices and actions or override and repress Nature.

So what does that have to do with your mixed bag of heredity and environment and your eventual death? And what does this all have to do with health and happiness? Well, only this – everything. It really may seem with all the infinite possibilities in your makeup, that finding a thread and being solely responsible for creating your life tapestry might seem too complex. There are just too many outside influences and responsibilities and on top of all that the world is in chaos. What can you really do? You can’t change the world chaos any more than you can hold back the tides or stop the Earth in its orbit. And if you believed you could – how would you manage those choices?

It is actually sublimely simple: What do you desire? The energy of Life starts within and works outward. The oak is already in the acorn. When the acorn falls on the forest floor and takes root, all its energetic focus is on being what it is. An Oak. It reaches into the soil for nourishment and water. It reaches skyward toward the life giving light of the sun. It takes up the space in the earth, in the forest, in the air to fulfill its wholeness. Lichen on the rock beside it, or a tiny plant of wintergreen sprouting waxy leaves and red berries fulfills the ’self’ same mandate of all that it can be. There is no competition or desire to be other than it is. Each has its own space and influence on the whole of its environment.

As human beings, our ‘oak’ of Self – actualized is within us and requires our conscious participation – our free will. We choose how we root into the soil of our physical environment. How we create and share in the abundance that surrounds us in our community, and ultimately how we influence the world we live in. As humans we are born with basic propensities within a environmental context. Infinite possibilities. How we play it out is entirely up to us. Pleasure or pain – joy or sorrow. Only in following the inner wisdom of our heart’s true desires will we know how to ride either/or on the buoyancy of good life well lived!

When we lay our head down on the pillow for the last time, not even then knowing exactly when we will exhale for the last time, what will be running through our mind as important? The thing is: as we look at the infinite odds that conspired in our unique blend of genes to become us – the microcosm – and then look up to the night sky and imagine those trillions of stars and galaxies – the macrocosm – we glimpse the actual significance of our personal life role in the scheme of the whole of the universe for all time. The only thing that matters is what our life meant to us.

Do you love? Are you loved? Are you fulfilled? If your name is called tomorrow – are you ready to let go? Up until that last breath will you have been all that you might be – and know the blessing that you are?

Please follow me on twitter for upcoming posts on my experience with various therapies and other thoughts on Life.

If you want to enjoy optimum health and wellness – please join LightBeam Community.

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Do you feel the hot breath of self doubt on your neck?

(Part Two of Three)

I am as passionate about the nature of business as I am about the nature of the body and spirit. For me, a card carrying entrepreneur and risk taker, I devour books on business trends and strategies with equal pleasure as I do ancient spiritual teachings. I am as fascinated in how to develop a new market as I am how to reveal the inner spark of creativity. Actually its all the same to me.

Over the years my business has taken me into boardrooms with very powerful and wealthy corporate leaders. I have prepared investor memoranda, participated in corporate mergers, and facilitated strategic plans for integrating acquired divisions into a new corporate whole. I have witnessed a lot about business and learned more about human nature. One thing in particular.

And what was that? Everyone. Let me say that again. Everyone has a dragon breathing down their neck. I am using the example of business because we in the West have a notion that the rich and powerful are somehow also imminently confident and self assured. That as long as someone is at the top of the food chain, they have no social higher authority. No fear. No dragon.

Problems, challenges and disappointments aren’t dragons. In the dragon’s teeth, we are firmly gripped in the fear of exposure of our unworthiness, inferiority, humiliation, shame, and guilt. None of us is any different. It is just the degree of our public display as we grapple with our own beasts of self doubt.

Often people in the public eye – entertainment, business, politics actively seek out power, wealth and influence as an armour against the dragon. We may even believe that the dragon is ‘out there’ – the shareholders, the CEO, the constituents – the ones we have to assuage. The ones we have to stand up to with bravado and fearlessness. Never let them see the whites of your eyes, no fear, no weakness. We furiously brick up a fortress of protection – walls high and thick – fame, wealth, reputation, status, authority, even deception and coercion – only to find that – oops, the dragon is inside.

We may not know it until we are about to go on stage – take the podium or meet the new chairman. The dragon snorts and the fire is in our solar plexus. Our place of will and self esteem. The fire spreads down into our gut and reaches up to set our heart drumming and sears our mind. In that instant – before we repeat the affirmation, take the pill, shoot the Stoly’s, or otherwise submerge the dragon, we are caught aware of our own incompleteness. But – so what?

Dragons wreak havoc. When they are awakened and come out of the cave, snorting fire and swinging their spiked tail, destruction and incineration decimates the landscape. Just look at the recent banking debacle. Who hasn’t been effected by that melee of greed and avarice. Dragons on a feeding frenzy. But how can dragons be on the inside and the outside at the same time?

Dragons start out small. A little piece of misinformation in the psyche. Something your mother said when she was tired and you felt unloved. Something the kids said to you because you were different and you felt humiliation. Your teacher made an example of you in front of the class and you felt angry and powerless at the same time. Your father shouted and hit your brother and you knew fear. Someone you trusted touched you when you said no and you felt shame. Emotions. Potent currents of electrical and chemical surges through the body lodging in the cells and recorded in the brain. And like tiny magnets of energy they attract similar emotions. The event is over. Come and gone. Maybe not even witnessed by another. But its effect remains and gathers strength.

Shame, fear, humiliation, anger, powerlessness, unworthiness. Tiny dragons. They wake you up in the night. They begin to feed on your happiness. When ‘feel good’ things happen, they eat them up and ask for more. More food, more things, more attention, more control. Even dragons get quiet when they feed. So we keep feeding them, trying to keep them quiet and under control. But they are just getting stronger and bigger and they burst the seams of your psyche and create a life outside of you as well. Dragons poke you in your ‘wants’ and drive you forward. “A bigger house and I’ll be quiet.” “A higher position and I’ll be quiet.” “A faster car and I’ll be quiet.” “A younger lover and I’ll be quiet.”

But of course, dragons are too clever to let you see them first thing in the morning, scales, smoking nostrils and all. No, dragons outside of you act through your wife, your boss, your children, the media. Here is the secret to reveal the dragon. Anyone who you feel you need to please is the voice of the dragon. Material avarice is not the only language of dragons. Dragons roar equally loudly through the morally superior, the pious, the self deprecating, the intellectual.

The caveat is that the voice of the dragon is not the actual dragon. It is the magnification of the dragon. Its projection on the big screen. The real dragon is still safe, growing teeth and scales deep inside your soul. It will remain safe while you are distracted with slaying the dragon of your outer world. While it grows unimpeded within, it will never – ever – be vanquished without. Ultimately the dragon will lead you to the fullest expression of the seed that spawned it – humiliation, loss of love, shame, ruin. Just like the parasite it is, the dragon will feed on the host until the death of both.

To lead an epic life – worthy of heroes and heroines – is to slay the dragon once and for all time. Once this predator of happiness, self worth, pleasure, accomplishment, creativity is gone and no longer a fearsome ruler, you can enjoy all that is truly meaningful to you. Your light – the elements that make you uniquely you will be revered and loved. The truth that you speak and the love that you share will be all you need to attract a life you truly desire. A life that allows you to share your wisdom, creativity, and knowledge – your joy and happiness. A life that may be expressed in simplicity or in grandeur. You may be a monk or a king. A sculptor or mother. A CEO or a postal courier. You might build a school in Malawi or a corporation in Silcone Valley. But you will do it from the heart.

For it is the heart that is imprisoned in the cave of the beast. A heart pulsing in full expression of love, light and creativity dissolves the dragon. The damsel in distress is the frail self – our own innocent heart – beautiful, sensitive, loveable, – the spark of the Life itself, the promise of all that we can be.

How do I know this? Because yesterday the beast showed its face to me. In outer appearances I have it all. A beautiful home, my own business, regard amongst my peers, a loving relationship, two amazing, creative sons, and a deep spiritual life. But for all that I have accomplished and all that I enjoy, my default when I was tired or stressed was to anxiety, fear and self doubt. There are no actual facts supporting that. So where was it coming from? And what is the gain in maintaining it? There is no conscious gain. The dragon lives on unconscious acts. As soon as you begin to make conscious choices the dragon is threatened. As light floods in the dragon fades.

Once the dragon is released from the heart we truly do live happily ever after.

Please follow me on twitter for upcoming posts on my experience with various therapies and other thoughts on Life.

If you want to enjoy optimum health and wellness – please join LightBeam Community.

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Does your life reflect your heart’s desires?

When I hear the phrase, “You reap what you sow!”, I can picture my Aunt Myrtles’ piercing brown- black eyes and her mouth clamped shut in final punctuation. The meaning was unmistakable. It was all about punishment for misdeeds. And, man – I was guilty all day long! I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t smooth the pleats in my kilt before I sat down. I cried when she made me cut hair in a ‘pixie’ style. I refused to eat her lumpy burned gravy and it was decades before I ate parsnips again! (who boils them?) I was ungrateful, unmanageable, and ‘too moody for my own good’.

It hardly matters now when I reflect that she was probably flung into an emergency with her brother’s three children when their mum lost her grip and ended up in hospital – that hospital. She died before I was old enough to understand her or begin to forgive her. So she just lodged herself as my inner voice of critical reason, caution, and propriety. She doesn’t always ask permission to opine, but I have gotten firmer in telling her to button it up. Before you think I am hearing voices and am ready for the bin myself, let me just say that Aunt Myrtle is just a handy reference for the unexamined script that ran my life for decades.

We often don’t know where we got this sense of unworthiness. We might blame our genes – but this is not in our physical cells. This current runs through our emotions – the electrical charges. Can you feel it? I know I can right now as I remember. It reaches right across my chest and grips my two shoulders. I’m sure this is the path it took in my little body before it reached up my neck into my face as a blush. Then the tears of anger and humiliation. Potent mix! I was so often embarrassed or ashamed for just being me. I was never even really naughty. What a waste!

So what happened then? Aunt Myrtle died. My mother came home (after five years) and we cobbled our family back together with the tacks of blunted emotions. Were we different from other families? Only by degree or circumstance. I grew up in a neighbourhood where the parents of my friends had been in concentration camps and lost whole families. There’s another thing – I didn’t deserve to be upset or petulant in face of real tragedy. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Gilda Radner’s wonderful character, Roseanne Roseannadanna, said it best, “It’s always something!”

It really doesn’t matter what ’something’ cages us – horrendous circumstances or misguided goodness. If the bird of our soul is caged then it cannot fly. Often long after the captors of our spirit are gone we hobble along like the ladies of ancient China on their tiny bound feet. We have embraced our own crippled nature as if, in its familiarity, it is who we really are. The tether, long since severed in the physical, continues to bind us emotionally. The result is we transfer the power of the captors of our spirit onto other external ‘authority’.

That could continue to be our parents: “Forget being a musician – get a career!”, Our teachers: “You’ll never be a painter if you don’t paint this way.” Our religion: “The words to the prayer for forgiveness are thus.” Our lovers: “You sound so lame when you sing!” So we cut and prune ourselves and launch into the grown up world – right into the hands of the media. Too old! Too fat! Too bald! This car! That house! Our beer! We are so out of touch with who we really are, we grasp at anything that makes us believe we might fly. Viagra. Botox. Zoloft. Hummer. Versace. Smirnoff.

So. We plant a rose. Roses are good. Everybody likes them. Can’t go wrong with that. Except as beautiful as they are, and as sweet as they smell, it is not what we really want. Roses stand apart from us in a vase. To be observed and admired. It is not a rose that can satisfy our longing. Our desire. What our soul craves is a ripe fig. Split open. Seeds and juice spilling into our mouth and overflowing our chin. Messy but nourishing. Satisfying. Pleasurable. Succulent. Ohhh, but isn’t it a little embarrassing to be so outspoken about such sensuality? Isn’t it wrong or impolite to say what we really desire? How we really desire to feel? How we truly desire to be loved. Haven’t we been taught that what we really desire – our scruffy sweater, our ten year old car, our familiar and cozy house, a simple job that leaves our mind free – whatever – is not what we should want?

Hmmmm. It’s all a little confusing isn’t it? Lately there are more books, movies, CD’s and seminars about the law of attraction. It’s absolutely true. But the problem is we are attracting from the want and not the desire. Big difference! We want to fit in. We want to achieve. We want a yacht. We want a Mercedes. We want a villa on the beach. We want to win the lottery. We want a rose. The trouble with wants is they are like Chinese food. They fill us up but we are soon hungry again. Wants are the constant distractors from our soul’s desires. Wants always lay on the horizon of life. In the distance. As the want – the car, the house, the lover, comes closer, we pluck it up and see that the horizon is ever before us. And what is on the far horizon beckoning? A faster car. A bigger house. A younger lover.

What then? Well back to Aunt Myrtle, figs and purple velvet shoes. Oh didn’t I tell you about the purple velvet shoes? They had straps that could slip down behind the heel and big purple jewels on the front. They also had gold lining. I loved them! I’m sure they were pronounced gaudy and unsuitable. Anyway, I got saddle shoes instead and, at five, had to learn to colour white shoe polish inside the lines with that little dauber thing – all without spilling the whole bottle all over the newspaper – oh yeah, I did. Inevitably there were unsightly smears on the navy bits – testament to my clumsiness. That alone has stunted me in ways I fear to think! In rebelliousness, I would scuff my toes all the way to school! What a terror!

Forgive me, I digress. Back to desires. What are they and how do we know one from a want? Well, desires are yearnings of the soul for expression. Yearnings to connect with others that share similar desires. Even the simplest stroking of a desire has it purring in the heart as contentment. Desires are born of love and thrive in love. Our heart’s desires are Life’s yearning to express itself through our own unique and particular expression of it. We pick up a brush, put it to canvas and feel the colour even as we see it. We hum a tune we’ve never heard before and a song is born. We take off the suit of career and lay back to birth a child. We are released from an illness and devote our life to healing. We step out of the corporate harness and craft our own business. We sail around the world in a boat or on the internet. What we do makes a difference because we do it from love. And the joy of it all? When we act from love we are free!

In expressing our heart’s desires, we draw in the very love of self that has been our nameless longing, forever. As we fill with self love we embody self respect and self esteem. With these qualities we will never harm ourselves or another*. We will grow in confidence, creativity, and reverence for others and the world we live in. We will know peace within because there will be no other voice of authority but Love. That expression might be as an engineer or a dancer, a parent or bank manager. Desires by nature are nurturing and when we fulfill our desires, we nurture through our acts. A desire fulfilled is never wanting, cannot be criticized or judged and is always forever our own. A desire fulfilled is a magnet and attracts more and more to itself until we shine in our own light. A light that can never be dimmed or tarnished. We become alive because we are an expression of Life in its fullest – happiness, peace, beauty, joy, vitality!

Life (big ‘L’ Life) desires to evolve through us. When we sow from the heart. We reap Love.

* In honour of my husband’s birthday, today, I share this lesson of self-love that George embodied and shared with all who knew him.

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